My Boring Life
Ruth A large part of what has kept me sane this year has been the discovery of chainmail.
Being able to create a whole and entire pretty little thing in the space of an hour or two makes me smile. Even though most days I can only get 2 or 3 such things done in a day before my hands throw a fit, it still makes me smile.
So I decided to spread the cheer a bit, and I mailed out a BUNCH of snowflake stars to friends and family this year.
If one more person tells me “omg, we have a vaccine, we can get back to normal!!!!”…..
Ok, numbers.
Pfizer’s vaccine requires two doses. Pfizer says it plans to produce 1,300,000,000 doses by the end of 2021. That’s 650,000,000 vaccinated people if everything goes smoothly and there’s no unexpected problems.
According to the US Census bureau there’s over 330,000,000 people in the USA. So IN THEORY Pfizer can vaccinate everyone in the USA by the end of 2021 no problem.
Of course, Pfizer is also sending some of that vaccine outside of the USA, (which makes sense, because if we don’t vaccinate the entire god-dammed world the virus is just going to spread and mutate to the point where who knows if the vaccine will work,) but hey, there’s other vaccines about to be on the market. Let’s assume (and as of right now that’s a hell of an assumption, but hey, we’ll run with it) Moderna can also produce enough vaccines to vaccinate 650,000,000 people by the end of 2021.
The same Census bureau link above says estimated world population is over 7,730,000,000. Assuming vaccine production as stated above, thats approx 1/7 of the world’s population vaccinated. But hey, Australia is also working on a vaccine, so another 650,000,000 people vaccinated (maybe, if we’re lucky). And while I’ve not been following TO closely I’m sure other countries are also trying to develop vaccines.
But 7.7 billion people is ALOT of doses of vaccine, even if all the other vaccines are single shots not doubles like Pfizer’s.
Assuming that nothing goes wrong with production or distribution. Hint, things are already trying to go wrong.
That assumes that all vaccines are equally good at preventing people from getting sick, not all countries medical establishments are up to USA standards.
Or that they’ll actually stop the spread of the virus. Hint, last time I checked Pfizer’s vaccine stopped you from feeling the symptoms of Covid19, but they didn’t actually know if it stopped you from SPREADING the virus, which is a bit of a loophole since even if everyone in the world WANTED the vaccine there are people who CAN NOT get it.
And hell, they don’t actually know how many people, minimum, they have to vaccinate in order to ensure herd immunity. So while yes, they probably don’t actually have to vaccinate all 7.7 billion people in order to stop the spread, they have no way of knowing when they’ll hit that benchmark.
And that assumes everyone is willing and able to take the vaccine. As noted above there are people who are going to be medically advised NOT to take it. And polls are varying, by ALOT, of what percentage of people are going to be WILLING to take the vaccine, at least here in the USA. I’m seeing numbers saying between 30 to over 50% of people are either planning on refusing the vaccine, or are planning on waiting as long as possible because they worry about the side effects. Right or wrong it’s going to happen that people are going to refuse it, and it’s not going to be just the usual vaccine refusers either.
Covid19 isn’t going to go away any time soon. And if you think all the various businesses that keep being partially or fully shut down are going to last through another year of this mess you’re dreaming. Nor can our government afford to bail out the entire USA for another year, or years.
Nor are you going to get everyone to wear a mask, this is the USA, right or wrong our fight reflex is to strong. It’s not going to happen. Making people criminals for not wearing a mask, while releasing criminals because OMG they might get sick in prison, is counter productive.
Look, if you feel safer wearing a mask, wear it. If you feel safer keeping your kid out of school cause you’re worried about the school spread then do it (hint, more and more studies are showing remarkably little spread via in person schooling) then figure out a way to keep them properly educated and socialized from home. If you feel safer not getting your nails done, hair cut, or eating out, then do what you need to do to make you feel safe.
And I do think that the spread of hands free shopping, and deliveries, and curb-side pick-ups and the like is a good thing. As is the recognition that the general public is a filthy mass and maybe we should all be cleaning a bit more to stop the spread of things like the flu. And I’d definitely like to see a wider recognition that if you’re sick, even if it’s “just a cold”, then stay home.
