Whatever it is, I'm Against it

No, really.

It's a shame people are completely unaware of the Marx Brothers. Clever stuff.

HEY YOU KIDS - GET OFF MY LAWN!

Having the digits in your age increment is a bitch.

Some of us don't actually age, age being how you feel. I never left 18.

Along with age comes a change in attitude(s).

For one thing, we become our parents (TURN THAT NOISE DOWN!), uttering some of the same phrases. More amusing might be our reaction to this, if we ever figure it out. Oh f-ck - my MOM used to yell that when I tested my amplifier's wattage claims. I had a Marshall amp, made in England. English watts are louder than American watts (I made that up; it infuriates purists and police, who I got to know on a first name basis). 

Someone said I have Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

NO I DON'T.

Seems more a behavior than a disorder. Might also have something to do with the quality of drugs consumed by the group that puts together the Big Book of Psychological Phrases. This, in turn, is affected by the quality of drugs seized from the public. It's a great feedback system for monitoring drug quality. If only Big Pharma applied a similar system...

Did I say our attitudes change?

My brother was the most liberal fella you'd want to meet (in a good way). Live and let live. All of the sudden he had a wife, kids, violin lessons, and a house that was bigger inside than out. All of the sudden he was conservative. The change was surprising and amusing to poke at him with. That's what brothers are for. And coworkers. And people you pass on the street. Complete strangers you meet when you misdial.

I wonder if we might be looking at this from an incorrect perspective... instead of changing attitudes, perhaps we keep our attitudes and the world changes, for better or worse (usually worse).  The car stereo that was one of the coolest things in the universe has been replaced by a half decent factory stereo with more speakers than you've got sphincters (there are over 51 of them in the human body, more if you're a politician). So now you can have great disdain for those kids that run around designing their car around their stereo system. They have competitions, in which the one with the highest decibel level wins. Some are so loud, contestants don't sit in the car during measurements. Nobody explained to them that humongous woofers require a certain volume, cabinet, and distance to work up to spec. Some cabinets do not become effective until you're 15' in front of them. This might explain why the driver sometimes steers from in front of the hood, like some weird sort of DNA-impaired fire engine with louder noise.

Ah yes... changing attitudes.

If you're cursed to live in an area with winter, you'll remember your dad decreeing that you will NOT turn up the heater: you WILL put on a sweatshirt. And now, that's exactly what you do. This is one of the reasons I want to move to the Southwest: not so much to avoid winter (yes it is), but to avoid sounding like my dad. Of course I mean Dad in the generic sense: mine passed away early, so sounding like him would present more difficulties than it was worth.

Remember your teens?

All you thought about was sex. Because you loved it. Because you wanted more. Because you wanted some. This is the way we're designed.. the hormones release, in preparation for propagating the species. Unfortunately there was a tiny line of DNA missed in the program: the one that allows anyone to breed. You know where that got us.  In any case, we snuck around, fooled around, found any place we could, osculated in public, and took matters in our own hands way too much. Now any of those activities are disgusting, especially if they're your kids. Not permitted... why, when I was your age, I waited til I got married before sex. Same for drinking (13) and drugs (15). I also walked up a hill, both ways, in the snow, for 15 miles, to get a glass of water before walking uphill to get to school, 35' underground, to save on air conditioning.

We had a crazy old lady, whose lawn you dared not LOOK at, no less cross.

Next door, I have a crazy old lady, 439 this year, who I caught edging my lawn, because "you don't do it right."  Ok, maybe that's not so good an illustration. I had to threaten her that I'd have the city remove her from my property if she ever cursed it with her presence again. Of course all the neighbors saw was the long-haired lunatic, screaming at a poor helpless old lady. My next Great Idea is to have the lawn grow to crazy levels, so she'll mow it for us.

In your car (a real bomb with wheels), you madly and loudly ran up and down the street. No one knows why. Now you call the police on anybody doing over 25 on the street - HEY IDIOT... YOU MIGHT RUN OVER A CHILD!!! I don't even like kids.

You were embarrassed by your parents putting out signs on the lawn... political, causes, or just stuff they put there specifically to embarrass their kids. We shall not even mention my Libertarian sign during the election, or those misguided "Hate Doesn't Live Here" signs. Or even your American flag or "Save the Texas Prairie Chicken" stickers on your door (very inside Monkees reference).

Your music, of course, was 'real music' - not that shit they play today. Some person talking over a drum machine. You call that music? It's not even in English.  Imma do it like dis, Imma do it like dat....  The interesting thing about this is that many young persons agree with you. They are, of course, correct.

Speaking of mowing, you wanted nothing to do with it, even though it was your job and your parents gently reminded you, at daily intervals. Now that you're in your own house, you hate mowing even more you are pretty particular about your house not looking like the rainforest (even if your weather is similar).

And that explains how I found myself in the Caribbean with this 18 year old. Like dear old Dad.

IMPORTANT
The shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue was sick and barbaric. Oddly enough, the sicko who perpetrated it didn't hide his great love for the Jews: in fact, he mentioned it a lot on social media.

Speaking of hate on social media, one of his outlets was GAB, of which I'm a member. GAB took a serious hit because of this, with their provider telling them to go elsewhere and Paypal refusing to do business with them (I cut out Paypal after this).

You will notice that his presence on Twitter was not the target of providers or financial concerns. GAB has been threatened like this since it started to get a larger and larger amount of users, mostly sick of Twitter throwing out people on the right. 

If you think about it, Andrew Torba, GAB's founder, has cojones the size of large countries, fighting social media giants and most of the internet facilities. There will be some downtime, while they rebuild and get situated with their new provider. This is all because GAB's message is Free Speech. No one is thrown off, not even disgusting antisemites and nazis, because free speech includes speech with which you disagree. I block these people(?) and have a good time, interacting with the good people (95% of GAB). Been there for years. The 5% cause it to get a bad reputation, along with the fact that it's hard right. This is popular free speech, regardless of political leanings. As a libertarian, I'm tolerated on Twitter, so long as I don't malign certain groups or use 'hate speech'. Hate speech is a fallacy: all speech is speech.

We should all be concerned about this, whether or not we align politically. This brouhaha is about GAB refusing to toe the politically correct line. Do you seriously want this in the US? Because next time, it will be your favorite network. Support free speech for everyone. Join. Speak. Contribute. Do what you want with the bad apples. Remember: I'm not hard right, but I like it there.

I was late to the party on the shootings, so I made light of GAB on GAB:

100% of GAB is horrified by this terrible, deliberate attack.
95% because of the act.
5% because they didn't kill more of them.

In any case, remember Free Speech applies to everyone, except inciting or performing violent acts. GAB immediately notified the FBI and shared what they had on the shooter's account, after closing it permanently,. 

• When I get really bored, the wife and I dress up like firemen, complete with oxygen tanks, and walk through tall buildings. It has a certain amusing effect on people.

It's not so much that tv networks are scraping the bottom of the barrel... it's more like they've gone through the barrel and are tunnelling down into the earth's crust. The latest example is a show about second hand wedding dresses. Not only does everybody get their 15 minutes; so do their clothes. I'm pitching a series about my dirty socks.

• My body is revolting. Yes, I've heard that for years, but I mean revolting in the sense that there's a riot happening. This new, healthier way of eating has caused Internal Agita. The imaginary hordes are massing; yelling and waving swords. They're rightfully pissed about not getting chocolate for breakfast, dessert, dinner, and snacks. I wouldn't be surprised if I found myself being held hostage at the grocery store: buy a ton of candy or you'll eat nothing and waste away, like some new, tragic form of anorexia. Chocolate Anorexia.
• If the SJWs ever read this blog, they'd nail me to wood - at very least for my appropriation of serious maladies.
• As my wife's real internal hordes tell me, "You just make it up as you go along, don't you."

Did you forget your secondary cell phone?

Do you have any idea what a secondary cell phone is?

Our friends at Verizon have introduced the Palm (no relation to the original Palm, which I had and loved). It's a device that you have to purchase with your main phone: it isn't available separately.

