Mortally Wounded by a Gownless Evening Strap

 

Your love is like  coffee growing hair on top

Big Meat Companies Want to Use Smartwatches to Track Workers’ Every Move

[put on your James Earl Jones voice]   Big. Meat.

Today I identify as  Carol Burnett

Speaking of Bombcast/Rexfinity, I had to go to the website to check something. Not only are they greedy, they have an entire department dedicated to making sure you get absolutely nothing helpful from the help app. There are corporate vacations where they play the results of user queries. They seem to have two responses: install the mobile app or install the mobile app. I've met sleeping anvils that were more helpful. I found out I was paying for a certain download speed and went to the provided link to check the speed. I'm fairly reasonable (once or twice a year) but 15% of what I'm paying for doesn't qualify as paying for that speed. If I were able to get a human on the phone, they would tell me they're very sorry and I am a valuable customer...

I have the 400mb download plan. Per your speed test, I get no greater than 75mb. I measured at all times of night and day, with similar results.

I see. Well, we are very sorry for the performance. Let me look at your account.

Thank you.

Ok, I see you have the 400mb download plan.

Where were you when I said that?

Ok, what you can do is upgrade to the 1,000mb plan, which gives you some tv channels, for only 4x what you're paying now.

I'll bet you can. However, I don't want or need tv. I don't even need 1,000mb. I'd just like something closer to the 400mb I'm currently paying for. 

You could get much better speeds with the 1,000mb plan.

Are you referring to advertised speeds or actual speeds? Assuming my math is correct, a 1,000mb plan will have an actual speed of 66mb.

Yes, and that is much better than your current 26mb download speed.

I have a bizarre idea: why don't you just provide what I'm paying for?

I'm sorry, Sir, but state and local ordinances prohibit it.

So you're not allowed to provide what you advertise?

That is correct.

Can you hear me shaking my head?

No, but you can always go to our only competition, whose actual speed is 10% of advertised speed.

It's called a duopoly.

Exactly.

How about troubleshooting?

What about it?

Let's try some.

That is most irregular.

Humor me.

Ok, you can get greater speed by moving the computer closer to the wireless base.

It's 2' from the base. Should I duct tape them together? How much of a speed increase do you think I'll see? Does the brand of duct tape matter?

Sir, you're never going to get full rated speed. It goes down the further you get from a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Then why do you advertise it?

Because we can.

Next troubleshooting tip, please.

You can also purchase the 1,500mb plan.

Which would arguably net me 100mb.

Yes. But you'd get Disney and The Masked Furry 24/7!

If you provided that, you'd have to lower the rate to compensate me.

We have a 2,000mb package....

• Boeing lost $766 million in Q3 on the project to build Air Force One aircraft.
• It increases Boeing's total losses on the two jets to $1.9 billion since the build began.  
• Boeing bears the cost of any delays under a deal struck with the Trump Administration.

We need more of this. Point to Trump.

My brand new, high powered work laptop is causing me grief. Yes, it has Windows, and that's a burden, but the current problem is the O-key. It's intermittent. Most of the time it refuses to perform its function of putting an 'O' on the screen.  O is a relatively popular letter, so I have to pay particular attention to the screen. If there's one thing I'm not really good at, it's paying attention. 

There are many words that become difficult, like word, your mother, osmosis, cock-a-doodle do, no-YOUR mother, laptop, nose hair, orgasm, and police found a bloody torso.

Here's where it gets bad: if I put in a service ticket, all they're going to tell me is that they can give me a new laptop. If this goes anywhere near as badly as getting this laptop, I might have to live with a broken O.

The Parkland shooting trial is in the penalty phase, with victims giving impact statements. You haven't seen anything like it - I guarantee. The victims stood up and eviscerated the defense team, wishing them harm, a quick death, and other things we don't want to discuss. This is not the defendant - these are his lawyers. They also took shots at the jury. Let's get past the hurt for a moment and recognize this behavior as ignorant. Everybody deserves a fair trial, even mass shooters. As for the jury, they ruled on the information they were given. Let's say it's a good thing the families didn't have weapons or there would be another mass shooting. Meanwhile, Judge Hottie listened to a defense lawyer say, "If they were your children, you would have noticed." Judge then had an absolute fit, accusing the lawyer of threatening her children, and sent him to the rear of the courtroom. Bad move, Judge. The lawyer said nothing wrong - you either weren't listening or took it wrong. Further, you lose your standing as Judge Hottie and will now be known as the judge formerly known as Judge Hottie.

Families: if you do something illegal and the police put you in jail, don't get mad at the police. 

We are sorry for your pain.

