The 2022 Nose Hair Games

 

Your love is like   vegetarian meat loaf

Officials, experts call for masking as illnesses slam US ahead of holidays

With Lord Fauci gone, who do we turn to for random guesses?  

Today I identify as  a left wing extremist, trying to ban reality shows

WordPress debated taking down the New York Post Hunter Biden story

WP is a purveyor of software full of holes and a blog host. They wanted to pull the story from the NY Post. Faceyspaces and Twitter came right out and censored it (at the behest of the government). This is what I mean by Big Tech controlling the narrative. This is why it's important to seek out different (truthful) viewpoints. All you'll get from Mainstream Media is Official Talking Points, which have a strange relationship to the truth.

I've had my.... slippers..... for a few weeks now. Much as I feared, I'd rather just wear my sneakers. Plus I keep getting flashbacks to my grandfather. Or some other old dude who wore slippers. I'm just not advanced in age enough for this. Plus if the neighbors see me, they'll have flashbacks of me wearing slippers, and they're damaged enough. It's just not working. Wife, who suggested them years ago, seems to think everything's fine, but we're married; how would she know? I don't want to say they're unpopular, but even the dog won't chew them.

You see, the slippers are where it starts. It then rolls downhill, at great speed:

• You begin waking up early, even though you have no reason to
• You hit the diner at 4:00. Maybe they have specials. Maybe you're just hungry because you woke up early
• You spend an inordinate amount of time gardening. Considering it took an act of God to get me to mow, I don't see this happening.
• AARP card, Medicare
• Don't drive at night
• a walker
• death

No thank you. I'm stayin' off this rollercoaster.

The president has vented to allies about how often his age is mentioned in the press "You think I don't know how fucking old I am?" he said to one earlier this year.    -Politico

Uh, no, Joe. By all means, run again. As you know, the democrats have a very low bar.

In 2024, the democrats will stay with their current slogan: "This is the best we've got."

The republicans have a new slogan: "Trump has done wonders for the economy - democrats are buying guns!"

Pope warns he has seen 'omens of even greater destruction and desolation' for mankind

But he's not going to tell you what they are. Just keep sending him money and he'll keep saying stuff about God giving us his firstborn (and ignore the priests with the little boys).

Government Remains Americans' Top Problem in 2022

according to a poll by our friends at Gallup.  [sniff.... sniff...] Maybe there's hope for us after all!

Nah, just kidding: we're going down.

I have this great legal concept that has been applauded on social media (who TF cares?) and needs to go to all legislators: each and every piece of legislation must be tested for Constitutionality before it's sent for a vote. And while I'm at it, each piece of legislation can only be on ONE topic. No added pork. This could save us billions.

The next time you hear a Congresscritter speaking about legislation, ask yourself (and them) "What abut the deficit?" This should give both of you an indication of how idiotic the legislation is.

"Officer - they're beating an old lady!"

I don't have time: people are going 2mph over the speed limit and someone has to punish ticket protect and serve them.

• I really think this blog needs some sponsors. Unfortunately I don't think Rolo, Yoo Hoo, and Fender guitars are brave enough. Perhaps an explosives manufacturer. Or one of those companies that cleans up blood after a murder.

Tom's Hardware did a comparison called Best PC Cases 2022. How in the universe do you test cases? Most at home next to plants? Least likely to get knocked over by pets? Coolest LEDs? Most floppy drives? Most likely to knock over people when thrown at them? So noisy it will keep you up at night? 

Wieambilla: Grief and questions after deadly shoot-out shocks Australia

But you're not allowed to own guns in Australia. This couldn't have happened. I call fake news.

 It's surprisingly quiet in the neighborhood. Neither of the neighbors is making a sound, which, quite frankly, makes me nervous. It's like they're getting ready to unleash something big. The patio is done, but I think he's tuning up his trash lids for a little concert tonight. The other side received their 12hp Noise-O-Matic yesterday, and is probably trying to figure out how it works. They're in a contest with the manufacturer to see who can make the most noise. Their secret weapon is the dog. As soon as the Noise-O-Matic starts up, 150lbs of Lab will go off with it. He has a bark that demands attention, like a religious figure speaking from a mountain or something. Back in those days, religious figures had to develop massive voices, because they were always speaking from mountains and elevated locations to a crowd that was very far away. If their voices weren't sufficiently loud and deep, the entire announcement would devolve into an audience saying "Huh? What did he say?" The message tended to get lost that way. So make sure your dog has a loud, deep voice when barking.

