Filed under: Aging, Humor | Tagged: Memes, Old age | Leave a comment »
PSA-230217-Top Ten Things Not to Do
Posted on 17/02/2023 by Grumpa Joe
This list came to me from a blogger friend who got it from his blogger friend. Since the title of my blog is GRUMPAjoesplace I thought it appropriate to share it with my readers as well.
Grumpa Joe
Top Ten Things Not to Do if You Want to Remain an Unhappy Grump
10 If you want to remain unhappy, do not take care of your health. If you don’t take care at best, you’ll have a lot to complain about. At worst, we will all be glad to be rid of you. (Not a nice thing to say at the memorial service, eh, Ralph?)
9 If you want to remain unhappy, do not engage in a hobby that you are passionate about. If you don’t engage, at best, you’ll have nothing to talk about with others. At worst, Tiny, the WWF champ, will engage you in his hobby. (Tiny loves to bounce grumpy people off hardwood floors, Ace. Is that him heading your way now?)
8 If you want to remain unhappy, do not connect with some good friends and laugh heartily. If you don’t connect, at best, the frown will become permanent. At worst, you’ll become that old guy that people call in for a welfare check. (Better put away that hash pipe Stewart. The police are checking on you again.)
7 If you want to remain unhappy, do not concern yourself with having enough income and bank balance to live comfortably. If you aren’t concerned, at best, you could collect aluminum cans. At worst, trying to make a living with that “Will Work for Food” scam is tough. (Is that snow falling, Skipper? It might be time to call it a day.)
6 If you want to remain unhappy, do not help disadvantaged people in any way you can. If you don’t help, at best, you’ll keep your Howard Hughes profile. At worse, you need not expect anyone to give you a hand when you need it. (Forget that lift to the gas station, which is only ten miles from here, Dork)
5 If you want to remain unhappy, do not travel to new places with friends and family. If you don’t travel, at best, you can keep looking at those travel magazines. At worst, you will believe your trip to the corner store is a major outing. (You want to try a different direction this time, Ferd?)
4 If you want to remain unhappy, do not listen to music you like. If you don’t listen, at best, you can hum that same tune off-key. At worst, you’ll fall for every conspiracy theory proffered on talk radio. (I see you have your new tin foil hat in place, Nerd.)
3 If you want to remain unhappy, do not take pleasure in seeing your children grow into fine individuals who do well for themselves. If you don’t take the pleasure, at best, you can cuddle that fur ball you call a cat. At worse, maybe you can apply to adopt a grandpa and take pleasure in someone else’s kids. (Of course, you have to be nice, Putz.)
2 If you want to remain unhappy, do not read a book that is of interest. If you don’t read, at best, those coloring books may help. At worse, you can stay glued to the TV and go from one mindless show to the next. (With any luck, most will be reruns. Excuse me, but does it feel like your brain is running out of your ears, Slug?)
1 If you want to remain unhappy, expect everyone to give you what you need, and do not accept what life throws at you. If you want this attitude, at best, you should not leave the house. At worst, every day will be a monumental hill of disappointment to climb. (You are the pessimist’s pessimist, Roy. I’m glad you don’t live next door to me.)
Filed under: Aging, family, Humor | Tagged: Grumpy Old Men, Tips for positive attitude, Wisdom | Leave a comment »
Upgrading Frustrations
Posted on 06/01/2023 by Grumpa Joe
I finally succumbed to an annoying message that kept appearing daily on my screen about the need to upgrade my machine. Stupidly, it is my first mistake if 2023. Clicking on the “Install now” button has yielded a mystery. First it asked for a password to get into iCloud. Immediately, another window asked for a password for my Apple ID. Since I had just revised these passwords two days ago, and wrote them down, I felt confident this task would finally go easy.
