Friday War Story: Man Versus Wide Format Printer

Friday War Story: Man Versus Wide Format Printer

The week been gentle. The week been chill. Too gentle. Too chill. I don't trust it, man. Shit has to get a little crazy some time. Why not today?

I get in. Email waiting for me. See, there is this special printer on the third floor. It's this beast of a machine that is used to print and scan technical drawings. It seems most people cannot scan to their network folder. Turning the machine off and then back on did precisely dick so it falls to me to exorcise the demons from this fucking machine.

 I ascend one flight of stairs to see this for myself. Stick the piece of paper in. It scans. Well, son of a bitch. It works, right? Well no. For some people, it scans and then prompts for a password but guess what? The touch screen provides no way to actually enter in a password so whenever it prompts for a password, I'm sunk. That's a brick wall.

 This has me sweating. Everybody is being nice about this but if I can't fix this, I'm thinking maybe it harms my reputation. Maybe people start thinking I can't hack it. It occurs to me now they probably don't care THAT much but being the anxious, neurotic son of a bitch that I am, I sweat.

 So, I'm about out of ideas. I've not seen this problem before and Google is no help. Fuck. Why the hell did I come to work today?

 I let the office admin know that I got no idea what the motherfuck is going on. She puts in a call to the printer company and she says they will call me and send someone out. Thing is though, I know they are gonna push back cuz there is no god damn way this is their problem. They call me up and tell me to piss off.

 Yeah. I get it but fuck you too, brotha.

 Aight. MacGyver time, man. Think. I'm up and down those stairs. Hey. Wait a minute. There are a few ports on the back of this printer. Got an ethernet port. Got some funky looking serial port and a USB port. Hmm. I run downstairs and grab a USB keyboard. I plug it into the USB port on the back of the printer and... IT TYPES. I can type in the password now. I type the password I think it wants and check the box that says 'remember my password.' ... IT WORKS. Holy shit. I fixed it. Inside I'm ecstatic. I walk tall. I'm like that guy at the end of The Right Stuff walking away from the wreckage with a cigar hanging out of his mouth.

 God damn. I need to chill.

More Posts from Mistahsojourner and Others

6 years ago

We repeat the nonsense we hear. Find decent nonsense. 

6 years ago

The Grand Motherfuckin’ Conspiracy.

I’ve always kept one eye on the conspiracy theories that were en vogue. It’s just something that I’ve always done. I suppose you can learn a lot about reality by examining alternative interpretations of it. That’s basically what a conspiracy theory is. It’s an alternative explanation of reality that’s not endorsed by The Powers That Be. 

I have a lot of feelings about conspiracy theories. Complex feelings. On the one hand, they can make people feel dis-empowered. If Queen Bey, Jay-Z and the rest of the Illuminati elite have everything locked up that tight, what kinda hope does the average Joe have? I do believe that there is a grand overarching conspiracy by powerful individuals to keep things pretty much the way they are. I believe that The Powers That Be only want you smart enough to fill out the forms and push the buttons. They don’t want you schooled in critical thinking. They don’t want you to have the time to think. They want you to come home all bleary-eyed and ready to turn on the TV. The last thing they really want you doing is thinking about your situation. If people really start thinking, the whole system will fucking fall apart at the seams and there offspring will have to take that job at McDonald’s. 

One of the big names in American conspiracy theory has been Alex Jones. He’s a Texan with leather lungs who has been preaching on the radio since at least some time in the 90s. He warned about government overreach. He ranted hysterically about RFID tags paving the way for the Mark of the Beast. He’d be nearly in tears talking about CPS (Child Protective Services) being some kind of stealth pedophile ring. He was the prophet Ezekiel for American paleoconservatives who waged their own “infowar” on the Internet. 

I remember that old milieu. It wasn’t that long ago. I can remember these YouTube channels run by upstarts that were inspired by Alex Jones. They shared dispatches from the rising police state from their own neck of the woods. Maybe their local police department bought up a bunch of military surplus equipment. Maybe they noticed listings on an Internet job board for military detention specialists and they connected the dots to a possible internment of American dissidents that was just around the corner. I remember sitting up at late at night, sipping on orange soda like Kel and watching these grainy YouTube videos of possible camp locations. Imposing, empty structures behind razor wire. Huge train cars. It was speculated that the train cars were fitted with shackles for the transport of prisoners. Yep. The FEMA camps was comin’. They would be filled with patriotic American citizens who would not go along with the Luciferian, globalist New World Order death machine that was run by bankers who wanted to merge with machines and become immortal beings of light or some shit like that. 

What became of Alex Jones? Well, that’s a funny story. You see, at some point, he came to the conclusion that the only hope for America against a bloodthirsty, pedophilic, globalist conspiracy was Donald J. Trump. Trump was America’s last best hope. Jones-y always had a problem with torture yet Trump declared on stage that he loved water boarding. Jones-y railed against power hungry cops that beat the shit outta citizens. Trump joked about police brutality on stage in front of an audience of pigs who fucking loved it and yes, they are pigs. If you have a problem with that, you can go fuck yourself. 