It's almost frightening but I have some good news to report: after the Great Phone Debacle of 2022, I switched to a prepaid plan with my provider. I started out paying less than half of what I paid normally. Due to incentives, the time of year, and the fact we had an actual sunny day this week, they keep lowering the charge. I think it's around $30/m now and will go down further when the Cloudy Day Loyalty discount kicks in. You might want to check with your provider to see if they have a prepaid plan. Or other carriers. Or TracPhone. Disclaimer: I have the cheapest plan, with 5M data, because I don't get out much.  You will still get a much better deal with better plans. The only difference is that you cannot 'finance' a new phone. Ask first.

I've about had it with pr0n. Well, not with pr0n (phew), but with the right wing evangelicals who believe they can legislate it out of existence. Historically these people complaineth too mucheth, and are usually discovered knee-deep in it. Religion tends to do bad things to the minds of certain people, with power making it worse. Legally speaking, pr0n is here to stay. Any attempt to ban it would be a violation of the First Amendment. And you can take my word for its legality because I have a blog (you can also check the Supreme Court's ruling on it). Second, these misguided hypocrites need to stop trying to legislate their beliefs. Ohio senator Jim Vance said he wants to ban pr0n nationwide. Pr0n has been blamed for everything from masturbation to antisemitism. Apparently Kanye west is also pushing for an end to pr0n. That should pretty much end his 'musical' career. Another similarly-addled congresscritter blames feminism for driving men to pr0n. This is categorically false: they don't have the buses, plus men are fully capable of driving themselves. Won't he be surprised when he finds out women like pr0n too. Like when he checks his wife's browser history.

These lunatic legislators and their buddies are causing trouble elsewhere too. Religious groups are pressuring financial concerns, resulting in banks and online payment processors refusing to do business with adult performers. The groups have all sorts of concerned-sounding names and don't mention religion at all. Remember the First Amendment Cry: I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it. Censorship of one of us is censorship of all of us (eventually). 

So I ordered additional RAM for the only laptop working at the moment. On Ebay, I was happy when I discovered the shop was 30 minutes from the house. I figured it won't take as long as across the country (or across the water) to arrive. Sometimes I'm naive, sometimes downright stupid. I'm generally realistic - I know a 30 minute drive does not equal a 30 minute ship. The first thing I got was a thank you email from Hong Kong. My fight or flight reflex went directly to BALLISTIC. I was going to call Mr. Ebay and tell him about this. I was also going to have SWAT raid the alleged store near me. The tracking information said it left from the store near me, so it was only an hour or so before the adrenaline wore off and I could think straight and hold things without smashing them. The following day I checked the tracking and the package was expected to arrive 4 days after I ordered it. 4 days for a 30 minute drive. It had to go to the local hub, then on a truck to my house. Simple enough for city council to grasp. But no, this is me and this is the USPS. MOTTO: We may get it there. Eventually. 

Here is the tracking information:

Day 1: printed out label

Day 2: picked it up

Day 3: package felt kinda meh, so we left it alone for 24 hours

Day 4: put it on truck for delivery

Day 5: customer wants to know where it is

Day 6: lie and say it was delivered

Day 7: customer wants to see where he signed for it

Day 8: Atlantis just returned from space.... maybe it was aliens.

Day 9: customer has a mailman in his basement

Day 10: open an extensive investigation into this matter. Call us back in 60 days. 

Day 11: customer says fine, you'll get your mailman back in 60 days.

Day 12: investigation concludes early - it was found up some warehouse guy's nose. please give mailman back.

Day 13: customer still wants to know where the package is

Day 14: it could take up to 4 days, like we said when you bought it.

