So I no longer have a job. I am no longer something, something defined by a career. How strange. Can I be a bum? A bum might be cool.



On the morning of my last day, before the break of dawn, I was surprised by an outstanding modification done to the golf cart my section uses to get around the grounds at work. It was decked out to look like a giant My Little Pony pegasus, specifically Rainbow Dash. Plus two tin-can chains dragging on the ground behind it, just in case anyone didn't notice a giant rainbow pony driving by. Despite the modifications, the cart did not go faster.

At break there was Oreo cookie cake, payback for all the cakes and desserts I've put out for people to eat on Fridays. I got my revenge: I'd also brought a dessert for this last day, a box of 48 hand-picked very fancy gourmet chocolates made by a local chocolate shop.



Otherwise, my last day at work was mostly normal, a day-long race to try and get everything fed, cleaned up after and medicated. People suggested I could "take it easy", go visit other areas at work. Well, no time, and anyway, no one has any animals I want to casually visit. I spent what time I could spare picking up the bits and pieces I'd squirreled away hither and yon. Like a big pile of CD's I'd spin in my main working area. People appreciated all the boom boxes I'd left everywhere, so those stayed, I don't need them at home, but I took home my calendars, coffee mugs, instant coffee and such the like. Many people stopped me to wish me a happy "retirement" and a handshake. And then the day was over.



There was a going away party, with cake, pies, potato chips, and more cake. A lot of food, the pastries were baked and decorated, in a My Little Pony theme, by my coworkers. Another gave me a tote bag made from dozens of heavy-duty bags the horse feed/treats/minerals come in, horses on one side of the tote bag, good will wishes printed out using cut out letters, like a ransom note, on the other side. Many of the letters were modified to make other letters, like two 'Y's became an 'X', seamlessly, like quilted Photoshop typography. Impressive.

There were pictures, chatting, compliments and a lot of people. So much cake. So very many people. I found some containers and took a good chunk of the food home. Most is now in the freezer as it is going to take ages to eat it all. Everyone is keen for me to come back to visit often.

Tomorrow is going to be my last day at work... for-ever! That's four evers, a really long time. I'm not retiring, I'm quitting. I've had quite enough of dealing with fantasy diets that seem to change on whim from the nutritionist, constantly increasing bureaucracy, ignored feedback and lip-service to decades of experience honed on observation and tweaks. After seven pleasant months of picketing (easy work!) I was considering jumping ship around last July but I held on for a while longer to see if anything was going to change. Not much of anything changed, except the season. I'm not keen about starting my day before sunrise and going home in the dark and cold, so several weeks ago I set my cut-off point at the end of October. And here we are!



Officially, I'm "retiring", not quitting. Human Resources were clear that they prefer "retiring". Sure, OK, whatever, I'm still leaving, so no difference, except I get an embarrassing dinner and money for groceries (it was either that or money for some store selling junk I don't need; at least I can eat groceries). I'm also going to get a gift for 35 years of service. I was shown a list of travel/home improvement/kitchen junk I don't need so I found some cheap things online I'd like. I was told they were too inexpensive. 9_9 So buy any two of the things I looked up, I _really_ don't care that they're cheap, in fact, when it comes to gifts, I _prefer_ cheap. Cheap and useful pwns expensive and useless, every day of the week.



On my lunch breaks I've been reading Words of Power by Starscribe, who also wrote Fine Print (trickster Discord rents a room to a computer tech worker in a house which exists both in California and ponyville) and Homebrew (set in the Optimalverse sandbox, a benevolent AI apocalypse where the goal is to absorb all of humanity into a My Little Pony simulation). Both those prior books were good, so I expected this book to be well written as well. In Words of Power a factory worker ends up with an injured My Little Pony pegasus guard with a magical book in his house. He opens the book and gets changed into a female kirin (a maned dragon unicorn) and unintentionally changes his computer geek housemate into a griffin. Eventually he learns the skill to open a "worldgate" and all three cross over to Equestria to bring the book back to wherever it is that it can be safely stored.



