Recyclersteve wrote:P.S. I feel sorry for germaphobes. A famous one is actor/comedian/magician Howie Mandel. He was afraid of stuff before COVID. Imagine how paranoid someone like him will be after COVID...
Oddly it's actually a bit of a relief that more of the world has figured out that germs are
a thing. I've spent decades thinking most of the rest of the world is retarded because
they don't believe germs are real. (OK, there will always be other ways for people to
demonstrate their retardedness... ^_-) If anything this might wake people up enough
that they think things through more and that will in the long run make things a bit
safer for everyone.
Know Common Cents wrote:Good comments. Criminal behavior will take on many new forms. No gun needed. Give me all your money and the keys to your car! If you don't, I'm going to cough all over you!
Maybe open carry flame throwers need to become a thing...
If someone pulled that stunt and got burned alive on the sidewalk by their intended
victim and I was on the jury I'd find the use of the flame thrower to be self defense...
Then write to political leaders and try to make a big deal in the media that they
should be given an award for taking down an "enemy combatant". (This
is a war between humans and the virus, a human intentionally helping the virus
spread is treason.)
Though since I live in Canada the most lethal weapon I typically have is a plastic
bag...the warnings on them do promise that they can cause suffocation...
If someone tries to kill me, i'll make sure I kill them. ^_-
Dr. Cadmium wrote:4) Agreed. I know several gym owners. Many gyms across the country are going to shut down permanently, along with many other small businesses.
I think it could be bad but for a different reason, if they don't get rent relief for the time
they are closed and this goes on too long they'll have to close permanently because they
can't keep feeding in expenses with no way to get revenue.
The gym I go to (yes I started going to a gym since the last time I posted here) is closed
because March 20th the Province of Manitoba ordered all gyms to close. The owner has
sent out an E-mail to let everyone know what's going on. Right now he's offering some
equipment that would otherwise be idled for rental and a few pieces he's selling so he
can replace them with new when/if they re-open. He's suspending memberships so
the closed days will be added onto the end of the membership after re-opening.
If it does drag out long enough he will have to close the 2 gyms he owns permanently.
He said if that happens he'll pay back people on the unused memberships, although
that could take him a while. In my case I was litterally up for renewal 9 days after the
closure and had given them the go ahead to renew it. Since that were closed they didn't
pull the money from the account and put a note on my account to deal with that upon
re-opening. So at least the place is being run by a stand up guy.
Only real concern I have is the locker I rent, it was nice having that square foot of
storage space in the center of downtown. If he does decide to close permanently
I'm not sure how much of a window of time I'll have to go retrieve my stuff out of
the locker. Since there was no advance notice that it would close on "day X" I didn't
know to pull anything out, also I have more stuff crammed in there than could easily
carry out in one trip. Ironiclly I have 2 boxes of portable anti-bacterial wipes in there
(and 4 at home) so if the ones at home get below one box before I can buy them again
(they are sold out everywhere like rubbing alcohol is) I may have to see if there is a
way I can get in to pull some stuff out in advance even if they are re-opening. I kept
that locker stocked with anything I'd want to refill my jacket pockets with while
downtown. So if I forget something before I leave home no problem, I've got whatever
it is in the locker. Also kept a few CLIF bars there because I'd typically go to the gym
overnight when everything else downtown was closed and there was nowhere to buy
food if I got hungry before the first morning busses started.
I'm definately going back to the gym when it's deemed safe to re-open, but some
of the people who go to the aerobics classes might be used to doing them at home
by then. In my case I'm paying for space that I don't have at home and use of
equipment I can't have at home due to said lack of space. At the time I go (with
FOB access) often it's just me there or me and one guy that works in the mall when
he finishes work.
As for predictions of the world after this Guerilla Capitalism (written by the owner of
the place I have my domain names) is writing about a few possibilities
https://guerrilla-capitalism.com/articl ... e-majeure/Including:
"All of the central bank and fiscal stimulus portends a secular shift from deflation to
inflation and I don’t think very many people understand what that means."
Well, everyone at Realcent knows what that means, hopefully the recently depleted
supply chain refills before inflation picks up much.
As for what I've been up to I've launched a T-shirt bussiness, Very Eager 4 Tees:
http://www.ve4.caWas planning to maybe try a flyer campaign in spring but I think I'll wait until this
COVID thing passes, pretty sure this is not when anyone wants extra stuff in their
mailbox and most people are thinking more about essentials right now and will probably
wear their older clothes a bit longer.
At least it has almost no real fixed overhead on an ongoing basis, even the web site
is running on my hobby server that hosts my other domains so I don't even have web
hosting costs. So I can afford to wait.
As for the regular job, since I work from home I'm still working, a few people who
worked in the offices in Winnipeg, Montreal and Detroit switched to working from
home like us and everyone else got laid off until they are ready to re-open the offices.
Though since we are down to a few of the regular tracking surveys and everything
else got pulled or pushed back the amount of work dropped more than the amount
of people so hours of work are reduced which would normaly be perfect timing to go
put out flyers for the T-shirt bussiness but...not in this case due to the reason.
Due to some helicopter money known as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Em ... se_Benefit...that the laid off people will get for 16 weeks before regular Employment Insurance
kicks in (if the crisis lasts longer than 16 weeks) the people laid off will actually have
more income than those still working.
As for preps...considering how much lead time I had on this I probably did under
prepare. I figured, well I've got a bunch of canned food, and paper products and
cereal upstairs so I should be fine if I can't go out for a few weeks. But it wasn't
really until we were far enough into it that the news was showing everyone else
panic buying that I started thinking "what if it goes a few months", about 2 weeks
back I also came to the realization that I didn't have a thermometer. Fortunately I
was able to find one last FR at the drug store in the mall where my Chiropractor is.
(I joked to one of my friends that "my tin foil hat is going to be revoked" for failing
to think fo that. ^_-) At least I avoided being impacted by the toilet paper panic, I
think what I bought in fall to get through the winter will last until the end of May.
(This is a normal get ready for winter thing for me.) So the extent that I was prepared
was mostly by accident.
Right now here in Winnipeg some stores are limiting purchase of certain items
and food is available (one food items I've seen Wal-Mart have more on the shelf
last FR than i've ever seen them have in normal times) though even with the limits
paper products they are a bit scarce. The panic buying has passed but some stores sometimes have a line to get in as they are limiting how many people can be in the
store at once to maximize space between people. Of course any kind of disinfectant
product is out or near out, some bleach is on the shelf but that's not so helpfull on
the go. Ironically I have a whole bunch of bleach I bought last year when I figured out
it was the easiest way to kill weeds in my driveway but didn't use it for that purpose
because it proceeded to rain right after that until the snow started. So maybe I'll hold
onto that for now.
As for where I've been getting my China news...much has been from these guys on
Youtube who I'd been following for a couple of years now...
https://www.youtube.com/user/churchillcustoms/videoshttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcukTq ... zjA/videoshttps://www.youtube.com/user/serpentza/videoshttps://www.youtube.com/user/laowhy86/videosOne of their wives (who used to be a doctor in China) also did a video on the rationing
of masks to doctors during the crisis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTXl2ue6ZeoIt was far less than adaquate at one point.