The Left Handed Heater Eater

 Your love is like  mange

Our mouse problem here at the ThermionicMansion went nuclear after a neighbor told us they were Microsoft mice.

• Scientists Think Warm Balls Could Be the Next Male Birth Control
• No, it's ok, I brought my heater!

Today I identify as  Debbie Reynolds and Rock Hudson

RIP Ronnie Spector (Be My Baby)

In the morass of things I don't understand is my little office space heater. I set it to a temperature and it heats the room. It does this cyclically. When it hits the temperature, the heating elements turn off and the thing shoots out cold air. Even though I don't fully grok heating, I don't see where the heater is supposed to spew out cold air. Maybe it feels insecure and is trying to keep its job by making it cold. Maybe the manufacturer wants me to keep buying them, because I don't understand why the fan runs - maybe it's broken. Maybe I'll return it for a bigger one, with a remote control. Cuz, you know, it sits 3 feet from me, and leaning over is strenuous and stressful. Maybe Wife stays up all night, worried about it trying to get me sick. Maybe Wife stays up all night anyway, and this is just a decent place to hang her hat.

Since it's cold, maybe it has something to do with the soda we just bought. We can open a can, take a sip, and put it back for a day or two, with no trouble. The latest cans won't last overnight. Just flat. Incidentally all Coke products. This is very disconcerting. Perhaps Coke wants us to take in mind the fact the cans don't sit well, and just drink a can at a pop. Then buy more cans. We're probably lucky the cans stayed twelve ounces, as opposed to my grapefruit soda, at 11.5 ounces, and the ice cream, at gallon quarts liter. The Great Ice Cream Shrinkage works out well for the manufacturer and the company that makes the cartons. Whenever they shrink the ice cream (again), there's a new charge for prototyping the new carton. The only people not happy with this arrangement are the buyers of said ice cream. Screw the consumers anyway. Always make sure of which frozen treat you're purchasing, because Breyers, an old favorite, can no longer call itself ice cream, because it doesn't have the required ice. Or cream. Or milk fat. This is by law. You certainly don't want to be taking out your carton of Breyers, when someone says 'ice cream' and SWAT knocks down your front door, because you can't call it ice cream by law. Like removing the tag from a mattress. If you forget and this happens, I find that offering the SWAT guys a bowl of 'frozen ice treat' usually calms things down.

Then you go to places like Dairy Queen, where the white, frozen stuff flows from a lever or knob or something. I've heard it called Soft Serve. It's definitely not as tasty as actual ice cream, but in a malt, it works just fine. Or over a hot fudge brownie, but don't get me started. Now that the wife's out visiting for a few days, there's no tellin' what I'll get up to. She may come home to find me sitting in a pile of half-eaten formerly hot fudge brownies. Again, this is her fault for not getting me a babysitter when she goes away. If she had gotten our hot neighbor to sit, there would be no chocolate fudge brownie mess on the living room floor. I cannot vouch for chocolate syrup mess anywhere else, though.

But I'm just kidding - we have no hot neighbors. I don't know if there was a zoning issue or what, but there isn't a single hottie up and down the block. And 90 year olds on either side of me (ok, one just died from the Flying AIDS). It works out wonderfully, as there are also no kids, but why no just-short-of-models? Professional babysitters? If they're younger than me, I can adjust... I try to be flexible. We could play rock star and groupie, Find the Stratocaster, and Do You Want Cream with That.

• this electric bike rental thing looks like a really good idea.
• provided your friends don't see you riding one 

We're having difficulty with phone companies. Who isn't, you're asking yourself. This time it's more insidious: it's text messages between phones with different carriers. Wife can text me about 50% of the time, I can't text her at all (before you say she doesn't want to hear from me, I checked). A friend had a lot of trouble texting me over different carriers. Everybody else can text me just fine. The carriers point at each other and naturally don't want to deal with this (I don't want to deal with paying the bill). Not at fault is our encrypted text app, Signal. Highly recommended.

• What's wrong with the UK? Before you send me a list, they're now watching Judge Judy. Aside from her being the nastiest, ugliest, negative stereotype on tv, it shows us the UK has no taste, plus a certain percentage of them will think we here in the US are all like that.
• from watching UK police shows, I know the worst thing one can do is raise one's voice and curse. They'll deal with a stabbing in its time, but if you start cursing, they'll lock you up and throw away the key. You can also be disposed of for using 'racial language.'

