I remember seeing bumper stickers and tee shirts with this phrase back in the 80s, especially on the boardwalk, and then later in military surplus shops. There was usually some kind of skull and an American flag involved:

KILL 'EM ALL. LET GOD SORT 'EM OUT.

I always wondered who would wear a shirt like this, and what it meant, to be the sort of person that would choose this, of all sentiments, to express to passing strangers.

I have a life-long neurosis, especially about clothes: I don't display messages. I don't care that you know that, for example, My Parents Went To Sierra Leone And All I Got Was This Stupid Tee Shirt, or that I'd visited the Hard Rock Cafe or that I saw Metallica on tour.

These sorts of things start conversations, and if there is anything I am never up for it is a spontaneous conversation with a stranger. I have brooding, daydreaming, and staring blankly at the suburban spectacle to do.

And what kind of conversation do you have with a person who says Kill 'em All, Let God Sort 'em Out anyway?

"I saw your shirt and I, too, wish to express my profound disappointment with the Rambo knife knockoffs; that hollow handle and lack of a tang is a total letdown."

I didn't think too much about it. It's just American trash culture after all; the kind which morphs only ever so slightly as the decades pass. A whole lot of people out there want to play 'sojer but are scared to fucking death of Basic Training, is the best I can surmise.

Be a prepper, be a survivalist, grow the beard, wear the tac gear. Everything black; flashlights black so when you drop them at night you can't find them, black Glocks, black knives with black handles and blacked-out blades so no one sees you coming.

I didn't have any time for that. I was too busy being alienated, bored, horrified, and masturbating furiously, as one does, to feel something amid the consumerist hellscape of American society since the end of World War 2.

I mean, it sounds like I'm complaining, and I am, but what really turns your stomach as the years go by is that all of the rebels, the people who insist they challenge the status quo, are either completely part of it (McPreppers and McAnarchists and McCommunists and McProtesters and McTrumpies), or else represent an alternative so reprehensible and dark you suck it up and resolve to remain satisfied with the status quo.

There's nothing worse than when the rebels are bigger gigglemuppets than the suits.

In the last few years I've been trying to understand people into the occult. On one hand I get why Christian morality can be kind of rough, opposed as it is to the fun and non-procrative kind of sex, the guilt, the perverts in the clergy, or else as a result of what the performative religious rebels, the Satanists, regard as a tyrant God pushing a slave religion.

The deeper I dove into things like Thelema and these books everyone in the occult reads (the Kybalion, the Secret Teachings of All Ages, the adolescent and insipid Satanic Bible, and many others), the more all of these things seemed, whatever their more enthusiastic relationship with one's genitalia, insipid to the point of moronic.

Aleister Crowley, in particular, is quite a character. He created a whole religion in which his addled followers consume "Cakes of Light," a kind of obscene riff on communion, in which bodily fluids (semen, menstrual blood) are baked into cakes and handed out during what Crowley calls the Gnostic Mass, which involves naked preistesses and phallic lances. At the moment of Thelemic "communion," the congregant says, "There is no part of me that is not of the Gods!"

(Those of us who grew up Catholic simply respond "Amen" to the "Body of Christ" declaration by the priest or Eucharistic minister).

I'm trying to figure out whether this prank of getting people to wank into cakes others freely ate of was (a) a pervy turn-on to Crowley (b) truly represented a twisted gnosis of some sort of (c) misanthropically hilarious. Anton LaVey, by comparison, was fundamentally a misanthropist who hated mankind, and tried to build a private aristocracy around him. I wonder about Crowley, and people who rubbed shoulders with him, like L. Ron Hubbard.

Happy Little Clam that I am, I found myself rejecting as ludicrous tome after tome, grimoire after grimoire. I wasn't looking to join the occult or believe in the occult anyway. I was just hoping to understand it better.

Christians who fear and loathe the occult, by avoiding it entirely, can be forgiven for understanding what a deep well it can be. It's more than hocus-pocus and more like deviant psychology.

LaVey, the Satanist, cautions practitioners to always credit magic(k) after a ritual. It is sort of like the way the Powers That Be in the United States want people to keep repeating "We can't rely on Social Security" when we get old. This is more a Jedi mind trick than it is a statement of fact. The more people believe it won't exist for them, the easier it will be to abolish it.

So too with magick, in which, whether or not one is able to cause "Change to occur in conformity with Will" in the sense of summoning supernatural or psychological or egregoric forces, one should always regard a ritual only within the context of the ritual itself: a thing fails because the magick was not done properly; one was lazy about banishing, or, a thing happens, on account of a successful magic(k)al working.

Thus, one performs a ritual to obtain money, and then, all wound up from the magickal act, drives down to an Indian casino and strikes it rich on a slot machine.

The win may well have been completely random chance, but the magickal practitioner *must credit magic(k)*, the aim is to emphasize in the practitioners subconscious that he *can, in fact, muster the forces of the netherworld,* is *powerful because of it*, and so on. This change in mindset is likely to cause a change in action.

An incel dweeb undertakes an occult working, and by random chance a thing he expressed an intention for shows up, well, now he's a magician. Now he carries himself differently. He's got something other than his weeb anime shit and video games on his side.

Could pay dividends. People are attracted to power, or the "glamo(u)r" of it.

So you always have to credit magick so you start believing you're some kind of wizard or something.

You can play with allegory, symbolism, metaphor, planets, spagyrics, minerals...whatever convinces you of the thing you need to be convinced of.

I got bored. I got bored like I got bored of everyone "getting around to it," as I used to call it, which was this tendency of every conversation I ever had in college winding up in someone expressing a desire for revolution, the destruction of the current system, and actual or implied mass murder of whoever the person I was talking to thought was responsible for our current condition.

Indeed, politics became boring as I realized that people into practically every political ideology will eventually use their reasoning to decide under what circumstances they may attack or exterminate another human being. Left, right, doesn't matter: what really links all ideologies together is the insistance that, ultimately, a given ideology will possess the moral authority to murder, on the basis of its essential *rightness*.