The FEMA camps never came. That shit got especially intense under President Obama. Of course, we are now seeing people get rounded up and Trump presides over it. The Infowarriors and their YouTube channels are silent however. Many of their channels sit abandoned and those that do not have taken up the banner of Donald J. Trump, the golden-haired warrior who is making America Great Again. See, it doesn’t much matter that people are being rounded up because the people being rounded up have dark skin, they don’t speak English and they are not American citizens. 

It’s only an outrage if it happens to white folks. White pain is the only pain that matters to motherfuckers like Alex Jones. 

You’ve got no idea how surreal it is for me to see Alex Jones carrying water for a sitting American President. It’s incredibly difficult to appreciate if you’ve not followed the man’s career. In his mind, pretty much every President that came before Trump was working for them. They were in on the plot but somehow this fat, loud-mouthed septuagenarian ex-game show host who got his kicks walking in on naked teenage pageant contestants isn’t. Somehow he has been sent by God or some shit. 

The reality we live in is truly strange. As I go about the drudgery of my day, I sometimes pinch myself and wonder if the Almighty dropped acid at some point and this just happens to be his bad trip. 

3 years ago

Kinda tempted to make an NSFW blog. Yeah. Be more open about my freaky side.


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6 years ago

I find lately that I’m on a different frequency than the place I come from. I’m acutely aware of this recently. 

I can’t stay here. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know who or what would have me. 

I haven’t written much here but I’ve been expressing myself elsewhere under my own name at times. I’ve got to be expressing something. I’ve got to believe what I’m expressing. I’ve got to believe in my ability to express. I’ve got to believe that I can get through. 

Right now, this is all I can manage to say. 

6 years ago

Get lost in the night’s machinery

with nothin’ to see but what there is to see

synthetic angel glow and Internet Protocol that never sleeps


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6 years ago

We’ve all been traumatized by the society we find ourselves in. Some of us get traumatized more than others but most all of us have had pain heaped upon us by a society that is profoundly fucked up.

If ya get a chance to talk to people. Like, really talk. This shit is gonna come up. 


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6 years ago

Random embarrassing fact #2

I don't know that this really qualifies as embarrassing but it might be. I try to cry at least once a week. Basically, I sequester myself and either think about something that makes me sad or touches me and just let the flood gates open. Why the fuck do I do that? That's a good question. It's not something that I entirely understand but I think the reason I do it is to re-connect with my humanity. That's not to say I'm like a fucking Vulcan most of the time but the world we got can be de-humanizing as fuck. It re-connects me with something pure. Like, that which animates the forces that liberate. And fuck, sometimes I gotta cry, ya dig? Okay. I guess also it's solidarity with people who have a reason to cry. Shit. That is cheesy as fuck but that's what's in my heart, I think.

6 years ago

I’ve been trying to read more. The journalist Seymour Hersh was on an episode Intercepted (By the way, if you listen to podcasts and you do not listen to Intercepted, you need to be listening to it.) and he said that before you write, you need to read. Of course, Sy Hersh was talking about journalism but it applies even if you aren’t a journalist. 

I’ve been struggling with reading for a few years. One thing that has helped is reducing subvocalization when I’m silently reading. No, I’m not becoming some kind of freak who is obsessed with speed reading but it makes things flow a lot more smoothly if I am not reading shit to myself in my head. It never occurred to me to try and cut that out. It’s something that I’ve done since I was a kid but no, I don’t need to do that. I can just sort of look at the words and fit everything together. Almost feels like a superpower actually. It’s weird. I’m re-discovering a love for reading, I think. 

I randomly bought a poetry collection to expose myself to verse. It’s garbage.

1 year ago

Keep liking the horny posts of that girl who doesn't follow me back. Eventually she'll fall in love with me. Yeah.


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6 years ago

Leaned forward. Heartbeat thump. thump. thump. Action. Controller in hand. Rocket League. Maybe this clipped style isn’t as cool as I think it is. Maybe it just sounds weird or contrived or not real. 

I’m watching the game all so closely. Supposedly there are levels to meditation. Maybe I’m experiencing what a monk feels when he is about to really go somewhere. Chill. Chill. Focus. 

I ask myself what I need to do? What is my job in this situation? Clear the ball. Challenge. Aim there. I see the shots lining up for me before they even line up. Never saw any of that before. Couldn’t slow down enough to actually see it. 

I become aware of the pop punk blaring in my headphones as I play. Off With Their Heads. The song is Clear the Air.  For the first time, I actually hear the lyrics.

I never feel happy, I never feel safe I can't let myself ever stay in one place I look in the mirror and I see the face Of a failure who will never be significant The face that you see from the morning to night Is the mask that I put on to hide what's inside I don't take it off until you fall asleep I don't want you to see what lives inside of me 

That reads like angsty teenage journal shit but man, I can sorta believe a real person would write that. Sorta. I thought about the way I would deliver those lyrics. How I would read them, sing them, really sell them. Make you believe them. 

This is me just slowing down and noticing things. We’re most alive when we notice things. Did you ever notice that? 


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mistahsojourner - a boy coming to terms
a boy coming to terms

Paul. Straight . 42 years old. He/Him. Yeah

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