Just one example of adults who don't want to grow up:

The expectation when I turned 18 was that I would continue my education, but work weekends and evenings to pay for it and get my own place, which I did. And the utilities, And clothes. And transportation. In other words, take responsibility for my life as an adult. I wasn't the only one who did this - my next 3 sisters also moved out on their own in their teens. We couldn't wait to actually be free - even though it meant lots of hard work.

And now we see a surfeit of 30-something and 40-somethings, still virgins, still living with mom, still spending their free time on the internet or playing video games because anything else is too threatening. The same characteristics that make tech a safe choice (no need for social skills, safely isolated from the general public, a culture of sublimating sadness with pissing contests and electronic toys) - well, what are they going to do when mom dies or gets placed in a long-term care facility? Or finds somebody else they want to make a life with and finally puts their foot down and (more than reasonably) says "grow the fuck up and get the hell out?"

They have no real-life skills. They haven't got the ability to break out of their isolation, or they already would have. They haven't developed the resilience to overcome a major life screw-up on their own, or in many cases even how to cook or shop for groceries ... or how to work the stove or washing machine.

Those in such situations for a prolonged period of time end up interpreting events in a different way than the rest of us. With time, it can pass the boundary of what we call "delusional." I've seen how they are now paranoid, germaphobic, refuse to eat a normal diet, become anorexic, friendless (except for their "best friend mom" who they have always lived with in a co-dependent relationship characterized by mutual isolation from everyone else), and rather than trying to get help with their psychological problems insist that their life is somehow a mark of superiority, that there is nothing wrong with them, there really are people following them and targeting them for misery using infrasound projectors and their co-workers cannot be trusted and there really is something wrong with their ears causing pain even though years of tests with specialists have found absolutely nothing wrong.

This 24-year-old is lucky - events have forced her to develop the necessary independence while she's still young enough to adapt. Someone in their 30's 40's or later? They never will. And when mom dies or goes into a home and can no longer pay the rent for both of them, they will become a 50-year-old virgin who will fully retreat into their paranoid delusions. It's always easier to blame someone (or everyone) else if that's all you've ever done.

I know too many people who are in their 30s and 40s who are still living with mom, whose evenings and weekends are filled with internet and video games (yes, one of them is a 40-yer-old virgin - I warned him 10 years ago to get help or this would be the end result because his paranoia was driving everyone else in the office nuts) and seeing every event, no matter how random, as justifying their paranoia.

I would say that most people who fail to launch have more than just an introverted personality - they're fearful of rejection - even though they spend so much time anticipating how every possible outcome of an event can be a sign of rejection, and then when it happens, "see - I told you so" - even when it's obvious to any outsider that it was either a coincidence or their behaviour became a self-fulfilling prophesy.

What would happen if people couldn't retreat into "safe" careers with other similar social misfits, such as tech? Or if people couldn't easily exchange (though they aren't really replacing) social contact with "social" media and video games?

Over the next 20 years, when tech becomes less and less of a viable career, where will these people go? I suspect they will fully retreat from reality. It's easier to play a game than go meet people (and certainly easier than getting a personality transplant). We worry about the future lack of jobs because of AI, but these people aren't really employable in jobs that require human interaction anyway, so the real factor that will characterize those who have jobs from those who do not will be the soft skills. The same soft skills that our smartphones and social media are destroying. "Job retraining" won't help them.

Trump is now tweeting about how he can pardon anyone, including himself. Ignoring for the moment that only crooks need a pardon, watch this guy, who said "I have never profited from public service, I did not obstruct justice, and I am not a crook." Trump is channeling Nixon.

Will it prove that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

It has now been more than 2 years since Trump was last seen without a jacket. Nothing since March 5th 2016. Combine that with his habit of sitting hunched over with his shoulders forward, is there more going on than meets the eye (or that he doesn't want to meet the eye)?

Trump's doctor has confirmed that Trump takes finasteride to promote hair growth.

Hmmm - that drug looks familiar ... it's the same drug that many male-to-female transsexuals take to suppress testosterone and eliminate erections. It's used in cases of prostate cancer, which are sensitive to testosterone levels. I know someone who had to go that route - after a year or two they were never without a jacket, and always hunching their shoulders, to hide gynecomastia.