Hence, either the capitalists, or agents of the state, or tyrants, or taxmen, or CEOs, or communists, or Jews, will be "up against the wall" when the right kind of revolution comes.

What horrified me was the degree not to which I found this appalling, but how utterly boring it was that every ideologue, wound up enough, on the right day, ripped to the tits on the right outrage, would turn into this kind of sanctimonious monster.

Raskolnikov, the main character in Crime & Punishment, allows himself a similar trip when he commits the murder that sets the events of the book in motion: he believes himself to be of a superior caste. So too, ideologues who will eventually believe themselves to be more moral than their opposition, and, since their cause is just, the normal rules of human behavior would not apply to them.

Given the right kind of mob that they can hide in, of course. It is amazing what mobs enable the spineless to do under the cover of the herd.

What I did find interesting in the occult -- also full of often cryptofascist elitism, especially the left-hand path enthusiasts, were the heretics and schismatics who challenged mainstream Christianity for reasons other than a desire to fornicate themseleves into a stupor.

It took me awhile to really grok gnosticism, which is the process by which one experiences the divine, rather than merely believes in or has faith in it. It's the difference between reading about sex, and actually having sex.

It flares up throughout history, only to be wiped out by the orthodox, only to re-appear sometimes centuries later in a different part of the world. This aspect of human experience is interesting to me.

Chinese alchemy proposed a lot of principles identical or similar to Western and Egyptian alchemy, for instance. That this complex tradition (for those who only understand alchemy through the lens of Harry Potter and that anime series, trust me, it's complex as hell) could arise in different civilizations at different times with synchronous principles speaks to Jungian prejudices about archetypes and collective unconscious: in this case, one sea of human unconscious as a common construction set from which both alchemical systems were created and which, being built with the same psychological bricks, represented each other.

So too with gnosticism: this need to Know God by experiencing Him or It. Crowley's Thelemites seek something called Knowledge and Conversation of their Holy Guardian Angel; a connection with the higher self, the higher self being made of god-stuff.

It is unclear whether these gnostic flare-ups have any knowledge of the other; but there are several instances of what Ghost in the Shell termed Stand Alone Complexes. The Rosicrucians are a perfect example of something left on the ground, picked up, and recontextualized for the modern world. Rosicrucianism historically was never as wound up about Egyptian stuff as neoRosicrucianism is, but it makes sense. When Harvey Spencer Lewis founded AMORC, he did so an age of Egypt fever in which people had a specific fascination with ancient Egypt, pyramids, and the like (the passing of this cultural fad is also why it seems so goofy now).

Reading about gnosticism, one eventually winds up reading about phenomena like the Bogomils, and the Albigensians/Cathars, the latter of which play roles in some Templaresque conspiracy theories.

I probably would never have gotten here except through trying to unwind the twist and turns of esoteric and occult history.

The Catholic Church was not a fan of the Cathars, who lived in southern France. Among other things, the Cathars believed that the physical world was basically evil (compare to the older gnostic ideas about the Demiurge straying from the Pleroma and creating the physical world of suffering, separation, and density). I mention this because when you want a contrast between the occult traditions that are all about sex, the Cathars did not seem to be fans, on account of the carnal earthliness of it, and eventual procreation, damning another human being to inhabit this physical prison.

(They were gloom cookies.)

There are a lot of interesting things about the Cathars -- they are, for me, probably the most interesting strain of gnosticism -- but I had to laugh a bitter sort of chuckle when I came across this bit:

The Catholic Church of the time, drunk on its righteousness which is a tradition of nearly every religion and ideology, sends a bunch of crusaders to do violence to the Cathars.

This is from Wikipedia.

The Crusaders captured the small village of Servian and then headed for B‚ziers, arriving on July 21, 1209. Under the command of the papal legate, Arnaud Amalric, they started to besiege the city, calling on the Catholics within to come out, and demanding that the Cathars surrender. Neither group did as commanded. The city fell the following day when an abortive sortie was pursued back through the open gates. The entire population was slaughtered and the city burned to the ground. It was reported that Amalric, when asked how to distinguish Cathars from Catholics, responded, "Kill them all! God will know his own."

700+ years later, I'd be standing on a boardwalk at the Jersey Shore, looking at a tee shirt that said, "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out."

Because all of life and history relates to itself, in this manner.

"Raphael Lemkin, who in the 20th century coined the word "genocide", referred to the Albigensian Crusade as "one of the most conclusive cases of genocide in religious history". Mark Gregory Pegg writes that "The Albigensian Crusade ushered genocide into the West by linking divine salvation to mass murder, by making slaughter as loving an act as His sacrifice on the cross."

I don't know how I feel about Catharism or gnosticism in terms of my own beliefs about the way the universe is structured. It's complicated. But the Cathars were right about a few things.

Seamus Heaney once said:

"It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir..."

And we are living in history.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/09/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Shipwrecks & Shibboleths [San Francisco, CA - USA] (46:10/195)

I always wondered who would wear a shirt like this, and what it meant,
to bethe sort of person that would choose this, of all sentiments, to express topassing strangers.

My Dad came back with this saying from Nam. It's a coping mechanism unfortunately.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/12/04 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Black Flag <ACiD Telnet HQ> blackflagbbs.com (46:1/104)

on 06 Oct 2021, Nacho Catorce said...

KILL 'EM ALL. LET GOD SORT 'EM OUT.

I recently saw one that said "KILL 'EM ALL. LET ROD SORT 'EM OUT" and had a pictured of a young Rod Stewart as the centerpiece of a militant looking
crest, complete with lightning bolts. Pretty funny.

And we are living in history.

