Don't Touch That Anvil!!

I have many magical qualities, none of which is my personality.
I can make a stoplight turn red simply by approaching it.
I can make a grocery checkout line come to a dead stop by getting in the line.
In terms of sheer size and awesomeness, my wife wins: she can make a train show up by driving to an intersection with lights and a gate.

You get it.

So I'm back to calling the tax authority.
Once again, all circuits are busy.  I know what's going on here - the number doesn't actually exist, or it's in a very small closet, behind a false wall.
So I found another number to call. This one was apparently located in a place where there are more circuits for a call.

ThermiTip: if you can't find a number or it isn't the correct number, curse a lot. Some of them have Fuck Filters that shunt you to an operator. Or you could just press O a lot, hoping for an operator. Or any old human being. If all else fails, call a number that might not be the department you want. When they answer, act stupid (some of us don't have to act). If you're polite and just a little lost, the natural inclination is to help, so they'll get you where you need to go (unless you're calling City Hall, where they'll politely tell you NOT MY JOB and hang up).

After once again being assured that my call was important, somebody finally answered. The very interesting part of this, aside from him answering, is that I somehow managed to reach the correct department (by calling the wrong department). It's obvious this department wants nothing at all to do with its customers.

Once again, I needed to take down information.
This is where another one of my talents comes into play: I can make a pen stop writing by picking it up. And I do not disappoint. My wife had cleaned, so there were no more pens. I proceeded with a pencil. As soon as I took down the information, the lead snapped. Then my paper sailed to the floor. I picked it up and straightened it out (so it could sail to the floor a second time). I knew if I tried to put my phone on speaker, I'd find a way to disconnect the call and spend all eternity trying to get them back on the phone.

Here's the bizarre part: the guy was helpful. And considerate. And made really good suggestions. I had to keep checking my phone to make sure I dialed the correct number and was still connected. I can't say much more about this person, lest they figure out who he is and fire him for behavior unbecoming a city employee.

• A Seal Team 6 raid, referred to by President Trump as "highly successful", turned out to have killed well over a dozen women and children and was botched. We really need to stop this, Mr. President; both the lying and the endless war.

Faceyspaces is at it again, doing what Faceyspaces does best. There's a Protect option on your menu, which sends you to the app store to download a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service called Onavo.  Rather than keeping your data locked and impenetrable, it directly mines your information.  Don't use this. Better yet, don't use Faceyspaces.

• Just in case you think I'm kidding about the weather here, this is our forecast:

• unseen is the hourly forecast, which includes a little sun. People are starting to look out of their caves, wondering what that strange light in the sky is. Children have momentarily stopped asking their parents to tell them about the time there was sun. Pets are covering their eyes with their paws. And, because sun causes lines and cancer, Hollywood is blaming Trump.

The wife is watching the Wendy Williams show.
I remember when Wendy Williams was a punk singer who chainsawed things during her shows.
The wife is passive-aggressively torturing me.
The tv is so loud, I can't help hear the silence between her lines, the whining that her sushi isn't cut thin enough, and her news of disease or other, that she needs to outline for her thought-impaired audience.
People are talking about 'common sense gun legislation.' What they need to be talking about is common sense Wendy legislation. It's a wonder half the audience hasn't hurt themselves before the end of the show. Perhaps Neilsen needs to take a survey of how many home viewers hurt themselves. Or their husbands committed acts of violence.

• Today in Arizona, students at Gilbert High School walked out to honor the victims of last week's shooting in Florida. Tomorrow in Arizona, students at Gilbert High School will walk out to honor toast.

The Salmon of Doubt

For a number of days, we have been attempting to have salmon.
In normal households, this is a relatively easy concept: go out or stay in and have salmon.
In my house, a simple concept can turn itself into a gargantuan trek.

On the first night, we were grabbing our salmon and taking it to my parents, where we were to prepare it. With luck, we'd eat it too.
We failed, for reasons I'd rather not specify (having nothing to do with marital relations).

The second night brought another try at the parents. Mrs leftystrat took the day off. The entire day. She and the dog never left the exceedingly comfortable bed.