Day 15: customer opens up his own memory manufacturing plant so he can get some 12 year old memory chips. Because he's a one-man manufacturer, Biden refuses to give him a few billion to do it, saying the government only bolsters large, established businesses.

Day 16: customer changes business plan to arms, easily convincing Congress to give him 25 billion.

Day 17: customer nukes USPS

Day 18: customer drives 30 minutes to pick up his RAM chips, like he should have in the first place

EPILOGUE:

Found out that the memory really shipped from Hong Kong.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

China can get a package to me one day faster than the local postal system.

Privatize mail delivery.

Drunk Blogging

 

Your love is like  buying a social media site called Twatter

On the bright side, we've gone a long way toward solving the Laundry Issue. We just found a bunch of missing wash, in missing baskets. For some reason, perhaps they were scared, they moved into the dining room. It was obvious why we never saw them: they were behind the arc welder.

Today I identify as  Alex Jones - the only person Elon Musk refuses to let back on Twitter. At least Musk is pro free speech. Musk did a poll as to whether Trump should be allowed back, and the answer was yes. I'm shocked.

As if the laptop saga weren't enough, my phone experienced a bit of nostalgia the other day.  I know some people who never escaped Woodstock and some people who never escaped a war. My phone told me I had nothing going on. This is unprecedented, as I always have highly important, sometimes secret things, like my nephew's cello concert. Oops. After some looking around, I discovered my phone had never escaped April 4th, 2003. This is not a significant date, at least for me (and Woodstock non-escapees). In fact,. I can't figure out a way to set the phone to that date and make it stay that way. We just went to Daylight Savings Time and your phone made the adjustment automatically (leaving the rest of your house an hour off). How could this be? Am I in a temporal disturbance? I checked my car and job, which were all current, so I stared a bit and checked the liquor bottles.  Also current, and with some left. 

For lack of any other idea, I turned it off and on again. It worked. I should be surprised, but I'm not. Why wouldn't my phone set itself to a random date? It happens all the time, doesn't it? It doesn't? Oh. 

I'm starting to think there are other entities at play. I don't have any chickens to sacrifice, piles of money to burn, dolls with pins, bibles, holy water, or much else of religious significance, aside from a bunch of commemorative Jimi Hendrix stamps. Do I need to hire people in uniforms to come in and say stuff inside the house?

If you could see me now, I look like a large black cloud, with thunderbolts shooting out, and a really strange, Thor-like creature in the middle. With a very stylish, black, left handed Stratocaster.

HOLD THE PRESSES 

Since we're approaching the holidays, you can now buy white chocolate covered Oreos. Drop what you're doing and get out to the store with the least Supply Chain Issues and pick up whatever you can afford. Trust me.

Week's best pr0n title: She Blew Out Your Can  (?)

Week's worst pr0n concept: My Big Fat 600lb Sex Life

Trump is in for the 2024 election.

Everybody is shocked.

Going strictly on history, here is my prediction: Democrats, trying their damnedest to put up mediocre to bad candidates, will continue to run Biden, because apparently he hasn't done enough damage (yet). His slogan will be "Giving away your money for free stuff!" The Democratic National Convention will serve only toast, because no one can afford much else. Trump supporters will burst into the Republican convention and burn Biden in effigy. The convention will be very cold, as no one can afford heating. The libertarian candidate will remain a secret until one month before the election. It won't matter, because he or she will only get 1% of the vote, even with some of the most idiotic candidates in the history of the country running in opposition.  There will be accurate claims of vote stealing, which will be dismissed as conspiracy theory. Video of trucks hauling votes to burning facilities will be all over YouTube, before they're banned as disinformation.

About Biden running: I wish he'd start running now. Don't fret, he'll only be 80; plenty of time for whatever's left to dissipate (as well as his ratings).

The people, in their gross ignorance, will again prove their gross ignorance by causing another 50/50 split in the results. They enjoy doing the same thing every time, hoping the outcome will be different this time. While this is traditionally the description of insanity, it has also become the definition of American voting. Furthering the proof of the midterm elections, Democrats will largely win, because people are largely stupid. Republicans will win some smaller elections, proving that their people are largely stupid too. The stupidity of republican voters matches the stupidity of republican politicians, especially where the election-losing policy against abortion rules the land. Don't let them fool you - it's 2 sides of 1 warped coin.