But this screaming panic over this is doing SO MUCH MORE damage than the virus itself. Even if all the long term side effects of getting it turn out to be truly bad.
No, I don’t want your grandma to die of Covid so that the rest of us can have “normal” lives. But I don’t want your grandma dying of loneliness and despair in a nursing home because she hasn’t seen her family in person in months, or even touched another human being, either.
I don’t want women dying of breast cancer, or ovarian cancer, because they missed their annual checkup which would have found it and so it doesn’t get caught until to late. Or any one of another from a HUGE list of medical problems that preventive and voluntary medical procedures are meant to catch.
And I’m sick to hell already of watching small business after small business fail this year after their owners have struggled to keep them going.
And all that IS happening.
And maybe, just maybe, consider that the USA’s news cycle thrives on the negative, and that maybe, just maybe, you’re being fed deliberately bad news in order to hook you in. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s how they survive. I noticed it all the way back on 9/11/2001, so its not new.
So take a deep breath, step away from the news pages telling you how bad it is, and figure out how to live.
Edit:
shortly after posting the above I found THIS. *sarcasm* But hey, we’re protecting the children, so its all ok. */sarcasm*
And its not just the kids. Winter is a horrible time for depresion anyway, especially after the holidays. This year? Well, the holidays aren’t going to be very holiday-ish. I can guarantee that more and more adults are feeling depressed this year too. Between the fear of the virus, fear of job security, fear of loss of income, and how am I going to feed my family, on top of lack of socializing and interacting. I’ve certainly seen deteriorating interpersonal skills in my customers since this started. I’m sure the depression is right there with it. If you need additional help to get through this make sure you get it.
And yah, stay away from the news. Its not worth it.
….On creating a whole new vaccine that may or may not be safe and may or may not be all that effective. When we could just be doing more research on this one instead??
yah yah, I know, politics, and we have to make it look good to the freaked out public, plus money, plus god forbid we not continue to scare the entire world into being scared of life
Ran across this article yesterday.
…….
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/11/biden-covid-advisor-says-us-lockdown-of-4-to-6-weeks-could-control-pandemic-and-revive-economy.html
Ok, first of all, where the hell do you plan to GET that much money?? Oh I know, you’ll borrow it. Nice, that’ll TOTALLY solve the economy problem…..And what about those of us who work for big sized companies? I mean, sure, my job is actually pretty secure, but not ALL big sized companies are. And if THEY start failing……that’s a hell of a trigger point there.
Then there’s the little fact that the economy is about more than just money. Money is only good for buying things. If you shut everything down again there won’t be anything to buy you moron! All the stimulus paychecks in the world won’t solve THAT.
You DO recall what happened in March when things shut down right? Despite frantic attempts to keep SOMETHING on the store shelves just about every store that was able to remain open ended up with empty shelves. Canned foods? Nope. Milk? Nope. Paper goods? Nope. Peanut butter? Nope. Disinfecting cleaning supplies? Nope. And while some of that was the result of people panicking and buying whatever they could get their hands on, not all of it was. Manufacturers are currently HOPING they’ll be able to be back to normal schedules at some point in 2021. HOPING! They are NOT caught up. Not even Kinda. Another 6 week shutdown, before they’re caught up? No, no, no, no…..
Oh, but the grocery shelves are back to normal! Right? No, no they aren’t. And neither are the cleaning supplies. Or, or, or…..the stores have just become really creative at how they stock the shelves. But if you know what you’re looking for? Yah, its really really obvious. Look, I’ve mentioned before that I have a wholesale foods account. The pricelist from the wholesaler back in March was 30 pages long, single column. Their current price list? 2 pages, double column. There’s SO MUCH stuff they can’t get right now. And what they can get, quantities still aren’t back to normal. And cleaning supplies? Look, I personally sell those at my work. There are entire brand lines of products that I haven’t seen even a single case of since this started.
