Is the Ghost of J. Edgar Hoover Watching Us?

And if so, is he wearing something fabulous?     |
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As it turns out, the cottage where Bruce Springsteen wrote Born to Run is up for sale. If we think about it, what good has come out of New Jersey? Let's see.... Bon Jovi... Springsteen... Chris Christie... me... Nah, that house should be bulldozed.

• Tom Brady says Frosted Flakes and Coca-Cola are 'poison.' He's just pissed that he can't figure out how to let the air out of either of them.  And there, ladies and gentleman, is my sports reference for 2015.

The nightmare continues: My wife, in a severely altered state, spent so much time on Faceyspaces that her cousin referred to her as a Faceyspaces Whore. It was an ugly sight (site), with her making a sandwich while looking at her phone. Minute after minute elapsed. By the time I cleaned a sink full of dishes, she was still standing there, sandwich half-made, drool coming out of her mouth, catching up on the latest selfies from her nieces, who were posing in front of toxic waste dumps and in bathrooms.

While out visiting over the weekend, there were two Facetime sessions at once, involving my mother, brother, cousin, cousin, Philly and Israel. I am so embarrassed that I can no longer attend family functions (as if I did in the first place). My family is a bunch of iHoles.

Speaking of visiting family, one of the visits involved a relatively recent baby.  What does one say when visiting a home with a new baby when one doesn't like babies? Yup, that's the most recent baby I have ever seen. He looks just like his father, if his father looked like the mailman. Here, have this very silly baby outfit. Hey, how about them [insert sports team]? Please show me baby pictures - better yet, videos!

I also discovered that we have a serious anomaly in the family: hot cousins. My family is so devoid of attractive females, I just naturally assume they're from someone else's family. Question: is it still incest if we have no babies and they're third cousins? And how, exactly, do you bring this up? "Hey - wanna pretend to make three-eyed babies?"

• THREATS IN OUR SKIES continue, as a drunk passenger stripped and asked a stewardess for sex. As a result the plane had to make an emergency landing. Be fair - the drunken Irishman (redundant?) took off his undies before waving his penis about. I'm wondering what the problem was - in the pre 9-11 days, this would qualify as in-flight entertainment.
• Another drunk man (no word on whether or not he was Irish) was thrown off an American Air flight for making gun signs with his fingers. I wonder what the finger sign is for box-cutter....

Homosexuality discovered to be caused by dead parents' curse or grief over ex-parrot. Or so it is thought in China, where a man was beaten and tortured to cure him of his homosexuality. Officials blamed his condition on parents or parrot. Unfortunately for China and, by extension, the medical establishment all over the world, he still prefers penis.

• I think I have an interim solution for the immigration issue: tell the Mexicans that the Muslims are coming here to steal their illegal jobs and healthcare.

ThermionicEmissions salutes the unnamed K-9 officer who died in the line of duty in Anderson County, SC., on 10/21/2015, of a gunshot wound.

• Remember the hack of the CIA director's AOL email account? The CIA has condemned Wikileaks for publishing documents from it. You know, rather than condemning the CIA director having an AOL account. To be fair, I predict that there will be no official inquiry into the CIA director, unlike Hillary.

You've got to hand it to the Germans... after Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed a Palestinian leader told the Nazis to kill the Jews, Germany stood up and insisted it was responsible. Next week, Cancun, Dick Cheney, and Poland will claim responsibility.

• Joe Biden has announced that he is not going to run for president in 2016. He said, "I will sit this one out because the election doesn't need one more clown. It would be impossible to distinguish myself from this bunch."

Remember the drought in California?  Because everyone did so well at conservation, Los Angeles is raising its water rates.

• SELFIES R US: This week's installment features migrants in Slovenia setting fire to their own tents in protest of having to wait one day for their UK papers. While the fire burned, they took selfies.

SAD NEWS:  Years back, my little hamlet discovered that an adult video store would be opening locally. The natives came out with pitchforks and torches and pledged to do anything possible to avoid having this plague in their town. They even tried to get their business license denied for silly, trumped up reasons. Law triumphed and the store opened on schedule. At no point did the crime statistics rise or the hamlet turn into some sort of modern Sodom and Gomorrah. It just sat there, silently, out of view due to bushes and the lack of windows. The only real excitement came when I discovered The Religious picketing the store by holding bibles and saying words at the building.

Either The Big Man<tm> took a while to come through or economics succeeded where prayers didn't and the store is closing. Wife says this is just like Playboy being beaten by the availability of free online material. It's kinda sad, like the end of an era when hobby stores started closing [sigh]. The only bright side is the 50% off sale. Perhaps the store in the next town over will succeed due to their emphasis on items that aren't video (or so I hear).

To borrow a theme from public radio beg-a-thons, this is the type of information that you won't get on other blogs. It is attention to detail that successfully combines economics and porn in the same story. But please don't send money - I'd feel horribly guilty, as my heritage dictates. But please do tell your friends, family, and people you don't like about the blog: I need to break the ten reader mark.

SNAKES ON MTV

Way back in the 80's, another group I enjoyed watching on MTV (when they played actual music) was Whitesnake. Whitesnake actually goes waaaaay back, through quite a lot of incarnations, with the only common element being the singer, David Coverdale. Mr. Coverdale was in Deep Purple for a while, as well as doing vocals on a Jimmy Page album, causing Robert Plant to refer to him as "David Cover-version" (the British like to hyphenate). 

