Thursday, August 31, 2017

It's Never Too Early (to Be Late)

From Austin, Texas to the world (and back to Houston) here's Stevie Ray Vaughan, playing Texas Flood.


  • If I understand this correctly, the lovely FLOTUS got on a plane for Houston and the press blew up because she was wearing heels. This is what passes for journalism (and political discourse). The real fun came later in the day, when Boy George said he wouldn't hear of Melania bashing.
  • Ladies and gentlemen, we are observing history as it happens... the republican party is inclusive of gays. Some gays are voting republican. A musician has said something positive about a republican. Republicans are repeating what he said. The whole world has gone topsy-turvy. Dogs sleeping with cats, sun blocked out, people with eye injuries after the sun was blocked out...
  • The dems are automatically obstructing everything, having taken over for the republicans, who did it during Obama.
  • No, nothing's going to change as far as we are concerned: we'll still get screwed.  But if someone told you, twenty years ago, that gays and republicans would be playing together nicely, you would have had them committed for their own good.

Selena Gomez's Instagram account was hacked, resulting in nude pictures of Justin Bieber being displayed for a short period of time. This is not related to The Fappening and the account was restored quickly. These celebrity accounts are falling like dominoes. Funny as it may be, if you don't take security seriously enough, you will be next. I don't care how many Bieber nudes you have - I don't want to see them.


  • With the Horrors in Houston, once again Amateur Radio has stepped up and helped. Like 9-11 and Katrina, these amateurs (hams) put their operational skills to work. Radio works when cells go down or are overloaded. It works locally to globally. Even the government (uh-oh) recognizes the value and has contributed financially to the effort.


The hearing-impaired dog just went off like an alarm, in Attack Mode<tm>. The mailman showed up. Normally Marshall sleeps by the door, just feet away from the mailman. Today he happened to be monitoring from another spot and actually saw the home invader mailman, setting off the Dog Alarm. I haven't heard that in a long time. It was nice and everything, but I didn't really miss it.


  • The Definition of Marriage: I get homicidal when I hear JG Wentworth commercials. So she sings along with them.

The NYPD will be tossing 36,000 Windows phones after a year because Microsoft has decided not to support the phones. Way to go, Microsoft! Do you have any idea what the phones must have cost the NYPD?  Rest assured this contract came through friends, so there was significant money involved (plus who in their right mind purchases Windows phones?). Now they will have to purchase another 36,000 phones. If I were a NY taxpayer, I'd be pretty upset. This is a valuable, visible lesson for any governmental purchase; this stuff goes on all day, every day.


  • When Life Gets Tough - annoy people. It's good for your spirits.





The Bed
I live in a non-standard household.
No, really?
Really.
You're putting us on.
No, really.

The house is non-standard. The occupants are non-standard. Even the dog is non-standard. The neighbors are non-standard. Even the sun is non-standard, in that it won't shine in the house. Seriously - light doesn't penetrate the house.

Ok, perhaps that's not the sun's fault.
The house came from a kit. Believe it or not, stuff got delivered and someone built it. It's pretty interesting, if you think about it. It's still standing, which is very fortunate. Unfortunately the person who assembled the house seemed to get everything right except for one small niggle: the house got turned around. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was dyslexic. Maybe some neighborhood joker turn the plans around when he stepped away. Maybe he was $*#@ing stupid - I don't know. The end result is that the house is perfectly set up for a vampire - the sun doesn't get in. While my deathly pallor has caused some to accuse me of sleeping during the day, perhaps in a coffin, this is not true. Although I may try to avoid direct sunlight, I do like to know it's still out there. And none of it gets in, although I'm sure the siding is always warm.

Where was I?
Oh yeah, non-standard.

Being married to a non-standard wife is... well... non-standard. She has The Mother of All Sleep Disorders, which means she has to catch it where she can. This frequently means she's in bed before I am. I have no problem with this - I'm used to getting in bed in the dark. I spend a large portion of my life in the dark - why shouldn't it extend to the bedroom?

