Captivity - Day 47 The dead are messing with us

The weather is more brown than green today. I'm not sure whether this is a weather cycle or it felt more like a brown day. It's not even a nice shade of brown, which means that instead of the autumn leaves, shit will be falling from the clouds.

Attack of the Synchronized Mowers is still going on, but they stopped selling tickets and are now performing free, due to the Flying AIDS. The audience itself has to wear masks, but not the grass cutters.


The paranoid think everyone's out to get them. We medicate them.
BUT, just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

THEREFORE, if you hallucinate, it doesn't mean the hallucinations aren't there.
The problem comes when you mention the hallucinations. The quantum physics people tell you that simply mentioning them calls the hallucinations into being (assuming they don't exist already). This always makes things fun when you see the doctor, who can't tell if you were hallucinating or are hallucinating now. If the doctor thinks you might have been hallucinating, you get meds and begin doing what the medical folks call the Thorazine Shuffle. This is what happens when you take too many antipsychotic medicines. You start to look like a zombie, which, while handy for video games and certain tv shows, doesn't look good on your work history (unless you work in federal government, at which point you're guaranteed an upper-level position).

When the dog gets into bed, you can plainly see her. When you can also see the dog get into bed on a different side of the bed, you have to wonder which dog was real, if any. Given the history of the dog, the one that isn't foaming at the mouth, trying to kill you, has a better chance of being your actual dog. If both dogs are foaming and your dog doesn't foam, it's best to get the f- out of your bed at once.

You can also look at the stairwell and say to yourself that the laws of physics do not allow the railing to sway in that manner, at which point you're back to the Thorazine Shuffle. The only way to get past this is to tell the doctor the hallucinations are all pleasant, non-threatening ones. "Oh, I see flowers and stuffed animals" instead of "I see Ozzy's 80th birthday" or "Those street signs are gendered."

The next day, a mother or wife asks you to clean that washy-scrubby-dishy-cleany thing you put on your hand to do the dishes. These things have no actual name. She says that the procedure will go better when you remove that bug that's crawling across the cleany thingie.  This does not help you, because most of the cleany bits are moving, causing a metaphysical dilemma and total breakdown of your belief system.

And that, Your Honor, establishes my sanity in this sanity hearing.




You better watch out - SWAT and Sheriffs are breaking down doors to arrest people for working.

A gun was pulled at a bank the other day over an argument about social distancing. WHEN WILL WE go back to the time when guns were strictly to rob the damn bank, not to assault other customers??

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Uranus) said that as the state prepares to reopen retail, 'We're not going back to normal.'  This man is obviously a body-snatched fraud - California was NEVER normal.

Captivity - Day 38 The silence of jackhammers

Up early, it seems to be a combination of gray and brown, but moreso gray with a chance of  brown at some point, eventually. People are looking out their windows, expectantly, waiting for any sign of weather. It is true: there's a lot of weather out there.

Did you do anything special over the weekend?
Me either.
But we were thinking about it, so we get 10 points.
You know life has taken a bad direction when you're looking forward to a trip to McDonald's. I'd gladly pour a Wendy's frosty over my head for the chance to stand outside a Wendy's, perhaps a citizen, pretending he's driving a car. Anything that will get me closer to the pickup window. If they think I'm a few cans short of a 6 pack, maybe they'll let me up front of the line.


We're all thrilled about the shelter-in-place order from 49 states. They voted to contain California.


Lost in the PANIC over The Flying AIDS is homeschooling.
If Mom and Dad had to work outside, homeschooling was a bitch. If they worked from home, homeschooling was a bitch. Some kids' entire interaction with their parents is "When is dinner" or "Yo, bitch - where's dinner." And that's with Dad.

So, with a large jar of peanut butter and 2 spoons, off they went to 'school.' Homeschooling hopefully produces a child with critical thinking skills, much the opposite of public schools. They also get medical weed to smoke in the back yard. When their parents go back to work, the house will turn into a life size Jackson Pollock.


Wife wanted to be outside in the worst way, and she was. The dog and I had to pull her back in, while she was holding onto the door knob. Even a couple of HSN boxes would make her day, but alas, nothing showed up. She tried to chew through the metal door. She wanted to check out shoe sales, but we reminded her no stores were open (because of Idiot Governor). We may pack the car til nobody can see us in the car, and take a long trip. To Wendy's.


Who says you have to shave? Bathe?


Virus studies said there was virtually no way the Flying AIDS made it out of a lab. Last week, it was possible it escaped from a lab. At the beginning, it might've escaped from a lab.  At this point they're throwing darts at a board with the thrower blindfolded, in a dark room.



Businesses throughout the country are hammering their own Idiot Governors to be allowed to open. Kinda sad. Thus far, Idiot Governor has done nothing. Maybe he thought of it intensely, who knows? Perhaps the toothpick lobby finally got to him.

Captivity - Cay 27 Run to the light

I got a look at what it will be like when I'm old yesterday, after proving that people can't fly (at least with a mower). I looked like a 90 year old, with mower-related injuries. Since it was a very real injury, I want to use it to my advantage - no mowing for at least 10 years. My psychic abilities tell me this will work almost as well as Joe Biden's mind, or Trump's attempts at subtlety.

I can't help noticing that it was very early this morning.

Statistics, that I just made up, says 1 in 7 in New York residents may have the Flying AIDS.  Because of this, we need to put a fence around California.

Today I identify as  the same thing I identified as yesterday, and likely the same thing I will identify as tomorrow.

It's a bad time to be in PA. Generally.

You want to avoid public transportation. Last week, 10 police stormed a bus to remove a lady not wearing a mask. Last night, a man shot 3 teenagers in self-defense. While the system is giving out masks, perhaps they should switch to bulletproof vests. UPDATE: riders are stealing the masks.

Idiot Governor made masks mandatory and when he was done, said he plans to veto legislation allowing some businesses to run. ACHTUNG DUMBKOPF!  Since Herr Fuhrer mandated masks, let's open the businesses.

Whenever you think Idiot Governor, thank your deity that you're not in California, where the governor is handing out $500 checks to illegal aliens. Statistically there has to be somebody with some sense in the entire state.

Idiot Governor will quietly approve a measure next week that requires all cars to wear masks. 

In Philly, where health workers are needed, they're being furloughed because the Flying AIDS is hurting the hospitals' bottom line.

Masks, as mandated, are still hard to come by. Suggested is making your own. Sometimes you have to use alternate materials:

• car stereo (remove from car first)
• China (turnabout is fair play)
• dining room table
• Aunt Margaret, who you never really got along with
• bra (over 38C for maximum protection)
• If you want maximum social distancing, Judge Judy (come near me and I'll talk to you)
• steal someone else's

I need to make a music CD for the car. For some reason, probably because I don't work at a place with them, I'm completely out. Where does one get blank CDs? Amazon does not consider them essential; my car does. Drug stores have them, at $9.99 for one. Hey - there's Best Buy! They now have curbside service. WTF is curbside service for audio? Do you yell across the lot to any convenient employee "HEY, I WANT SOME BLANK CDs"? He goes inside and comes out with the closest thing they have: a home audio system, with couch and 74" tv. No, No, No, you explain, and show him a CD in your car.  The lightbulb goes off over Darwin's head. He returns with an iPad.  Darwin suggests you use the app. The app wants permissions to your contacts and your underwear size. Finally you give up and go home. You order over the web, which tells you that it's ok to pick up. In the parking lot of the store you were just at. In fact, your cheerful sales associate, Darwin, will be happy to help you. You go home and wait til Amazon starts selling everything else.

People are pissed. People are concerned about privacy and government bullshit. People are protesting - in the streets. It makes me proud that people finally care enough to actually turn off the Wednesday Night Furries and DO SOMETHING. That is all.

Elephantiasis at the Zoo

Want to help keep ads and crapware out of your computer?
Replace the HOSTS file.
Head here, download the file, and follow the directions. Works on Windows, linux, probably Mac. There's an explanation of how it works, if you care. It's updated monthly or so.  Nothing's perfect, but it will definitely help.

ANDROID users: if you use UC Browser, uninstall. It breaks several goog mobile app rules, and puts more than 500 million users at risk. Try Firefox, Bromite, Tor, and Privacy Browser (from f-droid repository). Privacy Browser is really what it says, doing more to block crap than any other browser.

