so, i found some more brand name meds. hopefully, this is dealt with soon.

i'm not going to tell you where yet exactly. i'll tell you when i get back.

if the entire world knows you won't use your superpowers, then you're not actually a superpower, are you?

they have this fixation on carter.

listen. i'll be 40 in a few months, and jimmy carter had been removed from office before i was even born. it's a matter of days, but it's true. that means that nobody under 40 has the slightest recollection, and you'd really have to be pushing into your 60s...

is that the point, though? is this really about older voters? it's a playbook that's running thin, to say the least. they said clinton was just like carter, and to an extent he actually was, but it didn't help them win (ross perot, notwithstanding). they said obama was just like carter, and he won twice on the back of a youth vote that probably largely couldn't tell the difference between carter and clinton if you held up pictures of them - something that is only more true now. if this is the best they got...

it's not. it's a lazy article, and that in itself may be reflective of something.

honestly? if i was a hawk, i would pick biden. trump's decision to not bomb iran at the beginning of the year really turned him into a paper tiger. he's not remotely scary to anybody, because everybody knows that he bluffs 100% of the time, and folds 100% of the time. he's actually probably the most predictable commander-in-chief, ever - and the predictability is around the reality that he's both an isolationist and a pacifist.

biden, on the other hand, like clinton one may recall, is getting the endorsement of neo-cons and interventionists more or less across the board. he's not likely to base his foreign policy on bluffing, and he's far more likely to actually utilize the substantive hard power at his availability, to advance the interests of his clients (who is whose client, really, though?).

it's a very hard choice, if you're standing outside the country and primarily concerned about international issues, including global warming and foreign policy. nothing i said should be meant to even suggest that trump won't cave and do something stupid at the last minute. an invasion of the faulklands, or maybe grenada if they can't even figure out how to get by the argentinians, is increasingly seemingly less like satire - it's exactly the kind of surreal theatre that this administration would see the upside in.

but, despite being abominable on the climate, trump's track record and general demeanour seems like the less scary option, in the long run, if you're looking to seriously minimize war over the next 4-8 years. he's the isolationist, here; biden's the internationalist. and, i hope the country at least understands the decision it has in front of it, if this becomes a ballot issue, which it likely won't.

the election is probably going to mostly be about the virus, and in the end may largely reduce to a referendum on forced distancing measures and mandatory mask use. the talking heads may not even get a microphone, this time - americans are going to have more pressing details directly in front of them than trying to sort through an altruistic decision about empire-building.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/12/biden-is-wrong-choice-lead-west-through-cold-war-20/

i'm not old enough to unplug, yet.

the divisional court office is still not answering the phone, although they at least have a voice message set up, now

i'm getting the impression that this process may take a long time, but i have little choice but to wait. i'm not going to let the system just throw this case aside; this case will at least be heard, and we'll see what the next judge up the ladder says, in the end.

what i'm waiting for is the actual office to open, because they've told me that they can't really check anything until they're physically back in the office. so, i'll try again in a few days. i really don't have any other option.

i got distracted this morning with...

this:
https://deathtokoalas.blogspot.com/2017/02/zgoombah-lot-of-confused-soccer-moms.html

that's actually the end of the dtk sequence, meaning it's the last major thread that came up and continued, even as posts (obviously) continue forward.

but, i noticed some censorship, so i got it down asap.

the world needs more scandalous people.

really. it does.

so, call me scandalous, if you want. i might like it.

unexpected crash, there. i don't think i lost anything.

what's going on with me?

1) this is the most current pertinent information involving the court case:

For cases that were scheduled prior to the suspension of normal court operations to dates after September 4, 2020, hearings will be proceed on the scheduled dates.  The Divisional Court will provide further directions at a later date as to whether these matters will proceed in person or remotely, and whether documents are to be filed electronically in accordance with this Notice to the Profession.

All previously scheduled in-person matters that are now cancelled may be rescheduled for hearing by videoconference or other means directed by the court pursuant to this Notice to the Profession.

Any previously scheduled in-person matters that are now cancelled, and which are not rescheduled for hearing by videoconference, will not be scheduled for in-person hearings until further Notice to the Profession, and will be scheduled thereafter in accordance with a scheduling protocol that will be provided by way of Notice to the Profession at a future date.

so, first i'm going to need to wait until they allow in-person hearings and then i'll need to reschedule...

the office that i'm suing is probably closed for the summer, or at least the lawyers are probably at home. i guess there's not really anywhere else to go. there's an off chance they might be open because of that, actually.

so, i'll be lucky if i get this rescheduled by this time next year, frankly.

i actually think that this is more or less the worst way to digitize this. the serving and filing process is archaic, and for largely no obvious reason at this point, but there's a certain level of reality in having a judge in front of you that i find more comforting. for a case like this, where i'm suing the police and likely to keep going kind of thing, i know that the system is stacked against me. it would be convenient if i lost my connection, then, wouldn't it?

i'd have to go to the library or something because i don't want the pipe into my house to be very big. i've been over that. i want a skinny, stable line into the house in order to frustrate the intelligence agencies, and what i have actually doesn't fit zoom's minimum requirements (although i can stream over youtube just fine. i'm sure it would work...).

but, i don't want to mess with this in this way. if this was a divorce hearing or something, ok, fine. but, when i'm suing the police for brutality, i want my time directly in front of the judge, and i want to be able to get into a shouting match on the floor if i need to without being able to be muted or shut down. they can drag me out if they have to, but they're not just unplugging me, i won't let it be that easy to get rid of me.

i'm going to call in the morning, though, to see if they're open and if we can talk about all of these motions i've got running. will they be scheduling requests for written motions during this time? because maybe we might want to get this dealt with first, anyways.