I wouldn't dream of turning the bedroom light on and waking anyone, especially the dog, so I always walk into a dark room. This would be no issue for normal people, but as I said, we're non-standard.

Like Charlie Brown kicking the ball, I assume, foolishly, that there's a clean path from the door to the bed. If there were enough light for video, I could produce some classic video. Maybe some of that green video that you can shoot in the dark.  The first obstacle I have to look for is Marshall, who may or may not be a few steps in, completely blocking access to the bed. Trying to be a good person, I really attempt to step over and not disturb him. This is sometimes funny when he's not there and I wind up stepping over nothing. This potentially sets me up for a great stumble, turn, stumble, fall.. right into bed.

Well, maybe not directly into bed. Something will invariably will have appeared in front of the bed. How it gets there, I can't even begin to guess: maybe stuff rearranges itself when the lights go out. Maybe there's some Quantum Rearrangement happening... this isn't my field, so I feel it best not to spend too much time on it. It would only hurt. So I trip on the dog that may or may not be there, stumble, turn, stumble, trip, teeter, then fall onto the bed.

While I'm falling, I have to worry about the Quantum Spaniel, who may or may not be in the bed already, whether or not I tripped on him when he may or may not have been in the way of the bed. For someone who isn't in the field, I sure deal with quantum physics a lot.  So Marshall may be laying at the foot of the bed, or on my pillow. I have to fall in a way that I won't fall on top of the poor guy.

The wife has not moved.

Now that I have done the Bedroom Dance across the entire room, I find myself (or most of myself) in bed, hopefully not on top of any living being. Regardless of marital status, it is unacceptable to land on your spouse for most, if not any reasons.

If Quantum Spaniel wasn't at the foot of the bed, he is snoozing on or about my pillow.  At this point it's ok to wake him so he'll move his fuzzy butt out of my way. So now he fakes sleep and plays stupid. Huh? You want me to what? Get up? MOVE? I don't understand. Say it a few more times. Gently tap my butt, so I can continue to pretend I don't understand. I can figure out how to get all sorts of things outside my reach but I'm really stupid when I don't want to leave your pillow.

FINALLY he moves to a different spot and I settle down to Blissful Sleep.

No I don't.

Stuff appears in my bed. Different Stuff than appears on the floor. Sometimes a pile of clothes. Last night, several packages of new sheets. Maybe a towel. Some books. A chainsaw. The odd bit of jewelry. Colored markers.. there's no telling and no reason for it.. the stuff is just there. The only thing these have in common is that they quickly become airborne, accompanied by screaming (usually mine).

The wife has not moved.

Along with the screaming is the nightly Litany of Self Pity. There's no written version but it goes something like this: GOD $(#&ING DAMMIT, CAN'T I GET INTO $&#@ING BED JUST ONCE WITHOUT THIS #&@&ING NONSENSE? IT'S DARK AND I DON'T WANT TO BOTHER ANYODY AND ALL I ASK IS AN UNOBSTRUCTED PLACE TO #*@&ING SLEEP. NO DOG. NO CRAYONS. NO CLOTHES. NO CHAINSAW. I WORK ALL DAY AND ALL I ASK FOR IS A BED I CAN GET INTO WITHOUT PAIN OR OBJECTS THAT DON'T %*#&ING BELONG THERE. I ASK FOR VERY LITTLE - AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I $(#&ING GET.

The wife has not moved.

Sometimes I do a little reading from my phone before I nod off. As soon as I silently click and the light comes on, the wife startles and sits up. NOW she sits up. The words are always the same: "What's wrong?" Nothing. "Oh."

The Sleep Number mattress leaks, but only my side, so I have to pump it up. She sleeps through that too - or at very least does not hit me with a cast iron pan, which is also in the bed, for reasons no one can explain.



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