It's a Plane Shame

The TSA is firing its security chief. What does this mean? It means 99 more years of the TSA. They have successfully turned the narrative around from "why do we need the TSA?".

• Our hearts go out to the victims and families of EgyptAir MS804. May they return home soon. Unlike MH370, which still valiantly remains unfound.

Hawaii could become the first state to put gun owners on an FBI register.

And now it starts.

• Apparently Taylor Swift is a Nazi idol.  No, really.

Microsoft is helping to fight against terrorism. Unfortunately, Windows 10 is still being produced.

• Your tax dollars at work: Federal immigration authorities are building a separate unit for transgendered detainees in Alvarado, Texas. 

A man rubbed chili on his girlfriend's tampon to give her 'hot vagina'. 

How could I make this shit up?

• It must be that season again: when there are two bomb threats on airplanes in one day: George Bush Airport and LAX.

I have strenuously avoided political labels, preferring instead to allow behavior to speak for itself. But the DePaul stage-rushing and takeover and the violence outside the Trump rally in Albuquerque really indicts the left. Apparently free speech only exists when it's speech the left agrees with. Anything else justifies shutting down, sometimes with violence. Some of these miscreants threw bottles at police horses. And when the protesters are Black Lives Matter, justice will not be forthcoming. The right has its own problems but violence is not among them.

This is a perfect time to remind everyone that the republican/democrat division is a false one, designed to divide people and distract from larger issues. You're gonna get it either way. Vote second party. Gary Johnson (libertarian) is now polling at 10%. Don't vote for the lesser evil - vote FOR someone.

• In the interests of grammar and truth, I wish to point out to commentators that undocumented visitor is spelled i-l-l-e-g-a-l a-l-i-e-n. No amount of linguistic gymnastics will change it.

It is interesting to note that some world leaders are quite rattled by Donald Trump. You know you're doing a good job when you can piss off world leaders.

• It has been discovered that the US nuclear weapons force uses 1970s era computer systems. Ever hear of 8" floppies? Nuclear weapons, people.

Brown Wind

So millions upon millions of European carp have flooded your South Australian waters, threatening local fish. What do you do? Dump some Herpes on the bastards. Yes, herpes, which will kill thousands in the first twenty four hours. Herpes - what could possibly go wrong?

• While we're Down Under, what do you do if you're bored? Well, if you're a fan of black humor, and who among us isn't, you name your portable wifi hotspot Mobile Detonation Device and just wait for hilarity to ensue. Yes, some lady's phone picked up this hotspot and she showed it to the plane's crew, who showed it to the captain, who showed it to two other friends, and so on. The plane was two hours late due to searching and people escaping with their luggage. The device was never found. He obviously should have called it Explosion In Five Minutes.
• Not to be outdone, a Los Angeles flight was delayed after locating a wifi hotspot called "Al-Queda Free Terror Network."  Shit is about to get hilarious!

When do you use free wi-fi? Never.
If you must, here are some tips from a real hardcore security user.

• The third largest electricity and water utility in Michigan shut down all its corporate IT systems after a ransomeware hack. Fortunately the electricity and water continued to flow but this is a very visible warning shot on a very important and visible utility. Look for this more and more, with less tolerable effects.

A Florida (of course) woman reported an 'adulterated meal' to police. She went to KFC and ordered two sandwiches, which she believed 'contained semen'. The sandwiched were swabbed for biological evidence by the police.  How does one swallow a sandwich?

• You're not paranoid if it's happening: A government surveillance program has been exposed around the San Francisco Bay area. The FBI has placed microphones in trees, under rocks, and in equipment, all without warrants, because they don't need them. The program is allegedly an attempt to prove real estate investors are guilty of bid rigging and fraud. Yeah, right. They eavesdrop with impunity.

This should make your day: Employers are having a harder time finding applicants who can pass drug tests, especially marijuana.

• President Obama has defended his transgender directive for school bathrooms. Still no word on monumental debt.

The BBC is going to close its recipes website to save 15m lbs. And let's face it, with a choice between deep fried and blandly boiled, what use is there for it?

• The first penis transplant has been performed in the US. Ewwwwwww. Ouch.

Sinead O'Connor went missing for a few days but was found alive in a hotel. She was escorted to the Happy Place. Remember, folks.. depression is no laughing matter, although her voice is. I hope she's  ok.