And don’t get me started on Christmas. I hate to advocate buying your Christmas decor early. But this year? Buy it now. Or it won’t be there when you do go to the store. The ONLY thing we have plenty of stock of is pre-lit trees. We have NO backstock of ornaments. Barely any backstock of yard decor and blowups. No where NEAR enough backstock of lights. And the stock we do have? The selection isn’t near as wide as usual.
And then there’s the fact that the shutdown literally killed people. An awful lot of those “non-essential” medical treatments are only non-essential because the thing they treat was caught early enough to keep it from being an emergency. Or because they’re preventative, to keep things from becoming an emergency. Take away the availability of those treatments and suddenly there’s a lot more things that end up being emergencies, or that aren’t caught at all until it’s to late. And the lack of contact for seniors and the disabled stuck in assisted living and nursing homes? Yah, that killed some of them too, and set others back drastically.
Not to mention that all that assumes that we’ll HAVE a functional, GOOD, vaccine by the end of that 6 weeks. And yes, I know, it looks like we might. But might is not 100%. And no, I won’t be taking a vaccine that was rushed through trials that way. I WILL claim religious exemption if I need to. I’m not anti vaccine, they’re good things. But one that was rushed through like this? That we have NO CLUE what the long term outlook of it is? Fuck no. And I’m not the only one feeling twitchy at the way they’re rushing this vaccine through.
Look I get it. Nasty scary virus we don’t understand completely. But if the “cure” is doing more damage than the bug there’s a hell of a problem in how you’re doing it.
Look, I’m not a Trump fan. He didn’t do as badly in his first 4 years as I’d been afraid, but still, not a fan. But there was no way in hell I was going to help vote in a geriatric dementia case with a California VP. Not that it matters since I live in upstate NY, and New York City dictates how the state’s votes go in national votes. My entire extended inlaw family could write in for the dog and it wouldn’t affect how the state’s results went.
I’m not any more worried by a Biden (or Harris) presidency than I was a Trump presidency. President not dictator or king. Not thrilled, but we’ll get through it just like we got through Trump’s presidency. Well, we’ll get through it if they can not sink the economy further by shutting everything down again cause COVID!!!
The general public’s response to the election has been my concern. I have friends on about every side of the political divide that you can imagine. And the divide between the news sources and media stories that each side sees, reads, and shares is drastic. To the point where its hard to tell that they’re talking about the same specific incident or happening.
And now the media has declared for Biden. But the legal side of it isn’t complete. What happens if the legal side of it changes that result? My entire FB and Twitter feed is nothing but cheering. The riots and hate if things don’t go their way is going to be even worse. And yah, outside of the idiots on each side (cause there are always idiots on every side) the majority of hate is coming from one side in particular. And its the side that seems to delight in eating their own too.
Look, I don’t care how you voted, or your political views of this mess. Take a deep breath. Make sure your home and family is secure. That you can withstand another 3 month shutdown, food, home, money wise. Cause while Biden/Harris don’t especially worry me, the rest of the political backlash has very major potential to go very bad.
I keep a fair bit of music loaded onto my phone, specifically so that I can plug in headphones when I’m on my lunch break at work. I didn’t used to use headphones in the break room, but I have several co-workers who not only seem to enjoy loud and annoying TV shows (why is pranking people on TV such a big thing? And even if I didn’t mind that the hosts have especially annoying laughs), but who’ll walk into the break room and turn up the volume on the TV, and then hold loud and obnoxious conversations over the top of the TV. So, noise canceling headphones for the win!
With my newest phone I was just using Google Music. It came preinstalled, and since I don’t need anything fancy, or anything streaming, I didn’t care about any other features. The last couple weeks its been prompting me to “upload your music to Youtube for streaming anywhere!”, which I ignored. I don’t want streaming, I don’t want to use signal, I want to play the music already on the damn phone.
Yesterday I plugged in my headphones, tapped the music player, and got a message “Google Music is no longer available for streaming services, upload your music to Youtube to continue!”. And wouldn’t let me just play the music on my phone.
