Washing Machine Beauty Pageant

Your love is like  slamming your finger in a car door

Michigan school superintendent is forced to deny rumor that LITTER BOXES were provided for students who are FURRIES after outraged mom claimed kids are being encouraged to identify as cats and dogs

Today I identify as  Bob Dylan

Today's most coherent headline

Caf ruling means Comoros without recognised keeper for last-16 tie live on BBC

 You need a new pillow

Why - the current one works great.

It's kinda old. Who knows what's crawling around inside.

Like me?

I bought you two to choose from.

So this is a done deal and you're just notifying me?

They're really nice.

I tried one once. Couldn't sleep. I'll try again (because there are no other pillows in the house).

How was the pillow? 

Tall.

How did you sleep? 

I didn't.

But those are the top of the line Memory Pillows. They remember better than we do.

I believe you.

I love them. I sleep well on them.

You mean when you sleep, right?

Ok, fine. What's wrong with them? 

Remember my old pillow? It was an old POS, about 3" tall?

Yes, it was old, ugly, and needed to be replaced.

The pillows that remember are about 6" tall.

Aren't they great? 

Aside from hurting my neck and not being able to sleep, they're wonderful. What we have here seems to be a problem in the vertical plane. Whereas your Remembering pillow is 6" tall and causes all sorts of trouble, my old pillow, which apparently threw itself out when I wasn't looking, only ventured 3" vertically, but performed flawlessly. Will your pillow remember if we saw it in half?

But we'll never find one like your old POS, thin pillow.

This presents a problem, doesn't it? Do you mean to tell me no store on earth has POS thin pillows?

I don't think so. I'll look.

["I'll look" translates to "You'll love that pillow. Just give it a chance. Don't sleep for a week and twist your neck around backwards."]

Meanwhile, at dinner.......

Here, have some cauliflower.

I don't like cauliflower.

It's good for you.

That's nice, but it doesn't change the fact that I don't like it.

It's innocuous.

It looks like brains.

Just try it.

I have tried it. I don't like it.

It has vitamins in it.

So does my vitamin bottle.

Just eat it for a week.

It makes my stomach vault it out at ridiculous speeds. It could take your head off.

One week.

If it makes me nauseous, why do you think I should eat it?

It's good for you.

I have a neat concept: allow me to decide what's good for me.

Oprah made pizza crust out of it.

I'll bet she didn't eat it.

I put some in your pasta last night.

I couldn't understand why your pasta made me want to decorate the walls. It's always been so good. I didn't want to say anything....

UPDATE: new pillow appeared. Looks to be same size as Deep Memory pillows.

Sometimes it's just me (?)  

I know I'm different than the other employees.

When I was little, my mom used to tell me I was different than the other boys. Now that I'm older, 'different' has a different definition.

At work, once a month, I receive a file. I add some specific information and post it to our group's file share. I sent out an email to let everyone know, with a link.

This was my first mistake.

In a recent meeting, everyone wanted to know where that file I used to put together is. [start of banging my head on the desk]

COWORKER 1: I need to get a copy of it.

ME: Look in the group's file share.

COWORKER 1: I liked when you sent it in spreadsheet format. I can work better with it.

ME: Look in the group's file share.

BOSS: I get a list every month

COWORKER 2: lefty used to send a file out every month

ME: Look in the group's file share.

COWORKER3: I go to a different place to look at it.

ME: That place is old and no longer updated, per the email I sent. Look in the group's file share.

[HUGE crash in my kitchen]

BOSS: Oh, the older list has info the newer doesn't have.

ME: Yes, that's old info. Ignore that.

COWORKER2: Well where do we find that?

ME: Look in the group's file share. TAP TAP TAP - is this thing on?

EVERYBODY: Yes, we can hear you.

ME: [so the roadblock here is understanding me, specifically that the file is in the group's file share, where every single one of files are]

BOSS: I noticed that you have a few versions of the file in the file share.

ME: Yes, they're labeled JANUARY, FEBRUARY, MARCH, etc.

BOSS: I want to delete the old files.

ME: [because no one in the group can tell the difference between clearly labeled months? Why is this a problem? Were my coworkers hired under the Special Initiative, where we hire people who have special needs? Oops, no. The special needs people have no trouble understanding this.]

BOSS: lefty - are you ok with this?