Where was I? Oh yeah, MTV.  After the band's shift from bluesy rock to a more metallic tone, someone had the brilliant idea of making videos featuring David and his incredibly hot girlfriend at the time, Tawny Kitaen.  Tawny's performance generally involved having impossibly large hair and looking impossibly good, while wandering about, storming out, or gyrating orgiastically upon a Jaguar (presumably David's). This was all a young, hormone-filled guy could want in a video. Fun fact: Mrs. Whitesnake eventually dated a baseball player and went to jail for beating the crap out of him. That's hot.

I can't help but consider Whitesnake a guilty pleasure: metallic leanings but still managing to stay tuneful.
Is This Love is a perfect power-metal love song. I wound up playing it and humming it a lot after purchasing the album. Round about this time, David was having a really difficult time with guitarists. I don't know if they kept exploding, imploding, or doing horrible things to their nostrils, but a number of them came and went. This was ironic, as the people in the video were not the people on the album. This continued through two albums and featured John Sykes, Adrian Vandenburg (in the video), Vivian Campbell (Def Leppard), and Steve Vai (Zappa, David Lee Roth, solo). This being the 80's, Vandenburg's hair was almost as big as Tawny's (he's Dutch, you know). The criteria for the video seems to be large hair and long leather coats.

The band was rounded out by Rudy Sarzo, who became notable because he'd lick the neck of his bass and Tommy Aldridge, late of Pat Travers, on drums. Tommy is a world class pounder and is in the band to this day. He occasionally came onstage dressed in only a diaper. Did I mention he's a drummer?

The really huge hit was Here I Go Again, in which the band wanted to convey that they were Very Serious about music. They were so serious that the video featured two Jaguars (and Tawny doing her own stunts). Right before the guitar solo, David hits a note that only dogs and the random hedgehog can hear. Seriously - there are overweight classical music altos that cannot hit that note.

An earlier song that classic rock aficianados might remember is Slow An' Easy. This song kinda illustrates why Robert Plant made that comment. I really like the song regardless. The video personnel seems to include John Sykes and someone who looks like Cozy Powell (Jeff Beck Group) on drums. This song did not do too well on MTV, probably because Mrs. Whitesnake was not in it.

Another Whitesnake staple is Give Me All Your Love. I think part of their musical success recipe was doubling the guitars with keyboards (give it a listen) and a really memorable sing-along chorus.

I'm having a blast at their expense but I do like them and I'm really jealous that I can't be flying across that stage, having the time of my life, and getting more tookie than Elvis. David is the prototypical frontman and still hits just about every note - the man does some serious vocal gymnastics, even though he's ninety. Ok, sixty-something. The latest incarnation of the band features Tommy Aldridge and Reb Beach (Winger). They still sound good.

PLAY Guitar Hero?  I AM a guitar hero.

How Are Things in Cockerspanistan?

Marshall is a rescue cocker. For the life of us, we couldn't figure out how anybody could 'throw him away'. While physically removing him from the cat food for the third time in a day, it finally hit me: he's too damn smart. He was obviously way too smart for his previous owner. Since I don't define my intelligence (or manhood) by my dog's IQ, it doesn't bother me nearly as much. This is a good thing, as the cat is even smarter.

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When I come home from work, Marshall wags his stub a bit and leaps on the sofa next to me (assuming he's not already on the sofa). He leans against me, sitting up like a human, with his paws on my leg. Then we sniff each others' nostrils. It wasn't always this way - he used to sniff my nostrils exclusively but after a while, I started sniffing his nostrils, to keep things even and see what he would do.

He sits there while I rub his belly or his flaps. If I stop too quickly, he sticks his nose under my arm, the universal signal for PAY ATTENTION TO ME (the cat does it too). I comply immediately. This goes on for up to ten minutes.

When I get in bed and get settled, Marshall comes up and positions himself up against me, paws on my right shoulder. I get to scratch his flaps again. He makes hysterical growling noises and twirls, then nudges me for more. This can go on for a while too.

I put up a mock struggle but these are some of the best times of my day.

He Reminds Me of a Penguin

In a move that has rocked the entire northern hemisphere (and parts of New Jersey), President Obama has 'extended the Afghan military presence.'  Support our troops - bring them home.

• The US State Department suggests that Israel might be using excessive force to confront a wave of Palestinian stabbings. Israel is not amused. Meanwhile, US state program to put police in armored personnel carriers with automatic weapons to shoot pet dogs and random others is on track for the year.

Technology scares the hell out of people, survey finds. Survey also reveals that it's cold in the winter and Rosie Perez's voice can peel the paint off cars.

• PUMPKINS? What in the universe is up with pumpkin? Yes, we're approaching that season, but this is excessive. Pumpkin coffee (my wife's favorite at Dunkin Donuts), pumpkin bread, pumpkin beer, other pumpkin baking products, pumpkin alcohols and pumpkin sex toys. I see it all over the place - my wife assures me it's been going on all along. Yet more proof that I either don't care or don't get out much (both, most likely).

If you're not paranoid about your privacy, you're crazy. Don't rely on my rantings - read this article and see for yourself. Read this sitting down.

• I said gum, stupid!  A Kyle, Texas, student caused mass panic when he asked someone for some gum and another student heard gun. A letter had to go home to all parents, explaining the situation.  PANIC!!!

The male brain is programmed to seek out sex over food. ....and to whom is this news? Our Central Processing Unit is centrally located.

• A man dressed as a priest stripped down and performed 'a sexual act' on the altar stage. Police and the church are looking for the man (he forgot to fill out his job application).

A Minnesota man killed his 84 year old grandmother for blowing her nose at the dinner table. Manners - use them or die.

• PLANE JUSTICE: Things got interesting on an Aer Lingus (that sounds dirty) flight, when a man bit another passenger then died. Not to be outdone, a Southwest traveler choked another passenger for reclining a seat. Any of us who have flown will agree that choking is too good for people who do this, as well as parents with screaming babies.

