Tuesday, January 21, 2020

National Women's Underwear Day

Yes, that's right - you heard right - it's National Women's Underwear Day!
Everyone put on some women's underwear and wear it with pride.
C'mon guys - who can honestly say they don't wear women's underwear?

Oh.
Never mind.



If you have an Idevice XS or XR battery case, you could be due a free replacement from Apple.

I broke Giant's handheld scanner system by only buying 2 things.
Never mind the title... it's an app for your phone, that scans items for checkout. This is another privacy nightmare. It connects to store wifi, meaning you're at risk for whatever's going on there. It's on your phone, so it probably accesses things it shouldn't. If nothing else, your purchasing is delightfully passed to the store, not to mention whoever else, like the author of the program and various ad agencies. Look beyond the headline.

Ready to start trying out a different operating system? Tired of Win 10 sending all your information to Microsoft?  Here are the 5 best linux distributions for Win 7 users. They mention Ubuntu, which is my choice. However, I recommend Xubuntu, which is Ubuntu with a more customizeable desktop. With this, you can make your desktop look any way you want, including just like Windows, so you're already familiar with it. All linuxes are the same, with different visual components and updating.


  • Mrs lefty is calling her doctor and getting a busy signal. Penny comes in from the back yard, steps on REDIAL, and the doctor's office answers.
  • I need to have her around when I have to call someone.



Mrs lefty tunes around tv a lot. Last night she watched The Office.
I was sitting next to her, surfing, and caught parts of it.
To call it cringy is to give it more credit than it deserves. It's smarmy, stupid, unfunny, and so bad, I want to run from the room and hide in the attic during a thunderstorm. Nah - didn't like it.



In national social media news, Cardio B, who just said she's getting citizenship in a different country, is considering US politics. I'm trying to decide if she'd do any better than the installed buggers. Meanwhile, here's a random thought from Cardio:







Artificial Intelligence gains traction because Native Intelligence is scarce.



Dear lefty

  • Am I better off going into network security or vertical markets?
  • Ask the penguins - they're usually pretty good with advice.



Scientists use stem cells from frogs to build first living robots.
Ok, guys, hop to it!



"I have often wondered why the sounds of the beating drums do not make the marching soldiers shoot their officers and go home." - Albert J. Nock



  • How to be anonymous in the age of surveillance
  • Warning: contains the word 'Juggalo', but not in a bad way



My 70s progressive rock station played a little gem I haven't heard before. This isn't odd at all, except for this particular little ditty. It isn't often I have to check to make sure I'm not hearing 2 stations at the same time, playing the same song, 1/10 of a second apart. Using the power of multiplicative reasoning, I deduced that the vocals were ok - it was just the music that was completely f'd up. I listened, stunned.

The artist's name is Kevin Ayers. The song is called Lady Rachel.
The title sounds all medieval, about some mythical damsel, locked away in a castle, in a closet, of ancient England's budding first serial killer. It was romantic.

Continuing to be stunned, I listened through the last 30 minutes of the song (I kid - it was only 25 minutes). Counting my blessings that my radio app lists the artist and song, I went off to play Stump YouTube. That failed; there were several different listings for the song, of which I chose the live one.

To say the song is bad is to elevate it to heights it could never dream of attaining. I have to mention that the fellow playing the left handed SG is Ollie Halsall, a formidable player. Kevin is apparently a Big Man on the English music scene. Unfortunately he died in 2013, after which I believe they filmed this clip.

This isn't the exact version I heard, but it will serve to help you understand my distress and question your life choices. As a musician, I wouldn't want anyone to crap on my creation, but as a satirist (or whatever I am), this is a huge red blinking target. The bio states he was a Big Deal, but Wikipedia lets anyone put anything they like into it.

This looked like a band rehearsal. The kids were in 6th grade and their parents were so proud. Kevin had even written his own song(!) and they were practicing it for the Big Show in the school auditorium. Excitement filled the air, as most of them left the basement and ate the cookies that Mom just put out. When they got back to their instruments, they noodled around, as musicians do, each playing some little piece of something they played all the time, guaranteed to piss off the rest of the band. This went on for 20 minutes, after which Mom yelled down the steps, "You boys sound great! Was that the new song?"  I don't know whether they recorded it on Mom's brand new 8 track console stereo or they went into the studio later, but it has that rough quality that really makes them sound serious (I'm lying through my teeth).