The Palm phone is a device that you can add on to your Verizon plan, which shares your phone number. It’s a phone designed for you to use on the weekends, when you’re going out for the evening, or just generally when you want to be a little less distracted by your big phone with all its apps. That said, it runs a full version of Android 8.1 and all the apps from the Google Play Store. 

So it's a phone that rings on the same number your main phone does, which you can use on weekends, perhaps as Phone Lite. Because your main phone has all its apps. They're so intimidating, like, well, a phone with all its apps. Because you spend all your free time installing apps that you don't need and will never use. More importantly, you must ask yourself if the Palm has enough SD space for all your pr0n, or is there a slot for another SD card.

You can now get away from your cell phone.
By using another cell phone.

The Palm is $349, which is more than some people spent for their phone itself. So you have purchased another phone that's better than your main phone, to jet about on the weekends or on party nights with the Clintons in Chappaquiddick.  Pretty soon everyone will have one. You won't be able to even get in to a party without one. This is clearly a product that doesn't need to exist. It's without a mandate. Not even for people who have too much money. Maybe for iDevice users who want to keep one foot in android.

There's another model for the security conscious, which will self-destruct and take out every cell phone within a 20' radius, called the NA-Palm.

The Palm will become so popular, you'll need a backup. This is when your real phone will come in handy, with all its apps.

• Welcome to the home of Weird Stuff, where things 'happen'.
• I bought 2 new, left handed guitar picks (yes, they exist). Within one week, one made it across the room on the floor; the other went to a different room entirely, and hid under a desk.
• The hedge trimmer remains in the bathroom. I stopped questioning things years ago.
• Wife just went looking for her drill. She came back with two identical drills. We have no idea how we got two. Occasionally the Weird works for us.

UPDATE:
As I mention monthly, our quiet neighborhood refers only to the people, not the heavy equipment. I have never heard such a collection of saws, tree saws, metal saws, tree chunkers, backhoes (don't call me that), and screaming rodents. WTF is the difference between a mole and a vole? It's either the country they come from or someone is laughing at us, satisfied his little joke will outlive him by centuries.

Wait....

Oh, construction noise.

You'll love the way I stitched this together.......
The update is on the hedge trimmer in the bathroom. Extensive research proved it was there to be thrown out the window onto a neighbor with a long electrical cord, to prune bushes. Each bush is the size of a Chevrolet and you can't tell where one ends and the other begins (like Michael Moore standing next to Rosie O'Donnell). Apparently trimming is the way to go with these, as opposed to my idea. Wife asked why my ideas always involve explosives, and I just smiled. So she hedged. I was in need of some entertainment when I realized that WE were now the ones making noise. I sure hope someone's telephone conversation (or sex) got interrupted or ruined by our hedge trimming activities.

• the great thing about sex with a cucumber is that when you're done, you can use it in a salad.
• Personally, I find that disgusting.. putting cucumbers in salad... bah.

So they says to me, they says, "lefty - you're a smart, attractive, cyber-intelligent fella -  what advice do you have for election officials this season?"

1. Don't get hacked.
2. Dig the electronics out of the booths, with a chainsaw if necessary. Replace with paper.
3. Do not plug anything into the net. Anything. Don't even use cell phones in the room.
4. Don't get hacked.
5. Secure everything electronic that has your name on it. Don't leave your buckets open for everybody and their fridge to see. Pretend you have important cat pictures there and secure it accordingly.
6. November is the best month to travel.
7. Don't get hacked.
8. Plug any old USB you happen to find right into the voting machine itself.
9. Accessing the secret web browser in the voting booths, surf for hacked commercial software on the Dark Net<tm>. Surfing is faster there because they don't install any annoying antivirus programs that slow things down.
10. If someone who looks like Bill Clinton shows up in overalls, needing to 'adjust the machines,' let him do his business. He did a lot of work when he was in office.
11. If someone who looks like Donald Rumsfeld shows up in overalls, needing to 'adjust the machines,' let him do his business. The man's been in DC since before Gerald Ford, who moved John F. Kennedy's wound six inches, requiring him to be doing a reverse aerial split in two places simultaneously to have been hit by the Magic Bullet<tm>. 
12. If you see anyone being accosted by screaming Dem and Rep staffers outside, rescue them by pulling them gently into the building. If you have to dislodge any staffer teeth, use the provided fireman's axe. Once the person is safe inside and commiserating with you, go over the voting instructions: close the curtain and pull the big switch up top that says Libertarian and they're all done! Think of how much time you're saving everyone.

If you have any questions you need answered, on any topic at all, feel free to leave them in the comments section. I'm here to serve.

• Tetris is 36 years old. The new Tetris champion is 16. Process that.

So those smart home 'assistants.' like Alexa and the others, have yet another listener to your activity: have a seat, you'll be shocked.. it's the government. In this article on demands, they lay out which companies have a transparency report, detailing the number of requests made by law enforcement or the state. Most don't, and don't really care.

Remember: as I told you, these are nothing more than listening devices... for Google or whichever to market to you, and your government to monitor you. How long did you think it would take? They've already been used in court. And you paid for the privilege by purchasing one.

• West Virginia is allowing people to use internet voting.
• What could possibly go wrong?
• I absolutely refuse to trade on the usual West Virginny jokes. Jokes like they just got computers but are not quite sure what to do with them. They tried putting them out on the lawn for a few weeks, but they were defective: they never worked when you plugged them in. They aren't doing well with email either.. instead of typing, they introduce themselves to the computer.. "Hah. I'm Bobby Bob and this is my wife and sister, Jenna Bob."  No jokes like that at all here, folks.

Xubuntu 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish

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You Da BOMB

In our quest to be relevant (at least to within a few weeks of the event), and in our quest for immediate jokes in questionable taste, we want to get ahead about this letter bomb thing...


Fox news brought out a 'bomb expert' who said "all it takes is one to go off." This guy obviously understands the seriousness of the letter bombs. He described the bombs as 'things you put together to look like a bomb on a tv show.' [100% true, unlike the rest of this.]

CNN brought out their own 'bomb expert,' reporting from Florida, in knee-deep snow.

One envelope was delivered to Joe Biden (D-Disneyland), who tried to eat it. A second one was intercepted at the post office, and Joe ordered it delivered 'because the last one was delicious.'

Florida was misspelled and there was insufficient postage on the envelopes. Ok, I'll say it before anyone else does: with this level of Stupid, it must've been a Trumper.

Speaking of Trump, the left has already blamed him for this.
Personally, I blame him for the cold weather we've been having this October. In other news, the events of December 22, 1963 were JFK's fault.

One envelope was sent to Robert De Niro, who said he was going to punch it.

The Department of Homeland Security was contacted, but they were out on vacation, sharpening their guns for just this kind of terror. The janitor who answered the phone assured everyone that Homeland Security was ready for anything, provided they got written notice from the terrorists 90 days in advance. Later on, a representative from DHS called back, sounding suspiciously like the janitor, and said these bombs were downright explosive and would require several new expensive departments to deal with this kind of fake terror. They added that we should not assume these envelopes were bombs, just because 'this is a bomb' was written on them.

Democrats were quick to say that anthrax envelopes to republicans were fair game, but it wasn't fair when it happened to them.

Republicans said 'democrats just suck' and blamed Trump.



In a strange but unrelated coincidence, midterm elections are two weeks out.





Remember: if this doesn't result in new, restrictive laws, the terrorists win.
Think of the children!

Penny for Your Thoughts

Meet Penny    

Penny is roughly 3-4 years old and came from a shelter, before meeting her foster mom. Through many connections, we heard about her and began the adoption process. She was in a different state, so things got complicated. Penny is a red English Cocker. They differ slightly from our own American Cockers by being a little heavier, with longer snouts. Same merry temperament.

Early in the day, we went to a mall and saw an SPCA booth. I saw one dog, all chilled out, and let him sniff me. We were good; I went to pet him and he promptly bit me. They were aghast and I walked though the mall bleeding. No serious damage. I advised they should probably not adopt this one out. He was the first pit bull I met who was aggressive. Every other one was friendly and fun.

For six weeks, we attempted to get Penny here, and failed every time, due to the weather. It's a virtual rainforest here, which ate our transportation in one bite. It finally got nice and we struck.

