Another Addition

I've added a link to the Jesus Seminar Forum, a groups of Bible scholars that are attempting to reconstruct the original source of the Gospels and the reality of the early church. I'm currently reading The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? and it is some seriously good stuff. It's no wonder my former church loudly condemned these guys: the introduction completely refutes most of fundamentalism. If this information was more commonly known, no one with an IQ over 80 would be left in any fundamentalist church. I certainly wish I had something like this when I was in high school. Grab anything published by the Seminar you can find. It will be well worth it. Amazon has them new and used.

The Death Throes of Intelligent Design

The Panda's Thumb has two articles that show the degenerate state of Intelligent Design as a political movement. In the first, we have the director of the Vatican Observatory, Jesuit Father George V. Coyne, saying that ID "belittles God." Funny, but that's what all those liberal, humanistic, atheistic, communist, baby-killing, homosexual, smelly scientists have been saying for years. Of course, we are talking about those deviant Roman Catholics that worship the anti-christ pope and leave Jesus hanging on a cross. Everyone knows they will burn in hell. Just ask any member of a fundamentalist church.

The second documents one of the funniest things I've seen from the ID movement in five years. After endlessly, monotonously, ridiculing biologists for believing in common descent, DaveScott (Dembski's lackey that took over his blog, ironically titled Uncommon Descent, after Dembski grew tired of having his every word refuted) now says that anyone who refutes common descent will be banned. It seems that common descent, the focus of creationist and ID attacks for most of my life, is now just obvious. If you listen closely, you can hear the big tent slowly collapsing, smothering everyone underneath. Or so we can hope.

The best way to make stupid people look stupid is give them a microphone, then just stand back and watch. Here we have a good example of an entire political movement being snuffed out by a lone lunatic.

Burning Bridges Part I

I had the following e-mail exchange with my boss Thursday and Friday. I was really hesitant to do this to him as he just took over our area at the first of the year. My previous boss, who had first-hand experience with me speaking my mind, had asked me to give the new guy some time to adjust before I started sending my zinger e-mails his way.

Fuck that!!

Names have been changed to first initials only to protect my ass from legal action as there are no innocent parties involved.

I've been corresponding with a co-worker over the weekend who has worked here much longer than I have. He doesn't think I will get fired based on current policy. Damn, damn, and double damn.

Anyway, on to the adventure:

Boss 1/26/2006 5:06:23 PM
R - can you let me know which Anger Management Class you attended? Thanks.

Me 1/26/2006 5:39:11 PM
Actually, I didn't.

Boss 1/27/2006 8:26:21 AM
Is there a reason that you missed the class - there were several offered?

Me 1/27/2006 6:32:05 PM

I did not attend anger management because I chose not to.

The reason is simple: I've grown tired of the constant insults to my intelligence and integrity from people who provably lack both.

Let's review the year, shall we?

- On-call pay - eliminated.

- Overtime pay - eliminated.

- Work-from-home - eliminated (I only accepted this job on the premise that I would be working from home at least one day a week).

- Flex time - eliminated.

- Our area renamed to Non-Clinical Applications (or as R insists on spelling it in the IS newsletter, "non-clinical applications") just to make sure we understand where we fall in the greater scheme of things.

- Our ability to accomplish anything was seriously hampered by a civil war between our "leaders", who collectively have to be the most immature people I have ever had to deal with. That says a lot when you consider I routinely work with high school kids.

- Indiscriminate dumping of applications on members of our group without [my previous manager's] knowledge. My experience was typical: someone from another group marches into my cube, drops a pile of crap on my desk, announces, "you will take this over," and walks away.

- Our ability to accomplish anything was further hampered by management insisting we record our time in five different places in half-hour increments, with one of the primary tools not having enough licenses.

(I could go on for pages, but it's 6:30pm on Friday which means this is on my time.)

And just to start the new year off right, I find out that "ass-kissing" now counts as 40% of our evaluation, while technical skills and the ability to actually do useful work were both pushed down to 20% each.

Here is an e-mail I sent to [my previous manager] and several others in our group a few months back:

[Editor's note: my response is on top with the original message following in italics.]

Desktops and Servers - critical to the continuing function of the medical center

Non-Clinical Applications (or, as R had it in the newsletter, non-clinical applications) - bunch of slackers that are capable of absorbing an infinite amount of work from critical parts of IS like Desktops and Servers because we don't really do anything anyway

Got it. Thanks for the clarification, K. It's always good to know where one stands in an organization.