It would also explain the late-night tweets and anger towards women, since he's probably impotent.

Others have speculated, a bit tongue-in cheek

And a more professional opinion from a plastic surgeon who deals in moobs

Hasn't taken his jacket off in more than 2 years, sits like he's trying to hide moobs, takes finasteride, borderline obese, in 70s, his behaviour is openly hostile to women (probably because women remind him of his moobs.

Anyone got a better idea to explain why he's never without a jacket and sits so strangely, especially with Angela Merkel?

Stupid tax department just sent me a notice re tax credits that I supposedly don't qualify for. The reason:

I was born here from Canadian parents, my old birth certificate says the same, and I sent them my certificate of change of name and designated sex (that's what we call it here), but somehow now I'm an undocumented illegal alien since, even with the paperwork, they can't connect the dots.

Maybe I'm dead to them. How much would you pay to have your existence to the government wiped clean? I also wonder:

• just how did I supposedly illegally enter the country?
• what is my country of origin?
• what is my citizenship?
• can I apply for refugee status????
• will they try to deport me?
• what happens to my medical coverage?

Bureaucratic errors tend to propagate. Kind of like cockroaches. But the tax man knows better than me, even though I sent them a copy of my certificate of change of name and sex. In the same envelope as the application for the tax credit. And that somehow their notice to me was delayed because the post office returned the notice because "they - the post office - couldn't find me so they had to do research to find my current address. Even though it was on the form. Even though the post office manages to send other stuff addressed to me.

This is not the first time that the tax man claims that the post office returned mail they sent. Nobody else seems to have that problem. Not other government departments. Not my bank. Not anyone else ...

I suspect someone in the department doesn't like transsexuals and destroyed the name change cert.

Hmm .. maybe I can get them to deport me to France or Germany, and then have them deport me back to Canada. Free travel both ways. Or I can apply for refugee status under the UN stateless persons provisions. After all, I now have proof from the government that I'm not a Canadian :-)

I was thinking about net neutrality, and it led me on a strange mental path. I ended up here:

It used to be that most people had issues going online, unless they were at work. Today, many people get in trouble for going online when they work.

We had a major disaster here last month - more than 5,000 families flooded out of their homes. A month later, there are still those who have not returned home, and for many, their houses are red-tagged, meaning they will not be allowed to return. More on how I'm helping in a bit, but first ...

I've got a new endocrinologist to handle HRT (hormone replacement therapy), and he's tripled my dose of estrogen, which has not only completely crushed the depression, but it's had a totally unexpected side effect.

Turns out that estrogen increases muscle mass and strength even if you don't exercise. The last month, I've been really pushing myself physically helping almost every day, and in one month I've gone from ordinary to stronger than I've ever been. Embarrassingly so. And stamina ... well, I just don't need to take a break, even though it's heavy labour. Never thought that helping at a food bank would be so much work, but then again, they never saw ~ 100 tons of donations come in in such a short period. That's a lot of unloading, sorting, boxing, storing or shipping out to where it's needed, on top of what others have been doing feeding the victims who were evacuated by the military and fire departments, etc 3 meals a day, meals for volunteers working the sand bag crews, several fund raisers, and all sorts of other activities.

Last night I was helping get set up for today; I spent today helping prepare food boxes for more than 700 people, doing the heavy lifting others couldn't do, and all the gross jobs that I do because I wouldn't ask anyone to do something I wouldn't do myself. And I'll be at it again tomorrow, the day after, and as long as it's needed. I love it!

Not too shabby considering that 6 months ago climbing the stairs left me dizzy and out of breath, but that's what you get when you're so depressed you spend most of 3 years unable to stay awake or trying to fight the temptation to kill yourself.

3 years of hell because my endocrinologist wasn't following standards, and LIED about my test results being "perfect." Saw my last results on the 1st, from my new endo, and they are where they should be, but that's not what makes me so happy. I'm finally able to do something productive again. And the work is a lot more meaningful and a lot more rewarding than writing software.