Unfortunately this involved the Philadelphia Airport, where signage is illegal and nobody really knows where they're going. Double parking became illegal after 9-11, further protecting us by appearing to do something. Because Philly is a city of law-abiding citizens, they no longer double park; they triple park. Penny flew first class (cargo/animal) and we began the 33 minute process of finding the incoming building. One sign, pointing in the wrong direction, and no more. When we finally found it, they pointed me next door. Next door was a depot for 30 trucks, with no door. When I flagged down an employee, he sent me back to the first place. Ah, I thought, we're experiencing the Best of Philly. Back next door, I had to flag down another employee, who was doing her level best to pretend I didn't exist. I think they're city employees, which fully explains my pretend non-existence. These folks had a 20 minute huddle in the back room, eventually bringing out a Supervisor to handle my very complicated request (that they do every day as part of their job). I kept looking around for City Hall signs... the only difference was the truck depot was cleaner and the people were damn near personable... Perhaps this is the place they send city employees that aren't nasty enough to work in City Hall. Or Parking Enforcement.

Within two minutes inside the house, she had a squeaky toy and was disemboweling it on the couch. That night she jumped on the bed and slept there. If you didn't know, you'd swear she's been here forever. You'd also swear she was a puppy... she's all over the place, exploring, running around, and showing us what we need to hide, lest she get into it. She discovered the dining room table and explored by standing on two legs and inspecting it. Within seconds, she found a way up. For a smaller dog, she has a loud, deep bark, which she uses to say hello, while furiously wagging her tail. She either flies or leaps like a grasshopper, hitting the couch from several feet out.

The rescue gave us a 30 day evaluation period. Something tells me we're going longer than 30 days. She's really a sweetheart and hopefully has found her 'forever home', as the rescue people call it. We'll lose pounds walking and keeping up with her. She's going to kill my sedentary lifestyle.


Since she's only been Penny for a few months, we wanted a better name and settled on Sybil. My wife said leave it if she already knows her name and called her. She went running. Then I called her... "Fire Engine!!!!" and she came running. I stopped there, lest she come when I call "Intercontinental Ballistic Missile."



We're hoping for Marshall's ok.

Walmart Loves You

Walmart loves you so much, it wants to ensure your health by taking your vital signs while you shop.

A patent application is very revealing of their desire to keep everyone safe: a biometric sensor in shopping cart handles.

These sensors would track the shoppers’ heart rates, temperatures, grip strength, and stress levels, not to mention the cart’s weight, speed and idle time. Next, that info would be sent to a server where the data could be analyzed and compared against baselines obtained when the customer first grabbed the cart.

Well, if that isn't the creepiest thing you read today, I'll eat my hat. Better yet, I'll eat Shakira.

Walmart will have to convene a panel to figure out why all their customers are wearing heavy gloves in the summer. Better yet, why people are shopping elsewhere (except the useful idiots who think it's nice of Walmart to monitor their health, in case they have a heart attack while shopping).

Your even bigger surprise is that there's no way listed of opting out of this chicanery. And of course, no personal information will be collected (aside from every biometric sign available).

ThermionicEmissions has some journalistic connections, who advise us they print only what they're told to. ThermionicEmissions also knows some sneaky people, who helped us discover some other patent applications about to be filed by the mega-giant and seer of all retail health things:

• a sensor for your dining room chairs, that detects how you're feeling when you get home from Walmart, and at all other times. Also, whether you washed recently. This sensor is taking a while to be approved, as it keeps beating Alexa up.
• a sensor to monitor your colonic health. This is inserted rectally, for the best connection. This will also tell when you clench your butt cheeks, after hearing what Walmart is up to this time.
• sensors for your genitals, to tell when you're really excited about a sale.
• a scanner for all your important paperwork, to save Walmart the research
• all of these sensors to be tested in Walmart's new camps sleeping facilities.

We always feel protected by our guardians in Washington, but we'll never feel the level of protection afforded to the citizens of Ireland. Like the US, every piece of mail coming into the country is subject to scrutiny. The US protects its citizens from surprise by examining the contents of the letters. Ireland protects its citizens from any sort of plant or drugs. It is even more magnanimous via protecting manufacturers from fake goods. But that's not it, no sir.. they protect their countrymen (and women) by protecting them from offshore medical products. The kind people order over the internet. "You never know what they're made from," says the helpful package opener. Never mind that some citizen ordered this with full knowledge, probably because the pharmaceutical company gouges the people in Ireland, like they do in the US. Ireland is concerned, more than anything, with the health of its people. You can tell by the way they confiscate cigarettes mailed to people. It has nothing at all to do with the usurious tax rate on ciggies.

• Some stuff that happens in England with the police leaves me howling. Usually it's uncontrolled panic over someone with a steak knife. Even funnier, if you can imagine that, is watching a policeman using a broom after an accident; cleaning up. Where I live, the victim of the accident is ordered to clean up. And there's no broom.

How's Space Force, you ask.....

As usual, you'll be sorry you asked.

Due to some additional funding that hasn't materialized, Space Force is at a standstill, as new projects go. You simply do not let a force of ADHD-addled, top of the line, highly driven types go without any significant direction.  Last we heard, they're out racing saucer-shaped craft. It's a great team-building exercise, and every now and then, the aliens let them win.

• I have a remote coworker I've never met. I can tell she's tall from the way she types.

Do you feel protected now, punk? Do you?

Department of Defense Travel System Exposed data of 30,000 Civilian, Military employees.

Probably occurred months before the October 4th discovery.

"..the breach occurred at a travel management services firm that handles "a small percentage" of DoD's travel services. 

Good thing it was a small percentage... only 30,000. A major breach would be rough, eh?

• I an ugly happenstance that I don't understand, Myanmar used Faceyspaces to help fight a war. FB had no idea it was going on and rushed to shut down  'a bunch of accounts.'
• The Myanmari military operated without any scrutiny, as they didn't malign muslims or any other minority.

Remember Do-Not-Track?

After taking a look at it the first time, I knew where it was headed (the digital trashcan). Let's face it - much like being on the Do-Not-Call list, it depends wholly on people at the other end respecting your choice. Let's face it - that ain't gonna happen, no way, no how.

• WHY IS THERE A BOX OF LEMON BAR MIX in my kitchen?

Just in case you were feeling that your government was made of a bunch of doofuses, know that there's no difference the world over: UK's Ministry of Defence discovered 37 security breaches of protocol last year. Breaches of protocol are even more astounding than the garden variety breaches because it's just stupid people doing stupid things.  Send sensitive information over the web, unencrypted. Plug USB drives into your computer without checking or scanning. Leave the computer locked when you walk out of the room.  

There is a long list, but the people up top don't want to discuss it, because it might lead to a cyber-attack. I have to admit, that's a good one. "Gee, we'd truly love to tell you every detail of how we screwed up royally, but we're really concerned that doing so might somehow put you at further risk. If we tell you, the terrorists win, yeah? Believe me, there's nothing we'd rather do, but our hands are tied here. It's for the children.

That's irony, right? 

Still no word from the Ministry of Speelling Things Incorrectly.

• Do you have or need a baby monitor? This guy did the research on putting one up safely.

A Spanish security person has discovered a second bug in the iPhone lockscreen,  which allows a person with the phone to hijack your pictures and send them to another phone. Got a pissed off spouse (who doesn't?), disrespectful kids (redundant), or someone who happens to be in the house and curious?

While waiting for the Apple patch, the temporary solution is to disable Siri from the lockscreen. 

Of course, disabling Siri would cripple your iOS 12 experience...

And now we hit the crux of the biscuit: even the author of the article mentions the user experience. Folks, if the user experience is more important than the security of the device and your personal information, perhaps you need to reevaluate your stance on the matter. Maybe you need to get hit with the exploit (or a 2x4) to adjust your thinking accordingly. Is it any wonder I haven't been asked to write for any major (or minor) publications?

This information may be moot because people don't care enough about security to read or take notice. Well, not on this blog, but one that has a wider circulation (although I'd prefer this blog, for some reason). 