ME: [I try never to argue with the boss, because I like my job. But there has never been a reason to disagree with my boss since I started with the company.] No problem.  [shaking head, which hurts from banging it on the desk Feeling very dizzy.] 

BOSS: Ok, so we can keep the latest month's version only. Is everybody good with this? 

ME: [Ok, no, I am not ok with this. I work with a group of really intelligent people. We get awards for our work. Are you really going to tell me this is an issue? We have wasted an hour and a half of our precious meeting time on me telling people to go look in the place we keep all our files. It seems to be a serious roadblock. Do we need to bring in a consultant to explain this to everyone?]

BOSS: Ok, are we all good on this? 

Everybody: [total silence...crickets]

BOSS: Ok, we'll take it up at the next meeting.

ME: [internal voice: This is why people 'Go Postal' and kill their coworkers]

• Former Pope Benedict failed to act over abuse, new report finds
• just like every other one of them - rout them out from the top and start over

Flying AIDS News 

Booster shots needed against omicron, CDC studies show

Covid: Clashes at Belgium protest against restrictions

German Covid protests turn nasty in row over rules and vaccinations

Vaccine mandates: 'I lost my job for being unvaccinated'

Unvaccinated 5X more likely to get omicron than those boosted, CDC reports

Two cannabinoids have opposing effects on SARS-CoV-2 in culture

New Mexico asks Guard to sub for sick teachers amid omicron

This is a pretty substantial event, even with their lack of teaching certification.

I see this going off the rails, like Biden addressing Qanon

• MATH: Johnny has two AR-15s. Billy has one. How many rounds can Johnny fire?
• HISTORY: The Abrams tank is the most advanced tank ever made - discuss
• SOCIAL STUDIES: After a city defunds the police, who do they call when BLM peacefully loots and sets fire to businesses?
• CHEMISTRY: With airplane fuel at $13 per gallon, how much is wasted every time there is a cross-country 'training flight'? 
• GYM: Give me 20, MAGGOT!

So because work uses Windows, my machine doesn't work. I have to call Helpdesk.

You know you're in trouble when the Helpdesk recording says they're experiencing 'higher than normal call volumes.'

Then it asks you a bunch of questions you can't answer.

Then it asks you if you'd rather just hang up and have the system call you back at first availability.  This is a brilliant scheme on the part of Helpdesk. It works like this: you tell it to call you back and it doesn't. This takes call volume way down.

Eventually you talk to a human (hopefully). They're all in the US, thankfully, but sometimes their regional accents are confusing (Y'all).

When the technician pops up, she recites a paragraph or two that sounds like she's reading it mechanically. She should probably drop in a curse or two, maybe a death threat, to see if I'm listening.

No, this has not happened to anyone else. Just me.

Here's where it gets weird (no, really? just here?): the machines are locked down. I can't do much other than change backgrounds, which I haven't. I have a personal computer if I want to mess with stuff, so it's hands off the work machine. Yet it still drives into a wall and refuses to cooperate. My only theory is that the machine knows how I feel about Windows and breaks itself.

• Just a health reminder: most heart attacks occur while shoveling snow
• Exercise causes cancer
• please take care of yourself - I can't afford to lose any readers
• the CDC, which gets better drugs than the rest of us, says 90% of the US has poor diet, 25% don't exercise

Hippos can recognise their friends' voices

My cousin can, with 90% accuracy. We call her hippo-on-a-bus.

One of the greatest experiences of visiting California was the Sacramento Zoo. I saw the hippos and said, "Look, there's Jean!" Not only were we amused, several of the people around us laughed. I guess they knew her too.

• After 7 years, a spent Falcon 9 rocket stage is on course to hit the Moon
• We spend a lot of time blowing up the Moon. First we blew up something to hear it ring, then we bombed it from Earth, now it's a rocket stage.

Alien1: Kee-rist, they've done it again!

Alien2: Earth has once again thrown something at their moon.

Alien1: If they're not leaving trash, they're bombing it. Dirty species.

Alien2: They can't join the rest of us until they learn good stewardship. Have you seen the space around their planet?

Alien1: It's full of debris, plus spy satellites.

Alien2: It's a sick planet.

Alien1: I guess we better pack up and head home. We'll come back in a couple hundred years and see if they made any progress.

Alien2: I have 500 megaquarks on them weaponizing the moon. Alien3 says they destroy all life and all that's left is their moon and something called Keith Richards.