CIA Director John Brennan had a secret AOL account. SURPRISE - it got hacked. Now let's get serious here - in the first place, no one with any clearance at all should have an AOL account. Second, the guy is a CIA Director. Where do we get these people? But wait - there's more! Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson's Comcast account was also hacked by the same miscreant. These poeple are 'protecting' us. Do ya feel protected today, punk - DO YA? You will notice that the hacker got in trouble, not the people who are supposed to know better. So there's Hillary, John, and Jeh - it sounds like a really bad 60's folk group.

• MATH TIME: 

• The federal penalty for not having health insurance will rise in 2016 to $695 or 2% of income.
• For the subsidized, taxpayer subsidies pay roughly 70% of monthly premiums 
• The subsidized pay roughly $100 per month
• I pay over $100 per week (with a $5,500 deductible) 
• If I just pay the $695 penalty, it would pay for itself in under two months and I'd still wind up paying for my own visits, just as if I had a $5,500 deductible.
• These blithering Keystone Kops were supposed to fix health insurance. It is broken beyond measure.

NATIONAL HISPANIC MONTH: So it's National Hispanic month, as you can tell from the bold letters that started this. Take it from me, ok?  I work in an interesting place, which shares but a few oddities from the last VERY interesting place, one being Happenings. Both places have public-ish spots where they host events. Events at the old place included dances, fashion shows, and beauty pageants. The newer place seems to have its share of events but I haven't gotten a feel for what they are. Until yesterday. I was walking down the hall, minding my own business, when it became impossible to continue minding my own business, due to the insistent, LOUD, semi-rhythmic pounding on a drum. I was half aghast and half amused. My coworker just shook his head and said, "National Hispanic Month." Due to the flyers strewn about, I agreed. Then I saw the drummer and the featured entertainment: a scantily-clad guy with a cardboard Indian headdress. He was chanting HUH HUH HUH HUH, the way you'd chant it to an insistent, LOUD drum. I turned to my coworker and told him I just knew someone was going to be offended by this. The problem, at this point, was figuring out who.

Meanwhile, I still can't get National Guitar Month, National Left-Handers Month, or National Left-Handed Guitarist Month flyers or events or corporate-wide emails.

• Federal tax collected set a new record this year, at $3,248,723,000,000. That's $21,833 per working person. Yet we have a $438,900,000,000 deficit. This is what happens when you vote republican or democrat. This is why they're two sides of the same coin. Go ahead and argue R vs D - you're gonna get screwed either way (except the dems will insist you get free lube, then raise taxes to pay for it and the reps will require lube, benefitting their lube donor corporations). See where your tax dollars are going.

The Vatican is denying that the pope has a small tumor. Gee, I wonder who could have started that rumor...

• TODAY's QUOTE: “One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all. And kill the Jews.”
  Wernher von Braun

TECH

Tighten up and secure your browser(s). All browsers, all operating systems.
NOW.

TUNES

Today's special is on another wunderkind: Jonny Lang. He started very young, in the Stevie Ray Vaughan mold and the hits kept coming. Jonny was a part of Experience Hendrix, which we attended last year.

The first time I heard Lie to Me, I wondered if it was a Joe Cocker song I had somehow missed. This little dude has a voice like an old, whiskey-soaked veteran. A buddy said the veins on the side of his neck looked like they were going to pop when he sang. And he can play! The little bastard has his own Fender signature guitar.

Breakin' Me is a nice mid-tempo song. Here's a live version.

Still Rainin' is another groove-filled romp, complete with cool female background vocals.

What did you expect to find on Mars?

Whale Hunting in Arizona

Playboy magazine will be dropping (fully) nudes. Now when you say you only read it for the articles, you won't be lying. New format to start in March, Hefner to be out of business by April.

• Leonardo DiCaprio will produce a film based upon an as-yet-unwritten book about the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal. BANG! VROOOOOM! POP!  FTWANG! OOF! Nonstop action! Just as soon as the book is written. All the action, suspense and naked ladies you'd expect from a movie about a book about emissions testing.

A Guatemalan mayor was lynched by a crowd. This is the kind of participatory democracy in which we need to be involved. It's a model for the future. It will also have the unintended effect of keeping politicians 'clean'.

• The president made some candid comments, noting that he finds American's common skepticism of government "paralyzing." Coming up, Dick Cheney upset that people think he's mean.

America's mayor, Rahn Emanuel, blames Chicago crime uptick on officers second-guessing themselves. Office of the Mayor: shoot first, ask questions later.

• The rapper T.I. says "World ain't ready for a female president."  Yeah, boy... dem bitches don't belong in da (White) House.

SELFIE NEWS: Selfie-obsessed millenials are increasing opting for plastic surgery to improve photos. I don't even have to do anything - this stuff comes out weekly and writes itself. And teens spend so much time texting that some miss sleep.

• Because there's an open-carry policy at the University of Texas, gun-grabbing students intend to openly carry sex toys. Guns and dildos - an educational dream come true.  At the risk of sympathizing, I say if more sex toys were used, less shootings would occur.

Ladies - if you sniff this particular phallus-shaped mushroom, you will be highly aroused and have a fifty percent chance of a spontaneous orgasm. Plant them everywhere! Peace on earth!

• NOT Ok, Google: if you talk to your phone (not curse) using "Ok, Google," please be aware that Google stores everything you say to it. This is allegedly for accuracy and definitely for advertising.  Don't take my word for it - go ask Google. You'll find a list of every command given to it. You can opt-out but everything still gets recorded - only with an (allegedly) anonymous ID. Oh, your location gets recorded regardless (it's also available for viewing) whenever you speak, search via Google, Google Maps or other apps that have access to your location. [What does lefty do? The same thing he always does - shut that shit off. I can't deny that talking to my phone would be more convenient, as would getting directions, but not at this price.]