• If you're an old computer soul, you'll remember Winamp, which whipped the llama's ass. It was THE player of audio. Bought by AOL, it kinda floundered. A new company has purchased it and it's officially coming back.
• The program is referred to as broken and dated. It still plays audio files, so how broken can it be?
• Once again, the article includes the word experience. I don't want a playing experience: I want to play my files. Nothing else. No blinky lights, no waveform display that looks like a heartbeat on a hospital monitor (he's in v-fib! Charge to 240- CLEAR!), and no equalizer whose curve looks like a smile. Not even a trick button that makes you think you're listening to surround sound instead of missing half your music.

There is a vacuum in the house.

Not the kind that picks up dirt. 

It's an anomaly in the vortex.

It's a small black vacuum that's always there, frequently following us around.

It makes no sound, but is omnipresent.

It's very familiar, yet the absolute opposite of something we knew.

it's been three months and still tears me apart

I'm telling you - the Russians are meddling in our process...

Batteries Leak. Don't Ask How I Know.

As a result of Something or Other, perhaps the humidity, my touchpad and mouse got weird on me. Not pleasant weird.. difficult weird. A lot of people despise touchpads because they're black, which is unconscionable. Another reason would be it's very difficult to maneuver the cursor with any degree of precision. Making a window smaller (grabbing and moving) can cause frustration so bad, people have been known to go out on workman's compensation after trying for a few hours.

As a result of Something or Other, it has become really easy to grab and move the outside border. Ridiculously easy. In fact, I can only grab the border - when I try to grab the move the window by grabbing near the title, it's difficult.

Completely unrelated: I haven't been able to get to the eye doctor, so I have to make the text on my cell phone larger. Completely unrelated.

• Confirmed: The Guardian story on the Faceyspaces' massive data breach has been removed as 'spam'.
• Any Minute Now: Faceyspaces will announce this was a minor error in their system and they regret it (getting caught).
• In a Faceyspaces followup call, the platform revealed that if your account was impacted, a hacker could have accessed any account you log into using Faceyspaces.
• Once again, Faceyspaces regrets the error (getting caught) and values your information and stores it all safely, at Grandma's house, in the basement, by the old wheelbarrow. Oops.

There's an app coming out for a style social network.
You know this is a disaster in the making.
Never mind the young, attractive people in the commercial start out completely naked, with their Naughty Bits blurred. As far as I know, not a single person has blurred Naughty Bits in real life (although I wonder if Japanese men really have pixelated penises).

The idea of this app is that you can look exactly like someone that influences you (probably named Kardashian). So the attractive naked people point their phones at random folks walking down the street and POOF - they get their exact 'look', meaning exactly what they're wearing.

Most people over 12 have passed this stage.
Unless, of course, you have huge amounts of disposable cash, don't have to work, and you're afraid people will shoot (or shun) you if you're not up to (or in front of) current in fashion.

Their motto is "Staying stylish has never been so easy."
It should be, more accurately, "Staying stupid has never been so easy."
Or "Nobody ever made waves being cute and vapid."

Pardon me while I lose my lunch (plus dinner from the past week).

• You know somebody's got a problem when.....
• you buy your friend a pad that says "Honey Do List" as a joke. She laughs and asks where she can get more. 
• She will make some lucky man's life perfectly miserable.

So, what's happening in the local concert scene, lefty?
Glad you asked....

Wild Card Country

The Ultimate Tribute Experience with tribute performances of Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, & a surprise wild card guest!

Unsatisfied, I called the venue. As I hoped, there will be a team of mental health support professionals and a few puppies, to help with any trauma or suicidal ideation produced by prolonged exposure to country music. Especially country music done in tribute format.

If this sort of thing is allowed to go unchecked, it's only a matter of time til we're invited to see Biggie and Tupac tribute 'bands'.


As we're already on the topic, you're probably asking yourself what the ticket agencies recommend for us this week. You're in luck - it just arrived!  The list, personalized just for me, includes such instrumental classic rock as New Kids on the Block, the Clintons, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Englebert Humperdinck, and everybody's favorite reason to welcome the apocalypse:  Dancing with the Stars Live!

• No, really, the Clintons are touring. Although one would hope it's some sort of country group, it's the actual Bill and Hillary.
• Tempted as I am to make a snide comment, I won't.
• This is a very libertarian tour, if you think about it. They stole and spent your money for years; now you have the choice of whether you'd like to voluntarily give it to them.

What good would any post be without news of Faceyspaces?
Currently, the Evil Empire is testing a location feature on Instagram, that will allow them to build up a user’s location history from data collected on a user’s phone. Asked for comment, Faceyspaces' users yawned and rolled over.

I wonder if this is different from the Faceyspaces app, which sucks up every piece of data on your phone, to which you gave it permission.

• People who dress their pets for Halloween: remember, they know where you sleep.

I'm listening to an old Art Bell rerun and trying to figure out who he's interviewing. The man's a psychic, and they're discussing death. The fellow says death is pre-programmed, and you can check out at one of five times. I'm just listening in case something makes sense. Turns out that was a mistake... the gentleman being interviewed was Sylvia Browne. Sorry, Sylvia. If the dead have an Earth Feed, this may be my last post.

• Google admits abandonment of free speech for safety and civility. But relax - Google would never censor anything.

What happens when you're a humongous British airport, which allows employees to use any old USB stick for work, including personal ones, and doesn't require passwords or encryption? When I say 'allows,' I mean 'has no enforceable policy on the use of.'  The stick winds up on the ground in some suburb. Because it isn't encrypted, there are 1,000 files, ready for the taking, with information on security systems and procedures.

OMG - Terrorism!

Heathrow Airport is still reeling from the 120,000 pound fine ($1.95 American).
That's like having a small insect dropped on your auxiliary runway!

The only person with a any quantity of common sense is the guy who found the USB stick. Never, EVER, plug a found USB stick into your computer. NEVER. You have no idea what's on it. It might even have been put there for this purpose, perhaps at work. This smart gentleman went to his public library and plugged it into THEIR computer. This way if there was a virus, it would only infect the entire public library system. This was brilliant because the entire system is about to close anyone, as no one can read those book things anyway... that's why we have an internet. Books don't even scroll for you.

• OOF. An article about the short-term dystopian future, where no one owns a car and all transportation is done via autonomous electric cars.
• Yeah.
• Americans have had a Car Culture since at least the 1950s. We're fiercely independent. Some of us have cars that are actually set up to produce Maximum Noise via the tailpipes. Some via the stereo system, which their car was built around.
• Much as driving isn't my favorite sport, I'd drive for hours before sitting in an autonomous vehicle, sync'd with all the other autonomous vehicles, in a huge information network rivaling Faceyspaces'. One in which the governing software still has a few 'minor bugs.'
• I don't think anyone has a problem with the concept of substituting a clean engine for the internal combustion engine's output, but what's involved in building the engines and, more importantly, powering them? Batteries are not clean technology. I'm certainly no expert: do the math.

The great thing about weather apps is that you can now bring home the gross inaccuracy of forecasts you only saw on tv.

Everyone has their favorite tv show... some (ashamedly) like reality tv. Some (mental patients) watch Kardashians. I hear people watch sports! What's my poison? British police shows and any show with security people in airports. What do you mean that's not normal? My wife watches shows with panels of yentas, babbling on about absolutely nothing and getting paid a LOT of money. And game shows from the 70s, where all the contestants are obviously currently dead.

One particularly funny show takes place at JFK Airport, where tons of foreigners enter the country. Main characters include some guy who looks and sounds like Joe Pesci, making it very difficult to take him seriously. When he questions people, they always tell him he was great in the Lethal Weapon movies. Then there's Rosie Perez. I'm kidding - she's an absolutely stereotypical New York Puerto Rican lady who sounds like Rosie Perez. When she speaks, the foreigners keep asking her to repeat the automatic weapon-like phrases she comes out with. There's a very serious supervisor who looks like Mr T, minus ten pounds of jewelry and a colorful mohawk. If/when this gentleman laughs, you're not likely to recognize it.

When a plane arrives from a country with medium black folks, they get all serious and inconspicuously line up, like a human fence, to informally question everybody getting off the plane. As if they'd miss anything, there's a cute dog, sniffing everyone and their bags for drugs. The agents speak (New York) English, and trot out a few words in a foreign language, comprised of line up, and thank you for lining up. You haven't experienced travel until you've heard New York guards speak a foreign language with a New York accent. Gracias and sil vous plate are test phrases. If the passenger breaks out into spasms of laughter, they're strip searched, in front of the rest of the passengers, as a warning.