• There is a list of celebrities leaving Twitter because its new owner may allow speech that offends people. In short, they're against Free Speech.  Think about how ridiculous this is.

One of us wasn't paying attention, but more likely two of us. I'm excited about the guitar show this weekend. Wife mentioned the wedding I'm trying to avoid is this weekend. Oops. The other problem is that we still haven't gone shopping for clothes. I am not a fan of waiting til a few days before an event to shop for it, but no one asked me.

Considering I was buying something I would literally never wear again, we went to the 2nd hand store. Lo and behold, there were 2 black suits. Here's the funny part: I am apparently built like a gorilla. I have average dimensions, but my arms seem to run past my knees (they don't, but imagine the benefits of Really Long Arms). I never noticed this before, but every suit I tried on was too small, including XXL. I am definitely not XXL. Not even in 'that dream' am I XXL. When I am in high school and onstage in the auditorium, without a guitar, also without pants. I decided to further my useless knowledge and ask stupid questions like what's the difference between a blazer and a suit. My natural curiosity had the unfortunate side effect of annoying Wife. So in spite of my quest for knowledge, we left, suitless. Everybody I know goes to this place and succeeds. Except lefty the gorilla. I know that playing guitar and carrying amps does not stretch your arms, so the whole thing is a mystery. I found a really cool muted camo shirt. Wife agreed it was cool and I should buy it, but I wasn't allowed to leave the house wearing it on wedding day. Then I found a black shirt. My plan is black everything, which I hope will cause me to completely disappear. Hope springs eternal.

So off we went to a coat factory to purchase a new suit. Ugh. It hurts to spend money on something I'll never use again. It was an interesting start, as there was no sign of suits, period. There was sportswear, but I don't like sports. There was active wear, but I'm not active. We were going to ask a convenient, friendly employee where they hid the suits, but we couldn't find a convenient or friendly employee. I think the entire 57 member staff was on coffee break, in the back room, watching one of those idiotic shows with a panel of judges. I was minding my own business, not allowing the thought that there were no suits into my consciousness.  Finally Mrs. lefty SHUSHed me, closed her eyes, sniffed the air, and pointed to where the suits were hidden. This is a very valuable skill that has saved us hours of time and effort. I don't know how she does it. I can do it with guitar stores, but there's not much call for it. 

The suits were waaaaay in the back, behind the huge winter coats, 3 rows over from the large sign that said SUITS, so they were relatively easy to find. There were about 11 of them, which were easily hidden behind baby clothes. We picked out a random size and started there. Sure enough, my arms dragging on the floor made it way too small. The next one was too large. The one in the middle was close enough. It reminds me of some old children's story that I can't remember. Then it was Pants Time. I stupidly went for pants with the same number on my jeans. Oh no. No no no. No no no no no no no. When I asked why, I got Evil Wife, who was very unhappy with me for some reason that wasn't worth inquiring about. It turned out I was right - it was the same number as my jeans. But then there was the other number. I was starting to feel like a woman, with vanity sizing and plain old incomprehensible sizing. We saw a 32 Long. WTF is that? Is 32 Long 33? 34? Long is kind of indeterminate. I knew the dog was waiting at home for us, so it was all she could do to to keep me in the store and on topic. 

As I mentioned, I was actually partially prepared, having a pair of black socks at home. Somewhere. In the house, hopefully. Wife humored me and said that she believed I had the socks, but I should buy another pair, just in case. I figured I'd play along and visited the Sock Department, conveniently located under the Children's Toys sign.  There were 130 pairs of socks that seemed to be missing half of themselves. Wife assures me it's supposed to be this way - they're ankle socks. Really? And people wear them? There were exactly 2 pairs of black socks that reached significantly above the ankle. Mind you they only came in 4 and 12 packs. You know what I'm thinking, right? What am I going to do with 4 or 12 packs of black socks? I picked the Adidas because they looked comfortable and the logo was so far up the leg, no one would see them. I felt proud. I had made a command decision, like one of those Apollo 13 guys, returning from space. So you know what happened, right? I was told to put them back because they're too casual. HEY - they're black - how can anybody tell? So I am now the proud(?) owner of 6 pairs of black uncomfortable socks. But of course that wasn't enough.... there were ties. Did you know that you can't purchase a black tie? It can have Mickey Mouse, sprinkles, rainlike designs, or nuclear green stripes, but not plain black. I found one that was close, but it didn't have a tag and would have taken 4 days to price at the cashier. I do not believe this would be sufficient excuse for missing the wedding. Ok, I said I had black socks already. I lied... I also have a black belt. I believe it's probably with the black socks. So I located a belt, where numbers don't matter and letters are even further out there. WTF is an M size belt? It's the one smaller than the L size, you idiot.