John Schindler, a security expert and whistleblower who now writes for The Daily Beast, has claimed that a senior EU official from an undisclosed country also inquired about impeachment proceedings, saying that the nation believes Obama is not fit for office. Why is it only foreign countries that recognize this?

• Apparently there's a chronic shortage of air traffic controllers, which has reached crisis proportions. This does not bode well for air travel. When you consider the news recently, with ground stoppages, 'glitches', hardware issues, and a seriously dilapidated, insecure, single point of failure infrastructure, you do not have a safe, secure, reliable platform. Do you feel safe flying? Are we going to wait until things collapse completely before doing anything? Probably. I just hope no one gets hurt.
• IRONIC UPDATE: A U.S. Department of Homeland Security computer system that checks airline passengers against terrorism watch lists experienced a brief service disruption. 

Writer Salman Rushdie says violence against writers and a misplaced sense of political correctness pose new dangers to freedom of speech in the West. BUT WE HAVE SELFIE STICKS!!!!!!

• Florida man (of course) arrested for DUI in motorized wheelchair. Kentucky, embarrassed,wants its title back.

Tired of debates and political bullshit? The one thing every candidate agrees on: Punish Edward Snowden. You voted them in. Now vote them out.

• NOTE to my loyal readers: Ebola lingers in semen for up to nine months. Let's not let Ebola become the latest STD, ok?

SELFIE TIME - fatality edition!

• two men in the Ural Mountains posed for a photo while pulling the pin from a hand grenade.
• a university graduate died after trying to take a selfie while hanging from a Moscow bridge.
• a 17-year-old boy fell to his death from a rooftop as he tried to take his picture for his Instagram page
• In the US recently a man died after shooting himself in the neck while taking a selfie. 
• officials at the Waterton Canyon in Colorado were forced to close the park after several people were caught getting a little too close to the wildlife.
• at Yellowstone National Park, officials issued a warning after five separate incidents of selfie-takers being gored by bison.
• In Australia, a rock that looks like a wedding cake was fenced off because too many people were climbing it to take pre or post-wedding photos of themselves.

non-fatalities (yet)

• a man taking a selfie while a bull charges at him
• a man posing with a lion 
• someone taking a picture in front of a train
• a woman taking a selfie of herself and her toddler while driving.

TOONZ:

PURE UNOBTANIUM: The question of where John Lennon's iconic Gibson J-160E acoustic/electric guitar went has been answered. The guitar will go up for auction, with John's widow getting half and donating it to her charity. The guitar is set to auction for between $600,000 and $800,000. Paul's stuff is cheaper and left-handed.

Original Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington (63) is under observation after a heart attack. Gary had previous heart trouble. Being a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd is even more dangerous than going hunting with Dick Cheney.

Having taken an obscure turn here and there, it's time to go mainstream.
The Allman Brothers have a very long history in music, as well as a lot of members. Although broken up as of this past January, the band will live forever. Shortly after achieving fame, original member Duane 'Skydog' Allman died, followed by bassist Berry Oakley. More recently, original guitarist Dickey Betts either left or was politely asked to leave, going back to his side project, Dickey Betts and Great Southern. At the time of their dissolution, Derek Trucks (slide guitar wizard and nephew of original drummer Butch Trucks) went back to the Tedeschi Trucks Band and Warren Haynes continues with his myriad projects (solo, solo band, Gov't Mule).

The definitive Allman Brothers live album is Live at the Fillmore. It comes right out of the gate with Statesboro Blues, featuring Duane's lyrical slide guitar and the ever soulful vocals of one of rock's best, Gregg Allman. Enjoy this full album and rejoice in some of the greatest performances in rock.

An Allmans staple is One Way Out. There's a man down there, might be your old man, I don't know.


Jessica, named after Dickey Betts' daughter, is a really hot instrumental which you'll recognize. Also featured on this track is a previous week's focus, Les Dudek. Instrumentals have an impossible time getting on radio but this one made it.

One of my favorite tracks is In Memory of Elizabeth Reed. I love the way it starts out slowly and ramps up to the solos. I love to jam along with this, pretending I'm with the band. I figure if you're going to dream, aim high.

An even better pretend rock star jam is Hot'Lanta. The interplay of the two drummers is apparent, plus the normal guitar heroics.

Guess which one is me....

Windows 10 Review

Don't.

(see above)

You Covet My Ice Cream Bar...

Why do we like spicy food? What is chili pepper doing for us? How does it block pain?

• Libertarians: taking over the country so they can leave you alone.

Hillary Clinton: I'm the most transparent person in history. Yes, Hill - we can see right through you.

• SELFIES: Al Roker had to apologize for taking a smiling selfie in the midst of the South Carolina flooding.

Obama is considering a plan to leave a significant force in Afghanistan. Demands a list of countries we haven't invaded yet.  Hey - didn't he promise to get us out of Afghanistan?

• Trump hotels confirm credit card breach. Trump plans to bring this same oversight and security to government. Hillary Clinton breathes sigh of relief.
• INTO THE BREACH: The Trump breach doesn't yet have a count of affected. Experian got hacked and leaked 15 million T-Mobile customers and Scottrade's breach affects 4.6 million customers. This is from 10/2 to 10/5.

Today's happy dystopian news deals with the niceities of facial recognition. Read it and weep.

• Beard transplants. No, really. About $7,000. And you can clone your dog for $100,000.

