According to Wife, it has rained the last fifteen days. By default, she would be more correct than the forecasters. When it's not raining, the humidity has been in the 90s; it's gross.
Back in the office first thing in the morning, it's 64 degrees with only 93% humidity. My arm hair is sweating. Wife suggests a fan. Like all married men, I have to ask her for wisdom, then I make the mistake of questioning her. But won't that just blow the humidity around?
Ok, fine, it's Fan Time.
There's a window fan, located, strangely enough, near the window.
So I get my climbing gear and lift the fan. Unfortunately the fan is held down by its own power cord. Grumbling, I yank. POOF - here's the cord! And it's attached to an extension cord that will NOT pull, move, or do much but silently mock me. I have no idea where this cord goes. The humidity is not conducive to following it. And when I say humidity, my eyebrows are wet. Plus there's so much stuff on top of it that if I pull too hard, the entire room will disappear in some sort of Freak of Physics alternative universe, so I'm not tempting fate.
Battered but not beaten, I decide to steal the living room fan, as no one's using it at the moment. Et Voila - overnight, so much stuff has appeared on the fan's base that we'll need a dynamite crew to excavate it.
[sigh] Back to the room.
Well, since neither fan worked, I'll sit here in the humidity box, thinking about how uncomfortable it is... hey.... I'll take the window fan and put it somewhere that isn't a window. Sometimes I outdo myself. Most times myself is outdone by other stuff. And it works!!! No, really! It's so loud that I can't hear anything I'm supposed to be doing! Someone helpfully suggests an air conditioner, because it won't be a problem to install the new 145lb unit, then hand down the remaining ones, so I can put one in my office. I can do that with my eyes closed. I can also juggle chainsaws and deliver eggs to little children in December.
Hmmm.... my stomach is grumbing out Morse code. This would be wonderful if I knew Morse code. I went with hungry, which turned out to be a good guess. I know - I'll make one of my word famous salads that nobody knows about! Lettuce, a dressing or three, and tuna, making sure to pour the juice into a bowl for the dog, who considers it heavenly. The secret ingredient, which I shouldn't mention, is bacon crumbles. Pour, pour, pour, pour, pour, ok - enough. More dressings, please.
I am infatuated with this salad. World class idea. Except for that color.
I am absolutely positive that I put nothing in the salad that's blue-green and fuzzy. As it turns out, I did. Looking in the bacon crumbles bag, I notice the entire contents has that blue-green fuzzy color and texture. The new bag of bacon crumbles. I'm reasonably certain they're not supposed to be that color. And if they are, I'm not eating them. Unfortunately, being crumbles, they crumbled all over the lettuce, hiding in romaine heart ventricles, and falling close to the bottom of the plate. After I threw the entire plate at, but not in, the sink, I realized I didn't have what it takes to make another. It's heart-wrenching. I heated leftovers, walked out of the kitchen, and watched the fork try to commit suicide by jumping off my plate to the carpet. While attempting to hold back the tears, I noticed the air conditioner was on. In the living room, which had no one in it.
What are you gonna do?
I'm through being mad for the rest of the month and I'm NOT going back to CostCo, so it's Time for Ice Cream, Yayyyyyy!!!!!!!
How was your morning?
- ThermionicEmissions is sad to say Rest in Peace to Peter 'Mars' Cowling, best know as Pat Travers' bassist on Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights) and Crash and Burn. Mars had a style and groove that you had to hear to appreciate. He could be busy or not, but the song went on. During this period, Travers had his best band ever, in my opinion. Pat Thrall on guitar, Mars, and Tommy Aldridge (Whitesnake) on drums. Very solid. Highly recommended. There goes another good one, this time from leukemia.
- Pat is a great guitarist, has some hot new stuff, and did some surprising instrumentals, like The Big Event, on which he plays keyboards too.
In the midst of all the crap started by everyone's favorite loudmouth, Roseanne, she admitted a while back to having multiple personality disorder. There are seven of them. Dr lefty says there might be more, but she hasn't discovered them yet. I wonder who else does in Hollywood... maybe some of the pop stars, who break down completely, then go on a talk show and behave strangely.
Speaking of her crap, she blamed the tweet on Ambien, a sleep aid. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a sleep medicine jump out of the bottle and tweet. For that matter, making someone racist is not listed as a side effect of Ambien. On the other hand, a friend used to hide his keys in the freezer before bed because Ambien caused him to take trips in the middle of the night. His roommate told him all about it.
Lastly, I don't think the tweet was particularly racist unless you're really looking to find it.
Jarrett was the "product of a combination of "Planet of the Apes" and the Muslim Brotherhood."