Man, what a read. I'd really suggest breaking your posts into smaller chunks. People these days, even on BBSes, sadly, don't have the attention span to
read and/or reply to such lengthy posts. Honestly, this style of writing reminds me of some of the textfiles, zines, and emag articles I used to read
a lot in the 90s. Ever consider putting something like that together?

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/09/07 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Hello jack,

On Thu Oct 07 2021 08:26:08, you wrote to Nacho Catorce:

Man, what a read. I'd really suggest breaking your posts into smaller chunks. People these days, even on BBSes, sadly, don't have the
attention span to read and/or reply to such lengthy posts. Honestly,
this style of writing reminds me of some of the textfiles, zines, and
emag articles I used to read a lot in the 90s. Ever consider putting something like that together?

I'm at a complete loss for words. I haven't read something like that in ages, but at the same time it kept me interested, and I didn't really know if it was copy/pasted or completely original.

I'm going to have to read it again. lol

Regards,
Nick

... "Take my advice, I don't use it anyway."
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20210705
* Origin: thePharcyde_ distribution system (Wisconsin) (46:1/100)

on 07 Oct 2021, Accession said...

I'm at a complete loss for words. I haven't read something like that in ages, but at the same time it kept me interested, and I didn't really
know if it was copy/pasted or completely original.

I'm going to have to read it again. lol

Ha! I thought it might have been a "copypasta" too but I think that owes more to this style of posting/writing being so much less common online these days.

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/09/07 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Nacho Catorce wrote to All <=-

KILL 'EM ALL. LET GOD SORT 'EM OUT.

I always wondered who would wear a shirt like this, and what it meant,
to be the sort of person that would choose this, of all sentiments, to express to passing strangers.

Wasn't that a Vietnam-era saying?

I have a life-long neurosis, especially about clothes: I don't display messages. I don't care that you know that, for example, My Parents
Went To Sierra Leone And All I Got Was This Stupid Tee Shirt, or that
I'd visited the Hard Rock Cafe or that I saw Metallica on tour.

That's why I wear plain polo shirts and black v-neck Ts without logos. :)

These sorts of things start conversations, and if there is anything I
am never up for it is a spontaneous conversation with a stranger. I
have brooding, daydreaming, and staring blankly at the suburban
spectacle to do.

And what kind of conversation do you have with a person who says Kill
'em All, Let God Sort 'em Out anyway?

There's nothing worse than when the rebels are bigger gigglemuppets
than the suits.

The teenage BBS "anarchists" living in their parents converted basements always gave me a laugh.

Christians who fear and loathe the occult, by avoiding it entirely, can
be forgiven for understanding what a deep well it can be. It's more
than hocus-pocus and more like deviant psychology.

I'm amazed at the self-supporting fallacies of cults. I received
scientology magazines for several years from a past resident and pored over them -- the constant drive to rally people to better themselves at great expense and to revel in the people who'd "ascended the ladder" (or whatever they called it) was consistent to a T.

The technique of building your own vocabulary so people can't refute your claims was another interesting technique.

LaVey, the Satanist, cautions practitioners to always credit magic(k) after a ritual. It is sort of like the way the Powers That Be in the United States want people to keep repeating "We can't rely on Social Security" when we get old. This is more a Jedi mind trick than it is a statement of fact. The more people believe it won't exist for them,
the easier it will be to abolish it.

I spent a lot of time in San Francisco and had dinner 2 tables over from
LaVey once. Quite a presence. I did like the sort of "chaotic neutral"
feeling that I got from the church - their outlook on world events always
felt pragmatic rather than based on some dogma.

An incel dweeb undertakes an occult working, and by random chance a
thing he expressed an intention for shows up, well, now he's a
magician. Now he carries himself differently. He's got something
other than his weeb anime shit and video games on his side.

Sounds like someone who read "The Secret" and follows the Law of Attraction.
I read the book and had a very LoA moment while reading it, but that could also be a function of mindset - keeping your mind open to opportunities. The mindset didn't create the opportunity, but if you're head's in the sand you won't *see* it.


... Overtly resist change
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On 07 Oct 21 08:26:09, Jack Phlash said the following to Nacho Catorce:

I recently saw one that said "KILL 'EM ALL. LET ROD SORT 'EM OUT" and had a pictured of a young Rod Stewart as the centerpiece of a militant looking crest, complete with lightning bolts. Pretty funny.

Late-night Toronto people are amusing... really. The same dude with that sort of shirt walks into a Korean convenience store to cash in a lotto scratch ticket or something. When a ticket is "legit", the government-sanctioned scanner plays a C64-esque melody. I'm in the back cleaning out his supply of club soda... because, I'm a functioning alcoholic with a vodka fix.

Anyhow so the guy slaps that ticket down and the clerk behind the counter rudely explains "No music, no money!" The guy gets pissed but the clerk
stands VERY stone-faced, maintaining the machine's lack of a cheerful C64 melody. Totally no emotion. Utters "You leave NOW!!! NO TROUBLE!" and the
guy in the shirt responds with the most hilarious redneck simpleton
diatribe... something like "WTF BRO", BRO that ticket is FOR REAL! CASH
that motherfucker! DUDE ITS A WINNING TICKET!

And the clerk just sticks with "No music no money!!!"

I dunno, weird human behavior like that greatly amuses me.

Atreyu

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (46:1/109)

on 08 Oct 2021, Atreyu said...

I dunno, weird human behavior like that greatly amuses me.

Ha! I love shit like this too, although I usually have to be in the right kind of mindset to appreciate observing it in person.

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/09/07 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

On 08 Oct 21 14:30:34, Jack Phlash said the following to Atreyu:

I dunno, weird human behavior like that greatly amuses me.

Ha! I love shit like this too, although I usually have to be in the right k of mindset to appreciate observing it in person.

Me too. And I love the subway... girls clipping their toenails oblivious to the disgusted onlookers or some muttering dude with possible Tourettes. Or the ones on headphones singing/rapping loudly. BITCH BETTER HAVE MY MONEY.