I've talked with the families who have lost everything. I've seen how people come in just hoping for a little assistance, and when Jo-Anne takes them up and down the aisles with jumbo shopping carts and trolleys and encourages them to take more - "Do you need some of this too? How about some $INSERT_ITEM as well?" It's up-selling but at the end there's no bill. They are so grateful and relieved - but we're just as grateful to be able to help them, and for the donors who make it possible. When people are entrusting you with so much that you literally run out of space on a regular basis, it really makes you want to live up to that trust. We're really pushing ourselves, but we're determined to continue to do what I can only say is an awesome job.

Aside from my eyes, I'm simply in the best physical shape I've ever been in. Even spending my birthday Saturday in the emergency ward to get some anti-inflammatory meds (I stripped the protective membrane off a few bones - guess I overdid it a wee little bit) didn't slow me down. Fixed my back, improved my posture, and I've chopped 12 minutes of my best time biking to the hospital. Well, okay, my neck and upper jaw (from the dentist exerting way too much force and breaking my upper jaw and then yanking the broken piece out through my gums) and my eyes (which was expected) are concerns. But they're far outweighed by all the good stuff.

I am returned, at least for a while. Quite a few changes had to be made in my life. It's a long story. ;-)

Either way, for now, I am back.

Disaster relief - hard but fulfilling. We've had major floods that have left thousands homeless. The public response has been simply unbelievable.

I volunteer at the On Rock food bank Monday mornings, helping prepare food boxes for more than 200 families. As we were finishing up Monday, a gentleman showed up who lives on Ile Bizard, and like many others living there, had been under a mandatory evacuation order because flood waters were several feet deep.

The city provided emergency shelter, but not for his dog (a pitbull), so the dog had been sleeping in the car. Realizing that most people would be reluctant to help because of the dog breed, I took them both in, and the only problem with the pitbull is she likes me so much that I have lots of scratches on my arm. It will probably be another week before they can move back. I'm okay with that.

Tuesday evening the regular volunteers got an email asking us to come in because it was literally "Christmas in May." Sunday (today) is the first day that I haven't been helping everyone schlep tons and tons of donations from trucks and the donation bins we had put outside so people could drop the food off quickly, which at one point were filling up as fast as we emptied them.

The response of the entire West Island community has been - well, you'd have to see it to believe it. Prepared meals to be distributed to the displaced - a lot of them donated by restaurants who are, together with the donations to food banks, feeding thousands of people, plus emergency crews and the military, 3 times a day.

All the extra hands that showed up to help made a huge difference - often, it was entire families, including little children. And yes, those kids were NOT in the way at all - they were able to help with things like sorting and moving 15-packs of toilet paper, freeing the adults to take care of heavier items. And they never lacked for LOTS of supervision.

I just got a text saying I won't be needed until tomorrow morning, so I have time to write this. This disaster has brought out the best in people, and I've gotten to meet and work with many of them.

The flood waters might be receding, but it's not just the people who were flooded out who need help. Businesses have closed, and some may not reopen, the loss is so great. People will be thrown out of work. Some who are moving back home don't have a working fridge, stove, or microwave, and what food was left behind has to be thrown in a dumpster, along with furniture, clothes, children's toys, carpeting, floors and walls ...

The state of emergency will be lifted at noon, but the military will be staying, and people will continue to help each other out, because that's what needs to happen, and West Islanders will continue doing amazing things.

There is one sour note. A waitress took a couple of days off to help out her neighbors, and was suspended. She's now looking for another job. Hopefully one of the many restaurants who repeatedly donated so much will realize the value of such a worker.

PS: Happy Mother's Day.

I'm royally pissed off - again - so I'm just writing this for future reference. Sorry if it rambles a bit

But first a question for you to think about while you read this - who owns your teeth after they've been extracted? This is not a random question.

The dentist's receptionist/mother called, asked me to bring the x-ray, which I did. Of course, the dentist never showed her face even though I was there for almost 2 hours, just to get a referral to a maxillofacial surgeon. I'd be hiding too if I broke someone's upper jaw. Then she made a serious mistake.

