Captivity - Day 75 The giant octopus plays basketball

SEVENTY FIVE DAYS
And I didn't start this on day 1.

It was 60 on Monday. It will be 90 for the next few days.
Good thing we can't go out, eh?

We have advanced beyond the generic gravity day, where stuff falls down, leaps out, and nothing can be held for long, and gone right into the Tripping Stage. This is a tricky one because they can co-exist. We'll be walking along and BANG, there was something on the floor that we kicked. It wasn't there before. It's like another example of one of those ghost shows, except it's real. The object appears and we kick or trip on it. It is so regular that I kick something and say, "lefty's here!"  Much like the way you can't control what you see in your hallucinations, you can't choose what you trip over. It's usually small and not a guitar at all. It's also never a 1976 Caddy, but we might have a problem getting it out the door.

In an Irony from God moment, a Philly looter who tried to blow up an ATM, blew himself up with it. There have been other explosions at ATMs. History will know our time as Revenge of the ATMs.

Next on ThermionicNews: Target stores shoot back.

Remember the movie Arthur? He's told to give her his hand. His response is "But that would leave me with one." That runs though my head every time I hear 'take a knee.'

encrusting kleptoparasite

same thing

Wait.... do you hear that?
It's the sound of SILENCE!
Not one mower or construction noisemaker.
I hear birds - and not the ones from the medicine.
The 90 year old lady was mowing yesterday (I should be ashamed, but I can't work myself up to it)
The people down the street, who run electric tools all day and night are away on vacation. So they hired a friend's construction company to come by daily and run some equipment for the neighbors. I'm proud we have this level of neighbor. You?

I take that back (you knew it was coming) - trash trucks all day.

[to Secret Service]... Does that guy know he's black?

Quiet - I'm Trying to Think

Like many people, I sometimes do some online learning. This is a hair more difficult for me, as I have the attention span of a pregnant gnat (on drugs). So I asked my wife for a little quiet, so I could get through it more easily.

For the entire day, I could barely hear my wife, except when she spoke to me. This is almost uncharacteristic of her, as she has the grace of an elephant in a tutu (she will tell you this).

As I started the numbered material, it became Cleaning Time:

Item #1: [the crunch of brown bags opening]

Item #2: [boxes being moved]

Item #3: [stuff falling against wooden furniture]

I'm laughing, as it's not too loud, just slightly annoying.
Wife goes into the other room and I think good - no more noise.

Item #4: [an entire basket of hangers attempts to commit suicide by leaping to the floor].

At this point, I lose it.
IS THIS SOME KIND OF COMEDY ROUTINE? ARE PEOPLE WE CAN'T SEE WATCHING IT? WE MUST BE A HUGE HIT BY NOW. PERHAPS YOU CAN DROP SOME PLATE GLASS DOWN THE STAIRS!

Item #5: [tap tap tap]
WHAT IS IT NOW?
Your parents are coming over. Where do I put the guitars?
I'M SORRY, WAS MY QUIET STUDYING TOO DISRUPTIVE FOR YOU?
But, I just...
DON'T. Please don't.

Item #6: [folding chair falls to ground]
Wife: "Ok, I give up."
Please do.


I have deliberately omitted the part where the elephant led the parade through the living room, as well as the eight lane highway being started out front. If people are watching this, our ratings are through the roof (along with the giraffes).

• It sure is early this morning.
• It looks like it's getting longer.
• The morning meeting that makes me get up an hour early was not attended by the person who set it up
• The muffin I got for breakfast lept onto the floor, making a perfect hole in the powdered creamer spray, which quickly followed it to the floor.
• A pile of Stuff on the back of the couch decided to see if it could fly and failed spectacularly, hitting the seat cushion and bouncing to the floor.
• While filling the dog's water bowl, I spilled most of it down the front of me
• It's 8:25. If things get any better, I'll be on sick leave by 9.

It's a bad time to be someone who's not really fond of Tom Petty

• A woman in South Carolina ordered a yoga mat. When she opened it, she found 20,000 pills valued at $400,000 instead. Meh - yoga mat, $400k in illegal drugs, what's the difference?

Use the Stupid, Luke: a security expert recommends using a black marker to write 'PIN: 5372' on your ATM card. It increases incorrect PIN entries if the card is stolen. You are reminded NOT to use your REAL PIN.

• White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's personal phone has been hacked for over six months. Yes, that's right, six months. He sent the phone to IT for repairs, where the hack was discovered. He claimed not to use the personal phone for business. We have met the enemy and it is US.

Russian spies used Kaspersky Antivirus to swipe NSA exploit code, according to anonymous sources.

Well, that's the headline anyway.. the overly uncautious snoop took the code home and put it on his home computer, which was running Kaspersky Antivirus. It is alleged that Russian hackers used Kaspersky to identify the files and steal them. The claim is from 2015, because the public has no right to know. The NSA won't comment, as a matter of policy.  Because you have no right to know. 