It's just way more trouble than it's worth. We went home and immediately continued with our new hobby: drinking. Unfortunately only one of us can get smashed on the way to the wedding, as the other has to drive. I think the non-smashed one drives, right? You'll have to excuse me, I'm very new to this.

I also realized that my poor, long-suffering wife had assumed the place of my poor, long-suffering mother, in having to take me shopping for something I didn't want. I'm fscking impossible on a good day; I don't envy either of them. In a way it's partial retribution for making we wait 5 minutes into and out of every store while a cigarette is smoked. 

If there's any bright side to any of this, it's discovering that short shorts have come back. Yes, it means that people with large, wide backsides will be wearing them, but it also means people who should wear them are wearing them. I can't wait for tube tops! 

10% of the web traffic from Teslas is to Drudge Report. 

1. that's ironic
2. Quantcast is measuring where Tesla owners browse

Are we done yet?

I think the putative anti-gun democrat, Paul Pelosi, husband of Nancy, really should have had a gun when the hammer-wielding illegal alien burst into his house. We hope he's ok.

Divide and Conquer has everybody's attention diverted. They have done a tremendous job. 

Meanwhile, government will get bigger and we'll all pay more for the privilege. Hardly seems worth arguing republican vs democrat or vice versa.

Deep Thoughts by lefty

Coke tastes different in plastic bottles than from cans. Don't you think someone should do something about it?

Nails grow faster on your dominant hand.

A rapper called Takeoff was shot and killed by a 'stray bullet' at a Houston bowling alley this week. Getting killed at a bowling alley without even feuding is going to trash his street cred. Coincidentally, Robert Plant took out an AK-47 and sprayed the first few rows at his Detroit show.

Wife just had something called Apple Betty.

I'm sorry, but I can't eat anything with a name.

One of our main server boxes went monumentally slow the other day. Since weird things tend to happen only to me, I asked if anyone else had a problem.

ME: The Fritzenberger Box is really slow for me this morning. Anybody else?

Bob: Yeah.

Sam: A little bit, yes.

Chris: Man, it's way too early to check the Fritzenberger.

Boss: I'll check. Yeah, it's slow.

I was glad we were all in agreement. 

Nobody did anything, but we were all in agreement.

[an hour later]

ME: I can't get into the Fritzenberger box at all. Is it down for you too?

Bob: Yeah

Sam: Yup. No signs of life.

Chris: Well. I guess I better tell the Fritzenberger team...

Good thing I said something.... we wouldn't be able to work all day...... 

Oh.

Dear Mr. lefty:

Your package shipped!

We will have your tracking number within 24 hours.

Approximately 5 hours after you receive the package.

Thank you.

I recently mentioned the magazines in the pile trying to escape.

I fear the magazines are aware and might have read the post.

No, I do not need medicine.

It's just that they were trying to escape wholesale. Ever since I noticed it, they have taken to escaping a page at a time. I come into the office and notice a page sticking out of the pile. I put it back, and an hour later, a different page is there. While this would normally take years to deplete the pile, the magazines are smarter than that: whenever I step on a page, it pulls the entire magazine out a bit. So by the end of the day, a few magazines have successfully escaped. Or rather, tried to escape. You see, I like to consider myself brighter than a pile of magazines. So as they escape, I put them back on the top of the pile, so nothing actually goes anywhere. The net effect is moving up the pile and being mentioned in the blog. Since I don't mention the name or dates, they don't get individually recognized. Perhaps October 2021 wants to be on top of February 2021. This is the only way it could happen. 

What have we learned?

1. Magazines are trying to escape.
2. I spend way too much time thinking about this

Annnnnnnd Black Friday Month has begun.

I'm telling you, next year Black Friday will begin in February.

The president accused Trump and his backers of undermining democracy ahead of key elections.

Uh, Joe... presidents and Congress have done more damage here than Trump could ever do (I'm not saying Trump has or hasn't done anything).

According to our hardware, Marsquakes are a thing. After studying 1,000 of them, experts believe Mars is volcanically active.

That's nice.

• UC Berkeley is withholding comment and strikes until experts determine if the Martians are Jewish.
• President Biden blames Donald Trump for the Marsquakes
• BLM blames systemic racism and threatens more Marsquakes unless they get reparations
• VP Kamila Harris says studies are needed to determine if the quakes affect African American Martians disproportionally. If so, all aid will go to them first.

ATTENTION CORPORATE EMPLOYEES:  The Official Buzzword has changed from "The Cloud" to "AI". So whenever you're in a meeting, make sure to reference the AI projects, so you look like you're ahead of the game.  "The Cloud" is so October.