Quiet - I'm Trying to Think

Like many people, I sometimes do some online learning. This is a hair more difficult for me, as I have the attention span of a pregnant gnat (on drugs). So I asked my wife for a little quiet, so I could get through it more easily.

For the entire day, I could barely hear my wife, except when she spoke to me. This is almost uncharacteristic of her, as she has the grace of an elephant in a tutu (she will tell you this).

As I started the numbered material, it became Cleaning Time:

Item #1: [the crunch of brown bags opening]

Item #2: [boxes being moved]

Item #3: [stuff falling against wooden furniture]

I'm laughing, as it's not too loud, just slightly annoying.
Wife goes into the other room and I think good - no more noise.

Item #4: [an entire basket of hangers attempts to commit suicide by leaping to the floor].

At this point, I lose it.
IS THIS SOME KIND OF COMEDY ROUTINE? ARE PEOPLE WE CAN'T SEE WATCHING IT? WE MUST BE A HUGE HIT BY NOW. PERHAPS YOU CAN DROP SOME PLATE GLASS DOWN THE STAIRS!

Item #5: [tap tap tap]
WHAT IS IT NOW?
Your parents are coming over. Where do I put the guitars?
I'M SORRY, WAS MY QUIET STUDYING TOO DISRUPTIVE FOR YOU?
But, I just...
DON'T. Please don't.

Item #6: [folding chair falls to ground]
Wife: "Ok, I give up."
Please do.


I have deliberately omitted the part where the elephant led the parade through the living room, as well as the eight lane highway being started out front. If people are watching this, our ratings are through the roof (along with the giraffes).

• It sure is early this morning.
• It looks like it's getting longer.
• The morning meeting that makes me get up an hour early was not attended by the person who set it up
• The muffin I got for breakfast lept onto the floor, making a perfect hole in the powdered creamer spray, which quickly followed it to the floor.
• A pile of Stuff on the back of the couch decided to see if it could fly and failed spectacularly, hitting the seat cushion and bouncing to the floor.
• While filling the dog's water bowl, I spilled most of it down the front of me
• It's 8:25. If things get any better, I'll be on sick leave by 9.

It's a bad time to be someone who's not really fond of Tom Petty

• A woman in South Carolina ordered a yoga mat. When she opened it, she found 20,000 pills valued at $400,000 instead. Meh - yoga mat, $400k in illegal drugs, what's the difference?

Use the Stupid, Luke: a security expert recommends using a black marker to write 'PIN: 5372' on your ATM card. It increases incorrect PIN entries if the card is stolen. You are reminded NOT to use your REAL PIN.

• White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's personal phone has been hacked for over six months. Yes, that's right, six months. He sent the phone to IT for repairs, where the hack was discovered. He claimed not to use the personal phone for business. We have met the enemy and it is US.

Russian spies used Kaspersky Antivirus to swipe NSA exploit code, according to anonymous sources.

Well, that's the headline anyway.. the overly uncautious snoop took the code home and put it on his home computer, which was running Kaspersky Antivirus. It is alleged that Russian hackers used Kaspersky to identify the files and steal them. The claim is from 2015, because the public has no right to know. The NSA won't comment, as a matter of policy.  Because you have no right to know. 

For its part, Kaspersky vigorously denies any of this happened and has offered its source code to government officials. There are no reports of anyone taking Kaspersky up on its offer - just allegations which have not been proven. 

Kaspersky has been banned from government equipment and Best Buy has pulled it from their shelves. Until I see undeniable proof, I'm not inclined to believe this. This is very easy for me to say, as I run linux.

• Continuing the Annoyance Thread, I'm on an early evening business call, on speakerphone. At this exact moment, the tree people show up next door, to cut down a few trees. With loud gas-powered saws.

This week's definition of Mom: the lady who blew off an opportunity to get out and stayed home, making some sort of tuna meat loaf for the sick granddog. Marshall barely got a sniff of it and went face-down in his food bowl. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - I grew up on her cooking and it was always good, if not great. This from a lady who, two months ago, was in a facility with dementia.