Atreyu

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (46:1/109)

on 09 Oct 2021, Atreyu said...

Me too. And I love the subway... girls clipping their toenails oblivious to the disgusted onlookers or some muttering dude with possible
Tourettes. Or the ones on headphones singing/rapping loudly. BITCH
BETTER HAVE MY MONEY.

Ha! The subway is always a show. Buses here tend to be like that, while
the lightrail and streetcars are usually fairly tame. Still, being able to appreciate weird shit like this makes living in the city so much more tolerable.

Just today I'm at a busy intersection with two left turn lanes. It's worth noting that the left turn light is VERY short while the cycle, overall, is pretty damn long. So, left most lane that I'm in goes, right lane doesn't move AT ALL. Light changes and I get to the front next to the car that didn't go. Wondering WTF their deal is, I make an effort to nosily check them out. No
four way flashers on or any obvious sign of issues, rather both people have their heads down like their looking at their phones (or possibly are passed out, I mean, we do love our heroin here.) Light changes again, the other car STILL doesn't go... no reaction from the seemingly TOTALLY oblivious driver
and passenger. The weirdest part? Somehow none of the growing long line of
cars behind them honked their horns or yelled or anything the entire time.
Man, gotta love passive, introverted Seattle.

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/09/07 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

On 09 Oct 21 15:21:58, Jack Phlash said the following to Atreyu:

Ha! The subway is always a show. Buses here tend to be like that, while
the lightrail and streetcars are usually fairly tame. Still, being able to appreciate weird shit like this makes living in the city so much more tolerable.

Do you guys have the streetcars where the seats face eachother?

STILL doesn't go... no reaction from the seemingly TOTALLY oblivious driver and passenger. The weirdest part? Somehow none of the growing long line of cars behind them honked their horns or yelled or anything the entire time. Man, gotta love passive, introverted Seattle.

Oh that shit happens here too, counted soooo many people doing that here.

Happy Canuck thanksgiving, I'm taking off up north now.

Atreyu

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (46:1/109)

Me too. And I love the subway... girls clipping their toenails oblivious to the disgusted onlookers or some muttering dude with possible Tourettes. Or the
ones on headphones singing/rapping loudly. BITCH BETTER HAVE MY MONEY.

That does sound amusing! :)


* SLMR 2.1a * Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you.
--- SBBSecho 3.12-Linux
* Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (46:10/121)

on 09 Oct 2021, Atreyu said...

Do you guys have the streetcars where the seats face eachother?

Ugggghhhh, yeah, but not enough people ride them for that to be an issue -
very easy to space out on them usually. The lightrail on the other hand can be a lot more crowded at times. The buses are where that gets most awkward - the longer articulated buses have these sections where the seats face across the isle. Not only is it not usual to have to stare someone down, but there's usually multiple people crammed in on either side of you. Joy!

Honestly, I've not had too many issues with public transit here. The
occasional obviously mentally unstable person that everyone tries to pretend isn't there, but that's about it.

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/09/07 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Atreyu wrote to Jack Phlash <=-

Me too. And I love the subway... girls clipping their toenails
oblivious to the disgusted onlookers

That I haven't seen.

My biggest concern when I rode BART, the SF Bay area subway system, was the fabric-covered 20+ year old seats. What were they thinking?



... Take a break
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On 09 Oct 21 06:09:00, Poindexter Fortran said the following to Atreyu:

My biggest concern when I rode BART, the SF Bay area subway system, was the fabric-covered 20+ year old seats. What were they thinking?

The GO Transit system here in Toronto - actually it covers a significant part of the surrounding area as well - has the fabric seats on most of the trains.

And yes, the fabric colour and design screams 80's... all thats missing is wood panelling.

I'm guessing they're in some contract with an upholsterer or its just too expensive to replace seats on the many trains they have.

Atreyu

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (46:1/109)

Atreyu wrote to Poindexter Fortran <=-

My biggest concern when I rode BART, the SF Bay area subway system, was

he

fabric-covered 20+ year old seats. What were they thinking?

The GO Transit system here in Toronto - actually it covers a
significant part of the surrounding area as well - has the fabric seats
on most of the trains.

And yes, the fabric colour and design screams 80's... all thats missing
is wood panelling.

BART was kind of a green, brown and yellow plaid. Sort of like if you VW
took an old 70's VW bus and cleaned the seats repeatedly with an uncooked chicken breast.


... Do you remember?
--- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
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The GO Transit system here in Toronto - actually it covers a significant part of the surrounding area as well - has the fabric seats on most of the trains.
And yes, the fabric colour and design screams 80's... all thats missing
is wood panelling.

Our LA public transit is pretty new overall and totally empty for the most part minus some shady folks hanging out in the terminals. Maybe I'm wrong cuz it's been a while, but nobody that I know would use it...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/09/29 (Windows/32)
* Origin: >> Wizard's Rainbow << 323.463.5249 (46:1/155)

on 17 Oct 2021, will o the wisp said...

Our LA public transit is pretty new overall and totally empty for the
most part minus some shady folks hanging out in the terminals. Maybe I'm wrong cuz it's been a while, but nobody that I know would use it...

Why would no one use it? Puzzling...

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/09/07 (Windows/32)
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On 16 Oct 21 14:28:28, Jack Phlash said the following to Will O The Wisp:

Our LA public transit is pretty new overall and totally empty for the most part minus some shady folks hanging out in the terminals. Maybe I wrong cuz it's been a while, but nobody that I know would use it...

Why would no one use it? Puzzling...

In Toronto public transpo is all the rage... so much so that the local train stations purposely do not build enough public parking. Its mostly first come first serve... unless you shell out an extra hundred or so for a "dedicated" space. When I was working the proverbial rat race it made sense at the time, until some idiots would park in said dedicated space. Then you had to file a complaint with the attendant, move to a different space etc etc... now you're late for work.