• According to NASA, April was the seventh month in a row to have broken global temperature records. Except in Philadelphia, where it has been cold and rainy since about 1939.

Taco Bell will no longer bolt tables to the floor at new "Upscale" locations. Well, the drunken fights at 2am will be much more interesting soon..

As you remember, we had to put Ren the cat down last week.
My wife/kids are telling me they hear him scratching at the door. I heard noises but not that.
Today I heard the scratching.
So I opened the door and let him in.

Is That A Real Poncho or a Sears Poncho?

Back to the solid sarcasm and joy that I do, for better or worse.


Apple has reported its first sales drop. Unfortunately there is no plan to close shop.

• RIP Prince. I seem to be the only person not paying tribute. In related news, his old band, The Revolution, is reuniting (for one last cash grab).

Also RIP pro wrestler Chyna. I vividly recall Howard Stern administering a genetic gender test. The results were predictable.

• Why are we making a fuss about changing the person on the $20 bill? Why are we (and politicians) not discussing the unimaginable national debt?
• But since we're changing faces, why not Jimi Hendrix? Charlie Sheen? The guy driving the towtruck who always saves me? 

Some new cars have a 'safety' feature that auto-brakes for you when something is in the way. The problem here is that this feature stops me from running people over.

• An Australian man rushed himself to the hospital after being bitten on the penis by a venemous spider. They sure are kinky Down Under. 

Research shows that bedbugs are repulsed by certain colors. Just like the KKK. Seriously, they prefer black and red but not yellow and green. My color is blue, but apparently the scientists on this gig couldn't be bothered to test it.

• People laugh when I say tube computers. People laugh at a lot of things I say. Well, smartypants, someone just came out with a Raspberry Pi computer with a vacuum tube on it (it's for the audio preamp).

A lot of people come to me with this question and I want to set the record straight: yes, dermatologic is a word.

• Hundreds of passengers on a British cruise ship docked in the US suffer vomiting bug. What's worse - a vomiting bug or a dung beetle?

A Florida (of course) information security professional found a vulnerability in the Lee County Elections Office. After three months, they fixed the vulnerability by jailing the security professional. This is a new and exciting approach to information security in the 2000s.

• All weddings and funerals have been banned in North Korea. Grim reaper unavailable for comment.

Experts warn that self-driving features could lead to more sex in moving cars. More sex?

not crazy about her husband but isn't it time we put beauty in the White House?

Marshall Finally Got His Wish

Don't read this either.  I'm just typing because this is therapy for me.
I promise more levity in the next few days.



























I got frantically called to the back door, where Ren the cat lay there, back half immobile. I asked earlier where he was, as he liked to roam outdoors but he liked demanding food much better.

Ren: a curious beast.  A good friend gave us this six week old kitten as Fred the cat had just been put down due to pulmonary issues. Ren proceeded to disembowel every Christmas tree we put up, knocking all the expensive ornaments to the floor. He also tried to blow up the house by leaping on the stove and turning the gas on as he went up. We needed baby guards on the knobs.

He drove me up a tree. Guess I'm not a cat person. Since everybody else was, I played along. In the last year or so, he became attached to me, in a very weird and clingy way. When I was on the couch, he was almost wrapped around my leg or resting his head on it. Or on the laptop. I have no idea why.

Marshall the cocker wasn't all that enamored of having a sibling. They sort of got along, largely by not getting in each others' way, but there was a bit of instigation on Ren's part. Marshall was not allowed to cross him, meaning Ren laid across any entry or exit Marshall wanted to use. Marshall whined like a little girl, unless there was food involved, in which case he'd steamroll Ren. He could even push Ren away from his own food.

We set off at a high rate of speed to the next county, where the emergency vet was located. Unfortunately we had to pass through Philly, where it is illegal to maintain the roads.

About two minutes after the doctor went back, he told us Ren threw a clot and was dying. We made the only decision we could. I stayed with him, as pet owners are supposed to do.

I HATE playing Adult. My wife, having lost John yesterday, was in no mood for it either.


And now Marshall has reached his goal of being an only child.

Endings

Don't read this.
It's not funny, it's not pretty, it's not even sarcastic.



















But since you're reading anyway....


There's no good or pleasant way to say this: we're watching someone die.

