No Rest for the Wonderful

 Your love is like   a choir of kidney stones

You knew the car coming home from the body shop wouldn't be the last of it.

And it wasn't. 

It has a flat.

Today in Olympic news:  the US Trans Bodybuilding team won everything. Everything.

I'm going to blame CostCo for the flat, the last place the car was.

The place poor Mrs. lefty got badgered and literally assaulted by some crazy lady, who accused her of stealing her cart. Yeah, the lady with the cane stole your cart, then whizzed away so fast you couldn't see her, right?  The police showed up, whereupon the crazy lady started yelling at them. They sent her away with a few pieces of paper.

I have never wanted to be at CostCo, but I wanted to be there at that moment. Lady, if you slap my wife one more time, I will break every bone in your hand, slowly. I will make you count them as I break them. If you do not appear sufficiently contrite, I'll start on the other hand. 

After the police leave, you will write weekly letters of apology, and do 47 hours per week charity work. for the foreseeable future. You will also take college level courses in anger management.

If you fail to make one visit, I will get mad. You do not want to see me mad.

Today I identify as   a pair of cheap computer speakers. I am everywhere hahahahHAHAHAHA!

But we clean. No, really.

Every now and then we get the Cleaning Bug<tm> and have at it.

This time I discovered the Cleaning Bug<tm> can be cured with antibiotics or chocolate.

Actually the bug was cured by attempting to clean.

 Scenes from a Cleaning

• pick up trashcan in house, 4 things attack me, trash spills
• Mom comes to help, walks into dust, isn't seen til time to leave
• HONEY.... I can't put together the clutter organizer you bought because there's too much clutter
• We've got to clean off the table. Ok, where do you want this box? Put it on the table
• This week in vacuuming: it picked up everything. Except the red dog hair. It used to pick up dog hair. Maybe it needs a new bag. It takes bags? Yeah. Where are they? Stop asking stupid questions. They'll pop up. Eventually...
• why are there six car trunks from 1957 Chevys by the table? You don't wanna know. Anything interesting in them? You definitely don't wanna know. Repeat after me: these are all factory new...
• I don't want to say you don't listen to me, but I said 1957 left handed Stratocasters, not 1957 Chevy trunk assemblies. Meh, I guess they're close enough to get mixed up...
• remember the paper boy who went missing in 2004?

Fortunately Wife will deal with the flat. I'll work. Working provides structure. If I don't have structure, there's no telling what I might get into. Or who.

Still, one must wonder what the fsck is going on here.

• All the crashes to the last car, and now it's starting on the new car. We do not hit people - they hit us. Frequently without insurance.
• Tri-plumbing emergency.
• 2 cancerous cockers
• a house that knows when I get a few dollars and breaks accordingly

It has been one after another for at least ten years.

Can somebody explain this shit?

One of my friends absolutely poo-pooed any thought that it's personal. 

I asked him if this happens to him or anyone he knows.

Well...

I don't want to think it's personal - that's just weird.

But the shit falling is so regular and predictable, it certainly feels this way.

"You get more than your share."  When I hear this, I feel better. Nothing is sweeter than validation.

But I still have to pay for it...

We just bought 16 cases of sage. We're going to do the car and the house. So if you hear a lot of fire engines looking for flames, it's probably us.

BUT WAIT!

a friend dropped off some incense that's supposed to help.

C'mon now... incense? My friends burned that stuff in high school. I hated the smell.

Try it.

Does it smell like vanilla ice cream?

No.

Dammit. Does it smell like pumpkin spice?

No.

SOLD. What is it?

Frankincense.

I see. I don't suppose any myrrh will be involved...

No, just frankincense.

No babies - you know I hate kids.

Nope.

Camels?

No.

Mangers? I'm allergic to hay.

Negative.

Am I still a wise man?

That is up for discussion.

So I just burn this stanky stuff when some planet or other goes into retrograde?

And Mondays.

You have to figure that even things we can't see don't like Mondays.

And put this in your pocket 

Dare I ask what it is?

It's a quartz crystal.

I see.

No you don't.

What does it do?

Protection.

Oh, wait, I got this one... if anything bad happens, I take the stone out of my pocket and wing it at someone, right?

You have just split the physical and the metaphysical.

Hey, I'm just that kinda guy.

You must recharge the quartz monthly.

Does it use the USB-C plug or the old one?

[sigh] No good deed ever goes unpunished. TO THE LIONS!

Speaking of BlueTooth speakers, it appears they're mono. Every one I've seen, anyway.

Without arguing whether it's necessary, I find it interesting.

• Rutgers banned unvaccinated students from attending virtual classes
• another institute of higher learning 

The beatings will continue until "health" improves        - @mkibbe

• The president of game server company Tripwire stepped down over support for Texas abortion law
• stop it already. So he has an opinion. I disagree with it but support his right to have his opinion. The only thing I'd be concerned about, if I gave a rip about games, is if he did his job well.  More witch hunts.

