Grigory Lukin.com

Monday night. It’s curious how most of the covid news now comes exclusively from the US. Earlier on during the pandemic, there was no shortage of scary headlines from around the world. Now it’s just Americans doing crazy American things. Yes, there was the case in France where angry bus passengers attacked the driver, who ended up brain-dead, and then had his life support turned off. For that single case, though, there are at least 10 in the US with angry savages brandishing weapons, threatening, or outright attacking service industry employees: servers, cashiers, etc…

There’s a SpongeBob meme going around of the US watching sadly as other countries have fun. Parts of the country are starting to backtrack again: a huge chunk of California, including Los Angeles, just shut down again. No more public spaces. If the US had just shut down for a couple of months in March, all of this could’ve been avoided. It would’ve been cheaper, easier, and would’ve saved countless lives. Instead, there’s a terrifying mess that makes the rest of the world look on in horror.

Maybe it’s the rapidly unfolding epidemiological disaster, maybe it’s too many people sitting at home daytrading, maybe it’s something else – but the stock market has gotten more irrational than it had been in quite a while. Both Amazon and Tesla set all-time-high records with their stock prices, in lieu of absolutely nothing. Both of them have Q2 earning releases scheduled for late July, but there’s no reason to expect them to be phenomenal. Knowing nothing else about this situation, this looks like a pump&dump. Then again, both of those stocks have really bizarre valuations. They could double just as easily as crash by 60%. Time will tell.

As with so many things – the pandemic, the stock market, my permanent residence application – just gotta be patient, and sit still, and not do anything rash. It’s funny how deliberately doing nothing can feel harder than most things I’ve done before. Heh.

Sunday night. I wonder if this blog series will go for 365 days?.. I can just see it now: “day 365; celebrated the anniversary by eating not one but two cans of beans from the hoard we liberated in last week’s warehouse raid. Still no infection.” Heh…

Aside from the ever-present storm cloud of doom and once-in-a-century disaster, today was a good day. Slept in late, played some videogames, started re-reading the most recent book in Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files” series… The new installment will come out in a few days; it’s been six years since the last book, so some memory refresher is badly needed. Today’s culinary adventure: a stir-fry with every vegetable I’d bought that hasn’t gone bad or tried to grow despite being stored in the refrigerator. (I’m looking at you, you traitorous carrots.)

Xgf’s day wasn’t quite as good: two repairmen showed up to fix the ceiling crack in the bathroom, disregarded her request to wear masks, and left without explaining if they’ll return. Shortly afterwards, the fridge gave up the ghost, and most of the food delivered by a local non-profit’s volunteer (and paid for by xgf) will likely go bad. She just can’t catch a break…

In covid news, the White House is trying to discredit Dr.Fauci because of his candor regarding the incompetence of – you guessed it – the White House. If and when they replace him, it’ll probably be some bobblehead yes-man that will give Baghdad Bob a run for his money. (I wonder how many folks who aren’t international affairs/political science geeks remember Baghdad Bob. Fun character, that guy.) For the first time in over four months, there were no new covid deaths in New York. Huzzay! Interesting article from New Zealand: after trying just about every explanation, contact tracers concluded that a cluster of 71 cases happened because a woman who returned from the US (and promptly self-quarantined) was a super-spreader. She seems to have infected all of her neighbours simply by using the elevator – solo but leaving behind a large viral load. What a strange, strange virus…

And now, time for some more fantasy world escapism (I love ESO so very, very much) before starting yet another workweek, followed by a hopefully amazing vacation five days later. Keep the hope alive, y’all.

Saturday night. This is the four-month anniversary of our decision to escape Toronto, the start of the 72-day odyssey, and the strangest part of my life thus far.

Made up with xgf (though we’re still exes) and dropped by Walmart to buy some of her beloved cheese. I was shocked to see that everyone – absolutely everyone – wore masks, but then I remembered about the bylaw that made masks mandatory indoors and went into effect four days ago, on July 11th. The bylaw claims violators will get fines, and that folks with health conditions can get around the rule without having to explain what their condition is – that seems like a giant loophole, but it looks like everyone was conscientious and didn’t choose to break the rules just for the hell of it.

A week from now, I’ll be far away, sleeping in my rental car, halfway to Thunder Bay and all its amethyst troves…

Earlier today, one of my sisters admitted that she’s a Trump supporter (for the silliest reason, too) and that the 137,000 Americans would have died of covid anyway, regardless of who was in charge. …I think I’ll stop sending her books on epidemiology for Christmas – I’m not sure they worked. So it goes…

In covid news, Trump finally deigned to put on a mask during his visit to a military hospital in Maryland. His supporters are split between “yay masks!” and “that means masks are only required in hospitals.” We’ll see how that develops. The fact that he’s getting kudos for doing the absolute bare minimum… Well, that’s the state of the United States these days.