Alien1: Dude...... The Stones!

• Say you've got 1/4 of the US nuclear weapon stockpile - roughly 2500 warheads. Say it's at Naval Base Kitsap in Washington state (it is).
• How are you going to guard it? With dolphins, of course.
• eels aren't interested, who knew ferrets couldn't swim, and cats kept trying to set off the missiles.

Flying car wins airworthiness certification

This is the future, folks!

The carplane has a single BMW engine, so it won't use turn signals on the ground.

I was really curious about how the space issues were handled, but it requires a pilot license and is handled just like a plane.

The article mentions other companies are working on pilotless planes.

Call me a control freak, but I want a pilot there. I hope there's never a problem, but I want a pilot there, just in case. Large planes have up to three pilots.

I'm funny that way.

for only $92k, you can prepurchase a person-size drone to fly. No license needed.

This entire class will fail when it's discovered you can't give the finger to other flyers.

• Hactivists say they hacked Belarus rail system to stop Russian military buildup
• threaten to make New York City's subway run on time if not paid

SJWow Factor

Virginia Public School Students Made To Play ‘Identify Your Privilege’ Bingo

Samsung pulls ad with drag queen after backlash

M&Ms characters to become more inclusive

Faceyspaces Strikes Again

Sorry we're running late. As you might have read, we're experiencing more technical difficulties than we can shoot at with our available weaponry.



A Taiwanese hacker says he's going to delete Mark Zuckerberg's profile and stream it live. I'd watch it. Unfortunately it's being streamed on Faceyspaces itself.

Speaking of stupid, Faceyspaces engineers discovered a flaw on September 16th, which would have allowed hackers to take over fifty million accounts.

"This is a very serious security issue, and we're taking it very seriously, because we got caught" said CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Zuck (pronounced 'fuck') pointed out how sorry he is that he got caught, and promised swift action, because he'll get caught if he doesn't. The security team is being augmented, to avoid getting caught in the future.

Zuckerberg is up for a Nobel Peace Prize, but doubts he can reach the Peace Heights of Barack Obama, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for waging war across the globe.

UPDATE: Faceyspaces leaps to inaction and says that if people want to opt out, they should turn off 2 factor authentication. They should turn off an important safety feature. You can't make this stuff up.

• Perhaps I should've gone to college after all.  A professor, giving an intro to psychology course, accidentally ran porn instead of his video. The audience is described at being aghast. What group of 18 to 20 somethings is aghast at porn? Apparently students at the University of Toronto.
• One student had video of the accident and posted it online, where it was shared many times. Hmmmm.....
• The university said it was offering support to anyone who was disturbed. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Support! Break our the safe rooms, with soft pillows and puppies. And vagina hats.
• 10 students were home on Disability, 3 students were in Intensive Care, 5 were admitted to the Happy Place, and the course is booked solid for the next ten years.
• Education Pro Tip: stay away from the University of Toronto.

Gas prices in southern California are on the way to $4 gal.

Actual gas prices were $2 gal but the governor added a $2 gal tax for cleaning up some shit in San Francisco.

• An Italian man who slept with over 6,000 women just died. Italy mourns his loss.
• Mario Zanfanti died while having sex with a tourist one third his age. He died the way he lived.
• If you gotta go.....

War on Ants
The war continues. This particular battle happened in the kitchen. The clean kitchen, with no food laying out. Mrs lefty says, "If you see one ant, he has lots of friends you can't see." She put on her Sherlock Holmes hat, with the bill in the front and the bill on the back. This way the ants can't tell if she's coming or going. We got out our Secret Weapon<tm>, called Tero, or something like that. It's like really yummy cyanide they swarm on, eat, and carry back to their condos, apartments, and the Secret Ant Compound, where they go through a process called Eat and Die.  It's very technical. Part of it involves opening an odd plastic container, with "no spill packaging", which naturally wound up all over my shirt.

The process involves a bit of reality suppression, as they show up in numbers, even if you tape the bait on the ceiling. I don't want to discuss this any further.

