Makeup is Racist

Well, not yet.
Farmers' markets, however, have just been declared racist. Yes, according to the Washington Times, professors (you already knew that), say that 'Habits of white people are normalized' at the markets. This is why we can't have nice things.

• one way to help keep yourself safe and less annoyed when surfing is to direct adware/crapware/malware to the trashcan. You can do this automatically with a HOSTS file. Download it from this site and follow the instructions. It's a pretty cool, old-style hack. 
• To give you an idea of how it works, as you know, I have a great aversion to Faceyspaces. So I add Faceyspaces to my HOSTS file, which sends any Faceyspaces request to the digital trashcan. I don't have to do a thing - it happens automatically. Before you go thinking I'm ever crazier than my typing would show, Faceyspaces is also a huge ad network. The HOSTS file has a ton of ad networks directed to trash - ain't that convenient?
• This works on Windows, Mac (I think), and linux. Every advantage you have is a good one, and this one costs nothing. 

Mad

I took today off mad.
They didn't believe me... they thought I was sick.
But no, I was mad.
Maybe I just wanted a long weekend?
Nah.
Crazy mad?
Seriously - would you like me to come down there and show you?
Are you hung over, after drinking the bar dry last night?
Is there something you don't understand about mad?
Well... enjoy  your day off.
Fuck you.

I'm not 100% positive when or how it started, but I suspect it was the email from my benefits people, telling me to go online and fill out some forms. This should have come with a siren and lights. As I've mentioned, any time I need to go online to 'do something small and easy,' it results in screaming, airborne computer parts, and the dog running to a different floor, in sheer terror.

The benefits site was put together by drunk monkeys. The people manning the phones are very nice, but you get different answers from each one you talk to.

No, we don't like Internet Explorer either - use Firefox.
Oh, that's a browser issue - you need to use Internet Explorer.

After this interminable stretch, while there was still hair left on my head, I damn near almost got done what I needed. I sat quietly the rest of the night, lest I drop something and wind up blowing out a few windows.

The next day was worse. There's a person employed by supermarkets to follow me around. No, it's not Security. This person is a marketing expert, who walks around behind me, thinking I can't see him, and marks down what I buy. After we get in the checkout line, he runs back to the computer and immediately stops ordering everything I bought.  The next time I come back, they have none of what I want. Normally I shake my head and make a joke. But not today.

I have a little problem with Snapple. When I say a little problem, I mean that I have to limit myself to four bottles a day. Four or six. Definitely under a case, that's for certain. Fortunately for us, Snapple was on sale. This is a beautiful feeling. I felt the sun shine on me (which is odd, as the sun doesn't shine here anymore). And that fast, it was gone. Not even a single bottle of lemon Snapple. There was plenty of apple, peach and mango. Mango is just a peach wannabe, which I do not tell the wife, as she likes it. There was even pomegranate and motor oil flavor, but none of this was a substitute for lemon. I got so mad, the bottles in the cases started to shake. Several burst (except for the motor oil - Snapple should take note of this). Other shoppers started looking around. Some ran. Others prayed.

My wife, sensitive to my plight, ordered me to pick up a case of mango. Strangely this did nothing for my mood, as I picked up a case and observed it was apple, put where it said MANGO. Doing my best Kareem Abdul Jabar, I did a perfect, no-net throw into the cart. Nothing happened to the bottles because it landed on the birthday cake.

I needed water. They had none. No water. A supermarket with NO WATER.
I once went to Wendy's, where they were out of potatoes. And another where they had no ketchup. But at least THEY had water. I started to give my opinion on this, at which point my wife wisely pushed the cart away, hoping no one would notice she was with me.

The long and short of it is that I have nothing to drink, except maybe some mango Snapple. I hate mango Snapple.  And now she has to go back to the store for water and Snapple. At least she doesn't have to worry about anyone drinking her Snapple.

Just to help my mood, programs kept crashing, guitar strings kept breaking, and the wife kept finding excuses to take the dog out for a drive. I opened the fridge and an open can of Coke popped out to greet me and pour itself down the front of my clothes. When I typed, the cursor kept randomly jumping all over the place, but it cleverly waited til it knew I wasn't looking, so I'd look up and had just typed an entire sentence in the middle of the preceding paragraph.  Even the pope would've lost it. So I called out mad.

Wife suggested I call the doctor. I would, but I will only get the recording that they're closed until February, and if there are any emergencies, I should go to the emergency room. That would really make me mad.

I guess things are getting better, as the National Guard has stood down, the local police are back to pulling people over for untied shoelaces, and the news vans are no longer blocking parking on the street. It's a shame.. I really liked the morning lady. She had a certain way with weather.

• Chicago's new flagship Apple store is struggling with falling ice and cracking windows.  Even Mother Nature doesn't think you should use Apple products.

A Utah elementary school teacher has been fired because a parent complained when their child saw naked humans in an art class.  In a pack of art cards, provided by an educational company, were two cards with naked people in art.

This is a perfect illustration of a big problem with our societies: the naked body is 'dirty' or bad. It may startle this parent to note that we all have a naked body, which is located under our clothes. Do they insist their kids take showers with their clothes on? The more we worry about and protest naked bodies, the bigger the stigma we allow them, the more we screw our kids and society up. This kind of control is not needed now, nor was it in the past. I'll guess religion here.