She phoned me and once again accused me of stealing MY tooth. How can you steal your own tooth? Beats me. I never signed a release transferring ownership. The procedure was finished, so I took my tooth - with the piece of broken jawbone attached. My dentist claimed it was illegal, but I seriously doubt it. It was on the tray in the kitchen, my sister had come to pick me up (good thing - I was a bit wobbly after being frozen 4 separate times because she wasted time on other stuff. Now she's claiming I "stole it from her lab." Even though there's no sign calling it a lab, no "do not enter", she refers to it as the kitchen in regular conversation, and it has a kitchen counter, cupboards, sink, etc. She even said that her assistant had "contaminated the kitchen with blood from (my) teeth" and everything had to be sterilized. It's a kitchen, dammit!

But of course today the facts have changed. Supposedly, she told me before I left that they needed to keep it. A lie, but if she had asked, I would have said okay, same as when her mother called at 8 pm to ask me to bring it back to be sent out for analysis, I agreed to have it there by 9:15 am the next morning). Her mother also now claims I was told the same thing before I left, but shut up when I said "You weren't even in the room so you don't know what was said.".

Anyway, I invited them - no, I urged them - to call the police on me. "So call the police. Tell them I stole my tooth. I'll be quite happy to tell them what happened"' Of course, they wont. You can't steal what's always been yours.

They tried to use the dental code of ethics against me. Turns out they don't even know the law. The dental code of ethics only applies to the dentist, not the patient. Also, they were shocked to find out that the code of ethics is provincial law, and the order of dentists only has authority to apply it to dentists. Unlike her, I've had cause to read the code of ethics recently, and contrary to her assertion, it says nothing about her owning any teeth that are extracted. Wonder how many gold fillings she squirrels away ... reminds me of the nazi death camps "recovering" gold from their victims.

She left me a nasty voice mail after I said I'm going to sue. On the voice mail, she used this phrase: "You stole the evidence!" Damn right it's evidence. I'm glad I took MY tooth back, because it's proof of negligence. Calling it "evidence" is a Freudian slip. Examining it and the jawbone it's embedded in, it's obvious she should never have forced in both directions, because she had only cleared part of one side and, near the end. she started alternating leverage (not forceps - a #303 root tip elevator). She said that it was better to cut the gum and drill away some bone than to just pull the tooth out. Well, turns out that using an elevator has the known risk of fracturing the maxillary (upper jaw).(scroll down to #64.2, also quoted below)

The elevators work by using the jawbone as a fulcrum or pivot point, which is why applying excess pressure using the mandible as a fulcrum can fracture it. This is a known problem, even on people who don't have soft bones. She can't claim ignorance about my soft bones because she has been complaining on previous visits that I have soft bones (I told her I have osteopenia) - and besides, she knew the bones were more fragile than normal. She was always complaining about how the bone under the point where the fulcrum of the root elevator resting against the jawbone would peel off under pressure. She was negligent in applying excess force on a known fragile mandible.

In other words, she should have done it the old-fashioned way - forceps, instead of applying pressure to the mandible. BTW, it's been 22 days and my neck is still sore. That's a LOT of pressure she applied. Upon encountering too much resistance, she could have removed more bone from around the root as a precaution. How hard can it be to take off more, since it's not that hard anyway, right?

The worst part is she should have sent me to the emergency department of the hospital - they could have removed the tooth from the broken jawbone and re-implanted the broken section, and with a little bit of support to immobilize it, it would have healed on its own. That would have been a lot more constructive than running from the room in a panic and screaming that she broke my jaw and I'm going to need a bone graft and who's going to pay for it? (hint: Pottery Barn rules apply, especially in cases of negligence. You broke it, you pay for it)

Then again, when there's a known elevated risk of fracture even on patients without soft bones. She was negligent to attempt the procedure in the first place.

She should have informed me of the elevated risk of fracture of the mandible in my case and offered to refer me to a maxillo-facial surgeon, but never did.