Agree or not, it's vintage Roseanne. And I'm not a Roseanne fan.
- A Taco Bell manager stabbed his 21 year old employee, allegedly over a woman. Taco Bell Corporate said that they welcome different management styles but don't think this one is working out well.
Out in Denver, two young brothers decided to have a lemonade stand, with all profits donated to charity. Their parents taught them well. Within a short time of opening, the police arrived. The stand was shut down for lack of permit. It had earned $200. Further investigation could not pinpoint any law requiring kids to have permits for lemonade stands. They were not cutting into anybody's business or blocking streets, which is illegal. Vote libertarian- we don't tolerate this crap.
- Alaska has been overwhelmed with skyrocketing numbers of new cases of gonorrhea. This is the second highest rate, behind Mississippi (do what you want with that). Chlamydia and syphilis are also an issue. I don't know what all the confusion is about: there's nothing to DO up there but have sex.
In case you don't already know this, your cell phone company is selling your data and there's nothing you can do about it. I'd contact them, file some complaints, and speak to your representative. As much as I hate government interference, this is the only way to get the ancient law brought up to date.
- Remember the big brouhaha over the baker who refused to make the wedding cake for a gay wedding? The Supreme Court just ruled narrowly for the baker.
- I find the baker's stance reprehensible, but on principle, I believe they did the right thing. The government does not belong in the cake business. Or any other business. If you applaud the baker's stance, give him your business. If you find it distasteful, take your dollars elsewhere. Let the market decide.
Microsoft, everyone's favorite huge, evil corporation, just bought Github for about $7.5 billion. MS was the largest user of the service, which provided a place to store and download open source software, from tiny to huge. As a result, developers are fleeing, some to Gitlab. So MS bought Github - what could possibly go wrong?
Speaking of Faceyspaces, a 'bug' may have made 14 million users' posts public. Facebook asked 14 million users to review posts made between 18 May and 22 May. These events are weekly at this point. Is this enough for you? I just saw an article about using the Tor browser to access Faceyspaces. Might be worth a try.
- Hey, how about those Stingray devices that police use to get your phone information? They just showed up around the White House area. The DHS sent a letter and Congressman Ron Wyden is MAD, demanding FCC action.
- It would be ironic if the People were spying on the government. They suspect hackers. Hackers who have somehow managed to get Stingrays up around DC. This could be quite dangerous, plus these devices have no place in government hands. They clearly violate the 4th Amendment (search and seizure).
- this is not the first time the situation has been addressed, which shows the great speed of the government. I'm surprised - they have no problem using it against us, but aren't generally as tolerant against them.
In fifty years, college professors will study ancient forms of communication with their students. The newest textbook talks about this old means of one-way communication, called The Web. On the Web was everything from drugs, guns, something called Faceyspaces, and a lot of early forms of porn. In fact, half the web was devoted to porn.
In a tiny little corner of the web, they discovered blogs. In a tiny little corner of blogs was something called ThermionicEmissions. This is where the class would focus for the first day or so.
The blog was written in Ancient English. We know most of the words, but the idioms will have to be worked out. The spelling seems to be different than other blogs. There are also words we cannot find in all of our reference material. This leftystrat person might be taking liberties with the language but we cannot ask him and his dog won't tell. The author, leftystrat, is long gone, survived by his dog; ironically, with a cancer diagnosis.
The reason for choosing this difficult blog is not only his curious use of language, but that our advanced Loopyologists have studied the meanings of the words, along with the themes therein. Loopyologists, as you remember, is the current name for psychiatrist, after that field was found to be 100% ineffective and full of random ineffectual weirdos.
As best we can tell, the intent of the blog was to document the author's disdain for most of humanity, especially the less intelligence-gifted. Although we cannot follow the links because the Web no longer exists, our best people have theorized that they go to stories of the day. The final feature was where the author would share what he believed to be his really bad luck, paranormal things that affected him during his days, and his wife. I say wives, but this is particularly perplexing, because he referred to her in the plural. Perhaps this was yet another liberty he took. The one trait that even a first year student can pick up is sarcasm. It was a theme that ran through every entry. He was prolific in it, much moreso than we could ever use it in the present.
As I said, the Loopyologists have had a go at the entries, especially the seemingly paranormal things that just seemed to affect him and nobody else. They have determined that, far from listing things to amuse others, he was actually documenting his descent into madness. [class gasps]
But what about the Sanity Room?
Fifty years ago was long before the invention of the Sanity Room. This poor fellow suffered terribly, but kept his sense of humor and attempted to make others laugh. We are now checking with the Ministry of Sainthood to confer the title of honorary saint upon him.