>>> K 9/21/2005 4:45:00 PM >>>
You will remember that R announced several weeks ago that K and A were shifting some responsibilities; I have another shift to announce today. We've decided to move the support of GroupWise from Desktops and Servers to Non-Clinical Applications. M will be taking this responsibility over from S.

This year, even more than in the recent past, Servers and Desktops is a central resource, a critical resource, in almost all of our opportunities. These opportunities include RadNet, Barcode Meds Admin, the Cerner upgrade, PowerChart Office, quick signon, merging networks with [two other hospitals brought into the medical system] and many more. This change in support responsibilities will help to free up more resources where we most currently need them.

This impression was confirmed by demands from the IS management team that every one of us slackers in non-clinical applications justify our existence to a group of people that are clueless as to what it is we do here. Not once. Not twice. Three times, BossMan. That's not a hint; that an outright announcement that what I do here is considered unimportant.

And so I have drawn a line in the sand. You may argue that this is a stupid thing to quibble over, but it had to be something. At this point, I actually hope I get fired. The work environment in IS has steadily declined over the last couple years to the point that I could care less if I ever see the inside of [my place of employ] again.

Hope that clears things up.

What Women Want

Yea. Like I would know. Like I even care anymore.

But I can observe, and much of what I have observed is in the comments to this post from a while back. In those comments, I mention that maybe it's just the women I know, and what I have personally observed doesn't hold true in general. This, however, would seem to indicate that I am not the victim of some sort of observer bias. It may very well be that similar backgrounds are in play here; Vox and I both have fairly extensive histories of serious religious involvement. Both of us are from working-class families. Maybe it's one or both of those. Maybe it's something else entirely.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's real. Maybe women are being betrayed by their biology; a mating strategy that made sense 10,000 years ago, but consistently betrays them in modern society. Why not? I'm fat because my body craves calorie-dense foods in anticipation of a) hard physical work and b) more than a couple hours before I have the opportunity to stuff my pie-hole again. Combined that with the fact that I am a lazy shit that would rather sit in front of a TV and plow through a bag of chips instead of going for a walk or finish building the house I live in, and you have Fat Ass City.

Maybe.

The Big Bag of Bear Fat was Duped

It seems Oprah has finally sensed which way the wind was blowing and took a massive shit on James Frey. Of course, Frey won't be giving any of his millions back anytime soon. Just a couple notes to James and Oprah, both of whom read this blog religiously:

Oprah: you provably don't care about truth, you care about money. You saw (a little late in my judgment) that Frey had become a dead weight that could only hurt you, and cut his life line. Make all the apologies and justifications you think necessary to convince your below-normal-IQ viewers to keep watching you and buying the shit you recommend, but don't think you are fooling anyone on the right half of the bell curve. Dumping Frey was a financial decision, not a moral one.

Frey: You are a nobody. You have always been a nobody and you always will be a nobody (although now you are a nobody that, with Oprah's help, duped the below-average-IQ segment of the population out of a couple million bucks). You didn't invent your "tough-guy image" as a "coping mechanism" for your alcohol and drug addiction. You invented it to compensate for the fact that you are, and always will be, insignificant. So take your millions and enjoy the rest of your insignificant life someplace where the rest of us do not have to see you or listen to your damn sniveling.

More Women at Work

Yesterday, I got an e-mail that outlined the new employee evaluation method for my department. In the past, we have been scored in three areas: technical skills which makes up 25% of your total score, goals for another 25%, and behavior for the remaining 50%. I've always considered it to be kind of stupid that in an technical department, competence only counts for 1/4 of my score, with another 1/4 being tied to competence (your ability to get work done). But now we have a whole new category called Teamwork and Customer Focus that will be 40% of our overall score, with the existing categories being knocked down to 20% each. So I can be completely incompetent and never meet any of my goals and still score high enough to get a pretty good raise as long as I show up on time, don't stab anyone, and be nice to people. Sorry, but I'll take a complete dick with good technical skills over someone who is incompetent and nice any day of the week.