Right on time, here's this week's Great Unwashed Report: Hillary supporters think a white privilege tax should be enacted. I'm all for a Stupid Tax. But let's balance this out with the opinions of the Sheriff and some citizens of Roseburg, OR. After the tragic shooting, they say gun control is not the answer. Furthermore, the President is not welcome there.

• The Vatican is moving pedophile and gay priests to a monastery to be 'cured'. I'm thinking that short of shooting them, there's no cure for pedos. In the Real World<tm>, gay conversion therapy has been discredited. As for pedophiles, they should be prosecuted and, if found guilty, placed in jail with CHILD MOLESTER tattooed on their foreheads.

The French: Air France executives announce the layoff (firing) of 2,900 workers. Workers riot, some rip shirts and jackets of executives. President of France surrenders over concerns that this is harming France's reputation. Umm.. corporate executives firing 2,900 people isn't bad for France's reputation? Why don't we do that here?

• Satanists help uphold First Amendment: Long after the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled the Oklahoma Capitol's Ten Commandments monument unconstitutional, it was removed, quietly and under cover of darkness. When they refused to remove it initially, many groups campaigned for their own statue, including satanists, who erected a seven foot tall statue. Even the Flying Spaghetti Monster applied for a spot. The initial suit was filed by a Baptist minister, who preached the Ten Commandments, but knew it didn't belong on governmental ground.

A South Carolina man called police because his girlfriend wouldn't have sex with him. I call sexism. If his girlfriend called police, it would be Loss of Consortium.

• Tired of your ridiculous, boring, restrictive state? Why not move to Colorado, where politicians are considering topless women in public and Denver is the number one sexually active city in the country (link contains rankings).  I'm considering a job as a data gatherer for projects like these.

One of the world's most powerful people, Rupert Murdoch, tweeted that he wants a 'real black president,' in support of Ben Carson. While you have to admire the man's intestinal fortitude, one wonders what would happen if someone tweeted something about a real white president.  UPDATE: Mr Murdoch 'very sorry'. What he meant to say was that "It's about time for my niggah Ben to git in office."

• Why are Janet Jackson and N.W.A. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees?

No good deed ever goes unpunished: Mrs leftystrat bought a stack of butter cakes for friends and relatives, plus one for us. Everybody was thrilled with them, including the dog, who ate ours.

• Don't forget: October is National Breast Awareness Month!

SURVEY SAYS!: One in three vegetarians admit to eating meat when drunk. They probably take selfies too.

• A 79 year old retired New Jersey firefighter was burned to death after his lawn mower caught fire. If this man, with all of his firefighting expertise, cannot put out a combusting mower, what chance do I have? The mowers are out to get us!

TECH

Duck You: Degath's Ducker 

What is a ducker and why do you need one?  You're listening to the tv or radio and a show starts off with some music, then someone starts talking. The music fades to the background so you can hear the talking. If you do this automatically, it's called ducking. Why do you need this? I have no bleedin' idea if you do or don't but I'll tell you anyway because I'm impressed with the software and its author. Unfortunately it only runs on Windows (I asked - no plans to port it to linux) and does not require installation: just put it in a directory and fire it up.

If you play music while you're computing or surfing but you want to be interrupted for an important Skype, call, text, or the latest Faceyspaces selfie announcement, this program will be helpful to you. It's pretty easy to run... open your programs first, including the ducker. There are two windows: trigger and target. Your trigger is the important interruption and the target is your music or whatever you need muted when the important audio comes in. That's it unless you want to get really complex. It works as-is. If you like it, make a donation (I did).

PET SAFETY

Please put a tag on your dog or cat with your contact information.
This morning a little black dog ran in front of my car in traffic. I pulled over and grabbed him. No one seemed to know where his human was and he had a tag with only his name (very helpful). Fortunately he was in great shape, very friendly, and his owner drove by, looking for him.



ART AS MUSIC?

Let's talk about songwriting. Let's talk about taste. Let's talk about tone. Let's talk about The Rembrandts.
You may know them from the ridiculously overplayed theme song from the ridiculously overplayed sitcom Friends (I'll Be There for You). This is the last time I'm going to mention that. These are songs that get into your head and you want to play often (even the ones without guitar solos!).

One of my favorite Rembrandts songs actually made the radio. It's called Just the Way It Is, Baby. Prime example of good songwriting and hook.  It contains a really tasty and tone-filled guitar lead - really odd for a hit.

Someone is an acoustic-driven piece with yet another good hook.

I didn't actually know this song until I came across it on Youtube. This House is Not a Home is a more electric one, managing to get their jangle into it. The video is amusing, not to mention the appearance of certain staff and the Playboy mansion.

Listen to some of their other songs.

Linus Torvalds - father of linux. When was the last time you saw Bill Gates or Steve Jobs in a monogrammed fighter?

Crazy is as Crazy Does

I've mentioned my neighbor, the Crazy Lady, before.  She's the one who called the township because we had standing water. The 'standing water' was the dog's pool. She's 438 years old this year and will outlive me. She just will not die. [for the record, I have done nothing to hasten that condition]

She's a bit of a bully and only bitches to my wife. About stuff like our grass being too tall, the car not being clean enough, and one or both of us not showering frequently enough. We have twice a year leaf collection, provided we sweep them to the curb. As it approaches, there are signs. A few years back, she took one down and put it by my front door. I put it under her windshield wiper, because that's the kind of guy I am.

So we pull into the driveway and what do we see? The Crazy Lady, with a power tool, edging our lawn. Reminding myself to be calm, we walk past her, as she explains that we edge the wrong way - it has to be down to the concrete.

