Just Because I'm Standing Doesn't Mean I'm Awake

Happy Bunnies, Everybody 

Remember to shop for candy tomorrow, when everything's on sale.

 Your love is like  an airplane in flight. aimed at the ground.

Today the pope popped out of his cave and gave his homely. He suggested that we have a brand new year ahead. Full of brand new little boys - wink wink.

We've had a 25 year long fight with vacuums. We've purchased everything, from the bottom to the top and there is no difference. Perhaps it's an artifact of a time where everything is disposable, but it's a real pain in the bottom for us. They don't last a year, if that long.  You'd think we use the things as baseball bats or to beat each other when we're mad, and we'd have to be mad a lot. Everybody tells me they have no problem with theirs. It never surprises me when we're the screaming exception to the rule. There has always been a dog plus two adults, which is apparently way past the acceptable operating conditions of all vacuums. We even bought that vacuum that can hold onto a bowling ball. We turned it on, it immediately sucked up a pair of pantyhose from the next floor, and stopped working within its first minute.

Mrs. lefty says it's the things we require it to pick up. 

You mean like dirt? 

She tells me we have to go around and pick stuff up before we vacuum.

Ummmm..... no.  Seriously, I may be old fashioned, but when I buy a vacuum, I expect it to pick stuff up. I am not inflexible... I pick up stuff I know the vacuum can't, like cars, chainsaws, and toothbrushes. I'm just not going to pre-vacuum for the vacuum. I hear a relative used to clean before her cleaning crew showed up. The wife, with fibromyalgia and all sorts of other problems, will get down on her knees and pick stuff up before vacuuming. I refuse, on principle. It's a bleedin' vacuum... it's supposed to vacuum stuff up. I don't expect the vacuum to pick up twigs; I do expect it to pick up dirt, hair, and bits of this and that which happen to wind up on the carpet. I don't hose the car down before the car wash. Work doesn't clean the windows before the power-washers show up. On the other hand, I do whatever I can to get the engines running before boom boom. That's the only reason Mrs. lefty is still married to me.

We have not had a vacuum that operated for more than one use before stopping. Some stopped during use. I inadvertently became an expert in taking them apart to find out where clogs are.  I just removed enough dog hair to build several small dogs (or completely cover my head, but I don't have enough glue or patience). The vacuum will run for damn near 3 minutes before the warning light comes on. There was a time when vacuums would pick up anything, including 2x4's and small children. They didn't need warning lights. Think about it - the vacuum isn't picking stuff up, and you need a light to tell you something's wrong? It doesn't vacuum so much as move the dirt around, in sometimes visibly appealing patterns.

Most of our dogs were highly antagonized by vacuums. Penny doesn't care, bless her. She just continues shedding, making more work for it (and me). Maybe she's secretly working together with the evil machine. 

The key to successful vacuuming is to have an area with a ton of crap on it, so there is precious little carpet visible. This way you don't have a lot of carpet to vacuum and it always makes a huge difference. The people on Hoarders don't have trouble with vacuums. Being a slob, cleaning-averse, or terrified of vacuums is actually a positive here. I won't say that there are two of those kinds of people in the house, but there are two of those kinds of people in the house. The dog, however, is a huge contributor to the mess. Not only does she shed, she spends her time surgically disemboweling her stuffed animals and getting the fuzz all over everything. She also abhors a clear carpet; within 2 hours of me vacuuming, she has demolished another stuffed animal, depositing the fluff all over the (formerly) clean carpet.

So when I run the thing, I have to make sure not to run over Mrs. lefty, who's crawling around on the carpet, picking larger bits of stuff up before the vacuum attempts to (and fails miserably).

Good old American know-how and corporate foul ball is raising its head again, this time with Flying AIDS shots. Many of the retail pharmacy chains are sucking up your information, some even when you go online to check for availability. Ain't it a beautiful world? Asked for comment, Biden said, "Didn't I used to have two dogs? I only see one."

 I forgot I had AAA.

I called because of a very technical negative automobile condition: Car No Start. It was electrically-related. I figured this out because I'm smart. And the remote didn't unlock the doors or click. It takes longer to get through the AAA phone maze than waiting for them to arrive. 