• The king of Thailand has stripped Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi of her royal consort title, as well as all royal titles, decorations, status in the royal guard, and her military ranks. Also the name that was really hard to spell.
• Royal consort?  Damn... I wonder if Mrs lefty would allow that
• We have that here, but it never had an official title.

Know what would be neat?
Good phone service.
The providers have no trouble charging you exorbitant fees, yet there is no service guarantee, especially quality of service. I just dialed a call and the phone sat there, deliberately doing its impression of a tree. I heard it dial, unlike a tree, but that was it. What's going on when this happens?

Then there's the coverage, or lack of thereof. If you live in a remote area, good luck... you're probably fortunate to have landlines that work during a storm. And electricity.  How about dropped or fuzzy calls? They're certainly not rare.

With cell phones being around for longer than many people, things should really be sorted out by now.  We're being bent over a table by phone and cable providers. Incidentally, people outside the US laugh at us... our internet speeds are lower and way more expensive, cable is way too expensive, and pharmaceuticals are astronomically more expensive. Cable companies operate at the city level, paying politicians to see that there are only one or two providers available, so the price can be kept high. If competition were allowed, the price would drop. It's good to be an American.

• Former Faceyspaces workers: we routinely suppressed conservative news

Dear lefty

• Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?
• Because he was dead.

ThermionicEmissions asked its California Consultant why electricity was turned off on purpose in northern California (called Public Safety Power Shutoff events). They had a lot of fires, which turned out to be the power company's fault, so a power outage was called, so as not to cause more fires.

Errr.... ummm... what civilized part of the country shuts electricity off? What civilized power distributor causes fires?

About 5 minutes after the above, I read that the PG&E CEO said California can expect blackouts for a decade.

• Wife made a snack for dinner, at around 3am. I came down to a baking pan full of.... things. Breaded things. I figured I'd tempt fate and try one. It was batter coated and had a unique texture.  I still have no idea what it was.

After the horrible incident of racism in British football, Business got vigilant. Two racists in the crowd were arrested.
Ummmmm...... good thing the US freedom of speech hasn't eroded this far.

• An Oregon engineer wants to change traffic lights so yellow is longer, avoiding many tickets.

No thank you, I'd rather test out new Rough-O toilet paper, made from real trees.

• Did you hear about the defrocked priest?
• He got thrown out because he refused to molest little boys.

I have a vague memory of, at some ridiculous hour of the morning, my parents' phone calling mine. Mine called my brother. His called the parents. The phones didn't ring - they just said there was a call. Checking the logs, there was no outgoing call on any of them. All at the same time.  Go ahead, explain that.

There's an awful lot of talk today about Russian groomed and funded candidates, meddling in elections, and undermining of our electoral process.

We'll just comment that if you read the entire Mueller Report, the only major ticket that didn't receive any ads from Moscow was ours.

-Libertarian Party

Today I identify as a bottle of horseradish mustard




I have no trouble whatsoever with people wanting to change their gender or much of anything else, so long as it harms no one. However, competing in sports is one exception. Male and female bodies are different - it's a fact of nature. So when a trans person competes, there's an advantage for male to female because they still have a male body, albeit softened a bit.

Heroes of the Stupid

The New Jersey Department of Taxation wants to remind everyone that pumpkins used for decorations are subject to sales tax. Pumpkins used for food or in food preparation are tax free.





SJW Shenanigans

ANY GENDER CAN GET THEIR PERIOD - Twitter

The Seattle school district is planning to infuse all K-12 math classes with ethnic-studies questions that encourage students to explore how math has been “appropriated” by Western culture and used in systems of power and oppression.


@ white trans people
Being trans doesn't absolve you of your privilege.
Yes you are marginalized.
You're also still white.

Legalize Lawn Darts!

WHat - you don't capitalize the second letter of sentences?
I keep trying to figure out why I do this. I suspect it's my ADD, smacking my dyslexia around.



The Vatican says people cannot choose or change genders.
This will come as quite a shock to the people who already have.

Perhaps they say Outrageous Stuff to take attention away from their hobbies.




Dear lefty:

• I heard that children as young as two are using the internet.
• At least they have an excuse for acting like a two year old.

The British conservative party (The Screamin' Starchies) introduced the first 47 candidates to replace the other lady who left. The issue is not that there are 47 candidates.. the issue is that one of the candidates is mildly attractive, which has thrown the entire election into chaos. The British Dental Association is involved, asking how they can possibly live up to the standard of perfectly normal teeth. The news outlets are looking to hire style commentators. The Chinese already have cheap knockoffs of her dresses. The British Hat Consortium has come unglued because she hasn't been seen wearing one of those conservative, laid back hats, the size of a small horse.

The candidate in question, Lady Fah Fah Fah Hosehead Knickers, blamed the entire brouhaha on Trump, silencing the controversy permanently.




Da Blooz

Funny how stuff works.
I came about my blues lessons by second generation blues players, like Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton; only I didn't know it. They were simply idols.

Around 1980, Stevie Ray Vaughan broke and took heads off with his fire and strong blues playing. SRV introduced the blues to everyone, including people who never heard of it.

Stevie made me curious, so I went back to do some exploring.
Listening to the three Kings, Albert, BB, and Freddie (RIP all), I began to see where SRV picked up his licks. Albert King immediately drew my attention because I recognized where Stevie got most of his licks. There's audio and video evidence of the two performing together, which must be seen. T Bone Walker was an early bluesman who had a heavy influence on future rockers, as did the spiritual Robert Johnson. He was the subject of Crossroads, with Ralph Macchio and Steve Vai.  If you listen to SRV before he hit big, you'd hear the influence of Eric Clapton, which jumps right up and grabs your ear.

It's mind-expanding to listen to the old masters and realize where my second generation heroes got it from. They sped it up and distorted the tones, but it's all there - they just renamed it Rock.

• Once again, a reminder to make sure you don't expose Remote Desktop Protocol to the internet. There is a patch from Microsoft - install it. There are at least two very serious backdoors that will infect your computer and make your information no longer yours. RDP has no security. It should not be anywhere near the internet.

California, a small planet west of Arizona, will be extending full health benefits to illegal aliens.

People keep re-electing these politicians. Apparently they, like Bernie Sanders, believe everything is free. The designation 'illegal' has no meaning for them. TIP: Identify as an illegal alien; you'll get full benefits. Within a year, I expect to have a pass for robbing banks too.

• Oxfam, a popular charity, got caught during an investigation with a culture of sexual abuse of the people they're supposed to be helping, some children. The company ignored the behavior. Oxfam said they're very sorry (for getting caught) and they'd do everything they could (to avoid getting caught). Further, to fix the problem, they will be hiring the Catholic church's public relations firm.

Joe Biden came out of the gate swinging. I prefer the Biden who did Goofy Stuff... it's difficult to take him seriously, especially when there are no women to fondle. It must be like when Al Franken went into politics... a comic trying to get people to take him seriously. Trump's response: did someone teach him to read?

All of this has been verified in a Quinni.... Quinnipee.... Quinnipeepee... popular poll.





If you have a Whirlpool dryer in the UK, you are advised to unplug it in an immediate fashion, lest it catch fire. Whirlpool said it's very sorry (for getting caught) and safety is its first priority. They're proud of their record, only taking four years to deal with the problem, and only after the government got involved. They are committed to fixing the problem (not getting caught again) and have turned down all requests to appear on the news or at polo matches. They will modify any defective units (about 500,000) or offer a discount on a new dryer, which will catch fire more spectacularly. All new Whirlpool appliances come with fire extinguishers, which are illegal in the UK because the firefighter union complained it takes away jobs.

Coke and M&Ms - a Manly Breakfast

Overheard at the mall: "did you have your comb for the dinosaur?"

Overheard at most of the mall's cell phone stores: WOULD YOU PICK A PHONE, DAMMIT? We have to eat sometime this week.

Funny I should mention the mall and phones, because we just came back from the phone store at the mall. One of the financial Einsteins in the house realized that if we both have the same carrier, the bill would be considerably less. I had problems with her carrier, so I fled. Years later, she's joining me. Or is supposed to. Her phone developed what can only be called encephalitis.... it scrambles the contacts' name, phone number, picture, and bra size. It does this randomly, so she can never be sure who she called. While this may work for people who like to make new friends, they don't live in our house and are not welcome. I tested her phone for virii and it's clean. I looked online and talked to Phone People, none of whom had ever heard of this, so it was time for a new phone. In some sort of ironic happenstance, I sometimes come up as her gynecologist. Or at least her last name. Bless her, she somehow knows who the phone thinks the contact is.

