The Veterinary Scams in Everett

 So I am being pressured into neutering Rhodey, even though after 8 years of life it has never been an issue. I decided to get it done rather than deal with the pressure anymore and discovered a serious scam that all vet clinics are running in Everett.

First the "pre-surgery" exam is a total rip off. They charge for a full blood work when all they are concerned with are two levels, two specific chemicals in the blood which the vet glossed over and this cost more than $300 USD.

Then the surgery, at the discount vet it will cost almost $400 USD because he wasn't able to be neutered sooner due to Compass Housing making him ill. Other vets were quoting nearly $1,000 USD.

I am paid only $900 USD per month for disability. The housing authorities keep saying they have to be neutered or spayed, ultimately making it nearly impossible for a disabled person to actually keep their companions unless they are of perfect health and adopted only from the shelters after they are of a certain age.

Basically, the state is telling us what specific therapy we must have for something that is clearly a very personal thing even when it causes no harm. You see, Rhodey never sprays and he is never out of the apartment unless he's in my control, he is literally the most perfect male cat possible because I actually know how to care for and manage a cat, that is why they are my preferred companions, otherwise I would have chosen a different companion.

I actually understand felines better than I understand the ape known as homo sapiens, or as the low brow like to call us: humans. Humans suck.

Gaming For Fools

 There is a very long running problem with video games of late, one which is utterly destroying the industry. It's sad because the fans know why, but seem unable to to simply stop buying the garbage that has been released lately.

First I must demand no more zombies!!!! Seriously, this wasn't even that great in the early games, why are there so many zombie based games being bought? Stop buying them, if the theme is "zombie" then just avoid it, pretend it doesn't exist.

Zombies were used as a single and rare encounter in older games, one encounter of many. Even games like Resident Evil didn't focus on the zombie, they were just the first thing you see before the really scary stuff started chasing you.

Now they are the staple, the primary encounter. Zombies are cheap, and any bugs or glitches can be ignored as "expected zombie behavior" which excuses the laziness we now see in developers. But it's up to us gamers to stop paying for this laziness, so stop buying games where zombies are the primary protagonist.

Now the rot that this has created, while the developers have been awarded for their laziness they made it a feature of all games now. Even Minecraft is becoming one massive mess of bugs, glitches, and poorly implemented additions.

All the newest content for most of the major games are a mess, sloppy and hastily thrown together to try to remain relevant while the fans jump on the "next big thing" which ends up being a huge flop anyway. To the developers I say: 

Stop worrying about the fad hoppers, they'll always come back, take your time and get back to what you love doing. The profits will always be there.

To the fans, stop jumping on fads just because the developers of said fad paid a streamer or youtuber to play their game. Preordering, getting early access, it's just a bad idea.

Games like Valheim and Last Oasis turned into huge flops, but because everyone was rushing to those the Ark developers panicked and released two buggy messes full of redundant grindfest content known as Genesis and Genesis 2.

Minecraft developers got so lazy they decided to merge into the Xbox ecosystem. This merging added so many bugs and problems that this move will actually kill off the Java version.

Conan Exiles was the first to fall prey to this problem with the release of Isle of Siptah, breaking many of the core mechanics in the game and ruining the graphics system in a sorry attempt to beat the rush to newer games. The only games that seem to maintain composure during this mess are Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy 14.

I don't like FF14 anymore, but it's not because they rushed the production, it's because one of the stories they released broke the lore too much for me to appreciate. GW2 is going strong though, looking forward to the End of Dragons expansion, even pre-ordered it because I trust they'll release it when it's finished and not a day sooner.

So what made the successful ones so great before they broke? Newness, that's it, they each offered something completely new to the genres they focused on.

But all of the newer games are not doing that, Last Oasis tried but it was too little of a thing to build an entire game from. Valheim was just a low end version of Conan Exiles, so I have no idea why anyone even thought that was worth the purchase.

But in spite of the mistakes made by the developers, the primary fault lies in the fans. Everyone flocking to something that's "the best new thing" and then never returning to the games that still hold up in spite of their flaws hurts the developers, they think they lost everyone to a fad so they start moving to projects that are just more short term fads.

This makes game development a fool's game.

The State Of Seattle

 So evictions in the USA are one of those really messy things which most tenants do not even know a fraction of the laws involved. Landlords have taken advantage of this fact to wrongfully evict tenants, often without even having to go to court because the tenant can't afford legal counsel.

Seattle finally joined the growing number of cities who offered a "public defender" of sorts for tenants facing eviction. This is likely because of our growing homeless problem, which is likely a result of the fact that landlords are finding ways around the eviction moratorium.

But what do home owners say? They're complaining, of course.

We have had this serious problem in the USA where the people who have money are convinced that everyone who doesn't have money are somehow out to get them. Which has resulted in creating a huge divide between those who have, and those who struggle just to get what we need.

The end result is what we see in renting, where somehow people have this idea that every eviction is justified. The pathetic irony being that most evictions are without good reason, and often those who should be evicted never are.