One qualifying question they ask is how much money you're coming in with. The rule is that no matter how much you bring, you must declare it. Why? Passengers are not sure, but they're told they can bring in as much as they like, but they must declare it. It's true, they can bring in however much they like, but if they bring in more than $10,000, they'll be detained and anal probed like the aliens do, because they're obviously carrying drugs or laundering money. Why anyone wants to put money in the washer is not self-evident. This is absolutely in step with the "Know Your Neighbor" Act, mandating that any deposit you make to your bank over $5,000 must be reported. I don't know how much my neighbor deposits and don't care.

If you're suspected of carrying drugs, via your bags being x-rayed or having a South Philly accent, you get patted down. This is not as fun as it sounds, as the person doing the patting is the same gender as you. If they find nothing, as they always do, it's time for an x-ray. If this provides no evidence, they're obviously going to go to the hospital with the police until they pass the drugs they swallowed. Why don't they just send everyone to the hospital? Because they don't want to be invasive. If they get no information, they bring in the rest of the tough sounding New York Airport Police (who recently graduated from Movie Theater Police). They stand around shaking their heads, while one questions the passenger, saying things like, "Look.. I know you're carrying and you know you're carrying. Now is the time for honesty. If you're honest, we can help you." After a few hours of this, some innocent people tell them they have drugs, just to get out of the room with these official protectors. Occasionally there are drug smugglers. These are the people with a huge package between their legs (please don't), who refuse to let the police take a look. They also don't know where they're going when they leave the airport, and are carrying $25 for a 3 week stay. They're staying with their brother, but don't know his phone number. The only thing I don't understand about this show is why everyone from every country is wearing a shirt with an American brand emblazoned on it. The other thing I don't understand is why the couriers cause suspicion when they're walking around with powder on their nostrils.

PRO TIP: keep your FUCK THE POLICE shirt in your bag, not on your chest.

If your bags turn up any 'abnormalities' through the x-ray, they're gently probed, which means some guy with a pneumatic road hammer gently opens it and rips off fabric, looking for powder or oregano, which they call cannabis (because nobody can pronounce pot).

For my money, the most entertaining are the folks on the US/Canada border. Everybody knows Canadians are nice, and this includes the serious guys with the guns. Canada is really serious about border safety, but mostly that if you enter the country, you don't intend to stay there, you don't intend to work, and you don't intend to be sick and become a load on their healthcare system. If only America...

There is a long list of things you can't bring into Canada. Unfortunately, there is nowhere to see this list, and it tends to surprise and shock the people coming into the country. You can't bring guns in, even if you're moving to Alaska and the only route is through Canada. You can't bring brass knuckles (but you can bring rubber knuckles - seriously). If you do, the handcuffs go on and you're escorted to a private cell. If they search your car and find bullets, you're strip searched for automatic weapons. Because you're obviously carrying an AK47 up your butt.

They examine a lot of cars, from top to bottom, but they're very nice about it. They smile while they gently probe the car (plunge a screwdriver through your upholstery) and remove all your seats because the drug dog saw your car pull into a parking spot. The signage on US highways must be very interesting, as people frequently wind up hitting the Canadian border instead of the Taco Bell border. Unfortunately this happens a lot. Unfortunately they become subject to a complete search, which always turns up the pot they 'forgot about' in the console, eh? It's just as bad if you're Canadian, coming back from vacation. They question you as if you had an I DIG DRUGS t-shirt on. In fact, they won't let their own citizens cross from Canada to the US if they violate any of the unknowable rules. The US, on the other hand, welcomes any malcontents, lowlifes, drunks, and terrorists, with open arms. Remember the guy with the chainsaws? He got past Canada's Best and was caught driving around with a pair of chainsaws, one bloody. To their credit, chainsaws are not illegal in Canada or the US (even with blood stains and the driver wearing a hockey mask).

Like most borders, your past is very important. If you went to jail for drunk and disorderly 30 years ago, you might not be of sufficient character to enter Canada. Because Moose Head has less alcohol in it, I guess.

You might be surprised that I really don't watch much tv.

Broken? It's Best to Leave it That Way

Perhaps because it's first thing in the morning.
Perhaps because it's the work phone, which I only pick up to see if it's charged.
Perhaps just because it's work....
Yeah, because it's work.

The phone has some bizarre message about the number no longer being associated with the cell carrier.

Yeah, because it's work.

I have this aching desire to work. Well, not work, but just work. Only work.
GOOD GOD - I'M GOING TO HAVE TO CONTACT HELPDESK!
Please, no.
Anything but Helpdesk.
I'll take an increase in hours.
I'll give them my car.
Not Helpdesk....

Maybe if I ignore it, it will go away.
Hey... doesn't this mean no one can call me? Nothing useful ever comes from the work phone anyway. In fact, I feel the same way about my personal phone, which is a fun mobile computer that bothers me by ringing sometimes.

• As an aside, it's probably a good idea to keep your porn on your personal phone. It's not that I have any knowledge of this (ahem), but I know the software (MDM-mobile device management) the company uses can see everything on your phone, from calls to whatever you've got stored on it.

Deflated, and with the day already ruined, I strengthened my resolve and found my way to the Helpdesk software. It's not that I can't find things that are right in front of me (I can't), but the address for the software tends to change fairly regularly. At the Twilight Zone<tm>, my last employer, where the law of gravity was just a suggestion, desks were rearranged on a quarterly basis. No one knows why, although the company was 75% female. It was also 20% gay, which meant when my good looking male coworker left, women lined up to say goodbye, and so did some of the men.

At this point, the situation usually falls apart. 

I was not disappointed.

I got the whole name and department information correct.

Then came the department to which the request went. This is the Big One.

Normal companies have a triage person, who routes service requests to the correct place... not these guys. They want to know the correct department. Since we're a rather large shop, there are many, many departments, most with weird names. To their credit, the designers put in a search field, so we could search for the correct department. To our detriment, it only lists departments.

Follow me for a second....

You have a problem with something... anything.

You fire up Helpdesk, which asks to which department the issue goes.

How on Earth do I know?

Let's play this cool. Let's do a search!

Let me see... I'll put in PHONE - that should do it.

Nope. I now have a list of departments beginning with P.

Ok, maybe iPhone. Nope- departments beginning with I.

No, seriously.. I've been here for years and have absolutely no idea where stuff goes. No one does. Even my own department changed names fourteen times since I got hired.

Before I even got to Department, I had to fill in what area my issue started with. I checked the available choices for phone, cell phone, mobile phone, and rhubarb; none of which were listed. Of course none were listed - these people have the brains of snails. Perhaps they felt nothing ever went wrong with a cell phone. Hmmmm.... software (no), computer (no), coworkers (not today), flatulence (see Coworkers). Wait - let's go with Hardware! It's hard. It's more solid than cardboard and my computer. Folks, we have a winner!

Well, so I thought....

Next category was Type of Issue.

Uh-oh.

Well, it's not a computer, kinda. It is also not email. It is definitely not trashcan (even if some characterize iDevices as such), and I don't think it's Cardboard, although sometimes I have my doubts.   Hey, wait... Mobile..it's Mobile. It's small, light, and I carry it with me. Yes, Mobile. Not mobile phone or computer.. just Mobile. Ok, let's go with that.

Annnnnd back to which department.

With something like 3400 departments (I made that up), I have a very small chance of hitting this one (Advanced Math tell us it's approximately 1 in 3512). I can page through the list, which will only take a few days. Unfortunately, after paging through the list, I still won't get the department right, because it's called ESPN, Group of Intelligent Cardboard Monitors.

Do you see my problem?

There are people at their desks with broken computers that won't boot up. They're still waiting for Helpdesk, because the request was routed to the wrong department. The joke's on them - it will never be routed to the correct department. They don't care, and answering calls or emails is not technically mandatory.

The only choice left is to.. I can't even type this without using up my PTSD days.... Call Helpdesk.