After calling AAA and ordering one of those flatbed trucks with a winch, I got her into the car to get a new phone. She sat down on a comfy chair, as did I. We continued to sit, while I pointed out some features of the 4 non-iDevices she could buy. For a major phone carrier, there isn't what you'd call a good range of phones. You can have a flip phone, a midline phone, or a $1,000 Samsung. I should have stopped talking because she was obviously in mental contact with them, figuring out which would be best for her. By all means, don't listen to the guy who researched the hell out of the available phones before buying his. Sometimes, 30 minutes too late, I know when to shut up.

ME: What are you looking for - a large screen?
HER: that's part of it.
ME: what's the other part?
HER: ('what am I doing here?' look) I like my phone.
ME: if you like playing "Guess the Contact" each time you have to use it, I won't argue. The new ones are all faster and larger than yours.
HER: ('am I still here?' look)

Since everyone gets nailed by a salesperson the moment they walk in the door, we were left alone the whole time. We had to locate one, but two were busy with customers and the third with his Faceyspaces account. Eventually he got bored with cat pictures and offered to help us out. She couldn't transfer her number without several Super Encrypted, Triple Secret Probation numbers, known only to the phone's owner, meaning no one had ever seen them before. She called her carrier and got disconnected 4 times. It almost hurt to not say "See, this is why you need to change carriers," but I value my reproductive apparatus too much. The numbers were also in her carrier app on the phone. Only no one had ever operated the carrier app. Is it always this difficult buying a new phone? Her carrier also has a store in the mall, as required by law.

So we went up to the 40th floor of the mall and passed the carrier's store, as required by law.  We were both really hungry, so against better judgment, we went to the food court. Well, we were supposed to, but everyone wanted to stop and look in each store, then each window display and didn't I see those red sneakers and we'll have to go back for those pink flamingo bedsheets and .. AREN'T WE HUNGRY ALREADY? Yeah, but did you see those red sneakers? The mall redid the food court a while ago, and they did a great job, except in filling it with stores that you'd buy food from without fear of poisoning. The only place I'd eat at was closed, this being the Lord's day. We had our choice of Nonames Pizza, Sushi Ptomaine Palace, Chinese Great Restaurant, and Cajun Chinese Great Restaurant. And naturally, Starbucks. This is the only mall in which a Wendy's closed. Of course this was the Wendy's that told me they ran out of ketchup. The next time I went, they ran out of fries...maybe closing was a gift to consumers. How does one of the largest fast food chains on the PLANET run out of fries? Did the health inspectors find roaches that the employees were smoking? Were they deemed too stupid to remain open? Since there were no ice cream stores, we gave up. In spite of me telling Faceyspaces Salesman to hold til we got the requested info, I got a new phone plan, but there's still only me on it. I got 4 gigs of data, but have yet to use 1. I have unlimited texting and talking but never text or talk. I'm the perfect cell phone customer.... so long as the phone works, I'm ok. I don't really use anything I pay for.. I wonder if there's an internet only device that doesn't make phone calls and allows 10 texts per month. Oh wait, there IS a device like that - a tablet. Fortunately I'm not fat enough to have the size pockets required for a tablet.

While I sit here sweating, with frozen feet, I start wondering why I'm sitting here sweating, with frozen feet. In bed, I need a blanket over the bottom 12" of me. Go ahead - make something of that. The other day was fun: I was freezing at warm home temps. By the end of the day, I felt fine, and it was cold in the house. Perhaps my internal thermostat is having a silent argument with the house thermostat. It certainly wouldn't be the weirdest thing happening in the house, by far, especially since the glass that took a leap off the table as my friend walked by. Or the way the house seems to move away from the street, in almost imperceptible increments.

• Ebay wrote to tell me they have a lefty Ed Sheeran guitar on auction. What is an Ed Sheeran guitar? Should I be afraid? 

California, the Land of Weird, never fails to astound the world. In fact, aliens from other solar systems routinely tune in California because even they can't believe what goes on there (and they travel using wormholes, which are about to be outlawed in California). Governor Jerry Brown (D - The Happy Place) signed legislation 'that fights childhood obesity by mandating that restaurants and fast food spots may no longer list sugary drinks on their kids' menus.' The only drinks they can list is(sic) water and milk.

The Californians who don't defecate in the street are very happy about this. The other 49 states just shake their heads and continue mumbling. The aliens are howling. 

As for me, I'm naturally torqued off about it. It is not the job of government to look after health by mandating stuff on or off menus. They can't produce usable health insurance, outside or through the government, so I don't trust them to take on the herculean task of Menu Mandating.

The ever-helpful legislators say this is necessary to keep children healthy.

Yes, because the air quality is certainly fine. Only about 1% of them defecate on the street, and they're in northern CA. Hot dogs, burgers and deep fried salted potatoes are perfectly healthy - just not sugary drinks.  Mind you, parents can still order the deadly sugary drinks for their children, but if they're listed on the kids' menu, it could cost the restaurant $500. The thinking man's solution is to stop providing kids' menus. This won't work because California legislators don't think. Because they don't think, they don't understand the repercussions.. what's going to happen when children, who are told there's no soda, see their parents drinking soda? The howling and screaming will be unearthly, which will force legislators to mandate hearing protection or sound-absorbing walls.

Even sadder with be the people holding up banks.... Give me all the money: I have a sugary drink and I'm not afraid to drink it!

A few years back, some miscreant in high office in New York made soda cups over 32oz illegal (to fight childhood obesity, even though adults buy them).  Ebay opened a market specially for vintage large cups. Before that, Philadelphia mandated calorie count on all menus... if you don't know that Deep Twice Refried Battered Onion Loaf Bits are a heart attack on a plate, perhaps you should keep stuffing your face with them. It's ok - the restaurant has the mandatory defibrillator.

I don't know about you, but I'm a big boy, entitled to and capable of making my own decisions about what to shove into my amazingly huge trap. This BS legislation is silly interference in business, like forcing a bakery to bake a cake for two same-gendered goldfish occupying the same bowl. Not only is it silly - no one told the goldfish you can't eat cake in water. But seriously folks, you produced your kids (most of you anyway) and it's your job to raise them as you see fit. All the information you need is available for you to make informed decisions. This is yet another intrusion, putting the government in place of you, the parents.  Meanwhile, have you seen these legislators? They need laws to protect them from Adult Obesity.

Hi, we're from the government and we're here to help you.

• Iran wants the world to know it's mad, and it's doing so by burning the American flag. Whenever Iran (or Iraq) is mad, they burn the American flag. When the Lord High Kahkah is constipated, they burn the American flag. When some other country that doesn't matter invades Iran, it burns the American flag. I smell a Trump joke in the making.
• Iran has a Special Peoples' Revolutionary Rabble Squad for just this purpose. 99% of the time, their streets are empty. When there's the slightest sign of unrest or the Lord High Kahkah sneezes, they call out the Squad. They show up with Iranian flags, lighter fluid, and crates of American flags (made in China).  Except for Iqbal. Iqbal is a Special Iranian, and tends to show up with the wrong flag or peanut butter instead of lighter fluid. They bring him along because it makes them feel better (and the peanut butter is mighty tasty).

Speaking of Iran, I'd like to make an appeal for sanity around US politics.

            _____Yes, I'm aware of what I just said.

We're of different faiths, locations, and degrees of baldness, yet we manage to get along (or quietly don't get along). The recent and current situation is downright disgusting.  In case any of the troublemakers read this blog (stop laughing), I mean NO VIOLENCE. The end does not justify the means. You have no divine right to commit whatever crimes you wish. As in war, God is not really on your side.

These words do not denote any particular political affiliation, although republican and democrat spring to mind. This time it's the followers, not the politicians. A potential nominee shouldn't require Secret Service protection, nor should the children of other potential politicians. This is ugly and nasty, and we're talking American politics here. 