What makes it worse was that she was going on, just before the fracture, about how increased pressure (remember, she had had a melt-down after arriving) just brings out the best in her skills. In retrospect, this is her trying to convince herself that she had the skills to do the extraction despite the resistance, and this led her both to ignore the fracture when it happened, and the subsequent strangeness of a tooth not coming out despite floating fairly freely (because the piece of jaw attached to it was no longer attached to the rest of the jaw). The broken bone dragged against the rest of the mandible for a minute to a minute and a half - a quick look-see would have shown the bone that the tooth was embedded in was now moving around, making it obvious the jaw had fractured and to stop trying to pull the broken bone through the soft tissues.

It's going to take half a year to fix this crap. You couldn't pay me to go through it - but I have no choice - and now I don't feel guilty about asking a court to force her to compensate me. I've been called lots of things, but never, ever a thief. So yes, I'm royally pissed off. Both at her dissimulation, and her attempts to place blame on me.

Oh, and she still insists that my bones are soft because I take too much estrogen. Again, I reminded her that I have regular blood tests, and they show the exact opposite. She claims she has special training in endocrinology. She's full of shit, or she'd know that blood tests are definitive.

Everything that happens is always someone else's fault. She's going to learn that if you're always blaming others, the problem is most likely you, not them. Oh, and I have her on billing fraud against the government. And regularly violating patient confidentiality. This will be "interesting times."

Anyway, sorry for the rambling on - I just want to get the facts down immediately, for future reference. As usual

Turns out that the rules of small claims court have been broadened. Any claim of up to $15,000 can be submitted. That's probably the fastest, and cheapest, way to resolve the problem with my dentist.

She had sent me to get a panoramic x-ray, I went and had it done, brought it back, and as I walked in she told me to get out and make an appointment. To drop of an x-ray! That takes nerve.

There were patients waiting, so maybe they had second thoughts after seeing me angry.

That's the first time I've sworn in public this decade. Well past due. Also, research shows that the panoramic x-ray isn't needed - we already know the jaw was fractured - I've got a piece of it in a bottle attached to the upper left canine (tooth 23). She should have either referred me immediately to a maxillofacial specialist of the trauma section of the local hospital's emergency department, where they can do a proper, higher-resolution image. The panorex is shit in comparison.

But first I want to see my GP to get a referral to the surgeon. And I want to file an official complaint with the order of dentists. I can do the complaint this week, but the referral will depend on how long it takes my GP to get the test results from the nuclear medicine dept (tomorrow) and cardiology lab (the day after) - stress test (just as a precaution - there's nothing whatsoever wrong with my heart even though both my parents died early of heart attacks - my father at 47 and my mother at 59, and I'll be 61 in June). They'll tell me the delay, and I'll walk across the street and book an appointment for the day after she should receive the results.

And maybe have my neck checked at the same time. 3 weeks later, and it still hurts to look either side from all the force she applied.

The dentist showed up 45 minutes late. She had her assistant get me set up in the chair, then proceeded to have a royal meltdown, which was visible through the open door. She was crying and screaming at her 71-year-old mother (who is the receptionist and has said many times she doesn't want to work there - guess she's been guilted into it), accusing her of shoving $170 of food onto the floor, then jumping on a cake, of all things.

At that point I almost left. I should have left, but I thought to myself "I don't want to kick someone when they're obviously having a mental breakdown." Her mental state had gone wonky once or twice before, but it hadn't affected her work. Well, except that she had been going through dental assistants like water through a wet Kleenex. They were all incompetent, didn't know what they were doing, couldn't follow instructions. Same as, according to her, she couldn't work with her brother because he hated her, her parents hate her, the government is out to make her life hard, etc.

Plus, up until now, she had been pretty painless in her work, unlike the dentists of my youth. You don't want to give up on the first dentist in your life who doesn't hurt you.

She hadn't been like that a decade ago, when she opened her practice a few offices down from where I was working, so, needing a dentist, I figured why not her?

She came back half an hour later (she was working on another patient) and froze my upper jaw, then left again. By the time she came back and started working, the lidocaine had started to wear off, so more injections. Had to be done 4 times, which helps explain why I was unsteady on my feet after.

Part-way through, she needed a #303 root elevator to take out my upper left canine. So, 5 minutes of screaming at the assistant to find a #303 root elevator (why she didn't check to make sure it had been placed on the tray with the other instruments is beyond me - this is the third visit we've had to stop and play this particular game. She's not exactly the most organized person in the world, but like I said, I didn't want to give up on a dentist who didn't hurt me).