Giving up with the parents, the third night was Salmon for Us Night.
This time, Mrs leftystrat took the night off.
I wouldn't dare disturb her, for fear of my private parts getting pierced.

At 11:37pm, the Mrs stumbles down the steps, shaking her head, and announces, "I'm going to try this a different way. We are NOT going to have salmon tomorrow."

At 11:38 it was my turn: "In addition, we are not going to have sex every night this week."

She was so amused, she went back to bed.



UPDATE: It turns out we were both right! We did not have salmon OR sex.

• In a private chat of a UK school, a joker came in and started posting memes. They were delightfully disgusting and wildly off color. They were SO bad, I have to describe them here. The ones about the UK can be understood by context...
•  One of them was a 1-10 scale, accompanied by the question ‘Using the scale provided, rate how much you like kids’. At 1 was a picture of Kate and Gerry McCann, and at 10 was a picture of Jimmy Savile. Another was a picture of Katie Price’s disabled son with the caption, ‘What’s black and screams? Harvey Price answering an iron.’ 
• Hitler was also a common thread, with one meme bearing a picture of his face with the text ‘I burned six million calories in four years’. Another was a picture of Gordon Ramsay shouting at, here he is again, Hitler, with the caption, ‘Put them back in the fucking oven! They’re so undercooked they’re writing fucking diaries.’ 
• This being a university, someone in this private chat got offended and contacted the university, which promptly sent out a note that it has a 'zero tolerance policy towards racist, sexist or bigoted behaviour.' You know.. because it was a private chat, and the university had an aunt in the holocaust, whose son was on Gordon Ramsay, answering the iron.

With all the crap, phishing, spam, virii, and malware floating around, please refer to leftystrat's Rules of Cybersecurity: Don't. Just don't.

Don't open that email. Don't click on that link. Don't send your password to Sears. Don't marry or send cash to anyone from Nigeria. Don't approve any naked pictures from Olga. Before you open the message from your best friend, telling you about a deal, ask if they actually sent it. Delete anything with misspellings or wording that is obviously foreign. The IRS will not email you to tell you that money is owed or a refund is due. Neither Jay Leno nor Oprah are going to give you a car. The president doesn't care what you think, nor does your local representative, who sends you legitimate email.

• PRO TIP: if you're going to pour from the barbecue sauce bottle (I like Sweet Baby Ray's), always remove the cap.

It was a long time ago and we were visiting a relative at the Happy Place. 

There were  some names on their whiteboard. In the mornings, they state their goals for the day. One wanted to remember to be happy. Another wanted to work on her main issue. Our favorite goal was 'to stay awake for the whole day'. You don't have to be in the hospital for this to apply. [RIP DumDum - 5 years?]

• I spent some time thinking about this alleged Russian influence on our election, via social media. I haven't really paid much attention to it, but apparently they ran ads on Faceyspaces and ran bots, urging people not to vote for Hillary, but to vote for Trump, Bernie, and Jill Stein. There is also an alleged Russian presence on twitter and Reddit.
• Without knowing many facts, I can tell you this investigation is a witch hunt. It's total and complete BS.  How do I know?  
• When was the last time you told someone, on social media, how to vote and they listened to you?

I finally figured out what my wife has been complaining about for years.  Which thing, you ask. It's the stereotypical Helpless Man Syndrome, wherein the male cannot find anything and has to ask his wife where they are. As we know, I don't like to be the stereotypical anything, so this bothers me.  Being helpless doesn't exactly thrill me either.

Ok, I have one small piece of the equation that others don't: a highly dissociative wife, for whom time is not necessarily linear. It tends to exist in blocks. And between the blocks, others 'help' by moving things and hiding other things. So when I have to ask where the ketchup is, because it's not in the place it always is, it's because she has 'rearranged' things. Or better yet, someone else has hidden it, because it's valuable and they don't want anybody to steal it. They've hidden candy, car keys, and important medicine. Like most children, they're trying to help.  If I have completely confused you or you are a new reader, my wife has Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder.

Back to being helpless...

Honey, I can't find the frozen pizza.

It's on the top shelf of the freezer, where it always is.

Ok, I just looked and it isn't there.