Our system has ways built in to deal with dissent. Protest, bothering your reps, and even voting. First Amendment protections don't apply to blocking streets, buildings, or bridges. Nor rioting or burning down buildings. You have no right to make anonymous threats, in person threats, threaten family members, or organize violence. We have incredibly dirty politics and some really shameful examples of pols screwing the people, but this is beyond the pale. Let the politicians be slime: have some self-respect.

My brilliant wife observed that the violence will continue in order to get their candidate into office, so the new bitching can start, along with the efforts to get rid of THAT set. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity (attributed to Albert Einstein). So go vote for democrats, get pissed, complain, then vote for republicans. Then complain, so replace them with democrats.  This has been going on as long as there was voting, yet we continue to expect a different result. Everybody wants CHANGE, yet no one will vote for it. The government continues to get bigger and bigger, spending more of your money every year. Civil rights are being eaten away. You are a subject of the government, not its boss. Your words, typing, surfing and phone calls are subject to unwarranted spying. Even when there's a warrant, it's complete BS. This is the result of voting for who we've been voting for. Does no one see this?

Hey, maybe those Libertarians deserve another look.
There are other parties too. None of them will get into office until you vote for them.

• During work, I listen to music, to quiet the internal voices. You don't want them out, trust me. Observations:
• A man who got his due around Woodstock but should be a household name: Leslie West (Leslie Weinstein, Mountain). He's done a lot of work, with a lot of friends, lost a leg, and plays those notes so tastefully. They sustain. The man means what he plays.
• Another word for Stone Temple Pilots. The band that made all sorts of albums with Scott Weiland up front. No two songs were alike. In fact, no two songs sounded like the same band. They had a talent for impersonation too. They could do the Doors, jazz, way too screamy rock, and really beautiful melodies (that didn't make the radio). They had all sorts of odd harmonies, which Scott continued on his solo albums. It was weird in general, but pleasantly weird. Very different from STP and most other bands. The song I heard today sounded close to Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman) and so unfamiliar that I had to look to see who it was. There's a new lead singer, as Scott overdosed and died, but I haven't heard much of them. He could definitely sound like Scott.

We men are shallow, sometimes stupid, and very easily manipulated. Show us a pair of boobies, even promise to show us boobies, or just a pretty woman, and we'll do whatever you want.

Although I'm generally different, I'll admit to being easily manipulated.

There's a commercial that annoys most sentient beings, for something like a credit card, but I never remember the product in ads. I discovered one female in the background who knocked me out: tall, leggy, big hair, heels. Unlike the rest of men on the internet, I did not go searching to find out who she is, but rest assured others have, possibly erecting (sorry) a web page in her honor. Dammit, now I have to look. Only I don't remember the product, still. She was carrying a pizza, automatically making her more attractive. I traced this back to one of the commercial's earlier scenes, with people eating. 

I don't know this woman. I will never know this woman. But I put a few ounces of actual effort into looking at her. I can't even turn my head from the tv when it's on. Yes, I'm a guy - a really sad but normal example.  What kind of Stupid Stuff do you do? I know of one female reader, but she's immune to advertising too.

• Pro Tip: If you happen to find yourself 60' in the air, on top of one of those high rise building size fuel refinery tanks, don't smoke. Actually, go ahead and smoke, but make sure everybody in the blast radius is evacuated first.

I have this theory that when a person hits an incredibly high degree of stupidity, they self-immolate. Either no one has hit that level yet or my theory requires more thought.

• Don't forget the Philly Fall Guitar show, which isn't in Philly, and doesn't feel like fall. The date has already passed, but I wanted to remind you for next July and November. I already attended it, unless it was canceled. I cried because there were so many vintage lefty guitars I couldn't afford. Then I woke up.

The good news is that GAB, the right-leaning social network, is back up. They secured a new provider which supports free speech. Again, like them or not, we have a duty to protect free speech. Ever Vigilant.

• a man coming into an Irish airport had his luggage searched and was questioned in depth about the metal thing in his bag. It was a faucet from a sink and was confiscated because it was considered a weapon. Is their water that bad?  The next fellow lost his hacksaw blade. They're not well in Ireland: security OR people who carry hacksaw blades in their luggage. And they don't come with live subtitles.
• Me own mudder was stopped with a tretening amount o water and some weapons grade hand moisturizer.
• There's an interesting airport security job I saw on tv. Travelers are allowed to have porn on their laptops, but obviously nothing illegal (like anything involving children). The security person has to go through all the porn to make sure it's legal. I inquired about the job, but there's a backlog of 1,117 applicants and there is no salary. Plenty of benefits, though.....

Very recently, Muslims formed a human shield around synagogues, to prevent violence (Israel, I think). They raised $200k for victims. That's some good stuff. My hat is off to them. Even the Jews aren't shielding their synagogues. Quite frankly, I'm not human shielding any building, at least until I get automatic weapons.

• It's black and rainy outside today. Still. There's no light coming through the windows. The neighbors asked us to close the shades because we're letting all the light out.
• But I need to include something positive, lest you think I'm 100% negative: it went from 53 and raining to 63 and raining. I feel much better now.
• It was much nicer on Mars.

My dear new dog turns out to be even smarter than we thought... I asked if she likes the space heater, and she turned around and looked at it. She's starting to realize that my leg, with which she wants to be more than friends, wants little to do with her, so she's taking it out on a sofa pillow. The sofa pillow I use for naps. Perhaps we should wash it or something.

This is the only dog I've seen who does not lay on the floor. It's the couch or a chair for her. It's fun to watch, until she comes in from the rain and mud.

Since she was a stray, we don't have an age, other than 3-5 years. So she winds up to be a 3-5 year old hyperactive puppy. She's into absolutely everything. At least she's an equal opportunity shredder: the other night I removed a hardback book from her shedding. So she went to the magazine behind it. When I took that, she went after the weekend circulars. She loves her new home, even when parts of it need to be removed from her mouth.



Faceyspaces is at it again, and this time it's a real winner:  People You May Know. It suggests people who have been physically near you. This stuff is getting sicker by the month. Read it and weep. All sorts of new information about you will be revealed to other Facebookies (and stalkers, police, friends, enemies, ad people, information brokers, etc). The author tells of a father who went to a meeting for suicidal teens and one of the teens popped up as someone he might know. I know we don't have any Facebookers here, but tell your friends and family (that actually listen to you). Some say privacy is dead, but there are steps you can take to prevent things from getting worse. I'm not sure turning off Location will help here, as FB can (and will) get the location information from cell towers. The only sure way to prevent this is to turn the phone off [shudder]. While pondering this, read about the larger view of Faceyspaces.

Which reminds me - if you use wireless, you want to turn that off on your phone the moment you leave the house. Let's say your home network is called BOB'S HOME NETWORK. When you leave the house, your phone gets to feeling abandoned and keeps asking for BOB'S HOME NETWORK.  Are you BOB'S HOME NETWORK? I need to find BOB'S HOME NETWORK. Oh, BOB'S HOME NETWORK - where are you?  It will keep doing this until you get back home. All wireless systems (and hackers, and listeners, etc) have access to this. Stores are now collecting this information and matching it to other information they collected, building the perfect profile of you, then selling the information for profit. You're not getting a penny, by the way.

• While we're talking about information, I want you to stop before you type any information into any site on the web. Ask yourself if putting this information into the wild is safe (even if you're using https). When you have a text chat on Faceyspaces, in private, assume it will be monitored or at least looked at. If you like sexting someone directly, the service will read it. If you talk about doing something nasty, they have direct access and will read it. Never assume privacy the moment you type something. Always assume it will be read and behave accordingly.

Hey - how about a nationwide privately-owned biometrics system? One company has fingerprint data, the other facial recognition data. There is a reason I tell you about this stuff. The future is here and it's worse than you imagined. Worse than some novel about a dystopian future, featuring tumbleweeds, a tv that watches you, and mechanical comfort elephants that talk. I leave no one behind me when I stop being alive, but you might have children...

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.

No, You're Fat

There's a lot of Weird Shit happening in the world today, especially of the Weird Social Variety<tm>. For lack of better definition, let's call it Fat Pride.

When you see a 'woman of size', wearing clothes made for a woman of size, they say they're comfortable in their skin. Mrs leftystrat, a former woman of size, used to say to me that it was nice that these women were comfortable with their size - you go, girl. It only took one catalog of swimwear for women of size for both of us to agree this was Not Right. After the lingerie catalog for women of size, we were both shocked and put off by the pictures. Don't get me wrong: there should be lingerie in any size that people will buy; but I'd rather not see it in ads. If you haven't seen it, seek it out. It simply doesn't look right. There's a reason the Victorias models are slim.