It's a big mash of guilt, abandonment, and Other Stuff<tm>, here at home. Since Wife is away for a few days, Dog is very upset. She sits by the window and pines for her mommy. I've heard actual whining.

So she sits next to me in my office (or rather, my heater). I'm the fallback parent. Unfortunately, I'm working, so I have less time to pay attention to the poor thing.

So she goes to her sofa (which used to be my sofa) naps, and occasionally gets up to stretch between naps. While it's a good life, it makes me feel guilty. I think I heard her whine by the (full) food bowl this morning, which makes me wonder what she gets fed along with her food in the mornings.

Oh, the guilt (it's my heritage).

Yesterday she got the whipped cream from my malt. She loves whipped cream, then stops at the actual drink.

So she'll continue to miss her mommy and pine.

I'll continue to feel guilty.

And her mommy will continue to have a great time visiting. What is wrong with this equation?

• North Korea says it's launched a third hypersonic missile, this time reaching Mach 10
• it shot down Santa Claus and landed on the Easter Bunny 

Flying AIDS News 

Omicron forces us to rethink COVID-19 testing and treatments

FDA head: Omicron is a “natural disaster… most people are gonna get COVID”

Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab - but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’

Study Finds Cannabis Compounds Prevent Infection By Covid-19 Virus - Fauci says it's ok to smoke it through your masks.

Unintentional Violence 

The Bouncy Castles are Coming to Get Us

Second child dies after Spanish bouncy castle accident

This is the third bouncy castle incident in a few weeks. This time the castle went airborne due to wind. Perhaps they should have something in the rental contract that says they're not suited for flight and to contact the FAA (and the Happy Place<tm>) if it seems like a good idea. 

Near-miss for pilot saved from downed plane hit by train

I always wonder about people who park their vehicles on the tracks, or try to race the train, but this guy crashed his plane on the tracks.

lefty's Law: when doing something death-defyingly stupid, ask yourself what's the worst that can happen. Then wait for the fscking light to change.

Unfortunately, some spend most of their lives practicing the death-defyingly stupid. Survival of the fittest? 

• Man gets genetically-modified pig heart in world-first transplant
• wife warned not to take him to restaurants with large salad bars...

Elon Musk says he’s hiking “full self driving” by another $2,000

The man's a genius... he's never out of the press. 

On the positive side, spontaneously exploding batteries are free on every model.

Hey Maw - the smart guns is comin', the smart guns is comin'!

Of all the blitheringly bitingly breathtakingly dumb things we've seen, this is way up there. If people (most likely anti-gun groups) are afraid of suicides due to the wrong person using the gun, they already know a responsible owner keeps it in a safe and/or locked. By the same token, how does one defend against home invasion if they can't fire the gun?  None of this will prevent an owner from committing suicide, but the anti-gun groups forget to mention this. Serious security people don't use fingerprints for identification as it's insecure, yet it's good enough for guns?

I don't own guns. But we all need to be staunch defenders of the Second Amendment, as well as all the others.

Biden pushes overhaul of US election laws in fiery speech

In an impassioned speech, he said he supported changes that would allow his voting reforms to be passed without the support of opposition Republicans.

He's not just dangerous for his cognitive difficulties.....

Say, aren't there one or two important fires that need to be put out?

#NoSpendJanuary  -  a challenge to spend only on bills and food.

Who comes up with this stuff? Are they in a rubber room?

Hey, let's come up with a few other random challenges....

• #NoSexSeptember
• #NoEatingMarch
• #NoChocolateApril
• #NoShoeSaturday
• #NoClothesAtWorkWeek

 I hate to burn down your childhood notions, but it turns out Vikings didn't really wear the helmets. 

(They wore bathtubs)

Scientists went to work and confirmed it, by dating a piece of tar found on a helmet.

(the two hit it off and wound up living together)

• I didn't want to say anything, but the sun's been visible for a few days
• I wonder if it's that North Korean Hyperspeed missile....

If you can immediately tell someone what size bag goes in your vacuum, you have your shit together. And you desperately need to get laid.

“Aw, screw it”: LAPD cops hunted Pokémon instead of responding to robbery

When they found him, they beat him like Rodney King.