You Thought I Was Kidding, Didn't You?

Your love is like    raw Brussels sprouts

The good news: Waukesha public schools are closed today.

The bad news: because somebody in an SUV plowed through the Christmas parade. Two dead so far. Twenty three taken to the hospital. One "person of interest" in custody. Police fired on the vehicle but didn't stop it. Law enforcement examining whether vehicle and occupant were fleeing another crime (stabbing per NBC). The suspect is Daryl Brooks, a 38 year old black male, per Heavy.com. He was charged with another crime, jumped bail, was arrested for domestic abuse, then allowed to bond out.

Twitter has videos (#waukesha). YouTube has milder videos.

Among others, several of the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies were impacted. Waukesha Hospital is in need of blood donations.

ThermionicEmissions does not approve of this sort of thing and sends its best to the victims and families.

Today I identify as  the kiss Vanessa Hudgens plants on me

I mentioned eyebrows... eyebrows were but one thing in the Box of Annoyances I used on coworkers, friends, family, and band members. The funny thing is, I didn't know it at the time. I thought my only annoying trait was my mouth. That particular aperture is capable of causing upset, severance, annoyance, and explosions of varying sizes. Only when I think about it does it register that I have more ammunition to use in the war on sanity and normalcy.

Most of it involves the other party having OCD.

    There was my bandmate who got upset that my socks were at different heights. Being the fine gentleman I am, I pushed them apart even more. Some might say this affected his performance that night. I say that his lack of talent affected his performance every night.   [weirder than this was the declaration that I was wearing the wrong socks. It just made my head hurt.]

    Then there was the coworker who asked why, when I used the microwave, I'd put the dish in for 1:26 instead of 1:30. Only I didn't know this was a problem til later.

    The other coworker was upset about the aforementioned eyebrows. There was always (at least) one hair that pointed in some other direction than the rest of them. It took a while, but in a time of stress, this fact came out. Boy, was I surprised. My eyebrows, however, continue to mock me, and everybody who sees me.

Isn't it sad that in life, sometimes you never know what little things really torque people off? These things could really help you... or at least torque people off.

• After 20 Years of Failure, Kill the TSA
• Great idea, but government never shrinks - it only grows (and taxes more)

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the nation's first Native American Cabinet secretary, said a newly created federal advisory committee will review and recommend changes to derogatory geographic and federal land names.

Didn't I just say something about government only growing?

I only half understand this one: Somerset Cricket Club (England) have "reprimanded" Jack Brooks over historical tweets he sent which contained racist language.  In 2012.  Rather than laugh, spit, or have his cranium explode, Brooks unreservedly apologised.

As if that isn't silly enough, one of the instances was for calling Cheteshwar Pujara 'Steve'. I guess we don't get this because we speak the wrong English.

I want you to know, celebrities, sports stars, people in the public eye, and anyone on Twitter.... your tweets are under examination. You will be called to answer for anything you tweeted that can be even vaguely be considered racist. No word on antisemitism or picking on the left handed.

Although I don't have the time or space to catalog my affronts to race and good taste, I wish to unreservedly apologize (suck it, England) for tweeting

• Christopher Colombus is a weenie who didn't discover a thing - all his discoveries were made by his cross-dressing alter ego, Chrissie
• Michele Obama is not a man. She's a reptilian, people-eating alien.
• No, really, Trump's hair is like that naturally.
• If Booth shot Lincoln, I'm the next president.
• Lady Diana had to sleep with Charles and took the easy way out.
• Jimi Hendrix is black colored negro nig African American person of color non-white dark skinned a hell of a guitar player. The left handers are a special breed.
• I have a friend called Steve. I call him Bob. Is this racist?
• I'll do that when NASCAR is 50% black
• That Michael Jackson... he sure wants to be Italian
• I'll tell you why there's no Polish navy - they kept installing screen doors on the ships and drowning
• Nah, smoking is cool!
• Jewish women, I tellya. What do they make for dinner? Reservations.   [oh wait... this isn't a problem yet. Wait til the ADL gets word....]

And every redhead on the planet for saying their hair is orange. Only punk rockers have red hair.

When man makes the first time machine, it will be used by everyone to go back to the past and delete their tweets.

• A look at the intimate details Amazon knows about us
• Read em and weep. No, really, you need to read this.

Tesla has given us our weekly fun. Well, sort of.

There is now a device made specially for extinguishing fires in electric vehicles. Apparently regular fire hoses are wasteful and don't directly hit the batteries, which keep getting hot and restarting the fire. This device fires up, from under the car, to hit the batteries directly.

So now Tesla will have to build more fire hose resilient cars (or hide the batteries better).

• Upcoming smart home products wirelessly charge without cable or pad
• The future is here. Isn't it?
• I can tell you that wireless charging is grossly inefficient. I can't tell you about the specific effects of transmitting electricity (look at what it did to Tesla), but I have my suspicions. The jury seems to still be out on cell phones and our bodies.