I don't miss the rat race but I kinda miss having an office... kinda. The company had two large floors of offices, a huge server room and enough daily IT between myself, another tech and an IT manager. Most of it is gone now
from all the downsizing. Covid really killed that business (office rentals, meeting space rental etc). The workplace was actually pretty good, awesome people and the work was pretty mickey mouse... all with a very good salary.

Atreyu

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (46:1/109)

on 16 Oct 2021, Atreyu said...

In Toronto public transpo is all the rage... so much so that the local train stations purposely do not build enough public parking. Its mostly first come first serve... unless you shell out an extra hundred or so
for a "dedicated" space. When I was working the proverbial rat race it made sense at the time, until some idiots would park in said dedicated space. Then you had to file a complaint with the attendant, move to a different space etc etc... now you're late for work.

Totally reasonable. So was the public parking outside of the city, or on the other side of it or something? Or are you getting into the city, then taking a bus or train to where you work? If the latter, it almost seems like it would
be more worthwhile to just drive to where you work and rent out a (probably a bit more expensive) space nearby. Not a criticism in any way, just curious,
as I'm generally in favor of public transit but find myself with limited excuses to use it, personally.

For me, I live more or less in the middle of the city, so choosing to use public transit is extremely situational. I also work *way* outside of the city (well, when I used to go into the office...) which didn't make a lot of sense either. Taking a bus to where I work would take twice as long (at least) and that's only if I could take it directly from my neighborhood rather than
taking another one to get to where that route starts. Blech. We have a neat city/county subsidized "van pool" system where you can collaborate with other people going to the same destination for an extremely small amount of money, but since few of my coworkers live in the city there's only one that would
meet me needs, and by the time I drove to where they meet and leave my car at the park and ride (public parking near transit centers... usually) it easily add 10-15 minutes on to the commute... plus I'd have to worry about ditching
my car in a shady parking lot AND be beholden to everyone else's schedules (which is a wonderful strategy some of my coworkers use to have an excuse to avoid working over... ha!) It just doesn't make sense in my particular cade. They are suppose to extend our light rail to the suburb I work in, but that won't be done for years and I'll likely have moved on to another company
and/or to a differ neighborhood by then.

That said, it does seem like plenty of people use the system here - buses are seldom empty, and are pretty hopping during typical rush hours. The light
rail can be pretty intensely crowded at times too. It connects to our
airport which is pretty convenient. The park and ride lots are never empty. It's obviously working for SOME people. The biggest issue we have here is
that are rail system is just super immature - it basically just goes north/south through the middle of the city, but going east/west requires hopping on a bus or otherwise finding some other way. There's a few street
car lines to help fill that gap, but they barely help. It's a FAR from comprehensive system, in other words. They're working on expanding it, like I mentioned, but those expansions efforts are focusing on connecting suburbs first (which makes sense for people going to/from the city, I suppose, but doesn't help with getting around the city itself.)

I don't miss the rat race but I kinda miss having an office... kinda.
The company had two large floors of offices, a huge server room and
enough daily IT between myself, another tech and an IT manager. Most of
it is gone now from all the downsizing. Covid really killed that
business (office rentals, meeting space rental etc). The workplace was actually pretty good, awesome people and the work was pretty mickey mouse... all with a very good salary.

Damn. Did you lose that job, or are you just referring to having to work from home? Personally, I miss going to the office and seeing people in person and
in a dedicated work place with less (non work related) distractions, but I
also love the flexibility of being able to work from home, at least part of
the time. Like a lot of them, my company is still waiting to see what the new normal looks like, but it seems like the changing environment is pressuring them to adapt a much more liberal WFH policy than what they'd have likely
ever come to on their own.

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/09/07 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Atreyu wrote to Jack Phlash <=-

In Toronto public transpo is all the rage... so much so that the local train stations purposely do not build enough public parking. Its mostly first come first serve... unless you shell out an extra hundred or so
for a "dedicated" space.

California public transportation is inconsistent. The Bay Area has a cross- county subway system called BART. Some of the well-to-do counties didn't
want to pay the tax to fund the system and felt like it'd be an avenue for "The Poor" to come into their proverbial back yards, so it misses a big
swath of the region.

They finally managed to get BART into the airports, but instead of going directly to the terminals, run alongside where the surface bus org can runs shuttles to the airport (and get *their* subsidies)

In my neck of the woods, they're trying to get an unused rail line used for passenger rail, ostensibly to alleviate the traffic along highway 1 along
the coast.

In order to obfuscate the issue, they're calling it a RailTrail, although there's no possibility of using it as a trail once the train is in place.

Problem is there are no stations, the tracks run behind some prime real estate, and the antique wooden trellises will take millions of dollars and years to make safe enough for rail trail. But, the developers will make millions for a boondoggle that'll fail to serve the constituency.

They never learn. Or we never do.





When I was working the proverbial rat race it

made sense at the time, until some idiots would park in said dedicated space. Then you had to file a complaint with the attendant, move to a different space etc etc... now you're late for work.

I don't miss the rat race but I kinda miss having an office... kinda.
The company had two large floors of offices, a huge server room and
enough daily IT between myself, another tech and an IT manager. Most of
it is gone now from all the downsizing. Covid really killed that
business (office rentals, meeting space rental etc). The workplace was actually pretty good, awesome people and the work was pretty mickey mouse... all with a very good salary.

Atreyu

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (46:1/109)

... This is it -- the center of the maze...
--- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckbbs.org -- yesterday's tech today (46:1/115)

On 17 Oct 21 16:58:36, Jack Phlash said the following to Atreyu:

Totally reasonable. So was the public parking outside of the city, or on th other side of it or something? Or are you getting into the city, then takin bus or train to where you work? If the latter, it almost seems like it woul be more worthwhile to just drive to where you work and rent out a (probably

Public parking is always at the various train stations throughout the city with the exception of the central train station downtown. So yes I was taking the train downtown every work day and paying extra for that dedicated space. And yes... it got to the point where I just said F this and drove downtown, especially when my work hours got cut. There is also the extensive subway and bus network but I never really got into that. At the time, and for a time, it just made more sense to take that one train from the west-end into downtown.

