The Aardvark Has Left the Convenience Store

 Your love is like  Michigan water

SCAM ALERT

An email from someone you know, saying something happened to their bank card and would you order an Amazon gift card for them and they'll pay you back. They give you a TO: name and email address for the gift card.

If you get something like this, call or text whoever sent it to you, to make sure they sent it to you.

I really should have taken a sociology class in high school.

Although if I did, it would only serve to prove that we're on a collision course with hell, instead of just supposing we are. This is what Rome looked like before it imploded. I think. If you took a sociology course, you could say stuff like that at parties, and sound somewhat intelligent. Unless you're an introvert - they don't go to parties, unless they are hauled by massive construction equipment.

I think Survivor was the start of it, but who cares. Reality shows exploded, although it's a shame they didn't really explode. Now that's a show worth watching. Maybe it would be the last show of the season. Instead of 'winning', the entire cast would explode. Add in a lottery for who gets to push the plunger, and you have the recipe for Almost Perfect TV. All we're missing is tigers and raw meat.

I thought it couldn't get any worse than Americans Idle, but once again, America proved me wrong, this time with the Masked Furry. My jaw has actually worn a spot on the floor, from dropping. Apparently we're on the second season of some show where the contestants build LEGO things. Hey, we all built LEGO things... when we were four. I didn't know there was a first season. You know the next show will involve Lincoln Logs (look it up). Will there be a Rubik's Cube contest? Nah, too short. Maybe solving the cube while talking about their terrible childhoods. Better yet, solving while discussing important events of the day, like Meghan and Harry or Wilhelm or whoever.

There is now a local show with two newscasters from the morning show, discussing viral and funny videos. TV is now about YouTube? It's an advertisement for being online, as well as a very good reason to be online. 

One game show looks like it has something like an amusement park ride, where the contestant rides to the front and the host asks questions. All the games are hosted by Wayne Brady, a very talented man who has yet to find his niche. The celebrity contestants come right from the Where Are They Now pool. The names were actually game shows in the 50s and 60s. They bear no resemblance, of course, unless you count having a host and a contestant as a similarity. 

You knew it was coming....  the only genre of video that's getting better is pr0n. The music, fortunately, has gotten much better, as has subject matter. There are no pr0n game shows and (hopefully) no masked furries, although I suspect you could find them if you looked hard enough. The topics have evolved: incest, MILFs, Muslims, etc. Now tell me pr0n isn't much better and more relevant than broadcast tv.

I don't actually watch a lot of tv. Every now and then I raise my head, while typing this out for you, and look on in horror at the commercials for shows.

So next time you're at a party (after everybody's gotten their shots), you can commiserate with the older folk about how tv has gone down the loo and the only fresh, relevant genre is pr0n. Even if you don't watch it (yeah, right), you can use my examples. You'll raise a few eyebrows, but in the end, people will have to agree you're correct..

Today I identify as  black - not Black.  And latino - not latinx.

The doctors came by the other day. They like to visit at least once a month, to make sure I don't get up to anything (worse). They asked if we had our shots. We told them no. They shook their collective head and said we're paranoid. I told them they don't have the certifications to pronounce us paranoid - that's the other doctors. I had a friend who said he could get any psychological diagnosis he wanted. He was very talented, and I believed him. I can only mimic multiple, bipolar, and depressed; he could do the full range.  He was also very educational - I visited once and found a really incredibly large bullet on the table. He told us it was a .50 caliber. This was more educational than anything we had seen on tv in years. He had a carry permit and would lead parades up and down the street, near the police station. They couldn't do anything because he had the permit and it wasn't concealed. They got really upset when his parades had only one person in them, but this guy knew what he was doing. These friends are infinitely more interesting than the same old boring people others call friends. 

• Brazil rejects Russia's Sputnik V vaccine because it's tainted with replicating cold virus

Speaking about parties, one of the interesting things I learned recently came as I started the current job. I'd listen to my coworkers sit there and sound like old GET OFF MY LAWN guys about most topics and, heavens, I noticed I agreed with them. And I'm not even a republican!  I didn't dare disagree with them, as most of them had guns. Lots of guns. Hopefully at home. Although they made a great point: with all these guns, there were no shootings in the workplace. See how guns help?

• Guess what... the third agency we paid to send an aide for my mother failed to send one
• I don't know how they stay in business. If I randomly didn't show up, my job would be in jeopardy

The FCC announced signup date and website for $50 per month subsidies for broadband.

HUH?

Your tax dollars are going to pay for other people's tv and internet? $50 per month for service, $75 per month on tribal lands, and a one time $100 gift for purchase of a tablet or computer. It's almost like... what's that Bernie thing.... socialism.

When I was young, if we couldn't afford something, we didn't have it. Imagine that. 

I can't afford the exorbitant cable tv prices. Who's going to subsidize me?

Congress approved $3.2 billion for this, with an additional $6 billion to the fund, if approved. If I remember correctly, your cell phone bill includes charges for subsidies.

Granted, I wasn't there, but I don't think this is what our forefathers had in mind.

I can't identify the large, loud piece of machinery that's making the horrible noises behind my work conferences today. It sounds like a cross between a hole digger and a Tilt-a-Whirl. 