Has his dog spoken on this?
Yes. He would like something called Cat Food. We are researching his request.
- Hawaii is being overrun with lava from a nasty eruption. It's getting close to highways. Naturally, tourism is up. Dick Cheney is under watch, due to his propensity for throwing virgins into volcanoes.
I'll admit it - I like Chik Filet.
I don't like that they're closed on Sundays, but that's not my call to make.
Fortunately for us, the day happened to be Monday. This was a relief because as you read, the other day, the mall that was open 10-9 was really open 10-6. Pushing our luck, we visited another place with hours of 10-9. And everyone agreed on Chik Filet. Order placed, name given, seats taken.
Name called, I get the food and there's one drink too few. As there were only two of us, they were off by exactly one, but never took higher math classes. Both of the ladies were very busy running around and ignoring me. I know my car's invisible; apparently I am too. Or I make the car invisible (I didn't take higher math either). Summoning everything I learned from Harry Potter, I said the magic words, "Anorexia Nervosa" and POOF, the yardstick appeared in my hand. I held it out at such an angle that the employee crashed right into it while ignoring me and talking to the lady ten feet to my left. While this is going on, I'm turning around to where the wife is sitting, with that CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT look in my eye.
Strangely enough, the lady ten feet to my left told the employee that she was missing some fries. As employee whizzed by, I got out my Opera Voice and told her I was missing a large lemonade too. She asked what size.
After the lady got her chicken testicles or whatever she was missing, Employee went for the cups. I was in luck! She headed straight for the lemonade dispenser. It was heavenly. Then she told me that the lemonade had run out and did I mind if she topped it off with diet lemonade. I doubled Opera Voice and told her NO WAY - that stuff gives you cancer. So she dumped my not-quite-full lemonade into the sink and got another cup, into which she poured only diet lemonade. As she handed it to me, I made the universal sign for no diet soda please, which involved just the slightest pressure of my hand around her neck.
I realize she was at work, and probably busy, but how many of her customers tell her that artificial sweeteners give you cancer? You'd think that would stick in her mind, even for the sheer horror of someone saying it to her. Nope. I started to wonder what else I could say to her but decided not to torture her any more than requiring my order to be correct.
With full understanding, she apologized and went off to get a refill for the Real lemonade. Out she came, with a rather large container of lemonade. With a sticker that said DIET. I looked around for the source of the joke. I checked myself in the mirror for the word 'diet' on my face or t-shirt. Nothing to be found. So I asked politely if this was DIET lemonade. She thought so too and mumbled something about being so stupid. I smiled and she went back to procure more Real lemonade. What we don't know is that there IS no 'in back' - she went next door to Cow Filet for the lemonade. She loaded up the machine, complete with lemon seeds (probably from a carton labeled 'Real Imitation Lemon Seed-like Substance') and got yet another large cup. I watched very carefully. I thought maybe she ran a hose from diet to Real and was trying to poison me anyway.
She apologized profusely and I wished her a nice day. Lo and bloody well behold, it was Real lemonade. No poison, no one spit in it, and as far as I know, no one picked their nose in it.
Back at the table, Wife was wondering what was going on. She wasn't surprised, as this used to happen 95% of the time. We agreed that the girl did not look that stupid. It might have been a trick though... she might have been blonde and colored her hair brown. That's called artificial intelligence.
Warning: they have an iced lemonade or something similar on their menu. I tried it. Only order it if you're in the mood for something that tastes like a lemon milkshake.
Our table faced Chik Filet, so we got to watch the action. They closed at 6, because the mall closed at nine, and who could possibly want food at 6? Wife asked why. I suggested that maybe God would be mad if they worked after 6 on a Monday. All the lights were off and the staff was cleaning things. We watched about 20 people come up and ask if they were open. Yes, we always turn the lights off and clean when we're open.
Whilst walking, we came across a music store. I haven't seen one of these in a long time, so we went in. It's a good thing they put 'music store' on the front, because it looked like a $5 store, with some music hidden in the back.
Also in the back was a shelf dedicated to all sorts of turntables. You know.. for playing records. Remember records? Only the turntables were cheap junk, some styled to look like vintage stereos. And next to them were records. I don't know if it was the records, the turntables, or the acid that caused the flashback, but there I was, in my teens, spending all my money on records (as opposed to now, when I spend all my money on the dog's doctors). And now records are the Latest Thing. Everything old is new again. Except the records cost three times what I used to pay. And yes, I realize I bought records just after the paleolithic age, so there would be something of a price difference. They cost more than CDs now. My turntable is still out in the open because some of my favorite stuff never made it to CD. And now we're back to vinyl.
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