The Hunger Drive Walk
Like the hunter, driven by the quest for food; who rises without the aid of an alarm clock, following his instincts and in tune to the rhythm of his prey; I woke up a little after noon.
And, as the hunter sharpens his arrows and his knife, smears his body with essential oils to mask his scent, and prepares to go out and stalk; I threw my laptop in my backpack, put on some deodorant; and headed toward the food stamp office.
Driven by the most primitive need for food, I walked the mile and a half to that particular place and told them of my failure to have gotten my card turned on.
They, once again sent an e-mail to my caseworker; who is once again supposed to call me; maybe tomorrow or who knows, she might, according to guidelines, have up to 72 hours to call me;; or more. Giving me time to either give up; starve to death; or get a well paying job in the meantime; saving state money.
After leaving the food stamp office, I went and charged my laptop at the spot rendered by myself in colorful pixels to the left.
My excuse for it is that; I am still experimenting with the Paint program which comes free with Toshiba laptops; and I had to be there to charge my computer anyways; and so I was killing time.
I screwed it up when I resized it; but it was the size of a postage stamp originally.
After waking up Sunday morning with 70 bucks on me, and proceeding to Sydneys to spike a 1 dollar energy drink with 3 dollars worth of vodka and then to proceed to the music store to spend 6 bucks on strings; and then to the weed man to spend 5 bucks on herb; things have pretty much proceeded in kind.
I have spent a lot of time on this computer; woke up the next morning with 44 dollars; and have hardly busked at all and woke up this morning with 24 dollars.
It would be nice to be able to make 130 bucks again, Friday and Saturday and to have the freedom to do the same next week.
I cannot yet download and install the necessary application to convert Audacity project files into usable/shareable mp3s. I seems like it is always something.
The last site that I went to; to get the LAME program, as that is what it is called; hijacked my computer, changing the start-up page; giving me a search program which I never asked for and (can it really be as good as the Goliath, Google?) probably don't want.
It also had a silly program wanting to clean my "registers" in order to speed up my computer.
The ridiculous thing was reporting finding like 387 errors in my "registers" and asking me if I wanted to fix them for free with a click. I would say no and another box would pop up and tell me that "they" "highly recommend" that I fix my registry errors.
If I like the increased speed of my computer after that free fix, then, for a small monthly fee I can...etc...
How LAME is that?
I think of that computer HAL from that movie: "This is highly unusual; you've never tried to shut me off before; I highly recommend that you keep me running; and, in fact, for your own good, I'm going to remain running regardless of what you do..." type of thing.
The shit you have to deal with with a 160 dollar laptop, I guess.
387 errors on a computer that I just took out of the box, sure...
 |
| I;m number 83! I want to check on my food stamps! |
And, as the hunter sharpens his arrows and his knife, smears his body with essential oils to mask his scent, and prepares to go out and stalk; I threw my laptop in my backpack, put on some deodorant; and headed toward the food stamp office.
Driven by the most primitive need for food, I walked the mile and a half to that particular place and told them of my failure to have gotten my card turned on.
They, once again sent an e-mail to my caseworker; who is once again supposed to call me; maybe tomorrow or who knows, she might, according to guidelines, have up to 72 hours to call me;; or more. Giving me time to either give up; starve to death; or get a well paying job in the meantime; saving state money.
My excuse for it is that; I am still experimenting with the Paint program which comes free with Toshiba laptops; and I had to be there to charge my computer anyways; and so I was killing time.
I screwed it up when I resized it; but it was the size of a postage stamp originally.
After waking up Sunday morning with 70 bucks on me, and proceeding to Sydneys to spike a 1 dollar energy drink with 3 dollars worth of vodka and then to proceed to the music store to spend 6 bucks on strings; and then to the weed man to spend 5 bucks on herb; things have pretty much proceeded in kind.
I have spent a lot of time on this computer; woke up the next morning with 44 dollars; and have hardly busked at all and woke up this morning with 24 dollars.
It would be nice to be able to make 130 bucks again, Friday and Saturday and to have the freedom to do the same next week.
I cannot yet download and install the necessary application to convert Audacity project files into usable/shareable mp3s. I seems like it is always something.
The last site that I went to; to get the LAME program, as that is what it is called; hijacked my computer, changing the start-up page; giving me a search program which I never asked for and (can it really be as good as the Goliath, Google?) probably don't want.
It also had a silly program wanting to clean my "registers" in order to speed up my computer.
The ridiculous thing was reporting finding like 387 errors in my "registers" and asking me if I wanted to fix them for free with a click. I would say no and another box would pop up and tell me that "they" "highly recommend" that I fix my registry errors.
If I like the increased speed of my computer after that free fix, then, for a small monthly fee I can...etc...
How LAME is that?
I think of that computer HAL from that movie: "This is highly unusual; you've never tried to shut me off before; I highly recommend that you keep me running; and, in fact, for your own good, I'm going to remain running regardless of what you do..." type of thing.
The shit you have to deal with with a 160 dollar laptop, I guess.
387 errors on a computer that I just took out of the box, sure...
Wow, that laptop sounds like a pain in the ass.
ReplyDeleteYou could always find an old Thinkpad from like, 2006 or so ... mine's excellent, running on good old XP.
Windows is a Trojan Horse; it comes free on a discount computer (why were these 60% off? -Just like the cellphone companies; they will practically give the phone for free in hopes of racking up roaming charges down the road..
ReplyDeleteThe trouble that I have had putting Linux on the thing speaks for itself...like the food stamp people making me jump through hoops to keep my 189 bucks a month...Windows does not support this Linux Installation program...
"We tried to call you but you couldn't get reception under the dock; please re-apply in another 30 days....the skeezers that are getting fraudulent benefits answered on the first ring; what's your problem, guy who doesn't sell your stamps for 100 dollars to pay for narcotics which were prescribed for you after you faked a back spasm and had an ambulance take you to the hospital at a total cost to the tax payers of about 2 Grand; so that you can sell the pills on the street and make 250 bucks back on your food money; what's your problem, battery on your phone went dead because you are homeless and at the mercy of the public library to charge it? You don't stand a chance of getting your food money; you don't even have Civil Rights attorneys bothering us...what an amateur!!
The skeezers are a bunch of fucking rich kids who are slumming it, and are having their Moms call the food stamp office for them, and to tide them over until the Stamps start up, are having their Moms send them cash.
ReplyDeleteThe times (2) I've been on food stamps, it was all done by letter or in person. Not much phone involved.
Tell them you're homeless and don't have a phone ... .or maybe that only works out here in California which I'm convinced is behind every other state tech-wise. To give an idea, my doctor could not even get email to work (which is normally does) and wrote me a handwritten letter the last time she needed to get in touch with me.
Telling the food stamp people your phone fell into the river or was stolen is probably your best bet. Do everything using the oldest form of technology you possibly can; the guy I work for pays all of his bills by mail, I do everything by mail, just pretend you live in Silicon Valley here and thus the technology is still nearly Flintstones level ... maybe the food stamp people are blowing you off because you told them you have a phone and thus to them, you must be a skeezer. Play the part of a full-on hobo who doesn't own, use, or understand cell phones.