Words cannot adequately describe how I feel to be back at work today. I was kind of counting on our President declaring today a national holiday in honor of the life and death of one of his heroes and role models, Manuel Noriega. Maybe next year.

But, man, this is gonna be a tough day.

Frtzi was all upset this morning, what with dark skies and impending rain, I guess (I dunno, maybe he’s sensitive to low pressure systems or something). I tried to give him a couple of “happy” pills that I scored from the vet at his last appointment (haven’t had the opportunity to try them yet) before I left, in peanut butter, but he wouldn’t take them. I didn’t have time to figure out an alternative, so I guess he’s on his own. And I’m stuck with a couple of peanut butter smeared pills that will probably be turned to mush by the time I get home.

And the really heave storms are slated to arrive this afternoon and tonight. Oh boy.

I’m already somewhat sleep-deprived (and even grumpier than I’d normally be coming off a three-day weekend), because he got all upset last night due to it being breezy out, or something. I don’t know – it really wasn’t violently windy or anything, so I don’t know what his problem was. All I know is I had to get up with them all (because, you know, the only time you can get just one culled from the herd is when you want all three), let them all out to bark at the deer or whatever nocturnal critters were lurking around out there, and then close all the windows so he hopefully wouldn’t hear whatever it was that was bothering him.

So, needless to say (so why say it, right?), not much sleep for me. And worse, now I’m at work and in a pretty foul mood, I must say (though I hide it well). Good thing I shouldn’t have to interact with many people (I pity the fool who comes and disturbs the sanctity of my cube). Just the shuttle bus driver this morning, who’s such a pleasant kid, it’s tough to be an angry old man around her, and the other regular morning shuttle passenger, who is nice enough and probably about as thrilled as I am to be back at work today.

I’d already pretty much decided to take Friday off and about halfway up the stair this morning, I made the executive decision to tack Thursday on as well (assuming nothing comes up between now and then, of course – but I need to strike while I’m not on call). So I just need to get through a day in my prison cube today, work from home tomorrow, and then I can relax and look forward to how thrilled I’ll be to walk in the door next Monday.

Just please, let me get through this day.

So, the asshole guy in Montana won the special election and will represent that state in the United States Congress (not that one more or less asshole Republican in Congress really makes any difference). I’m sure that surprises no one – it was both predictable and inevitable that the people who would vote for that asshole (he’s a “Trump Man” after all) in the first place would only see this as even more justification for voting for him now. The only thing that surprises me is just how fucking irritated I seem to be over the whole thing. We’re not getting out of this mess anytime soon, and that’s basically for one reason.

People suck. Oh, not all people, for sure. Maybe mot even most people. But not an insignificant minority either – there are certainly more than enough small-minded, ignorant, insecure, and just plain stupid people ripe for being taken advantage of by the corrupt kleptocracy and election by marketing campaign and disinformation (dare I say, “fake news”) institutions known colloquially in the US as the “three branches of government” to give us what we’ve got – which is a big steaming pile of crap running the show.

I find it all exhausting. I’m tired of the people who think “talkin’ tough” and being “strong” is somehow more desirable than being intelligent and thoughtful. I’m tired of the talking head types who roll their eyes at “We the Pitiful” naive simps who don’t understand how the “game” is played (Cokie Roberts comes to mind but there are plenty of others).

I’m tired of people who crave attention so badly they jump up and down yelling “look at me! Look at me!” and then whine that everybody sucks and “I hate you all!” because they aren’t getting the attention they so badly crave.

I’m tired of getting up and doing something every day that is, at best, killing me with boredom and at its worst is killing me with stress and anxiety.

I’m tired of living in a world where the worst among us make the rules.

I’m tired of not having a beer (or six).

Mostly I’m just tired.

Thank god it’s Friday, even if I am on call (for free – pretty fucking tired of that, too) all weekend.