A primary reason why those who should be evicted manage to avoid it is that the landlords just listen to neighbor complaints, and the Karen types are generally the loudest. The ones most likely to be wrongfully evicted are the quiet types who typically stay to themselves and don't scream about every little thing.

Then that one thing causes the quiet person to complain just once about someone, and suddenly the Karen types will start an onslaught of complaints as well as generating rumors to ruin the quiet person's reputation with the landlord. Resulting in the one who did nothing wrong being evicted while the Karen type remains secure in their residence.

This is, of course, only one example of how the disparity shows up, there are many others. Well, with the court appointed lawyer the quiet person suddenly has the strength of the law behind them, as well as all the information normally only afforded to the landlord on how to fight any wrongful eviction in court.

Now the biggest complaint I've seen is about the cost. But let's put this into perspective.

A homeless person will cost about $35,000+ a year, that's taxes it comes from. My apartment generally costs about $5,000 per year in tax dollars, I still pay almost half of the total costs and the rest is subsidized.

Though the average is about $12,000 per year for housing and that include "supportive" housing. So it's in your best interest to house people, not kick them out onto the streets.

Source: https://endhomelessness.org/resource/ending-chronic-homelessness-saves-taxpayers-money-2/ 

The Problem With Office Staff

 My whole situation can be summed up as "office staff are lazy". On the bright side, it wasn't Compass Housing Alliance that messed up this time, instead it was a building with multiple managers who all took the same days off and didn't want to check their emails.

Of course that's only part of the story, but it's the backbone of the problem. The severe resistance to use modern technology is hurting people in so many ways, and yet there are still many people who refuse to modernize because they're comfortable with being troglodytes.

With our modern technology we also have better ways to manage our money, it uses the credit card system. So basically the story goes like this:

First they keep insisting payments are made using money order or cashier's check, both of which are typically used by criminal organizations attempting to commit tax fraud. So I was kind of pushing that back in my mind because they said a credit card system was available for rent payments, and I shouldn't have to deal with the parts which criminals prefer.

Then the stupid bullshit holiday known as Thanksgiving happened. I expected them to take a four day weekend because of it, which was bad enough given the vast majority of the world still functions and the whole process would be delayed because of precious time lost due to this.

But then they all took Monday off as well, because they're privileged office staff who are so over paid for sitting on their asses all day while others toil for entire days and earn less than a quarter what they do. So I am frantic about not knowing what's going on, what needs to be done, and all of that with only a few days remaining to make the transition to a new residence.

I get up on Tuesday, check my email, and no response was made. I don't check my voicemail because it's 2020, not 1980.

Discovered they tried to call me in an email they finally responded too, so my response was simple: I pointed out all the problems they created and said goodbye. Rent is due in two days here, and staying past the first of the month is not only rude, it's also against the lease, when planning to move out because then they have to go an entire month without rent.

So I opted to not screw over the organization that finally started doing something right, and stop the farcical procedure that Colwell Building managers were putting me through. The kicker here is that there are more managers for the Colwell Building than for the Karlstrom. Yet they still manage to have an entire week in which no manager is available to complete a time sensitive procedure in which the people involved need to know vital information to make plans around periods of being ill, medical care, and basic life needs.

At least with the Karlstrom, there was an excuse, the lack of stable staff in necessary positions. Colwell Building is supposedly a business, and they get tax credits for keeping some units for low income, yet they don't seem to be capable of doing this well.

From an assistant who doesn't know the process, to a head manager that is never there. The policies that resemble a criminal organization are just the cherry on the top here, so I will reiterate those really quick:

1. Only drug dealers or beggars take cash now, because it's easy to steal, and untraceable.

2. Only criminal organizations take money order or cashier's checks because they are easily hidden from tax records.

3. Regular checks are viable alternatives to debit and credit, but there is a reason to avoid those.

Of all the payment methods, debit and credit are the only ones friendly to the environment, completely secure, and easily managed. This is why so many new payment systems connected to the credit card system have become so popular, this is the future, time to start acting like it.

A Tale As Old As Time, At Least For Me

So on r/AskReddit someone asked what the most fucked up thing to happen to you was. I decided I'll paste a copy here for posterity because this one day really does sum up my entire life:

The Power of Millennials

 So I have watched a lot of millennial prank videos, stumbled on a lot of feel good ones. Originally I had expected a bunch of those really messed up pranks that my generation was and is quite popular for, and was so pleased to see none of that.

What I did discover was a few wealthy millennials with a lot of money and time, bored because they're rich, pranking people and giving them a lot of money and stuff in the end just to thank them for being a good sport. These videos show much more than that, and that in itself was really uplifting.

Big Daws TV is one of the groups doing these pranks, and they do some old fashioned pranks as well. So of course I saw those as well, and what stood out for me was that they were completely harmless.

Then I noticed a disturbing trend, something that shocked me to the core: of all their marks the millennials had the best reactions. Not best as in "most shocking of all time", but best as in laid back, so laid back.

Of course they get a bit shocked and surprised, but they don't swing, scream, or start attacking the pranksters. So these millennials that everyone else calls "entitled" or "weak" are really giving and laid back.