There are people still on hold with Helpdesk, having died six months. Their dessicated corpses indicating to CSI they still had the phone to their ears. Other people have committed hari-kari rather than deal with them. Their entrails are in jars, on expensive display shelving in Helpdesk Headquarters, in a large, sprawling underground complex.  Why underground?  It's much more difficult to find, should we ever come for them, nuclear weapon in hand. Helpdesk is a forward-looking department, having set up a blast-proof waiting area.

There's another reason Helpdesk is so hard to find. Have you ever seen a helpdesk person? It's kinda like Revenge of the Mole People, but ugly. It's much better that they're phone-only. They hire normies as window dressing, in case someone manages to locate them with an actual problem.

Eventually, in theory, you'll reach a helpdesk person on the phone.

Belgium is famous for its show horses. Speaking of ADHD, I heard this on tv while typing.

So a helpdesk person will answer the phone (stop it), after interminable  repetitions of how important our issue is to them (stop it) and they'll get to us at the soonest possible time. In fact, everyone in the company can recite this announcement verbatim, even at 2am, in their sleep. And now their spouses can too. If they don't have spouses, their Friends with Benefits or casual hookups can also recite this... although next week, they'll have no idea why.

Should one of the cheerful, helpful Mole People helpdesk workers actually pick up the phone, you'll breathe a sigh of relief because the operator is not in India. Then you'll stop breathing because the operators are located in a place even more difficult to understand: the deep south. One suggestion was to give you subtitles on your phone. They speak so slowly, it's not a problem for even the oldest of phones to keep up with.

Billy Bob or Lucretia Bob will then cheerfully attempt to assist you. 'Helpdesk' is a euphemism for 'good luck and don't hold your breath - nothing will ever get done.'  The amusing irony here is that they think our accent is unintelligible and hilarious, so they frequently mute the phone to break out into laughter.  Because of this, they frequently mis-hear you and 'fix' the wrong problem. And when I say fix, I mean don't fix. It turns out they too can't figure out how to fill out the online helpdesk software.

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Speaking of filling out forms correctly, I'm developing a small issue (me? An issue? Small?). My employers have always welcomed diversity and encouraged personal development (they hire a lot of weirdos). As a result, my emails tend to be more creative than others'. My boss, a gentleman of the highest order, might have a touch of the old ADHD, so he doesn't read every word in a sentence or paragraph. I sent him an email, feeling lucky because today might be the day he reads my email, casually mentioning that if he doesn't fill out this form by the time I leave, I will turn into a nagging female Bitch from Hell. If you have ADHD, that sentence reads "fill out form, Bitch," so he does the only thing he can do: he forwards it immediately to the Department of Forms (he knows which departments to send stuff to, which is unheard of from a 30 year employee). Yes, he forwarded the email, with Bitch from Hell, to the woman in charge of that department, with a guess that maybe he needs to fill out the form. He may or may not get his answer, but tomorrow I'll find out how women feel wearing a bra, thong, and Business Casual. It will upset me so much, I'll turn into a Bitch from Hell.

• I just got another email with 'personalized' ticket suggestions from Live Nation. Once again, due to algorithms that have obviously been drinking, the results are interesting. Considering that I've seen Jeff Beck twice, ZZ Top, and Eric Johnson, the obvious recommendation would be Cher. Cher - the woman of 1,000 faces, courtesy of plastic. She can't perform in front of hot stage lights or she'll melt. Cher, who believes that the president is literally Satan because she can see the red suit and horns.

Another note from the people who are 'keeping us safe'.

You know that, in order to keep us safe, the Safe Systems must be safe. And the Government Accounting Office published the fact that our Department of Defense systems are quite vulnerable to cyber-attack. I guess we'll need higher taxes so we can be kept even more safe. After all, we haven't 'sent military advisors' to any new countries recently.

• Google had a small breach. They covered it up. They waited. Then it ate Google+, which, coincidentally, was just announced to be shutting down. It's pretty bad, but don't worry... Google is your friend. They'd never do anything to hurt you (except the over 500,000 people who might have been affected).

Faceyspaces Strikes Again

Sorry we're running late. As you might have read, we're experiencing more technical difficulties than we can shoot at with our available weaponry.



A Taiwanese hacker says he's going to delete Mark Zuckerberg's profile and stream it live. I'd watch it. Unfortunately it's being streamed on Faceyspaces itself.

Speaking of stupid, Faceyspaces engineers discovered a flaw on September 16th, which would have allowed hackers to take over fifty million accounts.

"This is a very serious security issue, and we're taking it very seriously, because we got caught" said CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Zuck (pronounced 'fuck') pointed out how sorry he is that he got caught, and promised swift action, because he'll get caught if he doesn't. The security team is being augmented, to avoid getting caught in the future.

Zuckerberg is up for a Nobel Peace Prize, but doubts he can reach the Peace Heights of Barack Obama, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for waging war across the globe.

UPDATE: Faceyspaces leaps to inaction and says that if people want to opt out, they should turn off 2 factor authentication. They should turn off an important safety feature. You can't make this stuff up.

• Perhaps I should've gone to college after all.  A professor, giving an intro to psychology course, accidentally ran porn instead of his video. The audience is described at being aghast. What group of 18 to 20 somethings is aghast at porn? Apparently students at the University of Toronto.
• One student had video of the accident and posted it online, where it was shared many times. Hmmmm.....
• The university said it was offering support to anyone who was disturbed. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Support! Break our the safe rooms, with soft pillows and puppies. And vagina hats.
• 10 students were home on Disability, 3 students were in Intensive Care, 5 were admitted to the Happy Place, and the course is booked solid for the next ten years.
• Education Pro Tip: stay away from the University of Toronto.

Gas prices in southern California are on the way to $4 gal.

Actual gas prices were $2 gal but the governor added a $2 gal tax for cleaning up some shit in San Francisco.

• An Italian man who slept with over 6,000 women just died. Italy mourns his loss.
• Mario Zanfanti died while having sex with a tourist one third his age. He died the way he lived.
• If you gotta go.....

War on Ants
The war continues. This particular battle happened in the kitchen. The clean kitchen, with no food laying out. Mrs lefty says, "If you see one ant, he has lots of friends you can't see." She put on her Sherlock Holmes hat, with the bill in the front and the bill on the back. This way the ants can't tell if she's coming or going. We got out our Secret Weapon<tm>, called Tero, or something like that. It's like really yummy cyanide they swarm on, eat, and carry back to their condos, apartments, and the Secret Ant Compound, where they go through a process called Eat and Die.  It's very technical. Part of it involves opening an odd plastic container, with "no spill packaging", which naturally wound up all over my shirt.

The process involves a bit of reality suppression, as they show up in numbers, even if you tape the bait on the ceiling. I don't want to discuss this any further.

Across the street, it looks like our neighbor has had it with the ants too. How do we know? There's a tank on his lawn, pointed at said house. Turns out it's a backup plan, as he's got some sort of Industrial Ant Stuff. This is a different method than Eat and Die.. the ants go for the bait and POOF - it puts tiny little dresses on them. The males are typically the raiders, so this embarrasses the hell out of them and they flee, fearing talk of their fetish, and sexual assault from the ants that like being in a fashionable frock. There are hundreds of books on the topic of Ant Dressing, which you can read in any ant library. Our neighbor said he'd let us know how it worked out. If so, we were free to use it. He didn't specify which... I'm hoping for the tank.

• Telegram desktop is a 'secure' messaging program. Unfortunately, it turns out to leak your private and public IP addresses. A leak in android is also possible. The vulnerability has been fixed.
• I've been suggesting Signal for encrypted messaging and phone calls for android and non-android phones. You can also put it on your desktop and sync it with your phone, so you can operate it from the desktop too. Do yourself a favor and install Signal. With FB, Zuck, Google, and the NSA listening to everything you do, why not use something that's incredibly difficult to crack?

Andy Warhol said something about everyone eventually getting their fifteen minutes of fame. The man could obviously see into the future. The latest reality show follows a number of spoiled rich kids sent to live as poor people. In case you think my characterization of spoiled rich kids is incorrect or personal, the commercial had one particular brat counting out $32,000 in pocketbooks (on one shelf among many). Oh, the horror.