Besides, this was to be the last time I'd need local anesthesia. "No more dental surgery after tody!"

Finally, I reach the breaking point

She's sliced open the gums to have access to the bone holding the tooth in place, and drilled enough maxilliary bone away to be able to insert the root elevator, to "lift" or "torque" the tooth out rather than just pulling it. She had me looking left, then looking right, all the time exerting greater and greater force. She might have changed tools at one point to be able to apply so much pressure, because 13 days later my neck is still sore.

There's an incredible amount of pain, and I hear what sounds like walking on small gravel. That turned out to be a chunk of my fractured jaw bone grinding in place, still attached to the tooth, then being dragged over the part that wasn't fractured. This went on for a really painful minute or so. Then the tooth and the bone were pulled through the gum tissue, obviously doing a lot of damage on the way out.

The dentist goes into the front office shouting "She's going to need a bone graft. Who's going to pay for that?" (hint - not me, you can be damn sure of that! If she had stopped when she fractured the jaw, the tooth could have been supported in place and the jaw probably left to knit back together on its' own.)

Still can't eat anything except soup, and stuff that can be swallowed whole - the stitches are a b*tch.

Why the big deal about me taking my tooth and bone home?

After I was all sewed up and biting down on gauze, I started picking around on the tool tray to find that sucker! I was asking the assistant to wrap it in tissue so I could show it to my sister (because who would believe it otherwise) when the dentist came back and said to wait until the assistant had cleaned the tray, then left again, probably to work on someone else.

20 minutes later my sister texted me to say she was waiting in the parking lot waiting to drive me home (good thing too, with all that lidocaine making it hard to keep my balance). No sign of the dentist, so I get my 1-week follow-up appointment, take my tooth and say my goodbyes to the assistant and the receptionist, and leave.

The 1-1/2 hour visit has now taken more than twice that, and obviously I'm not finished being cut open :-(

At 8 pm, the receptionist calls back to say that I need to bring the tooth and bone back tomorrow because they want to send it out to a pathologist to find out why my bones are so soft (the dentist had complained on previous visits that my bones were very soft - I had told her before that I have osteopenia, a precursor to osteoporosis, and it was also on my chart. Like I said, not very organized). "No problem, I'll be there at 9:15 am."

At 10 pm, the dentist calls back all angry at ME! "You went behind my back and took that tooth! I got the full story from my assistant! Don't bother bringing it back!" WTF??? It's MY tooth and bone, and if she wanted to do tests on it, she had to get my consent first, which means informing me first. She hadn't said anything of the sort when she saw I had the tooth in my hand, and I had brought a previous tooth home, no problem. I didn't say anything, but afterward I was thinking "why is it my fault that I'm not a mind reader and where is the apology for breaking my jaw?" This is too too weird - and I'm used to weird stuff happening to me.

Either the test was necessary, in which case it's a medical error to cancel it in a fit of pique, or it isn't, so why order it? I decided than that it was a good thing I had taken it.

The silent treatment

I go for the 1-week checkup, wait an hour, the dentist never talks to me, never examines anything, just tells the receptionist to give me a requisition for a panoramic x-ray at the local clinic and that's it. No explanations, no renewal of the antibiotic prescription for the second week, nothing. Now I'm starting to get a bit pissed off.

Wrong pills

Two days after the surgery I went to the emergency because I thought an infection might have set in. I told the doctor my worry, and that I had doubled up on the antibiotic that morning just in case. "Antibiotics don't work that way." He asks what I was on, so I showed him the bottle.

"This is a children's dose. You did the right thing doubling up. Keep on until they're gone, and I'll give you a prescription for a week at the proper dose." It's a good thing he did, because the dentist "forgot" the second week's prescription, and there was zero renewals after the first week - which is strange.

So I'm going for the panorama x-ray tomorrow, and back to the dentist to get a referral to a maxillo-facial surgeon to do the bone graft. Then I'll ask the surgeon to recommend a better dentist.