So, my work iPhone (5s) lasted me for nearly 3 years before tragedy struck last week and it died (there may or may not have been water involved – I can neither confirm nor deny). It first started going through a boot loop, which is did for half an hour or so, and then it stayed on and appeared pretty normal. I noticed the battery ran down a bit faster than usual (I attributed that to stress), so I charged it up and (since I was on call, which seems to be a perpetual state for me these days) took it to bed with a 100% charge. When I awoke, it was dead. Big time. Wouldn’t charge, wouldn’t turn on. Just dead.

I only used the stupid thing for checking work e-mail and getting work-replated phone calls, plus turnin on the Hotspot feature occasionally to connect my phone on those rare occasions when I’m away from WiFi or my home computer via a USB wireless adapter when my Internet is out (which I’ve actually never needed to do, other than testing). I often just forward calls to my real phone (which, had I known the damn thing would die on me, I’d have done when I had the chance). About the only thing I liked about it was the size – very small, so as long as I didn’t need to do anything that required a decent size screen, it was easy to shove into my pocket (which maybe wasn’t a great idea in the end, considering how easily it actually fell out said pocket).

So I wasn’t especially interested in getting a new work phone, but, hey, whattya gonna do? My company doesn’t support Android devices, so I put in my order for a new iPhone 7 plus at about 5:30 AM on Thursday, my boss approved it by 5:45, and I had it in my hot little hands before noon on Friday (came from Texas, of all places). I spent an hour or so setting it up and replacing all the shittly Apple apps with the equivalent Google ones (to the extent possible), and was back in business to be on call over the weekend.

I didn’t really have any complaints (you can’t argue with the fact that it’s a nice looking phone, and it’s got a nice heft to it when you’re holding it), other than the display isn’t really as good for reading as my 3-year old Nexus 6. The iPhone is a bit smaller (5.5″ vs 6″) with a lower resolution (1080 x 1920 IPS vs. 1140 x 2560 AMOLED) – that’s 401 pixels per inch vs. 493.

Frankly, I never thought those kind of specs would make much of a difference outside of marketing materials, but I have a habit of bringing the phone to bed at night (to read – get your minds out of the gutter) and since I was on call and needed to have the stupid work phone near me, I figured I give it a try. The difference was immediately noticeable. The iPhone display is much “softer” – the text just looks kind of off. It’s not horrible, mind you, but I much prefer my aging Nexus 6. I did watch a little video on it, and that looks good. Sound is OK (I mean, it’s a phone, so it’s not gonna bowl you over – though my old HTC One M8 did have pretty impressive sound). I think the front-firing speakers are preferable, but it’s fine.

But then I ran into another annoyance. I have a stupid boring conference call that I’m forced to sit in on every Monday morning. I’ve got a rather nice pair of headphones that I use for this purpose, so that I can mostly sit there and zone out unless I hear something that requires me to say something. So this Monday I went to dial in and, guess what, I forgot that Apple in its infinite wisdom took away the 3.5mm headphone jack. Sure, they provide a shitty pair of whit earbuds with an adapter, but I didn’t bring that shit with me (and, from what I’ve read since, that adapter doesn’t work with third-party inline microphones so if you’re on a call, you’re stuck using their crappy ones because, you know, Apple).

Fortunately I always carry my trusty Nexus 6 with me (unlike Hillary, I can deal with carrying two phones – which I guess means I could get elected President. I mean, I’m not as smart as she is, but clearly being smart is no longer a requirement) and I was able to carry on using that.

The one advantage the iPhone has, though (aside from the fingerprint reader, which I do like and which wasn’t available on the Nexus 6 way back in 2014), is that it’s IP 67 water resistant. If past experience has taught me anything, it’s taught me the importance of water resistance.

Happy b’day Vernon! I hope you have a good one filled with whatever it is you’d like your day filled with. Have a beer (or two) for me. I don’t have a lot else to say, but it seemed time for a new post, and I can’t think of a better reason. Also, just in case anybody was wondering, halfway through May, and the weather here still sucks. RIP, Powers Boothe.