John was puttering along, as he did. At some point recently, something appeared on his face and grew quickly. Reluctantly he went to the emergency room, where they said cancer of lung and brain. See an oncologist quickly.

John has no insurance. This is no problem at hospitals, as they can get a claim for Assistance put through and paid. This IS a problem for anything else, medically speaking.  John went to the doctor, with my wife's assistance, and waited two hours, only to be told he needed to get 'into the system' before he could be seen. Into the system involves a kind of impossible to navigate maze that's akin to fighting City Hall. Go here, go there, that line, no this line, you have to see her but she's not in this week, etc.... Finally they managed to find one sweet, kind lady who gave them some tips, but it could still take two weeks.

Meanwhile, my wife snuck John into the office of a big local oncologist. He agreed totally with the diagnosis but couldn't get anything done because his hospital wouldn't do tests without insurance.

FOUR WEEKS LATER John was In The System and got an appointment with an oncologist, who said he had to go to a primary doctor first. The man has cancer. How the hell does anybody get treated for anything in PA? The primary eventually saw him and sent him to the oncologist. Everyone agreed: lung cancer, spreading to brain and one other area.  The prognosis was "Not fixable but treatable."

When the doctor said "Not fixable but treatable", his wife heard "treatable." Someone needed to hammer home the "Not fixable" part.  John seemed to know.

His dog, fifteen and not well, would get up frequently to check on him while he slept. Someone joked that they were both waiting to see who would go first.

First chemotherapy went well. The thing on his head shrunk. But he had good days and bad days. Most of the time he was incoherent or screaming at his wife. People had to stand on each side of him to get him to appointments. Unfortunately these people were largely his wife and my wife, with her cane. Although his wife swore he wouldn't get sent to a facility, it looked like it needed to happen.

Fast forward to the second primary doctor visit. No one could get John off the bed, no less to the car. My wife, who quietly said she'd be surprised if he lasted another few weeks, revised her estimate to the weekend.

I worked with a guy who passed out and went to the hospital, where they discovered brain cancer. They were doing chemotherapy but he died within a week or two. Sad as we were, it was a blessing. He did not suffer, which was the most important thing. I'm hoping John isn't suffering. We can't ask him.

=====================

This afternoon we got word John was rushed to the hospital. Dropping everything, we went to keep them company. In the midst of horror there was humor: sadly, emergency rooms have metal detectors and my wife couldn't get through because of her copious amount of bracelets. Since they couldn't all come off, she was relegated to the outdoors.

I sat with his wife and noticed John was being bagged (manually breathed for) by a nurse. He had stopped functioning and they were trying to restart him. He needed to be transferred to another hospital with an Intensive Care Unit. Nobody thought this was a good idea but nobody had much of a choice. He failed twice on the ride over.

In the ICU, with plenty of pain medicine, it took about two hours until John left us.
I hope he didn't suffer too much. I hope we served him well.

They said the cancer was extremely aggressive. There was no way it could have been caught in time. It was not pretty.

The dog was put down because he was suffering and not eating. I guess he knew.

Ubuntu 16.04 Incredibly Quick Review

I installed Xubuntu 16.04 (Exalted Xerces) shortly after it became available. The download was fast, the installation faster. There haven't been many installs or upgrades that ran over 20 minutes max.

Since I customize my XFCE environment, I tend to never see any graphic changes or improvements. In fact, there was very little change at all. There's some program called Maps that I didn't install.

And speaking of install, Ubuntu has wisely ditched the monolithically institutionally governmentally awful and slow Software Center. One could compare this to removing a benign tumor: it's only bothersome when you get near it. Any program that replaces Software Center has to be a welcome improvement.

And the main comment?  It works. No BS. No issues. No driver problems. No wifely yelling. Not even a Pet Problem.

This has been your Incredibly Quick Review.

Concert Tickets

This is an incredibly busy concert season. In fact, it's the busiest season I've ever seen. So many great tours that it's a matter of selecting which we can and can't go to.

I have tickets for Generation Axe and am going with a raft of metalhead guitar players and one wife.
Life would not be complete without Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy.
And next on the stage is the last time on the stage for Black Sabbath.

I have no real feelings about Black Sabbath. Tony Iommi, their guitar player, is a lefty, which is always nice. Wife, however, is NUTS about Ozzy and grew up with Sabbath. All I remember about that time is hanging around with my dirtball, pot-smoking friends and listening to music. I don't remember a lot and it had nothing to do with pot. Or anything else.