After all this mess, my sister looked her up on the internet. Wish I had thought of that. Check out the comments.

The one about not respecting patient privacy is accurate. Part-way through, she left to get the x-ray of the other patient, and insisted on showing it to me (cracked tooth, name of patient on x-ray). I wasn't interested, and besides, it's hard to see an x-ray with cataracts, etc.

In my opinion, she needs help. She also shouldn't be doing oral surgery without supervision, or maybe not at all. Infections of the jaw were often fatal before antibiotics. Screwing up the antibiotics, then not giving a complete course, put me at risk of some nasty sh*t. This mess was more painful than my root canal.

And now I'll have to have my mouth cut open again :-( Looks like I'll be eating mush for a while.

My endocrinologist (I'm on hormone replacement therapy) has been lying to me for 5 years. It's only after another doctor ordered additional tests to find out what might be contributing to my fatigue and depression that the truth came out. My endo had been giving me only 1/4 the recommended starter dose for HRT. I confronted him, telling him that I had never consented to non-standard treatment, and would obtain the missing medication illegally if he refused to fix the problem. He only increased the dose to 1/3 after a very heated discussion. I obtained the missing estrogen elsewhere and thoughts of suicide have disappeared. Now, in what looks like either retaliation or an attempt to keep from being second-guessed, he's removed estrogen levels from my blood tests.

I've never crowd-sourced or crowd-funded anything before, but it seems to be an effective way to at least draw attention to the problem. Hopefully the slashdot hive mind will have some ideas.

Earth Day - the day we're supposed to show our concern for the environment by turning off our lights for one hour between 8:30 and 9:30 pm - is just greenwashing.

It's still below freezing here, and I doubt than any of the people who will be turning out their lights will be pulling their main circuit breaker to also turn of their heat, fridge, etc. But if everyone did, it would actually have a negative impact on the environment, as everyone turning the heat back on at 9:30 will create a spike in demand - a spike that will have to be met via peak electrical generator units, which are less efficient.

And everyone driving to some place to hold a candle-light vigil? Come off it - unless you walked or biked you probably used more energy than if you sat at home with all your lights on at once.

The sun sets here today at 7:13 pm. I'm not going to be bumbling around in the dark for an hour like some poseurs. I'm greener than anyone I know. I walk everywhere I can - last Wednesday it was 13 km to go to the dentist and back the day after the 16" snowstorm. Next week it will be 19 km round-trip to the doctor's. I use public transit when I have to. I recycle. But my lights are going to be on tonight. I don't need to fake being green so I can feel like I'm doing something positive.

The last few years, I've been able to read again, but NOT program. Sitting in front of the computer trying to write code, I would just draw a blank. This was the second time - the first being after the whole flesh-eating disease thing a couple of decades ago.

Finally got off the antidepressants a couple of months ago (psychiatrist still wants me on them because I still show signs of anxiety and depression, but ...). This laptop is stuck with Windows 8.1, and there was no way I could get into coding - until I loaded openSUSE into a VM this weekend, on a hunch. I think I'm going to be okay (well, except for 20/300 vision in one eye, and 20/50 in the other, both because of cataracts* - but at least the retinal bleeding has pretty much stopped - no major hemorrhages in 8 months, though I now need cataract surgery and to see a glaucoma specialist).

Things I discovered over the last few years:

1. IDEs have gotten WAY TOO COUNTERPRODUCTIVE. The worst example is android studio. What a piece of shit. 1.6 gigs, downloaded an example program, wouldn't compile, clicked on "install missing libraries", over and over and over, rebooted, no diff. Reinstalled, no diff.

Eclipse isn't any better.

2. The old, simple ways worked, and if it ain't broke, why fix it? gedit/vim, make, and a few perl and bash scripts for versioning, etc. are all I need for c/c++ and java. At least when something doesn't work, I can find why quickly.

3. Which brings up a beef (well, another one) about Android. Material design is counter-intuitive. Horizontal on-off switches??? At least a checkbox, you can tell at a glance whether it's on or off. With a horizontal toggle, is left on or is right on? Takes up more space and is less intuitive. Yet another example of change for change's sake that ends up screwing up simple, already solved problems. We keep "solving" already-solved problems, and I suspect it's pushed by people trying to justify their jobs. Like usual.