At one point, there were entertainment trucks that came into neighborhoods, for those who didn't get out much. Of course we all had ice cream trucks. Earlier on there where trucks with amusement park rides. According to pictures, there was one ride per truck. It wouldn't be good if there were more. Imagine a Tilt-a-Whirl and a ferris wheel on the same truck. Of course if they sold ice cream too, we could call it a family vacation: just add sand and sunblock.  We learned our lesson, repeatedly, about sunblock early in life. We'd go out, get burnt really well, then be sore and itchy for a week. Give us credit - it only happened once per season, then we stayed in out of sheer terror. Later on I learned about sunblock and the arbitrary numbers applied to them. If there was a number 57 block, I'd ask for a 69 block, under the theory that it would actually remove color from my skin.

Sticks and Stones

• a British football (SOCCER) player quit mid-game because an opponent made fun of his struggle with mental issues
• while we here at ThermionicEmissions are more than sensitive to mental health issues, the man did the right thing. If he can't take the opposite side taunting him, he shouldn't be on the field.
• that doesn't mean the opposing player isn't scum of the earth...

I've heard rumblings of interesting things coming on the UFO/UAP topic.

Don't forget that Trump put into law that all federal agencies release information within 180 days.

The Pentagon's report is expected to be released to Congress in June.

For all you skeptics and people who call this conspiracy theory, pay attention. No one is making this up. As for the truth of the report(s), we'll just have to wait and see.

• Good news: the San Francisco 9th District Court of Appeals affirmed that 3D printer gun plans can be posted online without state department approval
• and why shouldn't they? Otherwise it would be a First and Second Amendment violation.
• No body censoring anything is going to win the battle. Information will pop up elsewhere.

Researchers have discovered the rotajakiro backdoor on linux.

I remain way more fascinated with the Emily Ratajkowski backdoor.

I'm trying to get sued here - I need the exposure 

If you don't bring 1 or 2 people by, I'm going to start featuring updates on the Kardashians and in-depth speculations on The Bachelor.

• if this entry looks or feels different, it's because I'm typing it in a different browser
• and if you believe that, I have some free internet to sell you 

So I'm sitting there in my office, doing whatever I can to remain awake... pinching myself, asking others to pinch me, and planning my next nap, which will begin the moment I stop working. I hear the bell, work's done, and I head for the couch for that glorious nap. Annnnnnd I'm not really tired anymore. 

What just happened?

So I sit there, doing whatever it is that I do after work, and straining to stay up til at least 11. Because only old people go to bed before midnight. Except Friday. After work Friday I'm not tired in the least, and there is no problem staying up past 2 or 3. It's not that I have anything different to do either

Mrs. lefty, on the other hand, does not have my problems. She has enough of her own. She has two speeds

1. up for 3 days with no sleep
2. sleep for 3 days with no up

This means we rarely see each other, which is the secret of our long marriage (anything over six months is a long marriage).  When she sleeps, the dog sleeps. It's happened with each of our dogs... they latch onto her and I'm a distant second. She's the Cocker Whisperer. I could be really upset that all of my dogs would rather sleep the entire day with their mom than sit for a while with me, but I choose not to. I was thinking of getting a pet of my own, like a dog or something, but then there would be two dogs sleeping with their mom all day. I can't have a girlfriend, due to my wife's strict no dating policy. I can't even get her to sign off on a babysitter. So the babysitter is Mila Kunis - what's the big deal? Although we all know that if I got a babysitter, Wife would suddenly be very awake.

Although I'm lonely sometimes, I forget all about it when I get in bed, Wife's head springs up, and someone wants to talk animatedly to me. On and on. Not even taking my snoring as a cue to stop talking. You know what it's like... once they start, they don't stop. And they don't just talk, they want answers. Not yes and no answers... they want well thought-out answers. Answers that cannot be telegraphed via snores. And they get so upset when you don't answer, taking it as a personal affront.

So the next time I catch her sleeping, I'm going to start poking her and asking questions that demand answers. No, wait, I've been doing that for 20 years and it hasn't gotten me anything but aggravated. She can hear the slightest change in my breathing, but not the three alarms she set to wake herself up.

I tread carefully, not only because she's bigger than me, but because I'm not an asshole.

That and the chainsaw by her side of the bed.

The title of this submission? I made it up.

Unfortunately I put the words in the exact order that will have untold implications for the country, and possibly the world. As soon as this hits Google, the sleepers will wake. Ordinary mothers and fathers and citizens will drop what they're doing and assume the purpose for which they were trained. Mothers will walk away from their children. Fathers will walk away from their secretaries. People will turn off reality shows. And their accents... they will go from completely normal to their accent of birth: British.

You see, people were selected for this mission in England. They were Manchurian Candidated, with the new personality an American, who would cross the pond and live like an American. Red meat, headaches, french fries, and guns. They would go about their lives, have families, get jobs, with nobody suspecting anything. Then the trigger phrase would go out (The Aardvark Has Left the Convenience Store - picked specially because it would never be uttered on purpose by anyone) and their original British identity would emerge. The Brits are still pissed at us for that 1776 thing, so they laid in sleepers, who would eventually be activated to subvert the government and create chaos, destabilizing the country so the British could invade and take back what's theirs. America got the last laugh, as the government is already subverted and chaos is the normal order of things. Meanwhile, the British are so busy arresting people because they said something 'racial', arguing about something Boris might have said, and gawking at the royals that they could not form a coherent sentence, no less an invading army.

So aside from a lot of British accents all over the place and people claiming that wife and those kids aren't theirs, all is normal.  Hopefully we'll get some good Britcoms out of it.