Yeah, that was about all I could muster of calm. She's mostly deaf, probably on purpose, and the little bit she can hear gets ignored. My voice carries and I let her know, in no uncertain terms, that she was to exit my concrete as fast as her broom could carry her AT THIS MOMENT. She continues to mumble, as if I had never said a word.  Small wonder her tenant has screaming arguments with her on a regular basis.

As I walk past again, she's still there. I inform her AGAIN that it is NOT a good time to stand on my property, as I will call the police and have her removed bodily.  Well, let me tell you, the Crazy Lady was so upset by my promise that she said she would leave, after she swept up. Lordy, I must have sounded intimidating.

My wife tries to soothe my nerves by reminding me that we are aggravating the hell out of her on a daily basis, but that just doesn't do it for me.

I am telling you, she has survived cancer, body part replacements, a house falling on her, fire, floods, and having me as a neighbor.  Well, technically she hasn't YET survived me as a neighbor.  I wish her no harm - I just want her to SHUT THE #(*@ UP and enjoy the last few hundred years of her life.

It's Not a Rat - it's a Siberian Hamster!

It is claimed that by 2050, human-on-robot sex will be more common than human-on-human sex. You people had better start being nice to each other or it's going to be a long, cold life.

• Remember when I told you that your cable box spies on you? It's so the cable company can serve personalized ads to you, among other things.
• While we're talking about creepy, invasive tracking, Google's next. It (via Gmail) partners with businesses to send you ads when you're surfing. [1. do not give out your address 2. turn off cookies]

So this man filled up bottles of his own fluid(s) and deposited the contents on women in Maryland. When caught, he was given three years of probation. SUSPENSE! .. He's back at it again, in Virginia. He was arrested for taking upskirt photos and for depositing bodily fluids on a woman, but not from a bottle. C'mon, man, have you not heard of the internet? There are all sorts of... specialty dating sites... 

• Edward Snowden joined Twitter. His first follow was the NSA. Yeah, right, like they didn't know before he joined.

Justin Bieber "wants to live like Jesus."  --Got any nails?

• Microsoft 'responds' to concerns that Windows 10 is spying by saying nothing and not answering any questions.

I don't know why, but if you're considering voting for Carly Fiorina, she just bragged that HP's servers are used by the NSA for mass surveillance and that she rushed them out for this purpose.

• Still kicking, albeit a little long in the tooth, is Groucho Marx (125). Read Time's piece on him and simply laugh at a comedy genius.

The daughter (16) of Fast and Furious' Paul Walker is suing Porsche for 'wrongful death'. She claims Porsche took safety shortcuts. Allow me to suggest that the best safety shortcut was around the pole.

• Oxymorons: Congressional Ethics. Windows Security.

I snore, much to my wife's dismay (as does the dog - sometimes we jam). Looking at Amazon's solutions, people who bought them also bought selfie sticks. I don't know if this is personal, but it sure feels that way.

• What have the Great Unwashed been up to? Signing a petition to ban talking about politics and religion in public. The guy who produces these is an inadvertent comic hero.

A male staffer in a Capitol Hill office has complained his female boss has slapped his ass, talked about her vibrator, and asked him sexual questions. BRAVO for women's equality!

• Baboons in Zambabwe took a radio show off the air by eating the station's transmission cables. We don't have this problem in the US, because we keep our baboons in front of the camera.

The Bad News: Friends actor David Schwimmer is coming back to tv. The Good News: in England, so there's less chance of seeing him in the US.

• Just when you think it couldn't get any weirder, there's BIID. Body Integrity Identity Disorder causes able-bodied people to belive they should be disabled. As a result, this lady somehow convinced a psychologist to blind her with drain cleaner. Next week the good doctor will be slicing off the ear of a neurotic and removing the stomach of a man with major depression.

A British prison inmate cut off his penis and tried to flush it. Oddly enough, he's not the first inmate to do this. Link has timeline of penis cutting-off activities. Apparently it's not just a British thing, although one wonders.

• This week's best sentence: "Ever since Parliament’s funk savior Starchild brandished his bop gun to bring about intergalactic Funkentelechy.."

Bernie Sanders thinks illegals should benefit from Obamacare. Meanwhile my deductible is still $5,500. Socialist Bernie, meet socialist Barack.

• Greatest invention ever: Exercise in a pill!

AI theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky coined Moore's Law of Mad Science: "Every eighteen months, the minimum IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point."

The Week in Music - A Triumph of Excellence

The Yardbirds are touring this year. For those who do not recognize the name, they were a band in the sixties that gave us three of the top guitarists of our time: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Jeff Beck (my personal favorite) and Eric Clapton (Cream, Blind Faith, Eric Clapton). A quick check on the band's latest membership role shows us that the band is touring with the original drummer only. This beats Foghat, which is touring with the original drum roadie.

Long ago.. very long ago by most standards, I played with a band at this stereotypical dump in New Jersey (not to be confused with the stereotypical state of New Jersey). Up on the wall was a television - an old-style television, with a CRT. Imagine a time when televisions and radios had to warm up, if you can. On the telly was this brand new cable network called MTV. Anyone even vaguely familiar with MTV might still be shocked to learn that it featured actual rock and roll music, as opposed to what passes for content this week. Cable wasn't available in my neighborhood yet, so this was doubly fascinating. Triply fascinating was looking up and seeing a non-mainstream band performing. This was Triumph.

Triumph is a band of three hosers (Canadians). My area of concentration is Rik Emmett, the guitarist, singer and cowriter. Let's dive right in:

Midsummer's Daydream is a solo classical acoustic piece performed by Emmett. I tried to play this once (only once).  This is recorded live in Halifax (a suburb of Canada, located generally north of the US). He does a lot with one acoustic guitar. You can also hear the studio version on the Thunder Seven album. The live version contains a lot of... ummm.. spunk? Verve? Derring Do?  Enjoy the showmanship and sense of humor (and lycra pants).