So I’m sitting there swearing at my phone (to the shock and amusement of my coworkers who are regularly shocked at the language that I know, why I don’t know), and scrolling through the Google Play Store trying to find a music player that didn’t cost anything, didn’t have ads, and just played MY MUSIC ALREADY ON MY PHONE DAMYOU. After thinking about it a minute longer, I disabled the Google Music app, and then went into the file manager, found my music, and tapped…..and it played! No special app required! Woot! No ads, no annoying “upload your music for streaming!!”, nothing! Just played.
So, lesson learned. If you have a reasonably recent model Android phone (and possibly older ones too, since I don’t have the newest and fanciest) you may not need a special app to play music!
I’ve always loved hair decor. Decorative clips, barrets, hairsticks and so on. Unfortunately they don’t tend to love me, or at least my hair type. I have slippery fine hair, and unless I pin and hairspray the hell out of them they don’t stay in my hair. I’d long since given up on wearing anything of the sort except for very dress-up occasions because of it.
Then I ran across these:
The hairsticks are made from G10 laminate, the same stuff often used on knife handles. Its NOT slippery, infact has a fair bit of texture to it, which in turn means that they actually stay in my hair! The only hair elastic in that picture is at the base of the pony tail before I twisted it into a bun, and those sticks stayed in my hair for a good shake and another couple hours after the photo before I had to take them out to change clothes.
The hairsticks can be found here on Instagram or here on Facebook. If you’re on neither let me know and I’ll get the maker’s email to send you. He charges $30 a pair for single color sets like the ones pictured above, more for bicolor depending on the number of layers involved.
The chainmaille dragons come from here. And you totally need to check out Cedar’s stuff. After getting my dragons in the mail I was suddenly taken with a mad desire to make more decorative pendants for my hairsticks, and Cedar was wonderful about answering my questions about the hobby. Cause I TOTALLY needed a new hobby to add to my list don’t-cha-know.
For additional thoughts and pictures of the hairsticks see LawDog’s take on them here.
I have to add, I’ve now worn a pair of these hairsticks at work, all day, for the last week. They’ve actually STAYED in my hair for an 8hr day running around the sales floor and doing all sorts of physical labor. They’re awesome. I’ll also note that the black ones pictured are 7.5″ long, the others are 6.5″. If you have especially thick hair, or a longer neck, you may want them to be longer rather than shorter, but he makes them to order, so he can make them whatever length you want.
Tell me again, how lockdowns were the only option for handling this virus.
Tell me again, how lockdowns were the only way to keep the public safe.
Tell me again, how forcing those already confined into total solitude was the only way to save their lives.
Tell me again, how its all for the children.
There were and are absolutely intermediate steps that can and should be done to protect the vulnerable. The expansion of shopping services, and other hands off services. The expansion of sick days and the ability to work from home from businesses. The recognition that some people have fucked immune systems and need additional protection. I’d certainly like to see these things continued and expanded.
But the assumption that we, as a national and international community, needed to shut down everything in order to save lives?
No.
The long term health damage from these shutdowns is going to be astronomical, just in the first world countries involved. Physical health, mental health, and emotional health. And not just to the adults. Children NEED the social interactions we just forced them to miss, they NEED it in order to learn to be better adults. We just fucked the hell out of the next generation, and that sort of thing has the ability to snowball into additional generations as those kids grow up and have kids of their own.
The long term health damage done to non-first world countries due to the shutdown? Programs to alleviate starvation had to shut down. Programs to alleviate various major diseases had to shut down. Shutdowns that mean that their efforts could be set back years due to having to start over in some areas. Shutdowns that mean that they now have to start over at gaining local trust.
And the economic, world wide, damage done by the shut down and the following various health issues? Yah.
So tell me again…..
and the new theme doesn’t do attachment pages. I could write my own attachment page for it, or I can find a new theme. Grrr
I hate switching themes. Lets see how this works. If you try something, and it doesn’t work, please let me know