Next up: rich people filling out the wrong tax forms and Daddy having to use his team of tax accountants work to solve this. The next show deals with the embarrassment and sheer horror of using the wrong fork. The show spends most of its time at the therapist's office, trying to work through a near fatal case of Social PTSD. As you read this, a new show is being pitched, where poor kids move in with rich families and hack into the family's finances, making them the poor family. In abject terror, rich people are phoning their buddies at the networks to have the show mothballed before it's accepted.

• So that global mass surveillance system to fight terror.... it's being used to spy on innocent UK citizens. Yes, ThermionicEmissions is correct again. We can't see into the future - if your government(s) puts in a spying system to fight 'terror', it will be used against you. As disturbing as this is in other countries, the US 4th Amendment guarantees against search and seizure. It has been violated. It is violated again and again.
• So let's get back to arguing republicans vs democrats, shall we? They both authorized this kind of thing.

From 2020 on, more than five million new Volkswagens will be fully connect to The Cloud. What could possibly go wrong? Lady - your Tiguan is trying to hack my router!

• God I love Windows. Forced to use it for work, I suffer from its aggravation. This morning it thought my second display was the primary display. It had gotten an 'update', of which I was unaware. Then it took my neatly arranged icons from the left side and moved them all to the right side, plus put them out of order. And this is just booting up. I'm waiting for it to decide the mouse is on the other side of the keyboard and to turn the display sideways. It locked me out last week, which I decided was a blessing. Oddly enough, this stuff doesn't happen at home on linux.
• No, at home on linux, I have a problem so weird that no one has even heard of it, much less knows how to go about solving it. And for once, I didn't do anything to cause it. I hope.

If the aliens have any doubt what we're up to, they don't even have to come to the planet... they just have to watch what happens to the moon when we get there. Nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman, godfather of UFO research, has the best description of mankind:

Apollo 13 did an experiment to figure out the moon's crust. It involved explosives. Within the past few years, we somehow found it necessary to actually bomb the moon, allegedly to look for water. I happen to know that in 2020, we're going to bomb the moon to reaffirm the presence of moon dust. The astronauts were clearly filmed in moon dust, but we need to make sure it's still there. There is a proposal for 2025, which involves shooting the moon with a very large nuclear weapon, to see what happens when the moon splits in half. [HINT: women's periods will last 56 days]

• There is absolutely no reason I should like Procol Harum, except that Robin Trower was in the group for a bit. Yet completely without guitar pyrotechnics, I really enjoy them. Check them out... A Salty Dog is one of my favorites, from 1969, featuring a very young Robin Trower.  You'll definitely recognize this one. Lastly, Conquistador is a hit from waaaaaay back.

I was thinking of new interesting things to add to the blog.

One recurring feature idea was Words the Spellchecker Didn't Understand. The generously provided spellchecker by Google (they don't charge for it or for the space to blog) apparently didn't cost them anything, as it's European (flavour, colour, pyjamas), and doesn't understand words (internet, tv, Zuckerburg). It will not learn from my corrections, so I get to see them each time I spellcheck. 

So I won't be adding this feature, as it will take twice the time it takes me to make all this shit up in the first place.

Tales of Safe Places

I have no idea why, but I've been messing with my phone for a while. Techies like to tech. I have the phone humming along, with all sorts of neato apps (except the three that die as soon as they come up). Android allows you to move some of the apps to an additional memory card to save space on the internal memory, so I moved most of my apps to my trusty SD card.

As a Certified Geek, I cannot live with three apps not working, so I set about troubleshooting. Everything I tried failed to make the apps fire up, so I did what all geeks do: look it up online, via Duckduckgo.com. Technically I had to look up how to get the back off the phone first, as I have not had it off since I put the SD card in, over three years ago.

After performing the extremely difficult removing the back procedure, I figured the actual fix would be easy.

It wasn't.  [there's that foreshadowing thing again]

The first step to fixing just about anything is, in the words of the IT Crowd, "have your tried turning it off and turning it on again?"  Yes, three times before I came to the web page, thank you. Then it suggested to remove the memory card and see if the apps work, proving it is the card itself. Ok, kinda silly, but I'll go with it. Even a techie occasionally lets someone else drive.

I'm not the neatest person on the planet. In fact, I'm not anywhere near the neatest person on the planet. In a recent survey, there were about three billion people on the planet. I was ranked number 2.5 billion in the Most Not Neat group. As a result, I'm meticulous when I take something apart, so I can put it back together neatly and correctly. Funny how that works... the slobs can look neat and the people who lose everything put things in only certain places, so they appear neat. The only flaw is that if you interrupt them after they take things apart, they'll never remember the project existed and when they find it, three years later, will have no idea how to reassemble it or where the parts are.

I have one pile for the back and the 14 components in the Otterbox case. These cases will protect your phone from nuclear holocaust, although it won't work quite as well after, what with every cell tower and network on the planet being melted radioactive liquid. You can play solitaire, but I'd recommend against Words with Friends.

The second 'pile' consisted of the mini micro grain of rice SD card. I thought to myself that I better put it in a safe, non-magnetic place where I can see it and it won't be disturbed.

Obviously the SD card wasn't the problem, so, having exhausted all mechanical troubleshooting, it was time to reassemble the phone. This was a breeze, right up until I couldn't find the mini micro grain of rice SD card. Very funny, I thought... I put the card in a place so safe, it was safe from me finding it.

I asked Mrs lefty for a flashlight. It was a brief ten minutes later that she returned, with a half broken light that you had to pummel to make work. This is sad, but not a surprise. She collects flashlights ('torch' in the UK). She buys one whenever she sees one, just like her pen fetish. As a result, she cannot find any flashlights. When we can find pens, they inevitably won't write. In a recent survey, she was ranked number 2.899 billion in the Most Not Organized group.

I flashlighted in a ten foot radius from where I was sitting.
Nothing.
I did find the engine from my 1974 Chevy station wagon, plus random body parts and coffee stains from the previous occupant.

Sometimes I out-brilliant myself.

I asked Mrs lefty for a fourth pair of eyes. She was absolutely relentless in pursuit of the card. She look over things and under things. She made me take my shoes off, in case it had fallen into one. I listened because if anyone had an idea, it might help. However, I failed to see the significance of taking off my pants and the thorough strip search that followed. As a good and dutiful husband, I did what was necessary (happy wife, happy life).  Still no card, but she was impressed that I shaved her name into certain body hair.

Well, color (colour in the UK) me flummoxed. Then color me panicked... remember, I put all my apps partially on the card. I put the original files to the apps on the card. My music collection is there, as are my pictures; even the G-rated ones. The pit of the stomach dropping to my feet was the end result of this folly. I'm sure I have most, if not all of this backed up, but still.. hours of work. 75% of my apps on the desktops are grayed out. There is a smattering of still functioning programs, because their authors were too stupid to allow them to run on the SD card, bless them.

Suddenly I remembered.... I can text on it!
If there's a life or death crisis, I can even call someone with it.
Phew. (bloody bangers and mash in the UK)

Later today, I will discover it right in front of my nose. Literally.
I will look in the mirror, purely by accident, and find it attached to my nose.

I must go now, and chastise myself for being so stupid. At least until I can find somebody else to blame.

It's Not a Change in Eating: It's Sheer Torture

In my life, I've managed to develop some interesting eating habits.
Suffice it to say, I should probably weigh 400lbs (243 yards Canadian). Fortunately I don't.

Due to some work changes, I don't move around as much.
When I say I don't move around, I mean the walk to the car has gotten shorter. So I've taken precautions: I spin around in my office chair a lot. That's what ladies mean by spin class, right? How they drive after this, I have no idea.

As a result, I'm giving birth to a beer belly, which is a shame, as I don't drink beer. It's like having venereal disease when you don't have sex.

I got some sage advice, from someone who told me they exercise, on eating.  They do spin class too, so all things are equal (except gender, exercise, level of fitness, and tastes in food). I could tell something was different from their reaction when I mentioned Chocolate Frosted Flakes. The sheer disbelief and horror, while absolutely hilarious, was ominous. I could hear that Ominous Music, like when some idiot goes into the dark house in a movie, instead of screaming like a girl and running in the other direction.