For me, I live more or less in the middle of the city, so choosing to use public transit is extremely situational. I also work *way* outside of the c (well, when I used to go into the office...) which didn't make a lot of sen either. Taking a bus to where I work would take twice as long (at least) an that's only if I could take it directly from my neighborhood rather than taking another one to get to where that route starts. Blech. We have a neat

Seems to me it makes more sense to drive out to your office then? If and when you have to?

I don't miss the rat race but I kinda miss having an office... kinda. The company had two large floors of offices, a huge server room and enough daily IT between myself, another tech and an IT manager. Most o it is gone now from all the downsizing. Covid really killed that business (office rentals, meeting space rental etc). The workplace was actually pretty good, awesome people and the work was pretty mickey mouse... all with a very good salary.

Damn. Did you lose that job, or are you just referring to having to work fr home? Personally, I miss going to the office and seeing people in person an

I lost the full-time office job but remain with the company as their sole IT consultant and am invoicing them consultant rates. After the loss of the full-time hours I pretty much went the freelancing route in 2015 and never looked back. Struggled the first year or so but doing okay now. Not swimming in the dough like Scrooge Mcduck but enough to afford to live in the downtown-area in a 2 bedroom apartment while also being a single custodial parent. I've been lucky to mostly WFH since before Covid. Spend most of my days on VPN, RDP and SSH. The American client is the exception, thats all on-site travel work.

I'm likely one of only two or three techs in all of Toronto that knows that particular telephone system at the former company inside-out-and-backwards ... an ancient Intertel 8600 series. Dude its such a Rube Goldberg contraption
but the company owner refuses-slash-can't-afford to replace it with something else. The owner would rather pay me to look after every freaking tech request no matter how trivial. A shit-ton of MAC (move/addition/changes) in addition
to the network and server maintenance.

I also run a hosting business out of my tiny apartment complete with a 15U cabinet full of equipment where really its just one client with a terminal-server virtual desktop setup... nice client, pays on time, etc.
I paid for software licensing out of some of my college grants and paid to
have a commercial class fiber connection right to the rack.

The real mickey-mouse-but-high-paying work I do is for an American startup that pays for me to maintain cellphone charging stations throughout various malls across the city. THAT one is a lot of my bread & butter.

in a dedicated work place with less (non work related) distractions, but I also love the flexibility of being able to work from home, at least part of the time. Like a lot of them, my company is still waiting to see what the n normal looks like, but it seems like the changing environment is pressuring them to adapt a much more liberal WFH policy than what they'd have likely ever come to on their own.

I like WFH, my daughter goes to high school and thus this place is dead quiet during the day, no distractions. But I do miss the noise of a busy office... my Amazon Alexa government snooping device has an App that plays background sounds ala. white noise. Sure enough, they have an office-monotony soundtrack.

Every so often when I do the on-site work its nice to know I'm out of the house for the moment and not going entirely batshit crazy.

Atreyu

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (46:1/109)

on 18 Oct 2021, Atreyu said...

At the time, and for a time, it just made more sense to take that one train from the west-end into downtown.

Makes sense.

Seems to me it makes more sense to drive out to your office then? If and when you have to?

Exactly. The drive isn't too bad and I enjoy having the hard shift between
work and offhours that I don't get working from home full time. That, and I have the freedom to run to lunch or appointments, leave early, stay late, whatever I need to do, which I couldn't do quite as easily if I didn't drive myself. Oh, and one more factor - since it's in a suburb and not in a dense part of the city, I don't have to pay for parking there.

I lost the full-time office job but remain with the company as their
sole IT consultant and am invoicing them consultant rates. After the
loss of the full-time hours I pretty much went the freelancing route in 2015 and never looked back. Struggled the first year or so but doing
okay now. Not swimming in the dough like Scrooge Mcduck but enough to afford to live in the downtown-area in a 2 bedroom apartment while also being a single custodial parent. I've been lucky to mostly WFH since before Covid. Spend most of my days on VPN, RDP and SSH. The American client is the exception, thats all on-site travel work.

Man, yeah, sounds like you're making "enough" and making that shift before
the COVID-19 lockdowns put you ahead of a curve other people in your
situation might have had difficulty with. Nice!

I'm likely one of only two or three techs in all of Toronto that knows that particular telephone system at the former company inside-out-and-backwards ... an ancient Intertel 8600 series. Dude its such a Rube Goldberg contraption but the company owner refuses-slash-can't-afford to replace it with something else. The owner would rather pay me to look after every freaking tech request no matter how trivial. A shit-ton of MAC (move/addition/changes) in addition to
the network and server maintenance.

Ha! My first *real* telephony work was with supporting a huge old Nortel Meridian switch that was in a similar state. Hard to support, but the
company preferred to keep it on life support rather than even think about replacing it. Eventually they had a lot of new demands (new call centers,
more accounting needs, etc.) and it finally made sense to replace it
(although what they replaced it with wasn't much better, but that's another story...)

The real mickey-mouse-but-high-paying work I do is for an American
startup that pays for me to maintain cellphone charging stations throughout various malls across the city. THAT one is a lot of my bread
& butter.

Hmm. Now that sounds like an interesting gig.

I like WFH, my daughter goes to high school and thus this place is dead quiet during the day, no distractions. But I do miss the noise of a busy office... my Amazon Alexa government snooping device has an App that
plays background sounds ala. white noise. Sure enough, they have an office-monotony soundtrack.

