Pandemic

I have not posted here for a while but I am going to write something about this COVID-19 pandemic.

I think it has become obvious to everyone now that a country with a totalitarian regime like China is much better at dealing with a crisis like COVID-19 than the USA. Americans love their freedom and will fight everything and anything ordered or recommended by authoritarian figures, including political leaders and scientific experts, and that is a real problem when trying to establish national best practices in times of crisis. Even simple measures like enforcing the wearing of a face mask has resulted in people getting killed by angry dissents. On the other hand, one might simply conclude that Asians are just more used to wearing face masks.

So the following is the logical conclusion of the above, that the US needs to either end its democracy, or import more Asians, especially Chinese, in order to better combat COVID-19. The end.

City Employee Badge

I have been working for the city for a while now, and just finished my 6 months probation period last month. After this probationary period, I have to say something about my city employee's badge.

During the orientation an HR lady asked us new employees to think about what the city badge may represent in the eyes of the public, and we should act accordingly. For example, if we were offered a cup of coffee free at a local business, maybe we ought to refuse it.

What I have to say is that my personal experience has been quite the opposite. I have been carrying my city employee's badge everywhere I go, just short of brandishing and flaunting it in everyone's face, and I have yet to receive my free cup of coffee.

I think I am going to ask her where she gets her breakfast and try my luck there. Her name is Jill. To avoid my question becoming a city public record, I will ask her in person instead of sending her an email. I will keep you guys posted if I ever received my free cup of coffee.

Happy almost new year everyone!

Internal Guilt

Today I would like to make a confession about all the things I have felt guilty about in life:

1) Not learning to play the piano
I have felt guilty ever since my mother bought a $4,000 piano 12 years ago and told me I could play it at their place when I have learned how to. This guilt has always been on the back of my mind. It has pretty much stopped me from playing any video game that required finger dexterity because I kept telling myself that I could use the opportunity to learn the piano instead. This is the reason why I have only played Splatoon twice on Wii U after I got it. This guilt has grown with each passing year. As a result I am thinking about taking a makeup class because that will give me an opportunity to work with my fingers.

2) Not getting a perfect SAT score
I have been studying the SAT for the last 20 years due to this. On my last practice test I got close. The plus side is that this continued study helped my GRE score. I scored perfect on GRE math and 90 percentile on verbal. That was quite a few years ago. I am pretty sure that I can do better now if I tried again. I also became a SAT math tutor because of this.

3) Breaking up with my ex-girlfriend
I have felt so guilty about this breakup that I still have not thought of a good way to tell her yet. I have to break it to her soon as the wedding date approaches. My fiance does not know about my ex.

Okay, that's all for now. Happy Assumption Day!

P.S. I am not Catholic. I just looked that up.

Turtle

I have had my turtle for a while now. I like him a lot, so I am dedicating this poem "To Yellow bellied Slider" to him:

O little yellow green turtle,
your shell is hard but not brittle.
Always hiding and seeking,
what are you finding?
All the minnows have been eaten,
though I feed you pellets quite often.
A slow crawler of the riverbank,
Now the king of an entire tank!

Suicide Squad

I saw the movie "Suicide Squad" last weekend. I am not sure what excited me more, seeing the movie on its opening day, or finally catching a Venomoth in Pokemon Go in the movie theater's parking lot. The critter had been eluding me for several weeks now. That is all I can remember and will write about my weekend movie experience.

By the way, it is pouring today and the entire Tampa bay area is under flood warning. I have no problem with it really, as long as we get a chance to catch more water based Pokemon inside the flood zones. Maybe I should organize an event with the local players driving out to the flood zones, it will be spectacular.

Trip Back to Florida

I just drove back to Florida with my dad after having attended my cousin's wedding in Ohio. My car was breaking down pretty badly, the steering wheel shook hard when it hit 50 mph. This reminded me a movie I saw back in Ohio, The Finest Hours. For those who haven't seen the film, this is the description on IMDB -- "The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952."

So while my steering wheel shook, I thought to myself, what would Chris Pine's character Bernie Webber do in this situation? Press on of course! If Bernie Webber wasn't stopped by losing the compass in a hellish storm under frigid temperatures, we are sure not going to be stopped by our car falling apart! With that in mind I stepped hard on the gas pedal and maintained a 75 mph average speed, and me and my dad made it back home in no time.

Ant-Man

I saw the movie Ant-Man on Saturday night. It made me think about what I would do if I had an ant-man suit. I think maybe cellphone repairs, because cellphone internal parts can be handled much easier if our hands were smaller. I would advertise my service on Craigslist and get mad street credits, then I would be known as the best cellphone repairman there ever was and make loads of cash. Also I think the name Ant-Man was a misnomer, because he was really more roach-sized than ant-sized, and he was as hard to kill as cockroaches. The movie should have been called Roach-Man.