I don't usually have much to say on the social aspects of this, but being comfortable with or proud of your (large) skin can normalize fat. How comfortable are they going to be with their first heart attack? Will this send the message to large people that it's ok to be large? It's very clearly unhealthy, as established by Medical Science, since way back when Medical Science was young (and thin). Fat hits arteries and restricts blood flow to organs, most notably the brain.

I'm big on the freedom of speech thing and this is ok with me from a speech perspective... whatever the market will bear. I would just prefer, personally, that people don't think this is ok - for their own health. If you want to weigh north of 300lbs (453 liters Canadian), go for it. Just don't explode in public: that stuff's damn near impossible to clean.

Having said that, I am not a Person of Size, but portions of me are growing. Unstopped, who knows how large they will grow. I'd prefer not to complete the Science on that and have taken steps to stop the growth. When I stay steps, I am not speaking physically. What Science hasn't discovered yet is that exercise causes cancer. I do not wish to be on the leading edge of that discovery, so I strenuously avoid it.

What I have done to arrest the growth is to replace one soda per day with a large glass of water. Well, I tried. Have you experienced water when it's not 90 degrees or you haven't completed a marathon jog up the steps? It tastes like... water. Throwing a lemon wedge into it makes all the difference in the world. Throwing some Arnold Palmer iced tea/lemonade into it would make an ever bigger difference, but something tells me this isn't a good idea. This is a huge step for me and I do not take it lightly. Thus far I've replaced a soda with water damn near every day of the week  (*except weekends and a few days during the week). We traditionally eat well, avoiding fast and boxed foods, preparing most meals ourselves  (*except malts, Marshall's favorite). Logically, all things remaining the same, the weight gain would point to exercise, but as I said, cancer won't be the thing to take me out. Or a heart attack.



Next week, ThermionicEmissions reviews "50 Shades of Gay".

• California will be voting on Daylight Savings Time shortly. After that historic vote, California will vote on whether or not gravity should exist.
• Experts expect nothing will happen after the vote, but since it's California, at least they got to vote their feelings.

She Woman Man Haters Club
Uh-oh.... the American Psychological Association has discovered that women outnumber men by more than two to one in the psych field. For the 35 and unders, the ratio jumps to nine to one. Do you suppose there will be urgent efforts to bring the men to parity? A great wail on social media about needing more men? High school programs to direct men into the mental health field?

Along those lines, seen on an announcement for Women Fest:

All women are welcome at the festival, including transgender women and pre-operative individuals. We're also happy to have non-binary people, provided they have a vagina; but not non-binary people with a penis because we have to draw the line somewhere.

Watch your mailboxes. There seems to be a small flood of junk AOL emails. Most of us would comment that any email from AOL is junk, but apparently it is still used (by the clueless). They might not have subject lines but they contain a small amount of text and a link. Also getting deluged with phishing emails from banks and the requisite people depositing a few million into my account, wanting my information.

Your bank isn't going to email you on sensitive matters, especially on your email you give out for nonsense purposes. Call the bank and check if you think the email is real. Don't do this frequently unless you want the person who picks up the phone to snicker when you say your name.

Nigerian princes, kings, ex-officials, and dog catchers aren't going to give you millions of dollars, or even one bottle of chilled YooHoo. 

What do I do?

Don't. Remember lefty's law: just say no. Don't read it, don't open it, don't click on the link and don't leave it in your inbox - mark it spam and delete it. When you see a link, hover your mouse over it: this will show you where the link really goes. Odds are it will be different than the link you're clicking on. If it seems too good to be true, it is.

Similarly, watch what you're installing on your phone. This is primarily an android issue, as Apple vets the authors and apps. If it looks too good to be true, it is. If it has a lot of foreign text in it, avoid. If the reviews look odd, avoid. If there are grammar errors that tell you the author's first language isn't English, avoid. Look the app up elsewhere for any info. Trust your instincts: if the app causes you to pause, don't. You're choosing between possibly destroying your phone's software or being without Fantastic Game of the year. You decide which is more important. Note when the app first hit the market and the download count. Note quantity of reviews and stars.

• About that shiny new browser you just installed on your phone, or, heaven forbid, your computer (remember those things?).... Don't go anywhere on it until you check the settings... they're typically pretty dangerous. The last one I saw had save passwords on, automatically fill out forms on, and accept all cookies, including third party on. This is stuff you want to turn OFF. Save your passwords in a password manager, not your browser. Automatically fill out forms means the browser keeps your data, which isn't safe. Don't accept third party cookies unless you really need them to make the (well known, safe) site function.
• Don't install just any browser until you see what it's built on. I don't use Chrome because it's Google and it phones home. However, there are android browsers built on Chrome. Ever vigilant.

One of the top web vulnerabilities is cross-site scripting.
So don't cross-site script, ok?


Oopsie - Faceyspaces admitted sharing users' data with 61 tech companies. This was revealed in a 747 page PDF delivered to Congress. The recommend step to fix this is to delete your account.




I've been going back and forth about my new job. I didn't want to tell anyone what I'm doing for privacy, jealousy, and hatred reasons. Since I share everything and try to be honest with my readers, I'm going to come out of the closet, so to speak, and let you know about my new gig: President Trump's Space Force. At work, I'm Captain leftystrat. You guys can continue to call me lefty, shithead, or whatever you call me when I'm out of earshot.

I was doing some contracting for the subcontractor of a subcontractor, when I was selected for the program. I'm told the president himself picked me, due to my great love of expanding government and outrageous expenditures funded by taxpayer money. In his wisdom, the President felt that someone endowed with my superior sense of sarcasm and love of government would be a good person to observe the program. As a patriotic American, I was proud to accept and will rise to the occasion, occasionally standing. Don (he tells us to call him Don) is a decent guy, with a great love of pussy jokes.

As a formality, I had to go through an intensive background check. They made sure my listed address was where the checks went. They also talked to my neighbors, who are either completely terrified of me or have no idea who I am. The 6'5" humongous black man who lives down the block works for the mafia and the NFL, which sometimes get confused. He's completely terrified of me. I let him borrow my weed wacker and he was hesitant to take it from my hands. Other neighbors know me only as Marshall's dad. Marshall's mom is incredibly popular with the hood, but parents pull their children into the house when I walk by. I don't know where the reputation came from but I enjoy the hell out of it: the social interaction is absolutely zero.

I got a really spiffy uniform with an actual patch. The Space Force logo is an eagle holding billions of dollars in its talons. At the front of the control center, the logo is a gray alien, with the words "Swamp Gas" at the bottom. The program labored to figure out an appropriate weapon for us to carry, so now we're equipped with super soakers, with Ray Gun written in magic marker on the barrel. More than one of us walking down a hall look most formidable, like Ghostbusters without the sense of humor or decent hair.

To be continued.....

• Bill Gates says the world is a far better place today than ever in history.
• Yes it is, especially if you have more money than God and Zuckerberg. (those two get mixed up sometimes).

A new Swedish law recognizes sex without 'explicit consent' as rape.
Nobody, including the person who drafted the law, knows what this means, other than a judge will have to decide whether there was explicit consent.
Sex in Sweden is about to get weird. And not in a good way. Read this in the voice of the Muppets' Swedish Chef:

HIM: Hello. Do you accept my hello?
HER: Hello, I do. Do you accept my hello?
HIM: I do. Wanna come back to my house for drinks and the possibility of some sex?
HER: I agree to go to your house for drinks but do not consent to sex at this moment.
HIM: I understand. Let's go.
HER: Let's go.

At his house...

HIM: I find there's nothing like chocolate whipped cream vodka to start the night off. Do you concur?
HER: I do not agree that chocolate cream is the best way to start the night, but agree to consume the beverage.
HIM: You are aware that this drink contains alcohol, which can impair your decision-making ability.
HER: I am aware that alcohol has those properties and also tends to make my panties disappear. That notwithstanding, I agree to drink it.
HIM: Excellent. Let the party begin!
HER: I agree. Let the party begin.