Ha! The white noise is fine, but my team in particular was usually a lot
louder than "white noise". I get some of it though - my partner is also
working from home, and in a relatively small apartment, I'm sure we get to
hear far too much of each other's constant stream of meetings. :P

Every so often when I do the on-site work its nice to know I'm out of
the house for the moment and not going entirely batshit crazy.

Every so often when I do the on-site work its nice to know I'm out of
the house for the moment and not going entirely batshit crazy.

Yeah. *IF* my company lets us be totally flexible, I'll likely go to the
office once or twice a week just to socialize a bit and, really, just get away from here for a while.

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/09/07 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Atreyu wrote to Jack Phlash <=-

I'm likely one of only two or three techs in all of Toronto that knows that particular telephone system at the former company inside-out-and-backwards ... an ancient Intertel 8600 series.

I remember those! I was one of the few people who could manage Nortel SL1 PBXes and Norstar key systems long after Avaya bought Nortel.

The secondary market was huge and cheap - I could buy basic desk phones for USD$30 instead of ten times that.

And, the MAC work helped pay the bills - all swapping pairs on 66 blocks.
Plus travel time. :)

I like WFH, my daughter goes to high school and thus this place is dead quiet during the day, no distractions. But I do miss the noise of a
busy office... my Amazon Alexa government snooping device has an App
that plays background sounds ala. white noise. Sure enough, they have
an office-monotony soundtrack.

WorkFrom is a site for remote workers - they have an online site at workfrom.coffee that's a customized virtual cafe, complete with a soundtrack and background noise. You can invite friends and share cams while working. I tried it a couple of times, it made me miss working out of coffee shops. I'm hoping we go back to being able to work in public again without too much worry.

Every so often when I do the on-site work its nice to know I'm out of
the house for the moment and not going entirely batshit crazy.

Atreyu

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
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... Emphasize the flaws
--- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
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jack phlash wrote to Atreyu <=-

Ha! My first *real* telephony work was with supporting a huge old
Nortel Meridian switch that was in a similar state. Hard to support,
but the company preferred to keep it on life support rather than even think about replacing it.

See my earlier email - you're not alone. I started off managing Nortel switches as part of my job, and once you have that on your resume, I kept getting PBXes added to my list of responsibilities.

The 90s were a good time to be in office telecom.

I'm tempted to ditch my landline and run asterisk with some SIP trunks at home, but I regain my senses.



... Emphasize the flaws
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on 19 Oct 2021, poindexter FORTRAN said...

See my earlier email - you're not alone. I started off managing Nortel switches as part of my job, and once you have that on your resume, I kept getting PBXes added to my list of responsibilities.

The 90s were a good time to be in office telecom.

Ha! Nice. I always really enjoyed working on telecom stuff but I wouldn't say
I developed any *actual* expertise until the switch they got AFTER that.

SO yeah, they did eventually replace the Meridian, but due to some weird
office politics - basically, they outsourced IT and kept 1 dude to work on
the telephony stuff for them, and that dude always had a massive chip on his shoulder that he wasn't "IT" after that - they replaced it without our direct involvement. Eventually when they wanted to get rid of that one guy they asked us if we could admin and maintain his new Avaya. We told them we could figure it out... and we (mostly I) did. Major upgrade from the Meridian, but also
the dumbass bought a switch that already at the end of life (and several components were unsupported by the time I inherited it.) Ugh.

We ended up replacing it (and the phone systems at all of our other offices) with Asterisk-based VOIP switches not long after that. Nice to work on a semi-modern phone equipment for once in my career.

I'm tempted to ditch my landline and run asterisk with some SIP trunks
at home, but I regain my senses.

I worked on a project to setup a remote call center on the cheap many years ago. A couple of circuits and some SIP trunks - man, incredibly slick and relatively easy even though that stuff was fairly esoteric back then.

I did some telephony work at my last job with an extremely out of date
Toshiba Strata (including adding some VOIP phones to it) but now that I work
in a bigger, more silo'd off org I'm completely out of the game other than occasionally telling our Telecom guys that I feel their pain when they come to us with networking issues. :P

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/09/07 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

On 19 Oct 21 09:33:55, Jack Phlash said the following to Poindexter Fortran:

office politics - basically, they outsourced IT and kept 1 dude to work on the telephony stuff for them, and that dude always had a massive chip on hi shoulder that he wasn't "IT" after that - they replaced it without our dire

Ahh I can relate... my IT manager was such an asshole. He was right most of the time on a lot of things but when he was wrong, or called out on his attitude, he was just so flippant and "better than everyone".

When he finally up and left and I inherited the role, there was a huge mess left behind. Seems to be the ones who brag about their tech-skill tend to have their own backyards in such disarray.

Auditing our software licensing was a freaking nightmare...

Atreyu

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (46:1/109)

on 19 Oct 2021, Atreyu said...

Ahh I can relate... my IT manager was such an asshole. He was right most of the time on a lot of things but when he was wrong, or called out on
his attitude, he was just so flippant and "better than everyone".

When he finally up and left and I inherited the role, there was a huge mess left behind. Seems to be the ones who brag about their tech-skill tend to have their own backyards in such disarray.

Ahh, yeah... :/ Some of the best people I've worked with have excelled at certain parts of their jobs and totally sucked at others. One of the first engineers I ever worked with who I respected immensely on a technical level appears to have spent 90% of his time studying for various certs (getting the company to pay for material and classes) while teaching courses on that same material at night for a side gig, instead of actually doing is job, for instance.

One thing I've learned through my career is that there is never any sort of perfect transition when anyone with a lot of "tribal knowledge" leaves. On smaller teams, engineers tend to have a lot more agency, so a lot of the way things are implemented comes down purely to preference or concessions for numerous reasons, and so many of these decisions aren't documented. Even
bigger teams have the same issues if responsibilities aren't strictly tracked and managed.