After entering the second password, a new window appeared asking for the pass-code from my iPhone. I typed it in, and now the screen has frozen with a spinning wheel. The only option it gives me is a “Forgot iPhone passcode?” I can only assume that the spinning wheel indicates that this beautiful pile of engineering wonderment is searching for something. The passcode is something that I use everyday each time I want to look at my phone since the darn thing times out after 2 nano-seconds of inactivity. The wheel has been spinning for thirty-five minutes now.
What do I do?
Let it spin in the hopes that eventually it will install the updates? Shut the machine down and start all over again? What is that definition of insanity? Repeating the same activity over and over again hoping to get a new outcome.
I feel the world is going to self destruct with all of these computers being loaded with passwords requiring passwords to access. Where is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) that is supposed to forego the need for human intervention? Yet, on a daily basis we hear company after company spewing the results they get using AI.
As I am writing this rant my iPhone just beeped a message stating the following:
HU2bSs information.
We have detected suspicious activity on your account and have locked it as a precaution. Click link below to unlock your account:
https://l.ead.me/approved . . . .
If you do not verify your account before 24 hours, your Paypal account will be terminated. Sincerely,
Paypal Team
Is this a coincidence or is it related to the problem I see happening on my desktop computer?
If it weren’t for all the friends I have made on this BLOG I would go into hiding and never again show myself on any computer related correspondence again. It will be the only secure way to keep my sanity and my safety. The world is teeming with corrupt individuals working tirelessly to pick my pockets and enrich themselves. The more passwords and safety systems put into place by the computer companies the bigger the challenge becomes for the hackers to break into computers.
I truly believe there is a design answer to this dilemma. Keeping unwanted entry into computers must be built into the machines. It is doable, but is it profitable? It seems that there will always be some small portal through which thieves can gain entry, and steal to their hearts content. In the meantime, we suffer at the hands of thugs who insist on making a living by stealing. Eventually, our computers will take on the appearance of the Pyramids of Egypt. It has taken thieves as long as two thousand years to find the portals to some of the burial vaults within. If they could create such a secure system over two thousand years ago, surely we can create a better one today in our computing machines.
It has been one hour since the spinning wheel began it’s journey, and it is time for me to hit the kill switch and restart this machine. At least I was able to write a story about it. As soon as I post this piece I will enjoy the kill.
Filed under: Aging, Biography, Revenge | Tagged: Frustration, Hackers, Passwords, Security | Leave a comment »
All I Want For Christmas
Posted on 25/12/2022 by Grumpa Joe
is a nice easy to remember password that works for every site I visit, and for all the internet places I go to everyday. One would think this is an easy request, but it seems to be damn near impossible to achieve. Among the worst password requesters are Google, and Apple. Both companies demand using passwords, and that they be changed often. In the process they drive users nuts. Probably even worse than Apple is Norton password manager which requires it’s own password to enter before you can access your passwords.
Being memory challenged makes this particularly difficult to navigate. Just try reading the instructions offered by Google. They might as well be in Egyptian hieroglyphics as far as I am concerned. I am an Apple person, but if a simpler system becomes available I’ll dump everything Apple in favor of simplicity. I have an Apple user-id, but it seems that Apple can not recognize that id in any of it’s many discrete applications like iCloud, Apple Store, iTunes, iPhotos, iMovies, etc. Compound that with devices like iMac, iPad, iPhone, iWatch, and many more. I would think a simple droplet of blood applied to a device would solve the problem. I may go anemic or worse yet die because of a lack of blood, but it might be easier to use the devices.
Last week my internet service took a crap, and stopped working. In order to get it up and running I decided to reset the system by shutting everything down. I went too far, and shut off my iMac as well. That was a tragic error on my part. The most tragic was trying to re-enter my own computer after a shut down. It has been three years since the machine has been shut off, and that time gap caused me to forget the Apple id, and password for the machine. It took a full four hours of watching, and listening to Youtube videos made by two different guys from India who spoke a mile a minute with a strong Hindi accent, and tons of trial and error efforts using their recovery steps to finally get into this Mac which sits on my desk unused by anyone but myself. Success was finally achieved and unlike the woman who gives birth and forgets the pain immediately upon seeing her child my pain continues. Now, for whatever reason, in the great wisdom of Apple the Mac acts just like my iPhone. If it is unattended for a few seconds it requires, you guessed it, a password to enter again. I am positive that this useless feature can be turned off, but I may not live long enough to learn where the switch is. I will sleep easier now that I am protected from my wife getting into my computer when I’m away.
