Plague Diary

[Cramulus]

that was very interesting -- thank you for sharing what it's like out there

[chaotic neutral observer]

2020 Apr. 16

One of the things I miss, now that I'm working from home, is the ability to walk over to a co-worker's desk, ask them a question, and then hover ghoulishly until I get a response.  Slack and email, being fundamentally asynchronous, don't support this.  All I can do is send a message, and hope they get around to answering it, eventually.

On the plus side, asynchronous communications does make it easier to put off dealing with those of my co-workers who habitually ask stupid questions.

Yup.

[cigarki spiritual]

16.04.2020

Personal diary entry:

I've realized that the greatest battle at least in my perspective is staying on top of everything, being there for other people, supporting my family and my friends as much as possible. Doing my best to not let the lockdown get to me psychologically so that I can support others who have been affected worse than me.

So far I've been lucky, managed to cash in some tax rebates and the conversion rate means I have a month or two of all living expenses covered. Spent the last two days sorting out reduced rent for my parents who are currently in Bradford of all places and instructing them on how to delay bill payments. For the first time my experience of being a reprobate and a liability is of value to those around me - while all the respectable people around me were paying bills on time and working I was learning how to get away with debt, delay bills and do those sad phone-calls to agencies that you owe money to, where you tell them that due to unforeseen personal issues you will only be able to pay them back the 500 quid that you owe them in monthly installments of 50 pounds.

Managed to cut out getting high, stopped getting drunk every day and I'm now practicing some relaxation exercises of Regardie's "One Year Manual" to stay relaxed and on top game. Bizarrely found out that none of these things were the culprit in me being useless on most days and found out that eating sugar early in the morning is the number one cause of me being an inflamed and depressed sack of shit. Getting productivity up has been a struggle still, but plan on disabling facebook in the next couple of days and switching to brick phone so that I can get that "aint got no internet" boredom that makes you get all the useful things done.

The potential of civil unrest and people trying to loot my house (squatting teaches you a lot about how unsecure most buildings are) has caused me to start practicing my sword fighting skills, using my great grandfather's sword from  the Balkan War (gradually turning into the living embodiment of the I studied the sword meme, but I take it that I'll be quite happy to help those that were busy doing other shit loll) . This has lead to a lot of reminiscing about crisis and my ancestry's history of dealing with it. When communists came into power my Grandfather's family had their house taken from them. He was sent to a small village to live there with his mom. Within a month he'd taught himself how to be an electrician from some books he had and was making money, gradually helping my family to get brought back together and return to the city. From then on for the rest of his life he was the go to guy if you were trying to escape the country, get illegal books and records, want to know how to hack a radio to catch BBC or are on the run from the KGB.

In light of that my initial response to the crisis being mainly getting drunk and browsing the web seems downright pitiful. All of the "its a very traumatic event for everyone, take time for self-care" stuff I see my western friends post on facebook does not look like the right take, especially when said "self-care" seems to consist of binge watching netflix and I try to put as much pressure on myself as possible. Of course getting stressed out isnt the way forward either. I've found that using some of Regardie and Hyatt's techniques for Undoing to be the most efficient way to clear my head enough to allow me to do things in a focused manner so sticking to doing them daily is where the battle is for me.

Still feel slightly lost, but I am grateful that I took as much acid as I did when I was growing up - the uncertainty and the chaos feel somewhat homely the whole influx of chaotic novelty isn't all that novel of a feeling.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Welcome to PD cigarki spiritual. Wish it was under better circumstances. Thanks for sharing. The perspective is invaluable.

[Cain]

Credit where credit's due, this response is pretty much on-point.

"Look western leaders keep saying two-three weeks. They say that so that people don't panic. Realistically they don't have any clue and neither do I"

It says 1) I'm not going to bullshit you, but also 2) when I know, you'll also know, and 3) don't listen to morons making populist plays abroad, they're just doing what populist everywhere do, telling people what they want to hear.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Credit where credit's due, this response is pretty much on-point.