Little Boy Blues (not to be confused by anything coming from the Vatican) is one of my favorite songs. By this I mean it has a lot of really interesting guitar work and, surprisingly enough, no vocals. It begins with some really low-key tasty blues, backed by a drum machine and other instruments that would completely prevent this song from being performed live by a three-piece band. This builds nicely to what I'd call a chorus, where the playing starts to get really spunky. At the end of the chorus, the real drums enter and the real rollercoaster ride takes off. This segues into a redo of the first part, a hyped-up chorus, and a surprisingly gentle end. Rik plays very dynamically and lyrically, even when he's performing digital acrobatic riffs.

There exists the possibility that Lay It On the Line is the video I saw on MTV first. It's one of their biggest hits (you olde phartes will remember it) and features a doubleneck guitar that you've never seen before, unlike Jimmy Page's.

John McCain: This Means WAR!

Yesterday I heard an interview with John McCain. I didn't get to transcribe it fully but here's the gist from memory:

Welcome to Beat the Press. Today's guest is Senator John McCain (R-Lockheed).

Good morning, Senator.

WHERE?

Here, Senator.

Oh.

Senator, we're discussing the recent bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan.

Yes, it's a crying shame (that we didn't get more of the commie bastards).

But Senator, the hospital was full of sick people.

Taleban. TALEBAN.  Kill. KILL!

Doctors Without Borders says there was no Taleban in the hospital.

Doctors Without Borders is a terrorist organization, bent on getting in the way of exporting democracy.

Were there any Taleban in the hospital?

No, but they were certainly in the area.  Somewhere.

But not in the hospital?

No. But those Doctors were, so we stepped up and dropped a few. Dropped. DROPPED. KILL. BOMB! EVISCERATE!!!!!

Senator, there has been some criticism over using the B-34 Flying Uncontrolled Country Killer (FUCK). This plane features enough tactical killing power to take out small regions of the planet. Do you believe this was the correct way to take out a small hospital?

Bob...

My name is Ted, Senator.

Bob... I believe the right tool is the one that gets the job done. We flew in and took out the target. If we could have used more bombers, we could have taken out the hospital and the rest of the country where the Taleban must be hiding. But we are using more surgical strikes lately, so as not to interrupt the cocaine trade. President Kennedy pissed the CIA off once and look what happened to him. And Bob, I'm no John F. Kennedy.

But there were innocent sick people in the hospital.

Bob, have I said ISIS yet? Because ISIS. New munitions needed. More contracts. Boeing, Lockheed, Halliburton.. MORE CONTRACTS!!!  CIA Secret Missions!!!! Think of the economy, BOB!!!

Ted.

Casualties of war, Bob. Collateral damage. We are very sad at the loss of life but it's the black guy's fault. If he didn't start that drawdown, we could have continued our mission indefinitely. More troops. We will complete our mission, even if it takes longer than Vietnam.  ISIS, Bob.

What is our mission in Afghanistan?

We are working towards ramping up our casualties... errr.... troops... because of a very large contract with a huge, influential defense contractor.  We just gave them hundreds of billions for new explosive killing vehicles (EKVs). It would be a horrible waste of taxpayer money not to use them. Killing vehicles... killing... KILLING.. BOMBING... WIDESPREAD DEATH AND DESTRUCTION!!!!  baaaaaa........ [falls off chair, foaming at the mouth]


Beat the Press would like to thank the (very) late senator John McCain.

What is this.. Morning of Which You Speak?

The Czech presidential flag, which flies over the palace in Prague, was replaced with a pair of giant red underpants. This further shows how far America has slipped in creativity and protest. Any suggestions for what should fly above our executive palace (White House)? A giant condom? FOR SALE sign?

• In England, there has been an outbreak of 'Super-gonorrhoea'. Yes, Super-gonorrhoea: faster than a speeding Chris Christie, more powerful than Kim Kardashian's ass, able to leap large Colombian prostitutes in a single bound - it's Super-gonorrhoea!  

Why has someone put out an album of Taylor Swift covers?

• Captive Snake With No Male Companion Gives Birth, Again.
• Popemageddon continues.
• Microsoft writes its own linux.
• This is the END TIMES, people.....

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson (uh-oh, Tom) said that Muslims are unfit to be president. His campaign apologized for the remark and stated that what Dr. Carson meant to say was that African Americans are unfit to be president.

• Because of the probability of a nuclear deal, Iran is ratcheting down its rhetoric. Instead of weekly rallies with cries of DEATH TO AMERICA, THE GREAT SATAN, future weekly rallies will feature  NEAR-FATAL WOUNDING TO AMERICA, THE GREAT SATAN.

Secretary of State John Kerry says the US is ready to take more refugees (200,000). Skull and Bones to pick up the tab.

• The Great Unwashed are at it again: Obama supporters sign petition to nuke North Korea. This also explains the story this morning on women voting for Hillary simply because she's a woman.

Companies are offering sex reassignment in their health benefits packages. Meanwhile, I still have a $5500 deductible, Mr. President.

• Interesting fact: through the years, Protestants were afraid of a Catholic president because he'd impose his religion on the country.  Unlike the Protestants and the rest of the Christians. 

Defense bureaucrats are bashing numbers into a database in a bid to develop what the agency hopes will become an automated security scorecard, assessing vulnerability exposure across the country's networks and weapons systems.  A national database of hackable items and vulnerabilities - what could possibly go wrong?