So if "entitled" means "giving money to people who need it when you have more than you need", then I hope they continue to be entitled. If being "weak" means "not attacking someone because they catch you off guard" then I hope they continue to be weak.

What we're seeing is our species finally becoming more humane, and these are a generation inheriting a pretty fucked up world. From allowing climate change to get out of hand to allowing our law enforcement to become tyrannical, and these youth are doing what they can to help fix the problems we started.

I'm embarrassed to be middle aged, not because I'm "old" but because others in my generation are insulting and attacking people who are doing the right thing.

Compass Housing: Archaic Trogolodytes

 So we finally get a forward thinking manager for The Karlstrom. One would think that was awesome news, however for us who live here it's like nothing changed.

The reason is that Compass Housing Authority won't even listen to the people they hire, instead they choose to do the same bullshit. So here is a list of things they do wrong, and all of them could be so easily corrected if they'd just embrace new technologies.

1. No Communication

If you send anyone an email, and you are lucky enough to get a response, it's no less than 7 days before you get said response. It's as if none of them check their messaging systems but for the two hours they spend in the office.

There are several possibilities as to why, from really inexperienced tech department to plain old laziness. There is no department email address system either, it's all to individuals using predetermined email addresses which the staff have zero control over.

This is straight out of the handbook of "how to handle this new thing called the internet" from the 1980s. Given today's environment, checking email should be an hourly thing and the staff should have a mobile app available to check it on the go as well.

2. Bad Web Design

Their website is generic, bland, and something that could easily be thrown together from a Wix template in about five minutes. Ironic given that they claim to have an IT department.

So it makes you wonder if they are even receiving emails. A short time ago it was discovered that their email system was filtering out most of the emails that were being sent to them.

3. No Modern Payment Methods

This one makes them seem suspicious as well as inept, given that the most secure and accessible payment methods are with credit card systems. These are inexpensive and easy systems to setup, and yet they are insisting on using the archaic, insecure, and often very slow methods of payment for rent while pretty much every other organization which manages low income housing offers a credit card payment system.

The new manager has been trying to convince them to implement such a system, which can be setup overnight by any competent technology or financial professional. Yet nearly eight months later no such system has been employed.

4. No Accountability

Often companies they employ for any task are unheard of, almost not internet presence and sometimes their office location on Google points to a residential house. Then when the residents file a complaint about the services, CHA tells us to complain to that company, then that company tells us to either complain to CHA or fuck off.

We have a laundry facility that can't even wash sheets well, and then whenever new residents move in with bed bugs we end up with a massive infestation. These are new problems, relatively, that started when they sold off the expensive laundry machines that were installed in the building when it first opened.

The machines we had were not prefect, mind you, but they were functional and didn't require cash to operate. The company they replaced it with not only remains elusive and avoids all contact with residents, their machines are from the late 1980s and are designed for low and infrequent use.

When attempting to discuss this issue with them, the best we can hope for is occasional access to their better facilities used for cleaning the laundry from the shelters. If the company they contracted cannot provide machines which could work for shelters, what makes them think it would work for an apartment building?

5. Retaliatory Practices

A few of their staff will watch the social media of the residents, thankfully they don't know how to do this well because they do response to any criticism with anger. Given they are also constantly looking for things to hang over the heads of the residents as threats for eviction, this is really bad practice and looks suspiciously like they are attempting to silence any criticism.

Several residents have mentioned as much, many too paranoid to even complain to the authorities which are supposed to hold CHA accountable for their actions. When a resident mentions anything to them, CHA will hold onto that and blow it out of proportion, even making up complaints from "some neighbors" even when no neighbor has made any official complaint.

Now it is possible the neighbors are just too afraid to talk to each other, but this would be in response to the fact that CHA has created such an environment by ignoring legitimate complaints, delaying repairs, and blaming some residents for the damage caused by other residents who have routinely flooded the building. When pressed on any issue, the staff complain about their insurance rates increasing while defending the very people who caused it and moving more such people into the building.

As I write this, the residents in the apartments above mine are smoking marijuana, which they have done almost daily since the COVID lockdown. These are the residents responsible for so much damage to the building, and the property of those of us who have caused no damage to the building.

Instead of even considering compensating us who have lost property, then making things right by fixing out broken services, they defend and protect the ones who actually caused the damage. To make matters worse, they blame those of us who have been harmed by these incidents for the results of the damage.

My newest neighbor has brought with him bed bugs, which would not have been a problem if we had functioning laundry facilities which were easily accessed. As it is, there is no way to launder the linen so I have to spray poisons almost every day to keep up with the invasion.

There is also a resident selling drugs out of their apartment here, and though I don't know who it is nor how valid that accusation is, it would not be surprising if that was true.

Compass Housing Alliance is one of the most dysfunctional and archaic organizations in the system, a far cry from the original Compass Center that maintained the building to high standards, kept very strong relations with the residents, and took responsibility for their role when things did go south.

You can't complain about insurance rates increasing when you remove amenities that helped maintain the building and protect those who are flooding units regularly.