The first piece of advice I received was fruit for breakfast.
After they revived me, I worked diligently to apply this new information.
Strike One.
Apparently putting banana slices on my Chocolate Frosted Flakes was not entirely what they had in mind. As if there's a problem with chocolate and bananas. Chocolate is the only way to get bananas in - what do these people want from me?

They also mentioned yogurt.
This was initially confusing, as one can buy yogurt or yoghurt.
It was also sad, as yogurt was a traditional joke and punishment for most of my life. It was something only women ate, although no one has ever determined the reason.

Wife, bless her, dutifully shopped for, and brought home, large amounts of yogurt, having decided to forego yoghurt. After a bit of research, I discovered yoghurt in consumed in Britland, where they pronounce it yog-ert.

With the attention span of an aggravated infant, it's difficult to type this and ignore the tv, which is showing one of those sciency shows, where the host does stuff that would make normal people poop in their pants. This time the host is cabling one of those huge bridges, with a 73.5 ton cable. He likened it to a guitar string (twice), so that pulled me in. The size of the guitar required to use that cable as a string would be roughly the size of New Jersey (except for the sand in your swimsuit.. rug burn doesn't even begin to describe it).

When one goes to the store, one is bowled over with a yogurt section roughly the size of the aforementioned guitar (but without the aforementioned cable strings).    There's everything except High Fat Yogurt. Everything is low fat. This is a problem, as my body will reject anything low fat. Wife knows this, so she did her best to locate High Fat Yogurt, which employees helped her unearth. It wasn't even expired! It had three days left. I happen to know it doesn't ever expire because fat never goes bad. Fruit, however....

I try to be flexible, enjoying at least one type of fruit. Raisins. Covered in chocolate. See a theme here? Ok, grapes too. And strawberries, provided they're in slushies, with sugar and high frustose-containing fruit juice-like substance. Once a year or so, I'll eat a blueberry, just to say I did. I watched a household consisting of a disposable human and four dogs, in which the dogs got a blueberry as a treat.

Yogurt returned, in the form of yogurt smoothies (no ice cream, or even ice!), and actual yogurt, along with the Jamie Lee Curtis Green Stuff. I'm hoping green refers to the package and not the yogurt itself. Maybe that's what yoghurt is. Bloody English.  Wife did exactly what I'd do, and picked up strawberry rhubarb yogurt, because we'll see strawberry and ignore anything that comes after it. Ever eat strawberry light bulb? This package also included lemon. LEMON? LEMON IS FOR TEA AND WATER, not yogurt. Lemon is contravened under the Geneva Convention (like vi and emacs, linux users). Wife seemed confused over my stance on lemon, even after I reminded her of the Lemon Bar Incident. It was too horrible to describe in a family blog. Or this one. The remaining flavor was blueberry. Fortunately it wasn't blueberry lemon. Ever try to return yogurt? Even without pinholes in it?

I am happy to report that my activity levels have gone up, directly in relation to the yogurt! Somebody has to stir the stuff... getting the fruit off the bottom is no small task.

AS it turns out, all of my cereals are off the table, except for Raisin Bran. Why do I eat Raisin Bran if I don't have to? It's my nod to health food. To make things even more healthy, I stopped putting sugar on it, prompting my mentors to instruct me to STOP PUTTING SUGAR ON EVERYTHING. These people are professional fun stoppers (like nuns). They were further unimpressed (ok, horrified) at my sugar snacks. What is a sugar snack? When you go to a restaurant and see those packets of sugar, you open one and eat it. Ok, I'll come clean: I only did it once, when I was little, to watch the expression on my mom's face. It's a wonder she's still alive and mostly present. She probably prefers dementia, so she doesn't have to remember.

As for my beloved Chocolate Frosted Flakes, I don't throw away food, so I will finish the box. And the rest of the case. And the other cases I have on standing order.

It was explained to me that fruit and yogurt (and other stuff I refuse to type, no less eat) are good for breakfast because your body fasts overnight and is more efficient in the morning (unlike us, who aren't even awake til after lunch). Further, bagels were verboten in the morning.. the theory being that you're more active and can burn them off later in the day.

This is where things go entirely to hell.

My activity level does not increase after lunch. In fact, my activity level never increases. I slave over a hot computer for most of the day. I know that staring burns no calories, even if I squint a lot (eyelid aerobics).  It wasn't until recently I discovered I had what's called lazy eye, where the eyelid is apparently droopy or something equally silly. What they completely missed is that lazy eye is only a small part of lazy body.

The changes are bad enough, but all these Diet Geniuses also recommend the E Word. The word is so horrible, it hurts to type it (exercise). I feel about exercise almost as bad as I feel about mowing (I'd rather pull my own teeth out and swap them with my spleen).


Meanwhile, I can tell the new way of eating is making a difference!
My pants feel tighter.


Screw this - I need to go back to my traditional breakfast: candy bars and Coke.

• We haven't had any horrid Faceyspaces news, at least since last post.. it was recently discovered that they're sharing your personal phone number, given as part of Two Factor Authentication or service improvements, to advertisers. Spam calls are already through the roof.  Close. Your. Account.
• Important and sensitive UN data has been found on the web. I'd be outraged, only the UN serves no useful purpose, unless it's paying your salary.

I've stayed away from the Kavanaugh hearings on purpose. Yet another shit show from Divide and Conquer, Inc.  It's the same script too: President announces something, opposing party and 50% of the country find any way possible to object, including throwing whatever possible at it. News coverage is full of the fight because they're told to be.

The same script. Look at the big picture (because you'll be one of few).

If Trump said he was putting measures in place to keep us safe from the black plague, half the country would intentionally become infected with it. It's an absolute circus. 

Mrs lefty tells me things Kavanaugh allegedly said caused one woman to have PTSD. I'm no doctor, but PTSD is something you see in soldiers returning from war and victims of childhood abuse. 

The other countries who don't hate us are laughing hysterically.

We pissed off Canada. The nicest people on the planet. One Canadian friend said if I go to any other country, tell them I'm Canadian, eh.

• It's not that I'm having a bad day, but I'm going to get one of those Teeter tables, hang upside down, and watch tv. It doesn't even bother me that the picture will be upside down... the left handed have special skills.

Congress has approved several cybersecurity bills. This is never a good thing.. it's like me writing a few bills to keep us safe from opera and ballet.

• If you get some sort of offer from someone on Faceyspaces (or anywhere else) to attach a box to your router and earn some money by referring friends, DON'T. If you do, you'll be spreading viruses and will have to change every password and credit card you have.

Overheard on police scanner: Black male, no underwear, no pants, walking toward gas station.

• The whole ThermionicEmissions family sends out best wishes to Dickie Betts, cofounder of the Allman Brothers. After a few minor cardiac events, he tripped on something in his yard and they had to drill holes in his head to relieve the pressure on his brain. I think a groupie hit his head for him.
• Dickie has a special mandate to not be dead, as the original band is shuffling off at a rapid pace: Duane Allman-accident, Berry Oakley-accident, Gregg Allman-cancer, Butch Trucks-suicide. This leaves Dickie-guitar and Jaimo-drums. Marc Quinones-percussion is a member from a while back. Warren Haynes and Duane Trucks (Butch's nephew) are always on tour with Government Mule and the Tedeschi Trucks band.
• The Allman Brothers happen only once. Not in a lifetime.. Once.

I just got an offer to see The Music of Cream 50th Anniversary Tour.

None of us would ever suspect songs touring... especially at 50.

Judging by last name, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce's kids are in the band, plus another fellow I don't recognize. You can even purchase a VIP package consisting of: a front row ticket, a meet and greet, a little booklet explaining who these people are so you can sound like you have a clue.

Where are they now?  Ginger Baker is my hero. I don't know much about drumming, but old Ginger has managed to alienate every country in which he resided. Usually for drugs.  He is stiff and has to really get in shape before picking up a stick. Eric Clapton is getting arthritis in his hands (hell on earth). Jack Bruce, the smartest of the three, saw this coming and is described, in the words of Roto Reuter, as "dead."

Billy was a mountain.

Ethel was a tree growing off of his shoulder.

-Billy the Mountain  (Frank Zappa)