There’s an interesting trend online: thanks to the pervasive social media, it’s easy to pull status updates of covid deniers who ended up dying of covid. The way Twitter formats screenshots, that forms a four-act play consisting of denial, a public event, a final status update, and an obituary screenshot. That’s morbid as hell and would’ve served as a fine old-timey-styled warning to the masses, but at this point everyone is so entrenched that the compilation would only reinforce existing biases. (“Fake news!” or “he wasn’t a real person!” or “but I’m special and lucky and Jesus loves me!”)

Now that I’m in Canada, I hope they keep the border closed forever…

It’s Thursday evening, and I need to catch up on sleep. My favourite podcast, “Welcome to Night Vale,” had a live streaming show tonight. (Well, technically, that’s the only podcast I listen to.) They had some connection issues halfway through, so I turned down the volume, went on Twitter on my phone, and woke up when the livestream ended. Oh well. The script is out there, so I can always catch up later.

Between the work (still very busy) and the gaming (still very addictive and helpful), there’s just not a lot of hours left in the day, but I suppose I could make a concerted effort and force myself to get seven hours of sleep per night, eh.

Either there’s something seriously wrong with Toronto or I didn’t take out trash often enough, but there’s a lot of fruitflies circling all around my room and getting in the way. I’ve closed the window, removed all organic waste, and swatted a bunch of them out of the way, so maaaaybe that will help?

…I haven’t been exercising enough. My nutrition is fine, but I’m definitely not burning enough calories. I saw someone mention the Wii Fit Trainer the other day, but when I went looking, I discovered that a) Nintendo Wii got discontinued years ago, b) its replacement, Nintendo Wii U, also got discontinued years ago, and c) the replacement’s replacement, Nintendo Switch with the Fit Ring Adventure, is pretty neat but completely sold out. Poor Nintendo: just when they figure out their manufacturing bottlenecks (2006 was brutal), there’s a once-in-a-century pandemic. Heh. Here’s hoping all the hiking I’ll do on my vacation will make up for months of no gym.

In covid news, more and more hospitals in the south are running out of space. Fifty-six in Florida, quite a few in Mississippi. Trump keeps insisting (in the least literate way imaginable) that if the US stopped testing for covid, all the cases would go away. …I wonder if he thinks that over 100,000 Americans are just playing dead to spite him. Then again, he probably doesn’t think of them at all.

Forgot to mention this a few days ago, but the US is officially leaving the World Health Organization. WHO has its flaws (so many, many, many flaws) but it’s still a net positive in the world. Maybe. Sometimes. It’s maybe sometimes a net positive somewhere in the world. With the US stepping away, that almost certainly won’t make either the US or the world safer. On the domestic front, the CDC and the White House are in a strange tug-of-war. The CDC’s new guidance claims schools must take safety measures. The White House (namely Trump) criticized said measures, followed by mixed messaging (which ended in defiance) from the CDC. Everyone is as confused as you are, dear reader. We’ll see.

Typing this up, looking at the giant Canadian flag hanging on my wall, I’m once again so very happy that I’d taken the leap and moved to Canada. It’s not perfect, but it’s without a doubt better than the US during a global pandemic. Stay safe out there, my US compadres.

Wednesday evening. It really is amazing how fast time flies sometimes: the understaffing at work has gotten serious enough that they’re importing random backfills from the US. Can’t say I’ve seen that happen before. Some part of me wonders what exactly I’ll see when I return from my two-week vacation. (Only seven business days away now!)

Not much in personal news. It occurred to me that it’s been about two months since my last haircut, and 45 days since my last shave. The Apocalypse Beard still leaves much (so very, very much) to be desired, but I’m kind of curious to see what will happen. (No one aside from my landlords will see my unmasked face at any point soon, anyhow.) The hair is definitely getting longer: when I was 18, I thought I’d cheat the system by saving time and money on monthly haircuts. That was a bad idea. I ended up ruining my own freshman year of college: by the time I cut it off, 18 months later, I looked like a Russian Carrot Top. Here’s hoping I’ll be able to rock the hairdo much better now that I’m 15 years older and (allegedly) wiser. Heh.

Covid news. In a very surprising move, Houston’s mayor Sylvester Turner has cancelled the Republican National Convention that was scheduled for next week. The convention was supposed to flaunt all the mask rules, though Texan VIPs had already said they’d give their speeches remotely. Heh. As far as I can tell, this might be the first time in modern political history where a major party won’t get to hold an annual convention. It’s partly funny, but partly beneficial, since there’ll be less covid spread.

[Edit on 7/10: I misread the article: that was for the Texas Republican convention, not the national convention that will take place in Jacksonville, FL.]

Arizona’s ICU beds are about 85% full now. Dr.Anthony Fauci keeps sounding the alarm about uncontrolled exponential growth, but he keeps being ignored by everyone with the actual power to change things. Fauci isn’t a saint: early on, he was part of the chorus saying that masks are useless. (All part of the ridiculous strategy to sideline them for medical personnel.) Still, he’s as good as it gets in this toxic mess. I’m reasonably certain that if he’d tried going against the party line in, say, Russia, he would’ve been defenestrated ages ago, just like the few Russian doctors who dared to contradict Putin.

