Cocker Chemo Continues

Having finished his IV chemotherapy recently, Marshall just got put on oral chemotherapy. He's buzzing along, happy as always, except for the constant whining when he wants something. We figure that if he's driving us up a tree, he must be doing very well.

On the way home, I had the pleasure of playing tug of war with the little monster. There was coffee in the holder and he was thirsty. I've heard this described before but never saw it: he flipped the plastic top right off the Unbelievable Huge Size Dunkin Donuts styrofoam cup, as if it were nothing. So I put it back on. He flipped it off, with one motion. I put it back, and the moment my hand left, he was back at it again. There are specific laws here about driving with cell phones. There are no laws about driving while trying to protect your coffee from a cancerous cocker with a taste for Dunkin. As it would have been dangerous, I had no choice but to concentrate on driving (also prohibited in my state), and he went face-down into the coffee. When he eventually came up, he had a coffee mustache.

Not to worry, the coffee doesn't do anything to him in any way.  You'd think the caffeine would make a difference, but he just took his wet paws, jumped into bed with his mommy, and took a leisurely nap.

• I'm posting this informationally, as no one here uses the service. Apparently most of Tinder is not encrypted. This allows anyone on the same wifi network to monitor what you're doing. So don't use it in public or at home, where your spouse may be monitoring.
• This is great advice for any program: stay off public wifi. The fact that Tinder isn't encrypted (https:) makes it even worse.

After the mistaken missile alert in Hawaii, politicians scrambled to get the word out that the alert was false. One of the most important accounts sat there, silent, for 17 minutes before issuing the all clear. Yes, it was the governor's account. Why did it take 17 minutes for him to tweet? He didn't know his Twitter password.

C'mon - it's 2018. Stop being stupid. Take an interest in cyber security, including basic password hygiene.  When the governor's people see him practicing safe computing and keeping his password in a locked password manager, they're more likely to do the same. Security flows from the top.

• Bell Canada wants you to know that, aside from Customer Name, phone numbers, username, and account numbers, there are no worries for the 100,000 people whose information was breached recently. Also, there is no evidence that credit card or banking information has been accessed.
• Bell is doing its best, having not learned from last year's breach, affecting 1.9 million active email addresses and 1,700 names and phones numbers accessed by a hacker. They have also not learned from the time before that. Who regulates this stuff?
• If I were a Bell Canada customer, I'd demand all their corporate data before I gave them any of mine. Let's see whose information gets breached first, and what happens after that.

The NHS has approved patient data storage on cloud services.

What could possibly go wrong, England?

• ATTN: anybody lactating. I have nothing for you but always wanted to say that.
• Believe me, if you're lactating, Google knows, but doesn't include it in my stats.

Deep Thoughts - by lefty

I'm looking for it.

If I find it, I'll let you know.

Some say the process is more important than finding it.

Don't ask me.

• If you're a juror in the El Chapo trial, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Chapo, called El by friends, has promised not to kill any jurors. If he were to 'make them go away', then there would be an anonymous jury, which would poison a fair trial.
• Say what you want about the Drug Kingpin Maximus, he has a better grasp of justice than most Americans, especially the FBI/CIA/NSA.

The Kardashians, famous for reasons no one can discern, have nothing on the owner of the corporate juggernaut known as Grumpy Cat. Grumpy cat started as a meme on the internet, after which his owner trademarked and copyrighted the feline.

During a deal with 'Grenade', they were allowed to put out coffee called  “Grumpy Cat Grumppuccino.” Grenade used the cat's likeness on the coffee and t-shirts, which was not part of the deal. After three years in court, the cat or the corporation or the owner was awarded $710,001. My guess is that the lawyers got the bulk of the money, the owner got the rest, and Grumpy got some cat treats. This is why there are laws about child stars in Hollywood.

I weep for society.

• FREE RON JEREMY!

• The porn legend was banned from the Las Vegas Adult Video News (AVN) awards for violating AVN's code of conduct. AVN has a Zero Tolerance Harassment Policy. This is the first time in 38 years Ron hasn't attended the awards.
• Other pundits will say, "Porn. A code of conduct for porn?" 
• I will not stoop to that level.  
• Anyone who has heard of or seen pictures from the AVN awards knows that there can't possibly be a code of anything at this wingding. The only thing that isn't tolerated is premeditated murder (and that's probably negotiable).
• Aside from the obvious reasons, I'd have no problem attending or watching the awards, especially versus the Emmys or Golden Globes, etc.  When an actress wins the award for Best Underwater Blowjob, Clothed, she screams, holds her hands to her face, walks to the podium and makes her acceptance speech. At no time does she call attention to her pet cause, verbally assault a sitting president, or demand better working conditions.
• These are honest, hard-working people, in touch with the average Joe. When she's done, she goes back to her table, does the Porn Star Dance with a few of her coworkers, and watches the next award: Best triple-insertion gangbang with under 500 participants (and a donkey).
• Meanwhile, Meryl Streep hasn't yet reached the middle of her monologue.

It was only a matter of time...

Two white ex-employees are suing NBC and Questlove for racial discrimination. Their treatment was completely different from Questlove's black bassist. Quest allegedly pressured NBC to fire the caucasians involved in the incident, but ignore his bassist.

----------------------

Regardless of anything that happened outside of comedy, Woody Allen is pretty damn funny. His essay on civil disobedience is hysterical. The most relevant part is this:

It should be noted that after a revolution is over, the ‘oppressed’ frequently take over and being acting like the ‘oppressors.’ 

------------------

Apparently black superheroes are a thing, according to an interview I heard on NPR. I listen to NPR for many good reasons: rock radio sucks, my cd player just broke, and there is no aux input on my radio. After today, I might investigate Silence while driving, and just let the internal demons provide the soundtrack.