HIM: Would you like a third glass of vodka? We can switch to Swedish Fish vodka if you like.... our national beverage.
HER: Swe.. hic.. Shwede ka asheptbl.

HER: Where my und.. unddwr.. pantiesh go? Alwaysh do thish.
HIM: I would like to kiss you.
HER: Ag... aggg... concur.

HER: Now kish me downnnn air.
HIM: To be clear, are you asking me to perform oral sex upon you?
HER: Yesh.. lick mmm mah mmmmm pushy.

HIM: I would like oral sex from you. Is that agreeable?
HER: Ye yah ye no yes yesh, thatsh grand hic... no talkies wif mouf fullnphggggh
HIM: That kinda hurts. Can we have intercourse instead?
HER: yeahyeahyeahyeah putitinmenow hopontoppop
HIM: I just need you to fill out this form in triplicate, agreeing to intercourse, signing at the bottom and initialing at these seven spots.  If you think you'd like anal, initial here. If you'd rather wait and see, don't initial here but initial here.
HER: Yeah, whatevs.. are we gonnadoit now?
HIM: Almost there. What are we doing about contraception?
HER: No probs.. I'm on bill...
HIM: You're on the pill?
HER: No, I was on Bill earlier. And I gots wunna those fishing lures all the way up there, so we're good. Now plows me like middle eashters turned desert into an oasish.
HIM: Where do you want me to finish?
HER: left ear.. right ear.. someone's ear, yeah.
HIM: If we need a vibrator, lube, or barnyard animals, initial here.

One night of hellacious sex and one subpoena later....

JUDGE: Martin Smegma?
HIM: Yes, Your Honor.
JUDGE: you are accused of raping Miss Edith Hoe. How do you plead.
HIM: Not guilty.
JUDGE: Miss Hoe, what happened?
HER: I don't know - what happened? I can't remember anything but a really nasty headache.. oh.. that.... we went to his house, plied each other with liquor and he raped me.
HIM: Your Honor, I have sworn affidavits, showing a positive affirmation to each step of the process of consensual sex. The plaintiff has signed and initialed each form. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find an all night notary?
JUDGE: Mr. Smegma, I pronounce you guilty.
HIM: Your Honor? I have explicit consent. That's the requirement of the law.
JUDGE: Yes, but she got drunk and couldn't consent. Fifteen years in prison.
HIM: You're a prick.
JUDGE: Excuse me?
HIM: I said I think I'm going to be sick.

• What do you do with an invasive species of iguana? If you're Florida (uh-oh), you eat them. The McGuana, flame broiled Iguaper, and the deep fried iguana bits have become favorites at most restaurants (when dinner starts, about 4pm).
• They put Florida at one end and California at the other. This is either for amusement's sake or a cruel joke. Or both.

A study shows coffee may boost longevity.
Between coffee and sarcasm, I am creative and will live forever. [evil laughter]

• For the third time in South Africa, someone has been found alive in a morgue freezer, after showing no signs of life.
• Perhaps she read that Bill Gates said there's no better time to be alive.
• RUN... ZOMBIES!! VOODOO!!!! KOSHER BACON!!!!

Some dude who read the bible and just happens to be a marijuana scholar (a marijuana scholar?) said Jesus used cannibis oil to heal and it might explain some of his miracles.

Asked to point out where in the bible it says Jesus used it, he could not entirely pull out the word 'cannibis', but pointed out that Peter and Paul (before Mary) were sitting around, saying, "Oh man... this shit is great... did you say Jesus gave it to you? Does he have any more?"

And lo, Jesus turned to Peter and Paul and said, in his mercy, "Dave's not here, man."

I tested my new scanner when the printer came out of the box. It scanned and printed, which was really all I wanted. I am not that complex a person.

Unfortunately the forms I scanned in showed up rotated a few degrees to one side. This meant every line on the forms headed uphill. No one has ever seen documents like this, so it needed to be fixed. I re-set the form, made sure it lined up perfectly against the edges, and it came out heading uphill at a steeper angle.

The reason no one has ever seen documents like this is that any normal to complete idiot of a person places a document face down and it gets scanned perfectly. Unless you're this particular idiot. I manually rotated the paper ever so slightly then scanned again. Less uphill but still uphill. After a difficult long day, I had no patience left for lines going uphill. I became very upset. I said things to the scanner... things that, had I said them to the wife, would cause a divorce. Finally I got the document almost straight. Unfortunately there was a page two.. same process, but it was worse. More screaming at an inanimate object. Both of my deaf neighbors heard me. They were napping, hearing aids out, in rooms with windows shut, air conditioners on, and blankets covering their heads. They heard every word. I'm surprised the Word Police didn't stop by for another visit. Even threatening to grind the scanner into a fine powder did not intimidate it. Page two finally emerged, only slightly uphill.

I'm just going to spend the rest of the evening picking bits of printer/scanner out of the neighbors' houses. If I don't make any noise, they'll never know.

Fuzzy Green Chairs

Know what a Stingray is? The one that isn't a Corvette.
A Stingray is a catch-all, as well as a brand name for IMSI catchers. Wasn't that helpful?
It's a device sold to law enforcement that gets put up as a fake cell tower, to catch and monitor your cell phone. You have no idea it's there; the phone operates normally.

One company found a bunch of them in DC. Nobody knows whose they are. The letter agencies are aware of them, but some claim not to know either. Very smart operation, guys.

So it wasn't enough that law enforcement spied on you, now it's all over the place in DC and no one is sure who is doing the spying. Or what's going to be done with, or about it.

Isn't that lovely?

• Panera Bread, Sears, and Best Buy have been hit by breaches. Check your accounts and act accordingly.

Question of the day: Does the color azure make anyone else manic?

The Faceyspaces Saga. On and on and on

• It's interesting to watch the Shitstorm facing Faceyspaces. Zuckerburg had a small point, telling people they ok'd the spying when they signed up. This is true; we know nobody reads the terms - they just hit OK.  Just the other day, I had to ok a license on my phone... rest assured I read the terms.
• And now, Zuckerburg is getting a lot of blowback over the privacy invasion that is the actual business of Faceyspaces. Yes, people, you are the product. Your data is being sold and not only do you lose your privacy, you're not making a cent on this. In case you didn't know, FB owns Instagram, so they have yet another data collector. While we're at it, Google owns YouTube.
• I want to emphasize that the Faceyspaces app on your phone has access to most of your data. It catalogs every phone call you make, as well as every text message. If you have friends that you might not tell your spouse about, FB knows. If you're texting with a 'special friend' that you might not tell your spouse about, FB knows. This is just the start of the info. At very least, uninstall the phone app and use a browser.
• Just because we're on this topic, Zuckerburg also mentioned that their reverse search function, where you enter an email or phone number to find a contact, was scraped, potentially exposing the data of two billion users (their total userbase).
• Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is leaving Faceyspaces. Good move, Steve, but this isn't exactly new.
• What is new (aside from me warning everyone) is that FB has extensive profiles on people who aren't on FB, including a lawyer for the ACLU. This article is not for the faint of heart.
• Hot off the presses: Faceyspaces just suspended another firm for "non profit academic research", which translates to "we've got all your data too".
• Check to see if your data was shared with Cambridge Analytica.
• Annnnnnnnd once again, I'm not a conspiracy theorist - I'm a futurist. Or just a guy who's very concerned about privacy and safety. I TOLD YOU SO.

Twitter is again showing their colors by shadowbanning Ted Cruz's tweets. I'm not a Cruz fan, or a republican fan, or a democrat fan, but they are doing things and need to be called out on them. It's not that private corporations are required to play fair, but they're being very sneaky about it and people need to know. Nowhere does Twitter let people know that they actively discriminate and outright censor everybody to the right of Rob Reiner. I stick up for conservatives in this case because next time, they could decide to start throwing out libertarians. One account was terminated because the owner objected to a court decision. 

What is shadowbanning? Making an account much less visible. It's a discovered then admitted process.  Followers of the account don't see all the tweets.  What kind of 'trusted' platform does this in the dark?

The CEO of Twitter, the infamous @Jack, openly called for a war against republicans recently, on the national stage.  This is a small first step toward disclosure, but Twitter needs to admit its bias and make it put it in their terms. Let the people make their decisions by themselves.