In 8 US states, Apple will begin storing driver’s licenses on the iPhone

What could possibly go wrong? 

What about android phones?

• Coronavirus can spread among vaccinated people
• No it can't.
• Ok, yes it can.
• Get your booster.
• Still. No. Clue.

US states that had some of the worst Covid-19 case rates in past week also reported the highest rates of new vaccinations

Android sends 20x more data to Google than iOS sends to Apple, study says

Google: no we don't. Ok, we do, but we're 'improving' the situation.

Internet shutdowns by governments have ‘proliferated at a truly alarming pace’

Of course they have. Governments need to be kept away from the hardware/software. This is part of Full Control. Heaven forbid anything serious happens, rest assured there will be connectivity issues. Also watch for back doors in encryption.

The government is already monitoring everything going through the net via humongous taps in carrier service rooms. This is fact.

• California bill takes aim at Amazon’s productivity-tracking algorithms
• this tells us that the government is meddling in Amazon's business, plus Amazon has productivity-tracking algorithms. Neither being too surprising.

My cousin got her shots. Upon completion of the second one, the pharmacist said, "Great, now we can schedule your booster."  She was not amused. Her arm hurt for days and she was out of it for a day or so.

People around eastern PA like to visit the Pocono Mountains.

If you're from southeast PA, it's pronounced mou-ans.

A relative has a cabin. For some reason, that was entirely hunger, a bear took a fancy to it.

The bear ripped the screen door out and punched out the glass in the wood door.

The bear has obviously done this before. Are there Bear Universities where they learn this stuff?

Don't feed the animals, people.

Get some bear repellent, loud noisemakers, and a gun to fire up in the air.

Don't be bear food. I recommend against it.

• I've been trying to figure out what I hate about Teams, aside from everything and it's Microsoft.
• I think a great start would be to make all bleeps and popups opt-in and optional. Most of them are extremely annoying and not needed. Every meeting dropping notes into the Teams chat is silly, and I don't need to be notified every time it happens. I don't need a BING and large blue notification when someone starts a meeting I'm scheduled for in 5 minutes anyway. I didn't ask for them, yet they popped up anyway.
• Microsoft - you should take notice. When somebody who doesn't like your software makes a suggestion, there may be value in it.
• and while you're at it, when someone highlights text, why not make it an automatic copy, like linux? It does away with an extra step.

An astrobiologist suggests viruses may form a vital part of ecosystems on other planets.

Fauci, the FDA, and the CDC are petitioning NASA for immediate flights to these other planets, to give them shots.

I *AM* the Black Cloud

I've seen some shit.
I've been through some shit.
The amount of shit piled up at my place now actually exceeds the interior volume of the house. It's called Quantum Shit.

You've had bad days.
I've had bad days.
This day is unprecedented in all its badness.

Most of my bad days start with computers. This makes perfect sense, as I've been in computers since high school. You know... a long time ago. My main computer was looking a little weird (as opposed to its owner, who is looking very weird), so I figured a redo was in order. Load up the dvd, reboot, and POOF, there were weird characters and it was having trouble reading the drive. The drive is solid state, plus I could see the folders, so all was not lost. I re-redid it. Weird error message. I re-re-redid it. Same weird error message. No suggested fixes worked.

Ok, main computer only has all of my stuff on it... (backed up), but I need a computer to run it on. Wife's laptop: kernel panic. For those of you not familiar, kernel panic is really bad, m'kay? It's what happens when the computer knows I'm overstressed or Just Plain Pissed, so it's terrified of me. So I tried to redo it. It was still panicked. I started to panic. It's not like there's a computer on every step on the stairs.

My phone decided it wasn't going to deal with email. This isn't an unreasonable idea, but it is for a phone. In fact, the relatively new tablet also refused to deal with email, in sympathy with the phone. I, on the other hand, had no sympathy for these devices and my neck was getting sore from shaking my head so much, out of sheer grief and aggravation.

AHA - I have a spare laptop... kinda anemic, but it'll get the mail!
Yes, I located said laptop. Unfortunately I did not locate laptop's power supply. No matter, I have 50 of them; almost one that fit, except it was missing the part that went to the electrical outlet. After digging that up, I plugged it in and it did its best impersonation of a government employee: nothing. In case you're counting at home, this is 3 computers, a phone, and a tablet.

The tears running down my face gave no indication that I would be more comfortable shooting from a tall building or mall.

Ladies and blog readers, this is just about the end of my computer inventory. Somewhere is an ancient pc with an ancient version of Ubuntu on it, but I suspect it had gone on vacation with the 3 laptops that have gone POOF over the last 3 years.