While you were touching yourself watching The Masked Furry, the world population hit 8 billion. While I would never suggest Bill Gates was right (about anything), perhaps we're overpopulating the place. If nothing else, we're making a hell of a mess out of it.

Another cryptocurrency exchange went bust (FTX), owing money to over a million people. 

Crypto was a tremendous idea. I watched closely. Then I watched insiders flee with assets and hacks. I watched currencies fail and fall. I just couldn't see getting involved, with that much to lose. Instead my 401k plays the stock market, where there's even more to lose, just as there always has been.  I TOLD YOU SO. Considering (I think) I'm always right, you'd think I could make something from that. Alas, no.

Many interesting things happen at Thermionic Manor. Daily.

Having settled my upcoming days off, I said I have to give the list to Wife.

This morning I'm awakened at the glorious day off time of 7:30.

Did you put air in the tires?

[grumble, think] fzsnitzness

Huh?

No.

I have to go to the doctor and can't bend to do it.

I know. My fault.

Good thing it was my first vacation day off.

I began the process of Not Going Back to Sleep. This can take up to an hour, involving trash cans, an incredibly happy spaniel licking my forehead, thinking about chocolate, and a nagging internal voice, demanding I do something... all combined with the most powerful force on earth: guilt. I was readily aided by someone outside doing... something... that alternated between slamming something into metal and launching tires with a trebuchet. Bless my neighbors - they have a noise for everything.

I can't tell you how I did it, but I found myself out of bed and even dressed.

She looked at me with one of her 157 patented Strange Looks. She went on to tell me she had canceled her appointment, so all was well, just go back to sleep like I didn't wake you on your vacation day and you didn't spend half an hour winching yourself from the bed, semi-awake. And by the way, aren't you supposed to be working at this time?

I'M ON VACATION!

It was at this point I said to myself that if this is what vacation was going to look like, I would forfeit my 20 days. Give em to somebody more deserving. Somebody single.

And hurry up with giving Wife a copy of my days off.

• Because it's a week after Veterans Day and not a holiday, there are fireworks outside.

Up I get, 9:00 on a Saturday, because... you guessed it.... air in the tires.

The only place around is a gas station. The machine takes only quarters, to dispense what you breathe freely, which is just a single one of today's ironies.  The machine instructs you to put the quarters in slowly, probably so it can feel the satisfaction from each quarter.. pure profit. Notably, there are 2 metal poles in front of the machine, as well as its sister, the car vacuum. I'll bet there's a funny story there. 

A car vacuum? What a concept.

I can't see much use in that. It would be admitting that your car gets dirty, and I just don't want to go there. We're driving a really nice car, which simply doesn't get dirty. Dusty, but not dirty. So there's nothing to vacuum.

Ah, but there is. Cars seem to attract trash. Cigarette packs (no idea whose), candy wrappers, condom wrappers (no idea whose), and 5lbs of paper you have to take off the straw before you use it. Do you have any idea how much of that paper it takes to make up 5libs? It actually rides in the back seat, occasionally hinting for a bigger car and a seatbelt extender.

So, at 9am, I pull into the station. And at 9am, there's already some guy using it. I managed to laugh slightly, as only 1 person in line before me is a very small number. 5 is closer to normal. I pull up close, so the fellow knows somebody's next. To be honest, I pull up, hoping against hope it will speed his airing up. Naturally it didn't. I have my rearview mirror set so I can watch to see if he leaves. I spend a lot of time looking at it. This guy apparently needs some serious air. Either that or he's letting the summer air out of his tires and replacing it with winter air. He had a truck, but it only had 4 tires, so that didn't explain his lack of hurry.