Across the street, it looks like our neighbor has had it with the ants too. How do we know? There's a tank on his lawn, pointed at said house. Turns out it's a backup plan, as he's got some sort of Industrial Ant Stuff. This is a different method than Eat and Die.. the ants go for the bait and POOF - it puts tiny little dresses on them. The males are typically the raiders, so this embarrasses the hell out of them and they flee, fearing talk of their fetish, and sexual assault from the ants that like being in a fashionable frock. There are hundreds of books on the topic of Ant Dressing, which you can read in any ant library. Our neighbor said he'd let us know how it worked out. If so, we were free to use it. He didn't specify which... I'm hoping for the tank.

• Telegram desktop is a 'secure' messaging program. Unfortunately, it turns out to leak your private and public IP addresses. A leak in android is also possible. The vulnerability has been fixed.
• I've been suggesting Signal for encrypted messaging and phone calls for android and non-android phones. You can also put it on your desktop and sync it with your phone, so you can operate it from the desktop too. Do yourself a favor and install Signal. With FB, Zuck, Google, and the NSA listening to everything you do, why not use something that's incredibly difficult to crack?

Andy Warhol said something about everyone eventually getting their fifteen minutes of fame. The man could obviously see into the future. The latest reality show follows a number of spoiled rich kids sent to live as poor people. In case you think my characterization of spoiled rich kids is incorrect or personal, the commercial had one particular brat counting out $32,000 in pocketbooks (on one shelf among many). Oh, the horror.

Next up: rich people filling out the wrong tax forms and Daddy having to use his team of tax accountants work to solve this. The next show deals with the embarrassment and sheer horror of using the wrong fork. The show spends most of its time at the therapist's office, trying to work through a near fatal case of Social PTSD. As you read this, a new show is being pitched, where poor kids move in with rich families and hack into the family's finances, making them the poor family. In abject terror, rich people are phoning their buddies at the networks to have the show mothballed before it's accepted.

• So that global mass surveillance system to fight terror.... it's being used to spy on innocent UK citizens. Yes, ThermionicEmissions is correct again. We can't see into the future - if your government(s) puts in a spying system to fight 'terror', it will be used against you. As disturbing as this is in other countries, the US 4th Amendment guarantees against search and seizure. It has been violated. It is violated again and again.
• So let's get back to arguing republicans vs democrats, shall we? They both authorized this kind of thing.

From 2020 on, more than five million new Volkswagens will be fully connect to The Cloud. What could possibly go wrong? Lady - your Tiguan is trying to hack my router!

• God I love Windows. Forced to use it for work, I suffer from its aggravation. This morning it thought my second display was the primary display. It had gotten an 'update', of which I was unaware. Then it took my neatly arranged icons from the left side and moved them all to the right side, plus put them out of order. And this is just booting up. I'm waiting for it to decide the mouse is on the other side of the keyboard and to turn the display sideways. It locked me out last week, which I decided was a blessing. Oddly enough, this stuff doesn't happen at home on linux.
• No, at home on linux, I have a problem so weird that no one has even heard of it, much less knows how to go about solving it. And for once, I didn't do anything to cause it. I hope.

If the aliens have any doubt what we're up to, they don't even have to come to the planet... they just have to watch what happens to the moon when we get there. Nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman, godfather of UFO research, has the best description of mankind:

Apollo 13 did an experiment to figure out the moon's crust. It involved explosives. Within the past few years, we somehow found it necessary to actually bomb the moon, allegedly to look for water. I happen to know that in 2020, we're going to bomb the moon to reaffirm the presence of moon dust. The astronauts were clearly filmed in moon dust, but we need to make sure it's still there. There is a proposal for 2025, which involves shooting the moon with a very large nuclear weapon, to see what happens when the moon splits in half. [HINT: women's periods will last 56 days]

• There is absolutely no reason I should like Procol Harum, except that Robin Trower was in the group for a bit. Yet completely without guitar pyrotechnics, I really enjoy them. Check them out... A Salty Dog is one of my favorites, from 1969, featuring a very young Robin Trower.  You'll definitely recognize this one. Lastly, Conquistador is a hit from waaaaaay back.

I was thinking of new interesting things to add to the blog.

One recurring feature idea was Words the Spellchecker Didn't Understand. The generously provided spellchecker by Google (they don't charge for it or for the space to blog) apparently didn't cost them anything, as it's European (flavour, colour, pyjamas), and doesn't understand words (internet, tv, Zuckerburg). It will not learn from my corrections, so I get to see them each time I spellcheck. 

So I won't be adding this feature, as it will take twice the time it takes me to make all this shit up in the first place.