And just where did this giant brain fart come from? Why our new women managers, of course. And our wonderful CIO who is getting blow jobs from one of them. Trixie is right about that: a guy will do almost any stupid or embarrassing thing as long as you ask him immediately after you blow him. Who else other than a perpetual mother that views their employees as children would downgrade technical skills and the ability to get actual work done in favor of "Plays Nice with Others"?

Fucking retards.

At least it doesn't look like I will be here much longer. About five minutes after I posted yesterday, I got an e-mail from my new boss (my old one was so disgusted with the rest of the management team that he took a voluntarily demotion along with a sizable pay cut just to get away from them) asking me why I hadn't attended one of the anger management classes. I plan on telling him, which will probably get me fired (YES!!!). If I can knock off two New Years resolutions before the end of January, I will be one happy puppy.

By The Way...

A while back I hinted about crossing some line that would end my "career" with my current employer. Typical non-confrontational pussy management simply chose to ignore that I blew off a required education seminar on anger management. [Aside: I mean, seriously. Is there anyone reading this that thinks I need any fucking anger management?]

In any case, I guess "required" around here means "if you're stupid enough to believe that management will do shit to you if you tell them to blow it out their ass."

Not only was I not fired, my annual raise was in the top quintile for the department.

Damn.

I guess I have to go all out and stab somebody with a spork.

Why Christians are Idiots #3,876,092

I'm going to start calling it Pat Robertson Disease (PRD). Now some assclown Reverend is trying to organize a pump-and-dump of Microsoft stock to pay them back for endorsing a gay rights bill. Do these guys ever think about the shit that comes out of their mouth? Ever? I swear this is a concerted effort to make Christians look stupid. No sane person could do and say so many utterly asinine things and think they were helping the cause.

Whatever. I'm just glad I'm done with it. Today, I mailed the following letter to my former church:

To my friends at XXX Baptist Church:

I have been doing a lot of thinking over the last six months and have come to a difficult decision. I am requesting that my name be removed from XXX Baptist's list of active members. I would like to emphasize that this in not the result of dissatisfaction with XXX Baptist, the leadership, the membership, or Pastor and K. I simply cannot in good conscience retain my membership while being in disagreement with a number of points of doctrine held by XXX Baptist.

One administrative note: I am available to plow the church parking lot when D is out of town for the remainder of this winter. However, I ask that other arrangements be made for next winter (2006/2007).

Thank you, and God bless.
R

One New Years resolution down, three to go. I thought about ripping into them, but why bother? No one would understand and it just isn't worth the effort. Besides, I still have family in this church and I expect them to be pissed off enough as it is. I don't need to throw gasoline on the fire by pointing out all the contradictions and logic errors in their religious belief system.

English 101

Somebody needs to by Mr. Bush a god damn dictionary. What a fucking meat-head.

Is it 2008 yet?

Women at Work. Again.

I know, I know. This is like the twentieth post about this, but I can't help myself. Women have destroyed my work environment. I had planned on being here for a long time, but it has gotten totally fucking ridiculous around here. I feel like I'm in third grade again. Actually, it's worse than when I was in third grade; unlike school these days, we didn't get gold stars for showing up, breathing, doing our work, not stabbing the kid next to us; those things were sort of expected. If you wanted special recognition, you had to actually do something. Here at work, we are barraged daily with cheap pins, inkjet "Certificates of Appreciation", team-building crap like picnics, lunches, softball games. Here's a thought: if I do my job, shut the fuck up and sign my paycheck. Maybe stick your head in my cube twice a year and tell me to keep doing what I'm doing. If I do something truly spectacular (rather than just showing up most days and not doing something so monumentally stupid that I get fired), shove that stupid certificate you downloaded off the internet give me some fucking cash!

Oh, and it would be nice if you actually knew what the fuck I did for the organization.

Anyway. I have no idea what the hell all that had to do with this, but whatever.

Another Fraud from Michigan

Maybe it's something in the water, or brain-freeze from the cold, but what the hell is up with writers from Michigan? Now we have some asshat WASP fag claiming to be Navaho! Christ almighty, already! Another poser striving for meaning by deluding everyone (and probably himself) into believing he is significant. It's simple: If you're a good story-teller (and judging by comments in this article, Nasdijj is), then tell your fucking story and label it fiction. Quit trying to milk people's emotions and wallets by passing off your deluded, homosexual, pedophile fantasies as fact. It's not like the market is unkind to even mediocre fiction hacks.