• 49% of US citizens say government is an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens

The Pennsylvania Attorney General has been suspended from practicing law.  Note that she has not been suspended from being the Attorney General.

• A US pharmaceutical company bought the rights to a 61 year old medicine and promptly raised the price 5,000%, from $13.51 per pill to $750 per pill. The pill costs about $1 to manufacture. The CEO said they need to make a profit. UPDATE:  "We've agreed to lower the price on Daraprim to a point that is more affordable and is able to allow the company to make a profit, but a very small profit."

I'm learning that what happens in Florida should have stayed in Florida. It usually involves copious amounts of alcohol and is relatively bizarre.  This month's winner would have to be the couple that got drunk (told you so) and decided to have sex in their closet (don't ask me). Drunk Female called out her ex's name twice. Drunk Male became enraged and killed her (as any reasonable person in Florida would). The manner in which he dispatched her left pools of blood and 'stuff' all over the place. Stay. Out. Of. Florida.

This beer-soaked example of humility and grace is said not to be related to this Danish gem, who was found to have the genitals of 21 women in his freezer. For some reason, he does not reside in Florida.

• SELFIE NEWS:  Selfies killed more people this year than sharks. An embarrassed spokesman for sharks said they would try to do better next year.

Parents killed their two-year-old daughter because they thought she was possessed by demons. Kim Davis not available for comment.

• Scotland has 421 words for snow. And, according to tradition, you can't understand a single one.

Lancaster, CA has introduced iris scanners for school buses for special needs students. It's for the children.

• Donald Trump says he's the rare republican who can woo black voters. "Negroes love me. I have fried chicken and grape soda."

No greater an American legal authority than the pope has stated that government workers have the right to refuse gay marriage licenses. His Holiness also said Hillary's use of an external email server is unconstitutional and called President Obama a pussy.

• A New Hampshire man stole $1,000 of drills from Sears and left, making chicken noises. Because elephant noises are better for stealing couches.

TECH CORNER:

AVG Antivirus has announced it will begin selling users' personal data to advertisers. There is allegedly a setting in AVG that will stop some of this but I don't use it so I'm not positive. Please check it out. One alternative is Avira (also free). Please read the fine print.



ENOUGH. LET'S LISTEN:

Les Dudek doesn't get a break, although you've no doubt heard him. He helped with Boz Scaggs [Silk Degrees]. He played with Cher (pre-facelifts) and Steve Miller. He also played on the Allman Brothers' Ramblin' Man - check out the tasty guitar work and vocals. He makes the most of a trio format. That voice does not seem to belong with that man. As soon as I started listening to Les, it hit me like ton of bricks - he had a lot to do with the Allmans.

Gonna Move has a great groove and has been covered by many artists. Is that an African Blue? Beautiful plumage.

Old Judge Jones sounds like it should have proven a hit. Works for me.

Jailbamboozle is a cool title as well as a cool tune. You can hear Jeff Porcaro and David Paich (from Toto) on drums and piano. Bizarro 70's groove.

One of my favorites is Deeper Shades of Blues. After enjoying it, I realized that this song is essentially Still Got the Blues, by the late, lamented Gary Moore. No idea which came first.

GUITAR PLAYER BONUS: Here are Dickie Betts and son showing you how to play In Memory of Elizabeth Reed. Why hire a second guitarist when you can breed one? The DNA definitely delivers.

 Yes, it's a Chow in a stroller

God is Going to Get You - if I Don't First

Hey you. YOU. You with the cell phone.
Yeah, I'm talking to you.
You probably didn't hear me over that infernal device.

I don't know if you're deaf, inconsiderate, or just stupid. Your phone makes noise. Lots of noises. And you've got it turned up so dead people in the next county can hear it.

Your phone sits there, blooping. You're either too ignorant or unimaginative so you're using the stock phone settings. One of them makes a water drop noise whenever you do something. Or whenever you don't do something. Then you walk away, leaving your phone within earshot of everyone around you. And it bleeps and bloops. And drips, like a modern version of the Chinese Water Torture.

And sometimes it rings for five minutes while you're away, aggravating all of humanity. We've discovered one sure way to stop the noise: putting your phone in the toilet. This works every time without fail. If you don't silence the small, flat, loud piece of gee-whiz technology, we will silence it for you. Then we will put you in the toilet, for good measure.

--------------
My wife has some of these lovely tendencies. Her phone is well-known for having short battery life. Of course it has short battery life, it makes a noise for each keypress. When I pointed out that removing the noise (and vibration) will lenghten the battery life, she got this look of horror on her face and continues to charge it several times each day. Meanwhile I sit there, relaxing on the couch after a hard day slaving over a hot flat-screen monitor, when the phone goes off with all the volume of five guitar amps blasting away while falling down two flights of steps. Once I get myself down from the ceiling, I scream, "TURN THAT @&#$ING THING DOWN!"

"But I need to hear it," she whines.

"There are people at the end of the next block who know whenever you get a call. Air raid sirens stop in embarrassment. Entire factories cease production. Bombing in Syria grinds to a halt," I helpfully inform her.

No reaction. Then she goes for a nap, leaving the phone on the table, near me. I wonder if this is what they mean by passive/aggressive.
++++++++++++++++++++++

In related news, we all know how I feel about Microsoft. But I will come out of the closet today and let you know that I actually use their products: the ergonomic keyboard and their stock mouse. Along with their software going to hell, the letters are coming off the keyboard shortly after I start using it. I am forced to use my wife's clear nail polish to retain what little lettering I have left. I have no As or Ls anymore, which may explain the decline in the quality of posts lately.

That is all.