So when you look at the video, it's not actually a performance - it's a bunch of kids noodling around. The only one involved in the song is little Kevin; the rest of them are off somewhere else. It's a good thing, too, as Jimmy, the drummer, is mentally playing with the band down the street. Watch them wander about, as Kevin emotes. Every now and then, Ollie makes a supporting noise or two, just to upset Kevin, who ordered him not to make supporting noises.  Kevin apparently just got a new guitar, and the salesman promised to tune it for him to make the sale. Salesmen being what they are, he never tuned it, so Kevin went onstage with an untuned guitar, only he didn't know it (the audience did). Kevin was Dead Serious about his new song. The keyboard player was a guy who asked if he could join the band. They said yes (keyboardists are impossible to find) and threw him right onstage. Unfortunately he had to sit there, waiting for a key or a cue, because he had never heard any of Kevin's songs. This worked out to the audience's benefit, as he played very little. He brought his nifty little echo box, that looked like a little tape player, but it was new and he had no idea how to work it.

The 'experimental' section was added as they went onstage, only Kevin forgot to tell the rest of the band about it. So they continued to wander around, lost, while Kevin took on the experimental section all by himself... plinking.. tapping.. playing with knobs, and plinking again. The band continued to do what it did best, largely standing around and playing random stuff til it was time to actually play a song. They decided on Jumping Jack Flash, but the joke was on them: they knew it in 2 different keys, which they played it in at once. The audience's collective jaws were on the floor, as if they had just witnessed a baby stabbing its kitty and wearing its entrails.

The band kept looking over, expectantly, at Kevin, waiting for him to break the sad news that the experimental section was finally done, like children of alcoholics, coming out from behind the sofa because Mommy and Daddy had stopped screaming and throwing things. Unfortunately the throwing and screaming continued because Kevin was In The Zone. The band was losing patience, so they wandered around the stage, lighting cigarettes and doing their math homework, except little Jimmy, the drummer. He was still playing with the imaginary band down the street. Kevin later told Jimmy his performance was above and beyond. Kevin and the band continued on, undaunted. This, unfortunately, daunted the audience (all the band members' families and their captive classmates).

After they finished the song, the band made sure to watch Kevin so they knew they were all finished with the song. Their families clapped, their classmates made a noise intended to mimic certain bodily functions.

This was played on a progressive 70s rock station. I still don't know why.
It also mirrors most of my band experience, only my bands didn't get to play on stage a lot. Let's say we were intimately familiar with various band members' basements.

RIP Kevin, 2013, died in his sleep.




  • As the Oscars 2020 nominations are all lined up, the hard work begins: writing out your 10 minute social screed no one wants to hear.




Another idiot 'professional', telling us that Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personality disorder) 'doesn't exist'. I don't have enough time to refute this person's ideas one-by-one. Suffice it to say he's wrong across the board. I don't know where these alleged professionals get their concepts from (cereal box?), but anyone familiar with the topic can refute everything he says, line by line. Our suggestion is that he live with someone with the disorder that doesn't exist for a month or so. He's likely to change his mind. Professionals who spout this nonsense are frequently put up to it by large organizations that would prefer to have you think they're not doing what they're doing. You know - the people Jeffrey Epstein was about to expose....  Don't forget - Mrs lefty has DID.




Warning:   POLITICS

Sam Robb is a libertarian, running for president. Check out his site, specifically "Issues" - see if any of it speaks to you.
He is *a* libertarian, but not the only libertarian, and I am not endorsing anybody.



Today I identify as   rubber



  • Music copyright lawsuits are scaring away new hits, argues Rolling Stone.
  • Rolling Stone is right twice a decade, and I don't think this is one of them.
  • The thing that is scaring away new hits is listening to the radio.



I don't normally post anything about movies, largely as I don't see a lot of movies. And when I seen them, it's usually years after they've come out. If you haven't seen it already, see Yesterday. Without giving anything away, a guy finds himself in a different reality, where the Beatles never existed. It's well written and well acted, featuring the music of Jimi Hendrix.  No, wait......     Also of interest was his staunch supporter/manager. I was kinda smitten the moment I saw her. Mrs lefty said she was kinda normal. This was a great improvement over what she normally says ("She looks like a porn star"). I don't like anything, so if I give a recommendation, it's probably pretty good. Either that, or you know to avoid it.



There are at least 2 cities whose names require changing: Terre Haute and Puget Sound. Terre Haute sounds like something someone borrowed from another language and they forgot to translate it. Puget Sound sounds like something your cat hacks up. It also has nothing to do with sound. It's those weird people in the Northeast, with more money than they can actually count (although they have people to count money for them).







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