And yes, I feel better. Thanks for asking.

Winter is Back

Winter came back this week-end with snow, sleet, and rain. There is ice everywhere. I can't even walk from my truck to my own front door without falling on my ass. Ice melter doesn't work because it gets warm enough during the day to melt enough snow and ice to wash it off the walks and the porch, then gets cold enough at night to make everything like a skating rink.

I see it is in the high 60's right now at Arcosanti. Must be rough. God I hate being cold.

More Wiretapping

According to America's second-highest ranking intelligence official General Michael Hayden, warrant-less wiretaps are a great idea, and should become routine. Somebody isn't reading Mr. Bush's Cheat Sheet of Administration Lies (tm) very carefully. The justification for warrant-less wiretaps was supposed to be that we are at war, but according to this assclown, they are good idea all the time!

I guess I'm too stunned to come up with a sarcastic response to this. Welcome to Empire.

The Frail Bark

I know most of my posts here make me sound like a self-centered asshole, which is a fair characterization for the most part. However, I have a real soft spot for people who have to deal with real tragedy (as opposed to the self-inflicted kind, which I generally find humorous). I hope this woman has someone that will just hold her tight.

And I love that quote:

"The unfortunate Parents ventured their all on the frail Bark. And the wreck was total.”

Doing What You Like

Like most people, I hate my job. To be more precise, I enjoy the work I do, but I utterly despise the people I work for. The management of our IS department sinks to a new low every day. The problem is that removes any motivation I have of doing even work that I normally enjoy doing. In any case, Paul Graham explains how to do what you want to do. I agree with his basic thought: the "Christian" work ethic somehow conflates work with anything that sucks and pleasure with anything that is fun (and we all know what Christians feel about anyone trying to have fun). The logical extension is that nothing fun can ever be work. Paul argues that this is not the case. Good stuff. I wouldn't recommend reading it if you are having a bad day at work, unless you are prepared to head off for greener pastures.

"Spank Me Harder, Mr. Vox"

Sally obviously enjoyed it, as she came back for more. Has anyone done a comparative study of fundamentalists and feminists? While the symptoms are radically different, the underlying cause is identical: a complete denial of reality. Look, it really is quite simple; you can take the world as it is and accept that, or you can be a schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is OK by me; it's pretty easy to fool schizo women into performing any and every sex act imaginable. Just don't expect me to take you seriously when we discuss anything important.

SMACK!
"Thank you, Mr. Vox!"

Spanking Women

With a title like that, I should get about 20,000 hits on this post. But, sorry guys, I'm talking about a verbal spanking, not the pants-around-the-ankles kind. I wish I were talking about the later. If you know of a willing person (not too particular on gender), my e-mail is in my profile.

So, what was I talking about?

Oh, yea.

Vox Day delivers a verbal spanking to someone that really needs the pants-around-the-ankles variety. Men are the source of all evil for the same reason men are the source of all the technology women use every day: we are aggressive, innovative, risk-prone, and intelligent. You're welcome. To any women reading this: you can bitch at me the day after you launch your first space probe, invent your first polymer, or design your first integrated circuit.

Vox also tackles the male view on lesbianism (short version: "Bring it on!!"). Casual lesbianism is rampant in high school because there is nothing a teenage female can do that will attract a crowd of applauding teenage males faster than playing tonsil-hockey with another teenage female. I hate to break it to the Sisterhood, but no male on the planet is "threatened" by lesbian sex; just massively turned on.

How to Get a Woman to Fuck You

From a blog recommended to me by a co-worker:

So listen, here's the deal. I want to buy you a drink. Then I'll buy you another and another. The whole time I will not offer much in the way of conversation, or be particularly fun to hang out with, or even be nice to your friends you introduce me to. This doesn't matter - we'll go home together. When we get to your place, we'll start hooking up, and I'll try to sleep with you three separate times. Each time, you'll say no. I'll leave in the middle of the night, without saying goodbye, and I won't call you the next day. Or the next. Or the next after that. Over time as I don't call, you will want me more. In fact, you will become obsessed with me, though all I did was get you drunk and try to fuck you.

Then, maybe a week or two later, I'll run into you again. You'll see me in the bar, and, having had a few, you'll throw yourself at me. We'll go home and sleep together. I'll leave abruptly, though this time I may wait until you wake up, as I will be pretty hungover. I won't call the next day, or the next, but I will call eventually, because now I know you put out. And this makes me happy.