There have been missives of support for the teacher, who had no idea the cards were in the deck, and went over them with the principal, who decided there was no obscenity there. At least the staff is on the ball, aside from that firing thing. What goes through their alleged minds?

• New train platforms are being constructed under Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. An accountant identified 700 jobs needed, but 900 being paid. No one knows why.  The superfluous workers were laid off, but no one knows how long they were there, at $1,000 per day. On a per-year basis, this overage alone cost $10,400,000. Ten million on unnecessary personnel. Imagine the other irregularities in employment.
• This occurred in 2010, but they 'forgot' to disclose it to the public.
• These are the highest construction costs in the world, which could have been used to fix existing infrastructure and equipment.
• Costs on the Long Island Railroad project have mushroomed to $12 billion, or $3.5 billion for each mile of track (seven times the world average).
• Politically connected labor unions, construction companies, and consulting firms seem to have gained the most from the project(s).
• Yes, every city has its corruption, but this is How to Steal on a massive level. It's a manual for all other cities. More proof that stereotypes do not emerge from a vacuum.
• The M.T.A. did not dispute the findings. This is my favorite line in the story.

Just wanted to spread the news about the fabulous weather team here in PA. With a thirty percent chance of precipitation forecast, we received several inches of snow. Given the ability I'd have chosen some place with a real climate (and no snow). Somewhere that frowns on the cold, like Arizona, which is like living in a blast furnace. Still better than PA.

• For reasons I won't explain (because I can't), my one television weakness is police shows. Having watched police in the England, Ireland, New Zealand, the US, and Australia, as well as airport customs shows, it would appear that the main activity revolves around drugs (including cigarettes at airports). It is especially egregious in the US. Watch COPS and look for the formula: discover any small infraction, pull car over, ask if they have something the cop should know about, then find an excuse to search the car. For drugs.
• Speeding? Drugs.
• Broken license plate light? Drugs.
• Not wearing seatbelt? Drugs.
• Walking too fast in the airport? Drugs.
• Post office opening your mail in transit? Drugs.
• Whenever drugs are found, the police congratulate themselves on removing those drugs from the street. That joint the idiot kids have with them in the car.
• We all know the War on Drugs has failed, just like the War on Terror. The reason the Wars will never end is that they have created an infrastructure, including frightening amounts of jobs, and huge contracts for x-ray machines, that don't work, in airports. The states with medical and recreational marijuana must've gotten lucky. Sometimes the feds will prosecute them anyway. Government never gets smaller. Remember: the income tax was temporary.
• What we really need is a War on High Incomes.

To belabor the point a bit, the Irish now have a task force to help stop the illegal sales of tobacco products. Translated to Human, this means cigarettes which have not been taxed in Ireland. People have been going to ridiculous lengths to 'smuggle' cigarettes into the country. Therefore, more people are being stopped at the airport and having their bags searched. There are dogs trained to sniff for drugs, money, and tobacco. Now there's a task force.  Has anybody stopped to think that maybe the cigarette taxes are too high?

Pregnant?

I spend a lot of time picking on tv, as well I should.
There is a show called I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant.
No, really.
The female will behave normally and experience all sorts of weird symptoms. Eventually she winds up in the Emergency Room, where they always ask if she could be pregnant. She looks at them incredulously and says there's no way. Twenty minutes later they're back to inform her she's knocked up - assuming she hasn't already shot the infant out the old birth canal.

How, exactly, does one not know one is pregnant?
Except in one fabled account, this does not happen by itself. There is at least one requirement. You know... fun stuff. Knocking boots. Playing hide the salami. The beast with two backs. Boom boom. Marital relations. Paying the pizza delivery guy. Coitus. Sexual congress. Insemination by any means, including turkey baster.

So after that activity, pregnancy is always a possibility.
My paltry knowledge of the subject indicates a missed period or three. Or a weird one. It would also be difficult to ignore weight gain and the sudden appearance of a larger stomach, not related to beer. I will give large women a small break here.

Perhaps medical personnel should just ask if she's had sex within the last nine months and go from there.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

PornHub has a bit of a quandary.
While YouTube diligently struggles to keep porn off their site, PornHub is now struggling to keep safe for work movies off theirs.

Yes, one can watch or download movies like Hamilton and Disney's Zootopia from PornHub. PornHub is not amused. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be amused either, given the Mighty Arm of Disney, which keeps an entire city full of lawyers gainfully employed.  They are forced to toil in some sort of futuristic dimension, where "It's A Small World" plays 24/7. Rest assured, if you have to hear that song 24/7, you'll be happy to burst forth and sue too, right after you eat a few whole children raw.

The romantic comedy The Big Sick also wound up on PornHub. The filmmaker located his movie there and urged his fans who didn't have Amazon Prime to stream it from PornHub. This was apparently after locating Shakespeare's Daddy's Got a Secret, starring Nathan Lane and Macaulay Culkin and the award-winning Mommy Sounds Horse, with Rosie O'Donnell and "Trigger".

The only things better than the fact that these movies are on PornHub is their titles for Hamilton: REVOLUTIONARY TWINKS HAVE HISTORICAL FUN and Revolutionary Boys Get Dirty on American Politics Part 1.

The only insulting part of the story is that this blog's spell checker keeps highlighting PornHub.