Words of Power is not exactly well written, in fact it is in dire need of editing. There are continuity errors everywhere, sometimes in the same sentence, plus repetition. Then there's the nonsense. The main protagonist was raised on a farm but can't stand the sight of animal genitalia or the thought that either animal sharing his house will see his labia. 9_9 Since the clothes that he and his computer geek housemate own don't fit, genitalia are on display 24/7. After a week and change, kirin not-guy is smooching the pegasus guard pony and a few days later they're breeding. How can that work? Have you ever seen a horse? It's not exactly subtle, like the kirin wouldn't notice. So, thus far we've gone from body-horror (understandable), body dysphoria, prudish modesty (while wearing a fantasy creature body) to 'oh well, even though absolutely every creature knows I'm being bred by a horse, please don't tell anyone', with a horse who is doing the whole 'stay away from my mare, she's mine' thing.



So the gender transition acceptance thing is ham-fisted and the rushed, the jumbled story structure is off-putting, as was the holier-than-thou put-down of Princess Twilight over a need-to-know stratagem. But buried deep under this mess is a compelling narrative. I've read worse so I kept going and I've almost finished reading the whole thing, gritting my teeth all the while. Cost me $85 Can. and anyway, "It's My book and I'M GOING TO READ IT!" I'm going to think twice about getting any other books by this author.



There were "time capsules" in the news recently. These time capsules are like 25 years old. The people that put stuff in them are still kicking and remember what it was they contributed. It's ridiculous. If some box put away for a few decades counts as a time capsule, then my house is full of time capsules. I have boxes I haven't unpacked since I've moved, like 35 years ago, pictures on Kodachrome and old High School yearbooks. In that vein, my Bambi, Spirit and Pony collections are all time capsules too. There should be criteria for time capsules, like at least a 100 year minimum intentional burial.

DVD's are getting scarce at goodwill. I asked why the other day and I was told it's because DVD's are not getting donated. So it's harder to find anything I'd want to watch but some weeks ago I found a few I hadn't seen, including Entangled and Ralf Wrecks the Internet.

Ralf Wrecks the Internet was OK, predictable with a sneaky controlling boyfriend vibe, but still better than the horrors that the directors had planned, but ultimately cut from the finished film. I finally got to see the Disney Princess clique, discovering t-shirts and declaring that singing to water is The One True Princess Thing. Could be true.



Entangled (Disney Rapunzel) was an exercise in choosing the wrong Fairy Tale to flesh out in a movie. In this movie version, Disney changed the sorceress into an old woman, Rapunzel into a princess with magic hair, the wandering prince into a thief on the run, and the whole trading unborn Rapunzel for stolen salad thing into a kidnapping the baby with magic hair scenario. But that did not change the aspect of the story that made it unpleasant to watch; the sand in the Vaseline was the constant verbal abuse employed by the old woman to ensure that, for 18 years straight, Rapunzel never left the tower. There was no way around that. Nothing magical was keeping Rapunzel from rappelling down the tower and cutting off her hair to escape, just the lies and guilt-tripping. Well, I wanted to see this movie to see the horse protagonist and the horse delivered, but not enough to watch the movie twice.



Another Goodwill find was the 2021 Ghostbusters film, the one where Egon is dead, his daughter and grandkids inherit his farmhouse off in the badlands and the grandkids and their friends take up ghost-capturing. It was an OK movie, but the more I dwell on it, the more crass it feels. The teacher has only disdain for his students, wastes their class time by showing them horror movies while he goes off to putter around in his lab and geek/fan boy over seismology and the now defunct Ghostbusters. The kids make snide comments time and again, which they seem to get from their penniless mother. They're all pretty actors and do a good job... at being crass. I guess that's the Ghostbusters vibe, crass humor. Crass with sexual and misogynist innuendo. I saw the movie that followed this one at the cinema last year or so, when it came out. It had much the same cast and was mostly forgettable. As in, I've mostly forgotten it.