Monday, October 19, 2015

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?

No comments:

Post a Comment