2) i've now made it through four quarters of legal marijuana, which adds up to an ounce, since the second week of june when i kind of gave up on detroit for the year. what's the report on this?

i last complained about a solei brand that had much less thc in it than advertised, and didn't really succeed in actually getting me high, it just made me very tired. i could have smoked more of it, i suppose, but that's not what i want to do - i want to smoke pinners for about a week, and get consistently stoned due to low tolerance, and note that this was always successful with black market bud - i could roll up an 1/8th in a cigarette and feel it for four hours, so long as it was the first couple of rolls on the quarter, and i hadn't been smoking much or at all in a while. while i was not at all impressed, the border closure put me in a bit of a fit; i decided that i could either sit inside and bitch at the neighbours all summer or just adjust for a bit, and i chose the latter. so, i bought something else...

the store had a deal on something called raider kush, which was coming in around 21% thc, so i took a run at it. again: i ended up spending less than $65 for a quarter, after taxes. i can't complain about this on a price level, it's not that bad, so long as the product is acceptable.

i found this brand acceptable, if not outstanding. the first batch produced me 40 joints and lasted ten days, which is about in line with what i noticed previously, but the pot was a little bit stronger. i started picking up a bit of tolerance near the end of the second quarter, but i still managed 38 joints out of it. that is suggesting to me that i'm going to need to get through at least a half an ounce before i start building tolerance, for future head caves. but, i'm also thinking about ways to adjust consumption.

i mentioned this. i suggested i might binge when it's legalized if i can find something i like (a process that took a while), but, in the long run, legalization is likely to dramatically cut my usage down. see, the reason i smoked everything when i bought it is that i didn't want it in the house! so, for example, i'd buy a quarter around dec 17th or so and essentially smoke through saturnalia, usually stopping in the first week of january (supply depending) but leaving a nice spliff for my birthday on the 13th. i might keep doing something like that, even if i lose my july headcave, in the end (although i'm enjoying the heat, that's the real reason i've kept going). but, the reason i started doing it is that i didn't want there to randomly be drugs in the house, in case any of these cops that likes to follow me around ever decided to come in...it really developed out of a habit of buying too much to make sure i had enough and then smoking it really fast to get rid of it...

these concerns are, of course, no longer very pressing. so, i don't need to binge smoke - i can leave some in the cupboard, for later. ok. but, how do i get used to that? that's a huge change, after 25 years of treating it as this reactive thing that needs to be consumed as fast as possible.

first, i need to switch to rolling tobacco as filler rather than cigarettes, a switch i made on the first quarter but couldn't entirely extricate myself from, as having a pack means having a smoke as a chaser on the way back. but, i can't be doing that, as a habit. so, i actually spent the first three quarters psyching myself up about trying to smoke pot without a cigarette chaser, and finally got to it on the fourth. having rolling tobacco in the house means exactly that, and as a former smoker i'm apprehensive about it. but, i at least got through most of the fourth quarter without the chaser. that's a start in normalizing myself to this new reality.

after the second quarter, i guesstimated i'd have about 20 joints left in the 50 g pack of rolling tobacco i bought, so i bought a third quarter, and i actually only got 27 joints of it. as i was noticing some tolerance at the end, and a more potent brand had come on to the market, i tried the more potent brand, instead. why did i get so few joints? what i'll say is this - i noticed almost no stems in the first two, and probably close to a gram worth of stems in the third. i may have been rolling slightly bigger joints, but there's no question that this was a shitty count. the offender here was wappa by redecan, who probably sold me a gram worth of stems.

in the olden days, when a scammer sold you stems, you reacted firmly: you didn't buy from that guy anymore. that was unforgiveable. so, i went back to the raider kush for quarter #4.

the smaller number of joints produced meant that the baggie of tobacco mostly got me through the third quarter, and i had to get another for the fourth, with the intent to slowly normalize - even if i wasn't sure entirely how. i got 32 joints out of the fourth, which confirms the wappa as being a variety with a low count, and is reflective of slightly larger joints being rolled; i'm moving from 1/5th-1/6th down to 1/4th-1/5th. that's fine, for now.

i'm probably going to smoke through a fifth quarter, with two aims in mind: (1) to further cement the non-chaser habit to ensure i'm more used to it as normal and (2) so that i'm able to put a sixth quarter in the cupboard along with the remaining tobacco in the pouch for more targeted use, which means for use whenever i finish a project or otherwise want to celebrate something. "normal" is going to be more like four joints/month than four joints/day.

3) for now, the last few days have been a little unproductive, as i've struggled with my sleeping patterns. i hate sleeping, especially when i'm stoned. so, i want to get a few things in order before i get that fifth quarter, like finishing up to the end of 2014, finally. that is something i want to do before i get back into it, and after that i just need to devise some rules for myself and put them in place, so i'm changing my habits around using this stuff. i like to smoke a joint once in a while, but i don't want to be stoned all of the time. balancing that is something i have to learn how to do, and i will, when i actually do it...