"Look western leaders keep saying two-three weeks. They say that so that people don't panic. Realistically they don't have any clue and neither do I"

It says 1) I'm not going to bullshit you, but also 2) when I know, you'll also know, and 3) don't listen to morons making populist plays abroad, they're just doing what populist everywhere do, telling people what they want to hear.

I find myself wishing they'd just rip the bandaid off and tell people, "Look you might not be leaving the house til the middle of next year. Sack the fuck up!" but then I think to myself "Fuck it. as long as we collectively come out the end of this friendly warning with the ability to jump to battle stations without any hemming and hawing, we might just survive the big one if and when it comes. If all it takes are some comforting bedtime stories to ease the public into the reality of the situation then I'm actually okay with that."

[Doktor Howl]

WAYSA?

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-carnival-cruise-coronavirus/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Guests prepared for a ukulele concert, played bridge at shared tables, and took line-dancing classes. That night, Laurie Miller and her husband, John, attended True or Moo, a show featuring an emcee in a cow costume; the following morning, John joined about 200 other passengers in the ship's Broadway-style theater for a lecture on Clint Eastwood movies.

Everyone should die.

[Doktor Howl]

"Evvverrrybody went to the buffet," recalls 61-year-old Debbi Loftus, who was traveling with her parents. "I just thought, Oh, crap, the ukulele concert is going to be canceled."

I can't stop

[Cain]

Well if it's any consolation, they probably will.

[Doktor Howl]

After the Great Recession crippled the cruise business, Arison began to look like a less capable steward. In 2012, Carnival's Costa Concordia crashed into a rock formation and sank in the calm seas off Tuscany, killing 32 people, including a child, while the captain abandoned ship. The following year, a fire in the engine room of the Carnival Triumph, now better known as the "poop cruise," left hundreds of guests stranded in the Gulf of Mexico without air conditioning or working toilets for several days. During both the Tuscany crash and the poop cruise, Arison was spotted at Heat games.

How can we live without cruises?   

[P3nT4gR4m]

WAYSA?

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-carnival-cruise-coronavirus/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Guests prepared for a ukulele concert, played bridge at shared tables, and took line-dancing classes. That night, Laurie Miller and her husband, John, attended True or Moo, a show featuring an emcee in a cow costume; the following morning, John joined about 200 other passengers in the ship's Broadway-style theater for a lecture on Clint Eastwood movies.

Everyone should die.

Everybody does 

[chaotic neutral observer]

WAYSA?

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-carnival-cruise-coronavirus/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Guests prepared for a ukulele concert, played bridge at shared tables, and took line-dancing classes. That night, Laurie Miller and her husband, John, attended True or Moo, a show featuring an emcee in a cow costume; the following morning, John joined about 200 other passengers in the ship's Broadway-style theater for a lecture on Clint Eastwood movies.

Everyone should die.

My general disdain for my fellow humans is gradually changing to a kind of indiscriminate hate.

[Doktor Howl]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/hospitals-face-a-white-house-blockade-for-coronavirus-ppe.html?utm_source=fb&fbclid=IwAR1G8GYFvi6uYr6UOMEGglU_bOVPw6WPT1L4bHWZYEvegUvfCID8qVuhwts

[Doktor Howl]

CALLED IT.

Not that it was difficult.   

https://www.newsweek.com/kentucky-reports-highest-coronavirus-infection-increase-after-week-protests-reopen-state-1498835?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1LB9ljsjT05NyhuU4Q2P0ACBZg21ycSsfan0lN-zDkjOeeUM4cG7kXV8k#Echobox=1587343042

[Doktor Howl]

Wooooooooow. 

https://theguardiansofdemocracy.com/gop-lawmaker-says-stay-at-home-orders-no-different-than-nazis-sending-jews-to-death-camps/?fbclid=IwAR37IZ4Ev-u2qcPTh7LhkdJFtnkssG8Rbj9FVDXRPXCOBmQxh8xJ6PT_E7k

"And when you have government telling you that your business is essential or non-essential, yours is non-essential and someone else's is essential, we have a problem there," Scott said. "I mean, that's no different than Nazi Germany where you had government telling people either you were an essential worker or a non-essential worker, and non-essential workers got put on a train."