Wheelchairs in Space

I recently made a horrific discovery: something's wrong with me (duh). I'm getting Old Disease. Hear me out.... I first noticed the concept when my brother bought a house. We used to joke about heads exploding when the adult store moved into the neighborhood.  One day I mentioned it and he got all upset about property values and what about the children? This is what a house does to you? Nah, I have a house and was perfectly ok with the adult store. I might have been the only one in the region who was. In fact, it never caused a crime, never had shady hangers-on, and just sat there. Let's face it: if you're looking to buy adult toys, you're not going to stick around outside the building and use them.

My shock discovery happened this morning, when I clicked a link and

• found myself reading an article on old, creepy motels being converted into hip and expensive new motels. Even worse, I was looking at the pictures. WTF happened to me?  
• I am apparently the victim of familial high blood pressure and have to take medicine. My grandfather had to take medicine. As a little boy, I noticed that he took a small pharmacy with his breakfast in the morning.
• One of my meds is having a dispute with the other one, throwing my brain into an alternate universe for half a second now and then.
• Remember: nothing with medicine has to change if you don't go to the doctor.
• I go to my nephew's school violin concerts.
• My wife bought me a chair. MY chair. So I can say, "You can't sit in that - it's MY chair." When visitors arrive, she tells them it's MY chair. They speak of it in hushed tones.
• People talk about 401k's and I actually listen (unlike sports).

This must stop. Now.

• A 26' statue of Marilyn Monroe's iconic "dress blowing up" pose is drawing ire from a church and residents in Stamford, CT. Children are climbing up under her dress and looking at her underwear. The denizen are outraged.
• WTF has happened to us? The movie is ancient and famous. Marilyn Monroe is a legend, an icon, another tragedy of the Kennedy Legacy. Considering PA has to deal with a statue of a fictional boxer (Rocky), I'd rather have Marilyn. This statue is practically G-rated. What's with all the outrage?
• "It's disrespectful to the church." Shut up. Don't be a negative stereotype.
• "If God had anything to say, he'd send a lightning bolt through it."  Hire that man.

Ummmm.. why is the Vatican's secretary of state attending Bilderberg?

This is a huge meeting of incredibly influential people to discuss things they are going to make happen on a worldwide basis, held this year in Turin. It was given a ton of press recently due to journalist Jim Marrs' (RIP) discovery of it, and Alex Jones promotion of the news. Alex is famous for bullhorning the people driving up to the hotel. They drive up in blacked out limos. The guest list is not available and the entire hotel is shut down to everyone but attendees. Guests of the hotel have been ejected in the middle of vacations.  But the Vatican? This isn't normal.

• Why are so many mall stores closing? One could guess it's the internet. I have a long history with malls. Since we didn't have the internet when I was little, we went to malls. Now one can walk into a mall with a significant percentage of stores closed.
• This used to be interesting. Now it's kinda sad. Cities are losing jobs and not replacing them. People are being robbed of places to go on the weekend. I'm a child of Retail Culture and believe heavily in Retail Therapy (buying lots of stuff to satisfy the hole in my soul). This might just be another sign to keep on my path to agoraphobia.

My parents surprised me with my birth certificate.

I thought I already had one, but apparently there are two. I failed to ask if I was born twice.

It was a professional level forgery because, as you know, I come from Mars. Of course the Mars Rover found methane: we're screwing with it. We leave a bit of it here and there for it to find, strictly for our amusement.

No one will ever discover the certificate is a clever forgery, because it says I was born in New Jersey, and what fool would fake being born in New Jersey? It's brilliant on the part of my parents.

• ATTENTION: If you're like me, you're watching your weight (increase). If you're actually doing something, especially if that something is Weight Watchers, you're actually in good shape. Wait, let me clarify.. the company left a critical server unprotected, allowing hackers a view into the company's infrastructure. No customer data was compromised (they wouldn't lie, would they?).

If you need a little pick me up, a little light news to brighten your day, this isn't it. The state of Florida (it's always Florida) failed to carry out background checks on firearm licenses for a year.  Was the system down? Nope. Were they being held at gunpoint? Nope. The employee responsible forgot the login to the system that checks backgrounds.

In case you're curious:

The database was created in 1993 by the FBI and the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. States and firearm retailers can use it to check on the criminal and mental health history of those who want to buy a firearm, including their histories in other states. The database flags applicants who’ve served more than one year in prison, have been convicted of drug use in the past year, are undocumented immigrants, were involuntarily committed or deemed to have a “mental defect” by a court, or who were dishonorably discharged from the military.

A model of governmental efficiency.. look at how fast the licenses were processed!


Speaking of Florida, and everyone is, if you live in Wellington, Florida, and used Click2Gov to pay a utility bill, you may find unauthorized charges appearing on your bill. Naturally no one knows how it happened, but there is a company called Superion, which produces software used by government offices, and the connection to it has been severed.

• Mom's had a cell phone for a while now, and is damn near confident in its use as a phone. And when I say confident, I mean she has to ask someone how to dial it. That struggle having passed, she has just discovered texting.  Mom doesn't exactly grok texting: the first text was 3 paragraphs long and written in the form of a letter. I wonder how long it's going to take for her to pick up that everyone texts so they don't have to talk to each other. Nah, she's never been antisocial - only her children have.

Uh oh. Egypt has decided that if you have 5k Twitter followers, you are considered a member of the press and subject to laws governing "fake news". At least we Merkuns have alleged freedom of speech.

• Shocked to find out California has created a DNA database on all babies born for years? No, not really. Remember: if it can be done, it will be done. And the outcome will not be favorable to you.

HISTORIC FIRST

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