They were interviewing the creator of a black superhero show that's pretty popular. I apologize for not remembering the show or the fellow's name. The interviewer asked if a white guy could accurately write a black character. He said no and mentioned that diversity is strength; his staff is mostly female African-American. So no white guys? Yes, there are white guys all over the place - they're the ones who have been writing forever.

So diversity is strength, provided it doesn't include white people. And mostly African-American female is a perfectly diverse, acceptable makeup of employees.

The oppressed frequently take over and begin acting like the oppressors.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the National Association for the Advancement of White People (NOPE) marched on the creator's business and blocked the doors, claiming racism and ordering the government to force them to accept caucasians on the payroll?

Next on the radio was the panel of experts to explain why Trump is wrong this time. One started by saying The Wall is racist. Nobody had the intestinal fortitude to ask how.

Last but definitely not least was the interview with a lady whose group advocates for the rights of home healthcare workers. For some reason, these folks are excluded from laws mandating minimum wage, time off, and other benefits. Sounds reasonable, right? Then she went on to say that everyone should also support the illegal alien workers because they're entitled to the same benefits.

Huh?

They broke the law by sneaking into the country. They're working, possibly under the table. And they're entitled to benefits that legal citizen workers have?

My wife likes to contribute to our local public radio station. We agreed that this practice would cease as of today.

We are going to look back on this time and wonder what we were thinking (if anything). Better yet, let's not look back... it's too embarrassing.



lefty the libertarian says that after pointing out hypocrisy, he'd like everybody to know that employers should hire whomever they like, without government interference (even though it doesn't work that way now). People have freedom of speech and can say whatever they want on radio and in person. We don't have to agree with it and we can spend our dollars elsewhere. This is referred to as letting the market decide.

• The blog entries may show up less frequently. I'm working on a new project.. The Tide Pod Cookbook.

Just in case you are bored and starved for some good news, for once... comes word that the ability to fake nude pictures and videos has come down to user level. In fact, even your face can star in someone's adult creation. Some may refer to this as a great programming leap. Some will shriek and run. And Jessica Alba already has 'porn' out, with her head on a porn star's body. I'll be searching that out later today, you know... for science. I'm just passing this stuff along. Because, like Howard Stern, I have the maturity of a thirteen year old.

Moe the Golden Retriever helps rescue a man from the Sacramento river.

• California, bastion of sanity, is adding another notch to its belt buckle: it may soon be illegal to automatically provide straws in restaurants. Yes, servers must wait until straws are requested by the customer. There is a significant fine for disobeying.
• The National Straw Marketing Association has stated that this is not an issue, so long as straws are available. You might think I made this part up, but I didn't, except for the name of the association.
• Don't get me wrong.. California is a wonderful place to visit; you just couldn't pay me to live there.
• Speaking of regulations, Chicago has just made it illegal to park your car with a For Sale sign in it on public streets. They suggest you call 911 if you see one of these cars. 
• ThermionicEmissions has done some bold, intensive investigation on this issue (we asked a Chicago official about it). Chicago is worried about cars being parked on the streets and becoming almost abandoned. Sounds reasonable, addresses a nuisance, and is nowhere as weird as California's obsession with straws. If straws were illegal aliens, California would mandate a straw dispenser on every table and have them attached to all telephone poles, not to mention cases of them at City Hall.

I watch a lot of people typing on their cell phones, with the precision of a brain surgeon and the speed of a NASCAR driver, so I know it is possible. But when I pick it up, I feel like a two year old with a computer. I have been a tech since I was two, taking apart vacuums at people's houses. Small wonder I don't get invited places. I obviously know how the phone works and can make it do all sorts of things, but the act of typing causes me fits. Even slowly and carefully, I will invariably hit the wrong key. I've tried hitting the top of the key and that doesn't work. I have tried three different keyboards, which hasn't helped. What's unbelievably weird and horrible is that my work iPhone's keyboard seems to work much better (I stand ashamed). So I installed an iDevice-like keyboard, which also failed spectacularly. I even tried the Swipey keyboard, which works for millions. That produced its own set of hilarious errors, including wanting to do bodily harm to the person who set spellcheck to ON by default. Even when I tap a suggested correction, I hit a number key instead.

So I'm at very least a dyslexic typist. A slow typist. A great speller but a blithering failure in the typing department. My wife feels similarly, so at least we can share the misery. Every time I type, I want to launch the phone into space. I'd use the voice interface, but on every voice interface, everything you say goes right to the service's servers; android/Google, or Apple. I'm waiting for the phones to be powerful enough to have their own voice capabilities natively. There's little push for this, as Google and Apple want your data.

I don't need to type NASCAR fast. I'd settle for average and accurate.

So I scream a lot while typing. And fixing computers. And watching tv. Now that I think of it, this is a recurring theme. I should hurry up and do nothing about this.

• The good news is that my local supermarket has Chocolate Frosted Flakes now, labeling them New. The bad news is that they don't carry them in Extra Huge Size, like Costco did before they stopped carrying them. I think Chocolate Frosted Flakes with Marshmallows got discontinued too. The trials and tribulations of an adult who consumes sugary cereals. But beware: I heard that even Raisin Bran has a lot of sugar on the flakes.
• To everyone's surprise, there is now a Chocolate Lucky Charms.
• You would do well to avoid anything that says Kashi on it, unless you're enamored of the taste of cardboard. At that point, you might as well just eat the container it comes in. It too is full of fiber.

Parting shot: I enjoy the hell out of the opportunity to spew my stuff here. It would be nice, however, if the spell check didn't choke on the word 'internet'.  I routinely play a game called Choke the Checker.

Yep, that thing's gonna ricochet and take his eye out