So we 'needed' Black Sabbath tickets.
I have a sneaky technique when I don't want to do something: tell Wife she's responsible for researching and procuring it. She'll generally forget and I'm off the hook. Wife keeps asking ME to do it. I remind Wife, frequently, that it's HER job. Wife, who generally forgets, manages to forget it's her job. And eventually I get stuck with it. Wife is much smarter than me (although her taste in men is suspicious).

So she seeks to relive teenhood, as if she could remember much of it anyway (dissociative disorders can leave large memory holes). And again, it's my job. It's funny... she never thinks the internet is going to bite her except when it involves purchasing tickets. She nas NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER with Amazon. In fact, Amazon calls her to see if she's alright if she hasn't ordered something in two days. The upshot (where did that word come from?) is that I have to go online and purchase something(s) *by which I mean that I have absolutely NO memory of the last time I tried to go online and purchase something(s)*.

Things are a little different in my house, which is akin to saying that things are a little different in Syria. I always forget that ordering online involves four browsers, much patience (which I lack in the extreme) and much yelling (which I am most proficient at). The first thing these heartless bastards require is the nightmare known as Internet Explorer. The evil beauty of this is that they neglect to TELL you this, so you're forced to find it out the hard way. This task is made more difficult because there's no Internet Explorer on linux (thankfully).

I have no less than four browsers (maybe more) in various stages of lockdown for this very event. And no matter which of the four I use (sometimes all four), something goes wrong. Generally browsing occurs with Firefox, which is locked down so well that even web pages can't get through. When I know there is going to be a purchase, I open Browser #2. When Browser #2 fails, which it always does, I use Browser #3, which has no restrictions whatsoever (PLEASE HACK ME!!). Even this does not satisfy the site fully, although it sometimes allows me to purchase something.

Finding tickets is always an interesting process. Generally the site won't let me see the venue or seating until I tell the bastards to just go ahead and find me some seats. After the seats come up, I always allow for a loud exclamation and several moments' loss of consciousness after I've seen the prices. This is not the Final Tour, this is the Final Cash-In. Why am I complaining - I'm seeing the final Sabbath tour! It's only one hundred fifty dollars per seat - a bargain at half the price.

This was only a prelude: the real fun comes when it's time to pay. Having selected the seats (after a quick remortgage), I am given a 9 minute timer in which to complete my transaction before the tickets are released for sale. No problem - I type quickly and I have a Stubmonger account (but still  pressure). Go ahead - try to sign in. I have a password vault so I never forget passwords. Plug them in and BZZT - wrong password. It's not the wrong password, stupid, it's the one I always use. No matter, his the FORGOT PASSWORD link, which takes me to a page that says SOMETHING HAPPENED and nothing else. Ah, progress (in that there is nowhere to go).

It does tell me that I can use my Ticketmonger account, which somehow lets me in, like a magic mushroom of sorts. I fill out all the necessary information (including mortgage account) and SUBMIT. Oops - it didn't like something. Unfortunately I did not have a Need To Know what it didn't like, so I had to guess. Ah, no place for my MasterVisa - only branded cards. Fantastic! Yelling! The little clock says six minutes. Pressure!

The card type was incorrect because I had no indication it scrolled. Way to make your page readable in any browser, kids. After yelling some more and cursing the thieving bastards for their very existence, I filled out the rest of the information. Three hundred dollars. Wife had better be EXTRA NICE to me for the rest of the year, at very least.

But wait! If you buy now, you have seven delivery options, from printing your own (a $3 surcharge) to two day delivery ($49.95) all the way down to Send Me The F-ing Tickets In The Mail (only $5 each). More screaming. I am not sure how this happened, perhaps New Math, but the total was $350. Somebody is making Big Bucks because they're forcing us to PAY Big Bucks.

Apparently Wife's fear of purchasing tickets is way worse than thirty minutes of listening to me scream, curse, and make several things airborne.

And it ain't over yet, because there's still Joe Walsh/Bad Co and Peter Frampton/Skynyrd.
Oops, yes, it IS over... Walsh is $150 per seat and Frampton is $125 per seat.

One way or the other, you'll probably hear me from your house.