• Press 1 for Chinese
• Say NO if you can't read a map
• Say YES if you're in the middle of the highway (due to the Flying AIDS, you can't ride in the truck with the driver, so RUN across that highway carefully)
• Press 6 if you're calling just to bust our nuts
• Press 7 if you actually like waiting on the phone while we watch adult videos
• you should probably not eat the cream cheese with the blue hair growing on it

By the time I got through the Matrix, the truck was pulling up. They made the wise decision to tell all customers they will be there within an hour, even if there's a truck on the way.

The dude pulled out his portable battery charger, about the size of a briefcase. Well done. The car started right up - I told you it was electrical. Then it stopped. He ran some Special Magical Bluetooth Equipment over it and pronounced the battery on its way out. Yippie.

Being AAA, he naturally didn't have that particular battery. I can't expect the trucks to have every battery ever made... just mine. So rather than procuring a battery, the car had to be towed to an AAA Center. There's an AAA Center? Is it where all cars wind up through gravity? Do they have back seats where you can do stuff? Are all the customer seats from cars? Do they do windows? And oh.. if I want a tow, the computer told him to collect the premium first. I worry about people who hears the computer telling them things. I also worry about the person responsible for paying the AAA bill around here.

What did we learn today?

• the AAA Center closes before you call
• no one told me how long to hold my breath before it's fixed
• the car has a model number and a year! I should probably write those down somewhere
• It's either 2 wheel drive or 4 wheel drive - I forget
• don't even think about going somewhere when Wife is out

Mrs. lefty is very friendly. Somebody in the house has to be.

She talks to the neighbors and watches closely.

She has a board by the window, where she marks then IN and OUT of their house.

She asks me questions. Questions I can't answer.

• how come they have 3 new cars?
• the whole family has those Bluetooth sneakers, with goldfish swimming around in them- isn't that cool?
• why are those guys who look like ghosts trying to light a cross on their lawn? Shall I tell them not to use fresh wood because the water content is too high?

A study finds 40% of Americans don't recognize themselves in the mirror due to Flying AIDS stress. The study left out the fact that the participants had taken LSD 30 minutes before looking in the mirror.

• Last year, NBC News reported there were only 16 lesbian bars left across the US, due to the Flying AIDS.
• who's keeping stats on this? how do we know they're accurate? do they have a lesbian on staff who visits and reviews them? more likely, some hetero dudes who just like to watch. 
• for what it's worth, there are about 1,000 bars catering to men and mixed-gender LGBTQ crowds. Perhaps that means something...
• this also explains why my musical comedy group got such horrible receptions at certain bars...

More than 500 million Faceyspaces users' details have been found online, on a hacking forum, including Lord Zuck. Where do I sign up for a Faceyspaces account? 

Illegal aliens are coming across the border in record numbers.

Still smart enough to see the politics involved, Biden put Kamala in charge of the project. Kamala, waiting for Joe to finally blow a gasket, is less than amused at this turn of events. 

At the same time, White House officials have struggled to define Harris’s directive. They have recently emphasized that her focus is on the Northern Triangle countries of Central America and the underlying causes of migration, not the more politically sensitive question of what to do with people once they arrive. 

So spend the money here or there, Kamala?  Oh, there? What about here? What about stopping illegal immigration? Oh.

Biden is looking to restore faith in government

Ok, he has definitely blown a gasket. Especially after that multi-trillion tax hike.

You want to restore faith in government? Slash most of it. Close the IRS. Audit the Fed. Get the military out of every country on the globe. Curb the spying. Then we'll talk faith.

I'd hoped for Blitheringly Benign. Now he's Daffily Dangerous.

Another day in the Amazon Follies, where Amazon apologizes and admits drivers have to pee in a bottle.

• "We forgot we mandated this" 
• "Hey, at least we provide the bottles"
• "They could use a rest room during their 5 minute lunch break. What are they whining about?"
• "It only happens during long, rural drives, where there are no bathrooms. Ok, long rural drives and sometimes in the city. Ok, whenever the engine is on."
• "We blame the Flying AIDS for this heinous practice and henceforth will suggest they pee in their masks."

Gunmen kidnapped a Haitian pastor during a ceremony streamed on Faceyspaces. Ummm... you guys might want to rethink this thing. If I were a kidnapper, I'd go for the ones whose ransom could net me more than the guy who took a vow of poverty. Just sayin....