At my last job I was essentially the only engineer, but from a technical standpoint it wasn't very challenging - I had that place running incredibly smoothly when I left. I was lucky enough to established relationship with the dude who was taking my position over, so I was able to documented everything I knew he'd need, have in-depth conversations about some problem areas, etc. Months later dude is emailing me asking me dumb questions about things he's having issues with, having clearly not read the documentation. In one
situation I had clearly documented an issue we had with a particular NAS appliance, but instead of performing a quick 5 minute fix on it, he ended up replacing the entire thing (despite not really having the money to do so.) Later, he gutted some other perfectly fine equipment because he seemingly couldn't figure it out. On one hand, not my problem anymore, but on the
other, it was pretty disheartening to have everything you setup get torn down because someone couldn't either RTFM or hack it, while your name is probably getting dragged through the mud in the process. On the flip side, dude
probably thought I left him a huge mess behind too. Sometimes it's a matter
of perspective.

Auditing our software licensing was a freaking nightmare...

Ugh. I felt a phantom gut punch reading this. BTDT... :(

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/09/07 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

On 20 Oct 21 08:59:49, Jack Phlash said the following to Atreyu:

One thing I've learned through my career is that there is never any sort o perfect transition when anyone with a lot of "tribal knowledge" leaves. On smaller teams, engineers tend to have a lot more agency, so a lot of the wa things are implemented comes down purely to preference or concessions for numerous reasons, and so many of these decisions aren't documented. Even bigger teams have the same issues if responsibilities aren't strictly track and managed.

See I never really worked in a "team" environment beyond what I mentioned earlier about working with one other tech and an IT manager... essentially just the three of us. I think I pondered about this before elsewhere in another net I think; the pros and cons of working in a small IT department versus a large one.

Later, he gutted some other perfectly fine equipment because he seemingly couldn't figure it out. On one hand, not my problem anymore, but on the other, it was pretty disheartening to have everything you setup get torn do because someone couldn't either RTFM or hack it, while your name is probabl getting dragged through the mud in the process. On the flip side, dude probably thought I left him a huge mess behind too. Sometimes it's a matter of perspective.

Ouch...

Something like that kindof happened around the latter part of my full-time tenure. Company owner thought it would be a good idea to hire a young guy fresh out of college and have him handle the company website, blogs, some basic mickey mouse tech stuff in-house. Unfortunately he was a total disaster and screwed up everything he touched. He didn't last longer than a few months before he left and basically he had the attitude that "we didn't train him properly". You're right... its a matter of perspective.

Whats the old proverb... something about a car accident and four witnesses at the four corners of the intersection all agree that in fact an accident did happen, but the four have slightly different accounts of how or what happened.

Atreyu

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (46:1/109)

On 19 Oct 21 07:48:00, Poindexter Fortran said the following to Atreyu:

And, the MAC work helped pay the bills - all swapping pairs on 66 blocks. Plus travel time. :)

Cool, I never knocked MAC work, it paid my bills for awhile.

I said it before too, people knock Microsoft but me? I kinda liked them... because I made soooo much money in the days of Windows 2000 and XP and when Vista came out with all its bugs and problems. I had my hands full with billable time, lol.

Atreyu

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (46:1/109)

on 21 Oct 2021, Atreyu said...

See I never really worked in a "team" environment beyond what I
mentioned earlier about working with one other tech and an IT manager... essentially just the three of us. I think I pondered about this before elsewhere in another net I think; the pros and cons of working in a
small IT department versus a large one.

Yeah, and I can't speak *too much* to that because my current company is the only time in my career I've worked as part of a large team who are all ostensibly working on the same stuff. I say "ostensibly" because, well,
that's the rub. While we do collaborate on a lot of stuff (like I'm working with a small team of people tonight on an upgrade that I had developed, documented, and trained them on, but they'll be executing) there is still a
ton of "silos" of a single person who is anything approaching a "SME" on a certain technology or environment with no real backup. It seems like
resourcing is an issue pretty much anywhere you go. With larger companies,
it just seems to scale out. :/

Something like that kindof happened around the latter part of my
full-time tenure. Company owner thought it would be a good idea to hire
a young guy fresh out of college and have him handle the company
website, blogs, some basic mickey mouse tech stuff in-house.
Unfortunately he was a total disaster and screwed up everything he touched. He didn't last longer than a few months before he left and basically he had the attitude that "we didn't train him properly".
You're right... its a matter of perspective.

Ouch. Yeah, I mean, on one hand it's obvious that other people's accounts of you or your work aren't completely accurate - no one can really know your thought processes, every action you take, etc. so you've got to brush some of that kind of criticism off. On the other hand, some people really do just
plain suck. :P We hired a new guy recently who has disappointed every time
I've asked him to do anything, even some of the simplest tasks. If that
wasn't bad enough, at the same time, he has some kind of compulsive need to constantly spout off know-it-all (but usually actually obvious) bullshit. Perhaps from his perspective he's being setup to fail similarly to the guy in your anecdote, but I think more likely it was just a bad hire.

(On a side note, we're having a damn hard time hiring people nowadays. We're opening a couple of remote satellite offices in other cities JUST to try to widen the talent pool, and I hear it's like that everywhere. Weird.)

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

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* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Atreyu wrote to Poindexter Fortran <=-

I said it before too, people knock Microsoft but me? I kinda liked
them... because I made soooo much money in the days of Windows 2000 and
XP and when Vista came out with all its bugs and problems. I had my
hands full with billable time, lol.

I was a freelance consultant full-time from 1999 to 2004. I loved Microsoft, especially Small Business Server. I had a handful of clients I'd set up with SBS, and set up small monthly retainers to look over them, check on backups, manage their AV, manage small company web sites and so forth.




... Try faking it
--- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
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BART was kind of a green, brown and yellow plaid. Sort of like if you VW took an old 70's VW bus and cleaned the seats repeatedly with an
uncooked chicken breast.

How do you take horrible and stick a filter of gross on to it.
Thats horrifying, I can almost smell it!

"D

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/09/07 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)