The more I don't call, the more you'll want me. Eventually I'll call, and perhaps we'll go on a lame date, in which each of us won't have anything particular good to offer, a fact that will be mitigated by several martinis. We'll go home, and have sex.

Now we'll have a relationship. The calls will become more frequent, as will the sex. But as I spend more and more time with you, I'll learn more about you, and thus more ways I can take advantage of you. Perhaps you have a rich daddy who pays for your rent and other things. If that's the case, I'll ask to borrow money from you, which I have no intention of ever paying back. I may take your Miata, get drunk, and drive it into a pool, or a kindergarten class. This will be your fault.

Perhaps you had a bad daddy growing up. I'll make sure to take special care of you and always play the "good guy" role to a tee. Meanwhile, when we're out together with your friends and you head to the bathroom, I'll tell your friend Beth that her breasts look amazing and ask her to show them to me. Beth will be astonished at how much of a dick I am, and, of course, show them to me. They will not be as impressive as I had hoped.

I will keep being a dick, stealing and lying, and in no time you'll be in love with me. About this time, I will get bored of you, and decide to end it. I won't tell you that I think we should see other people; nay, I'll just keep fucking up until you dump me.

The problem is: you won't dump me, because you love me. My little fuck-ups will be forgiven, and I'll get frantic. In an effort to end the whole thing, I'll cheat on you. And you'll find out.

You will be very upset, and you may break up with me, but our relationship will be far from over. Odds are that we will have sex numerous times after we've "broken up", which is fine with me, because getting the sex without the boyfriend responsibilities is ok with me. I may beg you to take me back, and you might, and I will know that once you've taken me back after I've cheated on you, you've not only given me a "get out of jail free" card, you've pretty much given me license to do whatever I want.

Anyway you look at it, all I can offer you is dysfunction, unhappiness, and a sense that the time you've spent with me has been wasted. I'll do a great deal of damage to you so that many guys after me will struggle with it, and may even not be able to date you because of it.

That's my offer. What do you think?

Constitution?!?! We Don't Need No Stinkin' Constitution!!!

I didn't think it was possible, but I have to agree with Vox on this one: Mr. Bush makes me long for the days of Clinton, HillaryCare, chunky interns, and cunt-flavored cigars. It is now illegal to be an annoying anonymous blogger? I thought that was what a blog was! It sure as hell is what this blog is. My bad.

Blow it out your ass Mr. Bush.

Another Random Post

Once again, I should break this up into more than one post, but I really don't feel like it.

First, I have to find a new ISP. My current one is pissing me off royally. For the last several days, our connection speed has been 9600. No, that isn't a typo. I don't know if they have some sort of problem or if they are intentionally cutting my connection speed because I have a lot of upstream traffic, but I'm all done with them. Fuck you Chain 'O Lakes.

Second, Pat Robertson is now a part of the Bob and Tom collection. Good work, asshole. Here's some useful advice for evangelicals: Back in the day, persecution meant things like have a red-hot iron rod shoved up your ass, or being boiled alive in oil, or some other means of slow, lingering death. Having the major portion of a country that, while not exactly religious, is at least sympathetic to the idea of there being a god, bent double with laughter every time you open your mouth just means you are a dumb shit. Get over yourselves. And for god's sake, stop sending this stuttering asshole money!

Third, I have got to get out of this job before I go totally fucking postal and start killing the dipshits I work with. About half the "men" in my department have been prancing around in gay-looking goatees. Why? Well, they were popular in the 1990's, which is just about right; this jerk-water place runs about 20 years behind the rest of the civilized world. But the big reason is that the CIO grew one. What a bunch of ass-lickers. Maybe it's just me, but I would burn in hell before I would imitate my boss's grooming habits. Even if I had it first, I'd shave the damn thing off just so I wouldn't look like a complete suck-up. It doesn't help that they walk around in a big pretentious-looking group, looking for all the world like a group of fags out clubbing.