I never moved it and it's always on the top shelf.

I believe you. Can you help me find it?

[opens freezer] Oh. It was on the bottom, under these ten bags of Brussels sprouts.

Sorry, I should have known that. Thank you.

My friend left me some papers on his porch, so I could get them whenever.

I stopped by and found a plastic bag with stuff in it. His wife is always sending stuff over, so it was nice of her to include whatever that was.

When I got home, I went into the bag and found a whole mess of fake plastic autumn leaves. And absolutely nothing else. Because that's what my mind expected to see. Shakira could have been sitting next to the bag, swirling her hips in that hypnotic way, and I'd have missed her.

And this is what my wife has been complaining about for years. Poor lady.

Good thing I don't work with explosives, eh?

• According to Interpol, all Internet of Things devices are potentially at risk of cyber attacks.  It's humbling to hear that Interpol reads this blog.

Your flight is delayed.

Why?

Because there are two more scanned boarding passes than people on the plane.

Do you...

1. PANIC
2. Wave your hands wildly in the air and PANIC
3. say 'Allah Akbar' repeatedly, in a loud voice
4. thumb nervously through your Koran
5. tell people that the planes were remote-controlled on 9-11

• If you are at all curious about how Google Chrome's ad filter (that is not an ad blocker) works, read this.  Remember: the idea is to get you to turn off your ad blocker so their ad revenue won't suffer.

Once again, the good people in DC have stepped in to magically fix everything, this time with the Secure Elections Act. We remember that all legislation means the opposite of its title (Patriot Act), so there's that. The measure issues appropriations of grants to states to take action on election hardware and software issues.  In English, it takes more of your money and gives it to states to 'secure' the elections. The last time elections were secured, we got expensive electronic voting machines with no paper trail, from a manufacturer (Diebold) who donated to the democratic candidate. Speaking of which, how about all those generations of scanning devices at airports.....?

Nothing good comes out of DC and whatever it is will cost you dearly.

Speaking of which, how about that Border Security?

The US government has been left red-faced after it emerged that its Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has failed for over a decade to verify passports are authentic because it has not been able to properly read their built-in smart chip.

This was another project guaranteed to 'keep us safe'. We paid for it. A lot.

What have we gotten for our tax dollars? Another failed system. Another worthless department in our ever-expanding government. Why do I refer to it as Security Theater?

If your work performance turned out to be worthless, what would happen?

You'd be put on Modified Duty, by which I mean your daily routine would be modified by sitting on your couch, looking for a new job. I'm going to take a guess that the remedy for this situation will come in the form of new technology for the department, at the cost of hundreds of millions of your dollars. And these dollars will not be the originally appropriated dollars - they will be additionally appropriated dollars. 

Will heads roll?

No, but eyes will.

Dirty Harry said it best: "Let me ask you a question, punk. Do you feel any safer? DO YOU?"

Border Patrol was not entirely unaware of this small glitch, after the Government Accounting Office reported on it in 2010.

• Another tremendous headline:  Harvard University Bans Single Gender Clubs, Unless They're Women-Only.
• Per a twitter comment: We do not live under a democracy any more. We live under a corporate gynocracy.

A Dubai to Amsterdam flight was forced to land in Austria.

Why?

Because a passenger would not stop farting.

(it's like they're doing stuff just for this blog)

Two Dutchmen kept asking the flatulent party to cease his anal exhalations, but he refused. Eventually a fight broke out.

Austrian officers boarded the plane with (fart-sniffing?) dogs and four suspects were escorted off the plane. Every reader of this blog counted two Dutchmen and one Farter. It turns out that there were also two women involved. Even United knows this is five people.  

Did a flight attendant serve him beans? Were other passengers trying to harmonize with him? We have questions.

How's Marshall, you ask.

The switch to oral chemotherapy (pills) failed miserably. His body did not like it. So he gets no more chemo.

His lesion has grown back larger, so we're worse off than when we started.

We're looking into ways to keep his pain down, as the lesion is sore. He will not suffer.

My mother came by and did some energy work on him. That night there was no bleeding from the lesion, which is a first. Energy work continues.

If you have any good thoughts to spare, please send them to him.