For its part, Kaspersky vigorously denies any of this happened and has offered its source code to government officials. There are no reports of anyone taking Kaspersky up on its offer - just allegations which have not been proven. 

Kaspersky has been banned from government equipment and Best Buy has pulled it from their shelves. Until I see undeniable proof, I'm not inclined to believe this. This is very easy for me to say, as I run linux.

• Continuing the Annoyance Thread, I'm on an early evening business call, on speakerphone. At this exact moment, the tree people show up next door, to cut down a few trees. With loud gas-powered saws.

This week's definition of Mom: the lady who blew off an opportunity to get out and stayed home, making some sort of tuna meat loaf for the sick granddog. Marshall barely got a sniff of it and went face-down in his food bowl. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - I grew up on her cooking and it was always good, if not great. This from a lady who, two months ago, was in a facility with dementia.

Holes in My Hose

I was sitting there, minding my own business, as most of these stories begin, and there's a voicemail from the Good neighbor. The one who hasn't called the city because my lawn hasn't been edged 'correctly'. This lady is the neighbor you want to have; the sweet old lady. She is the one Marshall has trained to feed him on command. He goes out by her door and barks once. She appears with a hot dog or something and feeds him.  If she fails to feed him, he will sit there and stare at her door, through sun, rain, and snow. He 'buys' her flowers and assorted goodies, like a Pet by Proxy.

The voicemail said that the hose was leaking and there was a lot of water.

Uh-oh.

My wife collects many things, among them hoses and hose accessories. Just last week I attached a new hose and nozzle. Why? Because the other one was old. Ok. We started with a generic hose. It's the same kind of hose everyone had. It was a good hose, a sturdy hose. When you needed to water or fill the dog's pool, it was the hose to use. Because the hose sat, I ran it over on one of my dreaded interactions with the mower. Then the flat hose, featured on countless infomercials, with very loud, fast-talking pitchmen. This either sat in its box or spontaneously disappeared - I can't keep track. The next hose either got old or a house fell on it.

The new hose is green, as they tend to be, but has some odd fabric covering on it and tends to shrivel up or something when there's no water flowing. While I'm fine with computer systems and networks, the Hose Parade escapes me. With the overriding motto in my head (Happy Wife, Happy Life), I tightened all the fittings. There, Dear; new hose.

After the neighbor notice I went immediately to the Hose Site. When I say immediately, I mean after a brief stop at the snack table and Snapple dispensary.  My sharp-eyed neighbor was correct: there was lots of water. The nozzle itself was in perfect condition, not allowing one drop of water to flow. The hose, however, had quite a number of pinpricks in it, with little sprays of water gracing the air, causing a misting effect in spots. While this is good on a 95 degree day at Disney, while waiting in a two hour line, it's not so good toward a summer evening by a house.

A new hose.

The faucet was wide open, which verifies Wife used it. Wife seems to think that if it works, it'll work better turned up full. Unfortunately this is her attitude toward too many things in life. I'm surprised the plumbing in the shower hasn't spit pipes or fixtures at us yet. After I applied the software updates and manual intervention (I turned off the faucet), the deluge stopped.

Upon notifying Wife that new hose needed to be returned, she said it was years old. Well if it was years old, why wasn't it hooked up years ago? And why does an old hose automatically develop quite a number of holes? And why am I even blathering on about this? Maybe there will be some Intensive Hose Expeditions in our future. Just so long as I don't have to mow.  Know what keeps me awake at night? The thought that the kid we have mowing the lawn will grow up and move away.

• There is a very old, very serious vulnerability in Diebold ATMs. Mind you, this is the company that manufactures voting machines. Although serious, the vulnerability requires putting a rod through the speaker, jacking open the top half, then doing some software jiggling, hopefully someone would notice this happening, even if the guy with the crowbar was wearing a coverall that said ATM MAINTENANCE GUY.

The Gun Grabbers are atwitter about 'smart guns', which can't fire without certain factors, like a special bracelet. A hacker recently did a presentation on a number of ways to defeat a specific German system, one involving radio waves and another a few cheap magnets. One also wonders if there will be time and opportunity to put on a bracelet before having to use the gun, but that's a different matter entirely.

• I wanted to bring you this important bit of information before you hear it somewhere else: not being attracted to trans people is deeply transphobic. 
• In response, someone ventured: Hey lesbians, refusing to sleep with straight guys is deeply heterophobic. Bring your girlfriend too. Monogamous relationships are a patriarchal western ideal anyway.

An unnamed casino got hacked. How? The Internet of Things fish tank. After they got in through the tank, they went wild on the casino's network. This is a preview of what's coming to your house.

• After you buy your router, here are some tips to secure the beast. They're all pretty simple and common sense, but help immensely.

If you're a customer of Virgin America, WestJet, or Spirit Air, your data may be in the wild. Check with the airline and change your passwords, at very least.