In trying to understand why all this is necessary, I vision the workplace where every colleague takes over your keyboard when you turn your back, or go to the john. I would sooner booby trap that individual and spray him with indigo blue ink than have to reenter the password every time.
Throughout all this I keep hearing about how smart artificial intelligence has become, but in my opinion this problem is beyond the capabilities of AI. Maybe in another hundred years after electric cars rule the planet, and the air is thick with the smoke of hydrocarbon fueled electric power stations, AI will be smart enough to solve the password problem. However, there is no incentive for Apple, Google, Norton, and the others to solve it because they are making too much money selling updates to newer machines that need more passwords. Like I said above, I’ll reward the company who solves the pw problem permanently with my cash. In the meantime, I’ll keep asking Santa for a solution. His elves suffer from the same malady and may be able to make the miracle happen.
Filed under: Aging, Biography, Satire | Tagged: Apple, Artificial Intelligence, Electric Cars, Google, Norton, Passwords | 2 Comments »
Gloom Versus Spasms
Posted on 18/12/2022 by Grumpa Joe
Today is a glorious sunny and cold December day, and we are making electricity. We just passed three days of gloom. How gloomy? Let me tell you how gloomy. Gloomy is when all of your light activated night lites turn on in the middle of the day. No joke that’s how dark it was. Then, to make my life more interesting I am living through the after effects of a minimally invasive procedure. Which involves a catheter and an unknown unheard of phenomenon called spasms. I’ve lived through some tough health problems in my lifetime but these spasms are the worst. I never know how to answer a medical person’s question: “On a scale of 1 to 10, where one is no pain, and ten is unbearable-excruciating pain, what level are you experiencing?” This time, my answer is that when a spasm occurs it is a bonafide 10. Thankfully, a spasm probably doesn’t last longer than 10-20 seconds, but it feels like a day. I think I have come close to child bearing pain. It is amazing that there are nine billion people in the world if the women have to bear that level of hardship.
If I had to choose between a month of gloomy days and three days of spasms, I’d choose the gloom. Over the last four score and four years I’ve experienced as many gloomy November and December days as God gave us, and I’m still here to talk about it. The only thing I will remember about these last three days are the spasms. The funny thing about my brain is that it likes to instantly remember the lousy things that happen, and push the happy, joyful things deeper into the abyss of memories. When I think about my two wives I never think about how we fell in love, or all the beautiful places we saw and the friends we made, I think about how much they suffered during their final years. Why is that? I have to consciously raise a memory of a particular trip or event to have happy thoughts, but gloomy, sad events immediately come to mind.
Happiness and sadness are very similar to positivity and negativity. We are programmed from birth to go negative automatically with our parents always telling us “no.” How many times did you hear something positive about your actions? The ratio is 100 negative to one positive. I was raised like that. As an adult I had to learn the benefits of positive thinking, and then train myself to become positive. At this age I feel I am very positive, but I often find myself reverting to the negative side of the situation. Just like these past days with the minimally invasive procedure, I should be thinking of all the easy times I will have during urination, but all I can focus on is bearing up to the “spasmodic TEN.”
My urologist has hinted that this healing process may take as long as three months. That is how long I have to continue the medication that did the job for the past ten years. I believe that if I did a payback analysis on this personal improvement it will come back with “not worth it.”
Filed under: Aging, Biography, health care, Memories | Tagged: Bladder spasms, Gloom vs happy, Positivity vs negativity, UroLift | 3 Comments »