Meanwhile, conservatives (and even 4 or 5 us libertarians) are moving to gab.ai, which absolutely does not discriminate against anyone. Free speech comes with speech you don't like, and this means I have to put up with a small amount of antisemites and what look like nazis. They're ugly, and the scum of the earth, but  deserve free speech as much as anyone else. Like Twitter, you can block or not follow people you don't like.

Speaking of @Jack, an article, quoting anonymous internal sources, alleges that the initial checkmark removals and alt-right bans came directly from Jack.

• Best Buy and Kmart say they're victims of the same third party breach that affected Delta and Sears.

One day we're sitting on the couch, snacking and doing what people do when sitting on the couch (no, not fighting). All of the sudden I hear STOP IT. Huh?  Stop making that noise. What noise? That noise.... you're not doing it right. Huh? You have to take a bunch out at one time and eat them. You can't reach in and get them one at a time. That noise drives me crazy.  

Oh.

Notice my contribution to the discussion largely consisted of Huh?

So I'm minding my own business, as I do, when the wife goes by, on the way to a different floor. Minutes later, I hear the dog shrieking to come in. Wife let him out. The longer he waits, the higher the pitch and frequency of the shrieking. The neighbors probably think he's being abused. My question to you: is my wife being passive aggressive by making me go get the dog?

Because if it is, I need to eat some snacks.

• I just heard about free range eggs. Do they allow the eggs to roam? What does that look like? Do the neighborhood teens wonder if they got more for their drug money?

Overheard: 

I'm out of bullets.

How did that happen?

I shot them all.

• A sex robot inventor said his creations helped save his marriage. He would turn to the robot when his wife wasn't in the mood. This is almost like my concept of Vice Wife; the woman who would take over when the Wife was not able to perform the duties of her office.
• Ever clever, my wife said perhaps she should get a Vice Husband. I'm a fair guy - go ahead. The only duties of office I fail at are mowing and trash.
• I predict the inventor's next disagreement will involve who cleans the doll when he's done.

I don't have much to say about the Cosby trial, other than noticing he's in great shape at comedy gigs and bumbles and stumbles like an aged Hillary Clinton on the way into the courthouse. He was rushed the other day by a topless woman, protesting his actions. The woman was identified as an actor who appeared on his show a few times, whose character was named Roofie Johnson.

• A West Virginia woman was arrested for beheading her boyfriend before telling cops, “You have to take me back and let me get my heads,” as they drove her away from the bloody scene, authorities said. Her lawyer is complaining about the judge asking for a test of mental competence, stating that it tarred his client's good reputation and her impending run for public office.

A man who ate a Carolina Reaper, the hottest pepper known to man, experienced dry heaving, neck pain, and bad headaches, referred to as thunderclap headaches. Who could have imagined that a man eating the hottest pepper on the planet would experience any negative effects?

The next time someone expects sympathy for their migraine, poo poo the idea and tell them to come back when they have a real headache.

• Baltimore, a hell hole even bigger than Philly, is attempting to drive tourism in new and untested ways. A man was jogging nude through rush hour traffic. Note to Baltimore: you might want to try it with a woman. 

Even YouTube isn't immune to hackers. Someone got into YT and deleted all sorts of videos, including Shakira's Vero YT account.  In the spirit of international brotherhood, I have volunteered to sacrifice my time to comfort her on this tragic loss.

• Pro Tip: before you come in the house and yell "Nipple check on aisle three", make sure no one but the owner of said nipples can hear you.

Why is it always California?

A bill has been introduced in California, which would require state-sanctioned fact checkers to approve online content. It's a shame we can't mandate fact checkers for lawmakers.

• Proving that satire is dead, the mayor of London has enacted knife control.
• The UK spends a lot of time laughing at the US, but now it's our turn. The police can stop anyone they suspect of carrying a knife and search them.
• First the ubiquitous spy public cameras, then the ban on speech that hurts feelings, and now Stop And Search for knives. It sounds more like a police state than the great country it was.

After getting cut off in traffic, Texas' own Ryan McFaul did the only thing a reasonable man could do: pulled out his BB gun and shot at a church's windows. The BBs went through the outer pane of the dual pane glass and no one was hurt. McFaul is out on $5,000 bond, with the condition that he holds the gun backwards the next time he shoots.

• Security Theater: Next time you're getting groped by the TSA at the airport, you better have your snacks ready for inspection. In yet another bid to look relevant, the TSA is going to start screening snacks. By the end of the year, look for intense shoelace scrutiny. Inside sources also point to underwear checks.

Canada is Pissed

I take a decent amount of crap online because of my pro Second Amendment views. Also my pro First Amendment views. This is largely on Twitter, as one would guess. It's just a matter of time until tweeters are not allowed to mention the Second Amendment. The most shocking, shrieking rebuke came from a Canadian. This particular Canuckian is a nice lady and we've been online acquaintances for a while. After the Florida shooting, I attempted to explain the Second Amendment and she yelled, as best one can yell in text, that I have the blood of children on my hands. Canadians generally live up to the stereotype of being nice people. Even the border guards are unfailingly polite.

In an email exchange with another Canuckian who is so level, you almost need to check for a pulse, she mentioned she doesn't like our president or our guns. I asked for some specifics and could feel the volume going up and the seething start. I guess I found the pulse.

I (used to) love hearing American jokes and what other countries thought of us. The main object of their laughter was that Americans only know one language. In a complete verification of the joke, Americans will not see the problem with that. 

Now all I hear is hatred for Trump and gun ownership. I really don't want to be lectured about my country and its Constitution by people not living under it (and roughly 50% of the people who do). They seem to think we're all armed to the teeth and the act of walking down the street puts one's life at risk. Please. They advocate gun control, in the form of not having them at all. They think this will stop the mass shootings. Oops - it seems the criminals are performing the majority of crimes, so gun confiscation will do nothing but harm law-abiding people. Here's another mini fact: all school shootings have occurred in gun-free zones.

I'm not sure outside folks are getting our culture or our Constitution. Ironically, they seem quite ok with the First Amendment.

Agoraphobic Mall Trips

Not frequently, but every now and then, a family member pisses me off. When my brother bought his first house, an older lady, whose thinking functions were fading, sold it to him. The house hadn't been redecorated in a while, resulting in what I referred to as 'The Trip Room'. The room came complete with silver mylar wallpaper, which was enough by itself, but also this unimaginable fuzzy green chair. I asked him to preserve just this one room, as some weird sort of tribute, perhaps to the seventies. He, or someone he happened to be married to, rejected the idea with great speed and efficiency.

Now, I hear the kitchen is being remodeled. The kitchen features some quiet but bizarre wallpaper, with tiny pineapples on it. It became a running joke, then I heard it was coming down. Again I asked one small favor... if you're not going to leave the wallpaper, at least leave a few square inches of it on a hidden space somewhere. Again I received an immediate answer in the negative.

My relatively new motto is "I ask for very little. And that's exactly what I get."  But I asked, because if you don't ask, you don't receive. And I'm feeling some kinda way about this. It's not like I asked for $50,000 or to live with them. Or for one of them to mow my lawn. Just a chair or a tiny piece of wallpaper. But nooooooooo.

If he had asked me to keep one small thing because it amused him, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Unless he asked me to clean... that's not going to happen.

• Life is funny. When I was a little boy, Mom would throw her munchkins in the car and take them to the mall. The other day I piled my parents in the car and took them to a mall and dinner.  It's the least I could do.

I'm still working diligently on my agoraphobic certificate. 

As you may remember, agoraphobes stay in their house and are afraid to leave. I can't get the full official certificate, as I still have to work. There are no exceptions. It also happens that whenever I do make it out of the house, I wish I had stayed home. So right now I shall retain my amateur status. Or maybe part-time agoraphobia.. I'll have to ask a professional.

That aside, as is bound to happen once every month or so, I left the house, not on a work mission. Remember mission, as this is another one of those Literary Devices I throw around now and again. I'm not a writer, but I know two or three terms, so I'm throwing them around.

We decided to take my reasonably near-sane parents out to a mall and dinner. They're always delighted to see us, possibly just because it means leaving the house, but I suspect they actually like us or something.

We went to a mall, so the ladies could look at Stuff. My wife has a favorite department store. My wife has many favorite stores, physical and virtual. This particular store is such a favorite that we frequently don't get out into the mall proper, because she's spent so much time there. We were determined, however.