Meanwhile, I took the time to push all the buttons in the car that I can't push when I'm driving. Well, that I shouldn't push when I'm driving. Just in case I was worried, it showed me a little car with numbers for each tire, and whether that was low or not. The low ones flashed red. Somebody got paid a lot of money to design this. I liked it, as I'm easily amused, especially by blinky lights. Looking up again, I saw Skippy the Truck Driver hang the hose up on the machine. I sighed with relief. Unfortunately I sighed too soon: Skippy had a lot more to do. I thought since he still had time left on his quarters that he was maybe inhaling the air. Checking that his tires were still round. Walking around the truck, admiring its lines. Looking to see if there were any new scratches (he has every one of the 141 scratches notated in his Scratch Database). It's about 32 degrees out, which is coincidentally the pressure required in my tires. I figure no one wants to assess the exterior of his vehicle in this weather, but I was wrong. The expensive system for telling me which tire is low does everything but indicate what normal is. This quickly becomes a research project. Rather than squat, I figure I'll check the manual. The car is the only thing on Earth that still comes with a manual. And if the manual were in the car, I'd probably have an answer. The 2nd question was WHY was the manual not in the car. The possible answer was there was no room left in the glovebox, after the actual gloves, aspirin, condoms (again?), and that bangy tool that can break your window in an emergency. How you get to it in a frozen car is beyond me. The 3rd question is why is there a need to examine the manual elsewhere? Is it homework from Hyundai? Will there be a quiz?  How many miles should there be between oil changes? Do I have to stay after class again?

Finally Skippy drives off, completely satisfied, re-aired, and smug, with a fine day's work done. He was probably going home to sleep, where I should have been at 9am. Not at his house - at mine. He wasn't my type, being a guy and all. I wish he had stayed to watch a Real Man put air in his tires. There is 1 way you can find out if we've had the car for more than a month: if there are no screw-off caps on the air stems. We had exactly 2, of different types, which tells us the car is 2 years old. Now if Wife cannot bend well and I am meticulous about putting the caps back on, where did they go? I'll bet the *$&#ers who held the car for ransom stole them. They probably had to mail them to the state, to prove something or other, for which we'd be fined a 2nd time.

My entire operation lasted under 5 minutes (6 kilograms Canadian). The only problem was that either the hose or my car's expensive display system was miscalibrated: I filled it to 32, and the display said 31. This is an OUTRAGE. Someone will feel the sting of my keyboard! Where are Standards and Measures? They calibrate the pumps and they get that little sticker. Why not the air? Miscalibration could lead to all sorts of driving issues, even a crash. Your left side could be higher that your right, which is the wrong way to go if you're looking for that jumping up and down thing that the real lunatics want. Lastly, the guages did not change. I was beside myself, until Wife explained that the car needs to be on the road for a few miles before it read correctly and the alarms ceased their flashing and screeching. 

What have we learned?

1. do NOT get up at 9am for anything (except that)
2. acquire one of those portable compressors that run off the cigarette lighter. It won't save you from having to put air in the tires, but you don't have to drive anywhere and wait behind the Skippies to do it.
3. know thine air pressure. commit it to memory. it's much easier than remembering your wedding anniversary.

Oh yeah, 9 in the morning.

I'm in the bathroom, doing bathroom things, when there's a question from Wife. Wife talks regardless of where I am or what I'm doing. 

"Do you have $20 so I don't have to go to the machine?"

Uhhhh...... not on me. I don't have clothes on me.

Oh, because I have to go to my sister's then the convenience store then...

If you could stop talking in paragraphs and please let me get on with the bathroom things.....

In my sock drawer is a bottle of A+W Root Beer, just sticking up from the drawer. I asked Wife, who just stared at me and said, "I don't know."

This is by far not the strangest thing that has happened this morning.

I know you're saying to yourself that you'd understand a Coke or 7up, but A+W is pretty serious. And you'd be correct. But I'm learning to pick my battles, so I'll leave this and wait for whatever greets me later in the day. It will definitely be weirder and more challenging, possibly involving 4 hours of fighting and 2 hours of apologizing. Why just the other day I had the temerity to suggest we use the chair for our butts, as opposed to the brand new Leaf Eviscerator 2000 and Barbies. You'd have thought I said something about her mother and tweeted it to Elon Musk. We observed the required 12 hours of silence.

please excuse the lack of hilarious and thought-provoking memes, but they're all on one of the fallen machines.