4. Ageism. It's been real the last few jobs, and there's no way it's gotten better since I stopped working. Of course, the demand for c/c++/java programmers isn't that great here any more, and the demand for 60-year-old coders is probably zero. I could get away with chopping 10-15 years off my age (most people I've met are kind of shocked I'm that old - "you certainly don't look it!") - and there is NOTHING a potential employer can do if you lie about your age. Age is not pertinent to doing a job, and using that as a reason if/when they find out pretty much proves age discrimination, but what the hell - I'm not going to be looking for a regular job anyway, right? I remember the crappy working conditions - I'd rather work part time for minimum wage elsewhere than go back to working for schmucks. Or as one softie put it - "went lettuce picking."

5. That last point bears repeating on its own : I remember the crappy working conditions. It's just not worth it. Why waste your life explaining why $IDEA is neither great, new, earth-shaking, innovative, or worth pursuing. Or telling them to f*ck off about using Rails, Groovy, $LATEST_FAD_LIBRARY_FRAMEWORK.

6. LINUX TO THE RESCUE (again).

The importance of being able to program again is mostly to restore my self-assurance that the last few years haven't caused any real damage, not to go back into coding.

Should be interesting ... same as the whole cataract surgery thing (not a big deal). I'll probably go the independent, semi-retired route. Spend more time with the little dog, neighbors, etc., and less time trying to justify my existence to the world :-)

* You probably can't blast lasers through the lens onto the retina 4-5000 times per eye without doing some damage to the lens as well. Oh well, (imitate voice-over from "$6 million man" - we have the technology) it sure isn't going to be anywhere near as bad as the vitrectromy.

For the longest time, the gay community has encouraged confusion between cross-dressers and transsexuals - even many of them say that transsexual women are just gay men in dresses.

That's bad enough - but so many in the "transgender community", including LGB transsexuals, have bought into a similar line - that straight transsexual women were all just repressed gay men.

Sounds reasonable if you buy into the whole "sexual orientation is always fixed." Unfortunately, the animal kingdom puts the lie to that in a big way - there are many animals that change sex (which is even more extreme) and then go on to procreate and produce young in their new sex.

Were the ones who used to be female really all just suppressed males, and vice versa? Any reasonable person would laugh at that. The animals changed both sex and sexual orientation.

But closeted gay psychiatrists (see Ray Blanchard, with his classification of straight transsexuals as "homosexual autogynephiles", and J. Michael Bailey, who wrote a book based on "research" claiming to show that transsexual women were, again, gay men, and went on to "prove" it by interviewing, and having sex with, gay transvestites) just loved to get paid spouting bullshit that furthered their personal agendas. After all, false news makes money, always has, always will.

The LGBT community vigorously denies that transsexuals can be straight in one sex, transition, and be straight in their new sex. It threatens their narrative that sexual orientation is immutable, while failing to note that not all transsexuals are gay in the first place (50% of transsexual women are straight, 1/3 bi, and 1/6 lesbian).

It also is a total denial of reality in the prison systems - straight people engage in gay and lesbian sex all the time, without any previous indicator that they might have been repressing their "true sexual orientation."

It's gotten to the point that straight transsexuals will not challenge the "suppressed gay male" story because they know they will be trashed as homophobes. All this while acknowledging that there are differences between the brains of transsexuals and non-transsexuals - they apply the same standards to both transsexuals and non-transsexuals who change sexual orientation - it MUST have been because you were really gay. How ghey is that?

The easiest way to tell if someone is a repressed gay guy is to hit on them. The really repressed ones will react violently. This has been proven in court often enough that we had to outlaw the "gay panic defense" for men accused of killing drag queens and transsexual women. So it's reasonable to assume that any transsexual woman who, prior to transition, didn't react negatively while living as a straight man, probably wasn't a repressed gay cross-dresser just dying to put on a dress.

They are doing the same to transsexuals who were straight both prior and post transition as the religious right did to all transsexuals - "you're really just gay men in drag." Bunch of fucktards with no sense of self-awareness.