Pulling up the tablet, I ran a virus scan, because I'm like that. Halfway into the scan, POOF. The tablet shut off. I figured it was part of the Random Reboot package I paid extra for, but no, it shut down. Period. I plugged it in, hoping for some stupid reason it would work but NO. THE F&$#ING TABLET WAS HOSED. Bricked. A flat, sporty screen with nothing on it ever again. It was dead. Pushing up daisies. Gone and joined the choir invisible. Bereft of life, it rested in peace. POOF. It just died to spite me- no other reason.

Do ya see what I'm talking about? Once the excrement hits the whirling device, the only thing that happens is more excrement and more whirling devices, until I smell a bit and can't move for shit.

There was a small tablet around somewhere. Somewhere (far away look in his eyes). It disappeared, perhaps on purpose, the day the larger tablet arrived. Maybe it felt inferior. I just can't find it, in spite of the fact it only lived in one of two places, both now empty.

So I was dead in the water. Nothing. No way, no how. I couldn't get my frigging email. You know what that's like. You get the shakes, the bends, your genitals shrink, and you become even less tolerant of anyone sharing your living space.

I got a drink, sat back down, and promptly spilled most of it on my hand and pants.
I made dinner and burned myself, after I couldn't find the last ingredient of anything I wanted to make. The door fell off the pantry. The dog needed to go outside every 10 minutes, which she never does.

This is the part that's killing me: the only communicative device I had left was the work iDevice. With even more tears and a groin pull, I went about seeing if it could handle the tiny amount I needed to throw at it (not that the phone couldn't, but maybe wouldn't). I installed an email account. HALLELEUJAH! I installed a 2nd email account... well, no I didn't.. because I couldn't find the button to install a 2nd email account, including the one that said New Account. After asking my iHole friends, I learned that you don't add accounts to email through the email program - you add it in the Accounts section of the phone. Well how stupid could I be? How didn't I know this?  The only thing that really grinds my gears is that this is the only device in the known universe that has no punctuation on its keyboard. If you want a period, you have to push SPACE twice, or go to a second page of keyboard. What kind of abjectly drunk design is this? Periods are sort of common in most languages, with commas in there too. I checked the Apple Store and there were none to be found.

On the way to celebrate me, I kicked a case of soda. Not on purpose - my size 17 feet kick everything around me, whether I want them to or not. I can mistakenly kick something that's 2 feet away from me, simply because it's there while I walk by. Mostly I trip over stuff. Stuff that really isn't in the way. Every day I go into my computer room and notice the little space heater, and every day my foot hits it on the way by. It's like the device suddenly does the impossible and gets larger for half a second, while I pass by it. Or sticks out its imaginary foot.

Feeling overjoyed at something working, I went to check my mail.
Nope, I can't find the phone.
The phone I just got my email from.
It is missing.
People who don't know me and have never seen my house tell me I look organized.
Of course I look organized - if I don't put something in its place the moment I'm done with it, I will never find it again. So putting things away just looks organized.
Wait... I remember putting it on the sofa arm. Things on the sofa arm generally fall next to the sofa. Nope, not this time.
Hey - just last week I put my phone there. I found it hours later, in between the sofa cushion and the sofa end. Sure enough, this was the second one to do it.
So I put the phone in its place, after which it immediately plummeted to the ground, unassisted.

They tell me, whoever they are, that the universe is an incredibly vast place, with lots of strange real estate and even stranger furniture. Being so vast, the universe couldn't possibly care about me. Screw that - it is actively involved now, monitoring my every move and making sure nothing performs as expected. I just found a speaker I've been looking for (behind the computer desk, where all speakers go to relax). Sometimes I get the feeling that if stuff didn't go wrong for me, the entire universe would stop suddenly and disappear. I am that critical to Operations.

With nowhere else to go, I hooked up my old desktop. It booted! It did not explode. It did not have kernel panic (or kernel generalized anxiety). It did not shun me. For fun, I checked the last time it was run. Depending on file dates, alcohol, and potent pharmaceuticals, it's about 3-5 years. I remember this box kicking ass. Since I have no real memory, it's incredibly slow. After everything else is done, I have to build a new one. I'm getting too old for this shit.

The version of Xubuntu is very old. Very very old. Pre-Obama old. Depending on the version, you have to upgrade one by one, or every two versions. By next week, I'll be almost up to date!


Shopping List:

1. 2 full size mice
2. 24-ish inch monitor
3. new motherboard, processor, and RAM
4. 1 or 2 solid state drives, 1 laptop
5. a Sawzall for the next time I get mad
6. someone to follow me around and apologize for things I just said
7. Samsung tablet repair
8. sore throat drops from yelling

Not bad for a single day!