• Remember lefty's Law: anything worth doing can be done from the couch

I mentioned that we were testing out Zakk Wylde's Valhalla and Death Wish coffees. Death Wish has much more caffeine than regular coffee. I was told they drink like medium roast and they weren't kidding.  They weren't bad but I'm continuing with Peet's French Roast. I missed the body and roast. The caffeine boost didn't do much for me. I am not panning the brand - I urge you to try it, especially if you like medium roast coffee.

• It should come as no surprise by now that there are internet-connect car washes. As we, ThermionicEmissions readers know, if there's a system, there's a hack. And this one's a doozy. This particular hack can literally have the car wash attack your car and you! Not really as bad as a feature-length movie about a rogue car wash attacking a small city, this one can potentially strand your car, hit it with some sprayers, and dump some water. Note to first daters: you can be the hero and rescue your date from the Evil Car Wash. That would have to be worth some points...

Speaking of hacks, check out  https://haveibeenpwned.com/ - put in your email address and see if it exists on any number of hack lists. This may be a depressing click.

In strange related Hose News, we experienced a Plumbing Issue. The issue got what looked like a bandaid. The Issue sprouted up in another place. While attempting the Bandaid Maneuver, it popped up in other places. Suffice it to say that it has become a Rather Large Plumbing Issue, which insurance may or may not cover. It's potentially an Expensive Rather Large Plumbing Issue, unlike the Hose Issue.

You will note the timing on this coincides with the upcoming biopsy on Marshall's oral growth.

Notice we have savings: Marshall's biopsy and Plumbing Issue

Notice we don't have enough savings: Marshall's biopsy and Plumbing Issue.

Notice that, as George Harrison said, It's All Too Much: Mrs. lefty has been non-functional for a while.

Marshall, bless him, has to be bribed to take his ridiculous amount of meds. We've been through peanut butter, cheesecake, lunchmeat, leftovers, French Toast Sticks, and now American cheese. He's walking around like Tommy Chong; saying, "Wow, man" and sleeping a lot.

Off We Go Into the Wild 2017

So how does some of our internet traffic get overseas? Via undersea cables, silly. Here is a brief article on the risks of using them.

• Twitter had a bit of fun the other night, as a fake BBC account broadcast that the Queen was dead.  People went insane, blowing up Twitter and generally going out of their minds. The most upset was probably Queen Elizabeth herself, who was most assuredly not exactly dead at that very moment. The Queen did miss her Christmas service for the first time in thirty years. Buckingham Palace said she was recovering from a heavy cold.  I sincerely hope that 'heavy cold' is not code for anything else.
• Poor Buckingham Palace... it's like the White House, always saying this and reporting that but with no real voice of its own. Ever think of what the White House would say if it could actually talk? "STOP BLAMING ME FOR SHIT," probably.

If you're going to steal money from an ATM, this is one of the most original ways to accomplish it. I say let them keep it.

• Sex and gender are interesting topics. Just in case you thought you had a clue, along comes androgen insensitivity syndrome to throw a small explosive into the mix... she looks like a goddess but she's genetically male...

As if anything here really surprised you, I wanted to bring the Real Shocker. The thing that's gonna f- up your new year. It's going to make you question your life up til now. Rearrange your priorities. Change your universe. You've been pooping wrong.

• the Big Story<tm> of 2017 is Russian Hacking. Don't spread this too widely, but I'm investigating a potential breach in my house. I think they hacked my bathroom. It started with the sink and I believe it has spread to the bathtub. No digital space is safe!

Some crank(s) in the UK are saying that "Office Cake Culture", where people bring in sugary treats after holidays and as a celebration, should be traded for hugs because the effects of all this sugar are toxic. You go, boys... drop them all off at my desk.

• I don't want to say I'm right all the time, but capsaicin, the substance that makes peppers hot, have been shown to kill cancer cells, so in effect, I'm right all the time. Next up: vegetables cause cancer.

Over in North Ireland, their First Minister got caught in a financial scandal. Calls were made for her to step down, which she dismissed as 'misogynistic'. Uh-oh, she played the Vagina Card.

• So, those electrical Smart Meters that I've been going on about for years... they're quite vulnerable to hackers, among other things. Who would've thought? Hackers can cut power to a home and cause the meter to explode. In 2009 there was a mass hacking in Puerto Rico. It's funny... these devices can benefit many interests, except ours...

Live in Utah? Wanna make a few bucks? Legislation has been introduced that will allow you to sue XXX sites if you watch too much porn.  Personal responsibility has packed up and run off with the high speed internet.  I'm wondering if I lived in Utah, could I sue Fender because I play too much guitar? Not mentioned in the article is the fact that Utah is the largest porn watcher in the US, per recent study.

• I signed up for a technical presentation at work. It suggested that perhaps I'd like to network with like-minded attendees, such as some dude named leftystrat. These guys are sharp as a bowling ball, they are.

it's like they KNOW...