Another indication that the people I work with are mostly from the shallow end of the gene pool: Today, I'm heading for the cafeteria to clog up my arteries with the total shit food this "hospital" serves up, and pass a female Rain Man using one of the public phones. Loudly. The verbal spew was flowing when I stepped off the elevator and was still going when I got back on with my lunch (two grilled cheese sandwiches and fries, if you care). I could tell the other person was trying to insert something intelligent into the flow because Rain Woman would start with the "Right, right, right, right," then launch into some gibberish, then back to "Right, right, right, right," just like Dustin Fucking Hoffman. She must have gills or something, because swear to god, she didn't even take a break to breath. Based on her dress (looked like a man in a skirt) and the body language ("I'm important, damn you!!), I'm guessing she's one of the hospital's vice presidents. My only ray of hope is that she is an Affirmative-Action hire who is Vice President of Soiled Linens and Shit-Filled Diapers. However, based on my seven years working here, it is a very, very slim ray of hope.

Would Someone Shoot Pat Robertson?

God... er... Pat Robertson is once again pronouncing eternal judgment on everyone that doesn't believe his whacked-out interpretation of the Bible. I've said it before, I'll say it again: If evangelicals ever want to have influence in a rational, modern culture, they need to denounce ass clowns like Robertson loudly and often. They never do, which says to me that they are in agreement with him. That's OK; just don't get all pissy when the adults in this country get together to make important decisions without you. Just like the family Thanksgiving dinner, your place it at the kids table until you can demonstrate a maturity somewhere north of a 6-year-old.

God Save Me From This Weather

I'm looking out my window at work and see nothing but gray; gray sky, gray snow, gray mud, gray buildings. Which coordinate perfectly with my gray cubicle, gray walls, gray carpet, gray desk, etc. The temps are hovering around the freezing mark, which is actually mild for this place and time. But the cold and damp just settles in, never relenting, sapping away my energy, my motivation to do much of anything other than curl up in a ball in front of a computer screen. Then I happen upon Fred Reed's latest column and wonder what the hell am I doing here? Why would anyone want to live in this god-forsaken climate? I sure as hell know that I don't.

Happy New Year!!

So I'm a little late. Sue me.

This is the time of year that half the people in the United States resolve to lose weight, get in shape, work less, and fuck more.

I really don't care about any of that. No one loses weight and keeps it off. Short of moving to Ethiopia, it is virtually impossible to permanently lose weight while working a desk job in North America. And I am already in shape, thank you very much; pear is a shape. I'd love to work less, but I have this attachment to eating, so unless I can find someone who will pay me to sit around the house and make bitchy blog posts, I will continue to work. Last but not least, fucking would mean getting close to a female, and right now, that has no appeal whatsoever.

No, my resolutions are of a different sort. The first, and in some ways most difficult, is cutting the last of the ties with my old church. I am drafting a letter to ask that my name be withdrawn from membership. The bastards have already shut me out of involvement in any sort of ministry. Just as well; I assume a church prefers to have the people doing the teaching to sort of believe in all that God and Jesus stuff. That I was considered a leader and was teaching teenagers says a great deal about the vetting process the typical church uses to find its leaders and teachers. (It also explains why NAMBLA recommends small-town churches as a target-rich environment, but I digress.) The reason this is difficult has nothing to do with leaving the church itself; what hurts is losing my kids. Teens have a way of grabbing you emotionally and it will be hard to give up all hope of contact with some of them. The ones who didn't grow up in the church have simply started hanging out at our house. The rest, I will never see again except by accident.

The second involves work. The bottom line is that I am tired of sitting in front of a computer all day every day, and I need to do something different. I also need to start doing something that will matter 50 years from now. Currently, all my work is thrown away after a few years. I need to feel like I am part of something more permanent. Every day I hide in my cube and hope that no ass clown lights the fuse, because it ain't gonna be pretty.

The third is location. I cannot take another winter. This one has been unbelievably mild, yet I can barely drag myself out the door. Once I'm out, all I can think about is getting back inside so I can be dry and warm. There has to be a better way to live that spending every waking hour worrying about boilers and propane and snow removal.

The fourth I have mentioned a number of times. I need to cut myself loose from the parasites. I've spent my entire life working to make the lives of others comfortable. I'm done with that. Maybe I've just become a selfish prick, but I'm working to make my life easy for a while. If that happens to make someone else's life easier, that is a happy coincidence, but it is not the primary goal. I suspect that will greatly simplify my life with no effort on my part as the parasites drop off and find more willing hosts.

Happy New Year.