After only two or three bags, weighing thirty pounds each, were purchased, I was unanimously elected to take them to the car or drag them through the mall. This is like choosing between chin-ups and running in the cold for (NOOOO) exercise. The car was pretty far away, so I dragged.

Why was the car far away? Every time we go to this mall, we park right up front. That day everyone and their extended family was at this store, perhaps because it was sunny outside. Yes, they couldn't wait to leave their houses because it was nice outside, so they could go to the enclosed mall. Logic is not our strong suit.

Just as it was last time, the area was heavy with Brow Options. There was a store called Brow Bar. I'm not entirely sure what went on there, but no one was being serviced. It didn't appear they were selling brows and I didn't notice a Brow License anywhere, so we were stymied.

Mom and Wife went into Victoria's Secret. Most people don't bother to find out, but I know Victoria's Secret: it's how they get women to spend so much on so little. Even little girls have little (fully covering) clothes. Now teenagers feel the need to look pretty under their clothes. We're a weird planet.

The menfolk discovered seats in the mall area and took full advantage of them. Twenty minutes later, Dad starts to get a little itchy, as the womenfolk hadn't returned.  I didn't understand the commotion; they would find us when (if) they were done shopping. This could eventually be to my detriment because the more I'm not with her, the more time she has to shop, and by shop, I mean spend. Dad got more and more itchy and probably failed to understand my calm. He called both of them on their phones, neither of which could hear them ringing. This is unlike my wife's phone at home, in which buried people, dead for a hundred years, can hear clearly. So Dad paced while I checked for the one piece of email I get every day or so.

We eventually found them. They had snuck behind us, across the mall to a different store. A store that has the same clothes, shoes, and jewelry in ten sections, displayed by color. Women understand this. Men, as usual, don't have a clue or a chance. It's not like my wife is there a lot, but they greet her by name.

The mall used to be a small affair; two anchor stores with some other stores sandwiched between. At some point they decided to add more stores. Unlike other malls that run east to west or north to south, this one added a cluster of stores outside this exit and six restaurants out back, not connected to the mall. It looked like some sort of tree branch, after the nuclear holocaust. As a manly man and a damn-near considerate person, I offered to retrieve the car so no one (else) had to do more walking. I showed everyone the exit I'd meet them at and asked them to stand there.

Because of the hodgepodge layout, one simply does not drive around the mall, like some sort of Indianapolis speedway at two hundred miles per hour; one drives around a ninety degree side, then out and around a bank that mysteriously popped up out of the ground, obscuring mall traffic. Then past the first mall entrance (or the last mall entrance, depending on where you entered) and around what looked like some sort of truck receiving area, but what in fact was a place for some unnamed Italian outfit to store bodies before they go out for processing.  Attached to the crematorium was a huge parking garage. This is a mall, mind you. The parking garage obscured it. At this point the phone rang. The phone does not ring at home, nor while I'm out doing something; it only rings when I don't want to hear it or I'm doing something that precludes me from answering it. At this point I was in the middle of a U-turn, fortunately with no one else coming. I went to get the phone from its holder and, as always, was completely blocked by the seatbelt. I hate seatbelts. Their only use is to hold your dead body in the seat after the accident. They get in the way of the phone, the radio, the wallet, and any of my wife's parts I wish to touch while we're both in the car.

Wife informs me they're waiting by Jeans House, John's Snotty Upscale Market, Half Foods, and Chicosan's Boutique. These are all stores I never heard of nor visited in the mall, so this wasn't helping me. This was also not where I told them to meet me. I asked a simple question: why didn't you meet me where I asked? We couldn't. You couldn't exit at the mall exit? No, we couldn't get out the doors. I decided to let that pass because if I took any time at all to think about it, it would produce massive headaches and possibly homicidal behavior. She said it was a bit down and brown outside. Oh, the brown section! Down by the thing. Yes, those were directions alright... just not directions for anyone who wasn't standing next to her at that moment. I promised I'd look and guaranteed I'd see her by dinner tomorrow.

Eventually I found the Brown Section, with yet another clump of stores not attached to the mall, requiring circling the outside of the drive and yet another U-turn, fortunately sans ringing phone. Some fellow got out of his car right before I drove up the lane and proceeded to walk, verrrrrry slowly, in the general direction of the store clumpage. I do not drive an electric car, so it makes six cylinders of noise. Noise this fellow apparently did not recognize as a car, so he continued moseying on down the lane, as I prepared to turn onto the main road. He outsmarted me by also turning, ever so slightly as to slow down my turn too. Talk about homicidal urges... this behavior should be punishable by a fine not to exceed five thousand dollars, plus wearing a sign outside the store for a year that says "I'm a slow walking car blocker".

It was all I had left not to zoom past the lot of them and take myself home, where Marshall was impatiently waiting, but in some countries it is considered rude to leave your elderly parents standing outside a mall for a few days (not your wife, though). No matter, I thought, at least we were off to our favorite barbecue place for our favorite barbecue. They even have a vanilla ice cream machine with tiny little cones for dessert and you get to pull the lever yourself. It's the little things....

We drove there, parked the car, got out, walked two steps, and discovered our favorite barbecue place had closed permanently. Not a sound from four people. We stared, mute. BUT OUR FAVORITE BARBECUE PLACE!!! It's not there. It's closed. We cannot purchase barbecue here anymore. No loaded potatoes, fried oprah, pulled this and that.. and no ice cream.  If we were but a few years younger, we would have stood there, crying, and proceeding to have an absolute FIT in the parking lot. No one was around, but I wouldn't let that stop me if I were going to throw a Serious Tantrum. I threw a Medium Tantrum when my wife dropped a candle and smashed five pounds of glass in her store. That day she was having a very serious problem with gravity. Sometimes it works much more heavily on her than the rest of us. So many things dropped and lept out of the cart that I took to calling her My Little Disaster Area. Romantic, no?

So there we stood, on the verge of Serious Tantrum, when my wife came up with  what she thought was the perfect solution: going next door and shopping at the strangely upscale second hand store, where one can purchase pocketbooks no man has heard of at obscenely low prices. What is truly obscene is what the pieces of imitation ugly leather cost when they were new. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars for an exceedingly ugly thing to carry around their shoulders. And I'm not talking fuzzy green ugly, I'm talking brown and brown with strange symbols ugly. It's like some huge joke on the part of the pocketbook industry: hey, let's design some absolutely hideous THING, charge $800 for it, then give a few away to a Kardashian. No matter how ugly or expensive, they will fly off the shelves. And sure enough, the internal plumbing crowd of the world stepped right up and snapped them up wherever they could find them. Some of these bags have individual serial numbers. I have guitars that don't have individual serial numbers. They were less expensive than these pocketbooks too.

Needless to say, at least two of us, probably the ones with external plumbing, were less than thrilled. As there was no Manly Section of the store, we assumed Manly Position, which is standing, arms crossed, heavily frowning, eyes front and staring out into a universe that included sitting and eating barbecue. Finally the ladies released us from torment and we struggled out to the car. It's amazing what not getting out much followed by carrying sixty pounds of purchased goodies around a mall will do to you. The back part of my feet hurt. I've never had a pain there in all my life. There is obviously some serious blame to be laid on this topic.

In a rather ironic moment, I drove down the street to our second favorite barbecue place, Mission BBQ (see, I got mission in there, like an almost professional writer). Mission is a chain that has just entered the area, founded upon respect for all armed forces and police. Vets eat free or reduced price. The food is good and the people are so nice, they had to import them from the South, or wherever else people are nice. Certainly not my area. The sad part of all this, aside from our favorite place closing, is that my friends from Texas laugh hysterically when I tell them we had bbq from a chain restaurant. Apparently every corner down there has a different bbq place, each better than the other one. Note to self: bad form to salivate on keyboard. Well, it's all we've got up north, so we have to call it good. Piss off, you hat-wearin', hornswagglin', sweet tea drinkin', hurricane tornado havin' rodeo state. And gitcher dang old horses offa the main streets before they leap on a twelve cylinder convertible Caddilac with steer horns on the front and a horn that plays Dixie.

You can't pay for vitriolic area-specific insults like that, but I put them before you, out of the goodness of my heart, because I like attention and because we're up to ten readers now. If we all work together, I know we can hit fifteen by Christmas (2020).