Voight-Kampff

 I went to bed at about 2AM last night and woke up at 10. That works out about right. I guess yesterday was my "day off" as I didn't list or pack anything, but essentially goofed off, going to Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz. 

I put the "new" flute together and played a few notes. The headjoint has a very light out-of-round dent but it goes together fine, and at least for the notes I know, the flute seems to play OK. It also came with a gadget called a "thumb port" which  I don't think I'll need, but will go in with my flute stuff. 

Last night was the night the welding place puts their trash out and occasionally there's treasure. Last night was one of those. I was able to grab 147 (I counted later) really nice pink bubble liners, great for packing things. There was also a sandwich on top of the stuff for some reason, which I left on top of the lid when I was done. 

Unfortunately, as I was grabbing the bubble liners which only took a few minutes, a zombie rode by on a bike coming by pretty close and mumbling zombie gibberish. That could have gone badly and I'm thinking the next time I see there's a lot of stuff worth digging for, that I ought to roll the trash can up to my doorway here, get the stuff I want out, then roll it back. 

That zombie could have seen that I'd left the door open here, gotten inside, and now I've got to mount an assault on my own place. It might be nearly impossible to dislodge the zombie, which would then have a huge advantage even if it didn't find the weapons I have in here right away. My favorite technique for de-zombifying an enclosed space would be to use inert gas. Clean, simple, would deactivate zombies with a minimum of fuss, then it's just a matter of airing the place and out and getting rid of the deactivated zombie(s). Even that would be no-fuss, as it's the night the dumpster's emptied and an extra zombie or two would not be noticed in the load. But this means I'd have to have the aforementioned gas and other siege tools stored at a secondary location. Better to avoid it all in the first place. 

I keep seeing on Reddit how "homelessness" is increasing all over, and while some of it is actual homelessness, a lot of it is zombification. By which I mean what was discussed in a documentary I saw, where they tested schizophrenics and saw that the parts of the brain that normally light up when a person interacts with another person, don't light up. In other words, to a schizophrenic, persons = things. And that this is a spectrum where a lot of people who are dysfunctional but not obviously schizophrenic have this lack in brain function. 

This, I think, is why these street zombies have no idea of the social contract or of human give-and-take. Do 'em a favor and they have no concept that they owe you one in return, but instead conclude that you're "weak" and to be taken advantage of. 

So the first thing you'd want to do in evaluating and helping, if possible, the homeless is to run them through a sort of screening with the (fictional for now) Voight-Kampff machine from the movie Blade Runner and figure out who's operating at a human level and who's not. Those who are not, are the ones sent to Happy Fun Camps(tm) where they get all the junk food and drugs they like, to live out their "lives" away from us humans. 

I listed 15 things that I'd prepared yesterday, and had time to pack 5 things. I could not find one thing, bit rot strikes again. So I refunded the customer for that one - if it shows up later I'll re-list it and tell the guy he can buy it, but these things never seem to show up once they've disappeared. 

I didn't need the bike trailer so I took the things to the post office and did some shopping at 99 Ranch. The guy right after me was buying a package of butane fuel canisters so we ended up raving about how great those little butane stoves are. 

I'd spent enough to get a $1 coupon back, but those are always dated for a week later and I'm never there a week later so as usual, I put it up on the notice board where people post rooms for rent and such things. 

I didn't find much of anything for packing or anything from the (usually) bountiful dumpster. The veggie dumpster only had bundles of mint which I have no use for, and I forgot to stop and check the dumpster behind H Mart.