The real tragedy of the US approach (if you can call it that) is that it would’ve been so much faster and cheaper (though still expensive) to just lock down the whole country, give everyone a few thousand dollars a month, and just wait it out for three months while shutting down absolutely everything. Instead, here they are, with the economy that’s neither shut down nor running, with masks becoming a symbol of political division, with more cases that were entirely avoidable. Other countries are already opening back up. Canada is almost free of covid. And yet… the moment the US border is reopened, all our efforts here in the great white north will be nullified by irresponsible American tourists. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, eh?

Monday night. More strange news at work. Nothing that would affect my long-term plans, but still quite disappointing. Just nine business days till my vacation… The first vacation in 3.5 years that would be longer than a few days, involve travel, and would not involve hospitals or health emergencies. (Why yes, I did just knock on wood.)

I did my thrice-monthly grocery store run today because, while I had a bit more food to last another day or two, the work news demanded some cider-assisted mind-numbing… About half the shoppers wore masks this time around, though relatively few cared about social distancing.

Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has allegedly tested positive for covid. He’s 65, which isn’t terrible, but he’d also had pneumonia in the past, and that’s not good for his odds. It’s interesting that he got it after all his bravado and downplaying the pandemic’s effects. Regardless of whether he survives, there’ll be major repercussions.

On the personal front, I’ve decided to pursue cooking (inspired by the one, the only Elder Scrolls Online and my kangaroo-riding, snack-stealing character) and acquired the four major spices: paprika, ginger powder, onion powder, and garlic salt. Preliminary results: garlic salt is amazing; ginger powder exploded when I tried to open the bag, leading to some sneezing and a bad first impression. The lockdown adventures never cease!

Sunday evening. Thus endeth another weekend, and begins another workweek. So close to my vacation, though! Just 10 more business days…

I took a break from gaming to walk to a nearby park: one of the strange things about suburbs is that all the trees are young. There was no old growth, no branches lying on the ground, and no convenient chunks of wood to take home for whittling purposes. Ditto for the local Lowe’s: they had some hickory chunks for BBQs, but they were a) tiny, and b) made of the hardest wood on the market. I’m going to do my thrice-monthly raid on a grocery store tomorrow, so I might as well try out the Michael’s curbside pickup and get some basswood to practice on. (Is the lockdown life exciting or what?)

The news is more of the same old: at least four hospitals in Tampa, FL have run out of ICU beds. I used to live in Tampa. (I’ve lived in so many places…) Not a bad town, filled with mostly good people, who were likely failed by their inept government and its equally inept reassurances that it’s okay to come out and party. It’s a minor miracles that the Villages (a retirement community with over 100,000 elderly) haven’t been hit yet.

Speaking of my old haunts: the CHAZ, which I mentioned earlier, is no more. Seattle’s tiny rebellious community got flooded with the police four days ago. Depending on your level of cynicism, that was caused by either a) far too many shootings and either violent crime in and near CHAZ, or b) the fact that a mob of protesters found the mayor’s address (allegedly provided by a rebellious councilwoman) and spraypainted her fence, or c) all of the above. Either way, there goes another somewhat-covid-related cultural artifact.

I can only wonder what strange news this coming week will bring.

Saturday night. Well, technically, Saturday ended 35 minutes ago, but nothing is truly over until you let it go. The weekly hangout with xgf didn’t end well. She thought I was minimizing her chronic pain when I mentioned that one of my friends lost the ability to drive when she developed epilepsy. (She then continued to minimize my friend’s condition by claiming that keto would fix it, even though said keto almost killed her just three months ago.) I thought she was infantilizing myself and my cowokrers when she said that anyone can handle Amazon’s high stress if they just embrace therapy. That conversation did not go well.

Two-thirds of the time, everything is fine, we go for a ride, on a hike, play some video games, etc. The other third…

Not much to say about covid today, except that the US Independence Day will just result in more clusters. From what I’ve heard, folks were barbecuing and celebrating together in very close proximity. Some of the people who decided to do that today will end up dead 2-3 weeks from now. What a strange risk/reward calculation…

Not that Canada is any better. At a grocery store where I picked some snacks for xgf earlier today, there were three types of people: mask-less employees and customers (about 50%), masked customers (the other 50%), and myself, in a mask, glasses, a face shield, and a small spray bottle of 70% alcohol in my hand. I do believe some employees might have actually recoiled in horror after seeing my outfit. Heh. The printed signs around the store claimed that all customers must be masked, but nobody actually enforced it. Just how much of our society relies on the unenforceable unwritten consensus? More than in the US, I’m sure, but still very far from perfect.

So it goes.