Calling to Tell You I'll be Calling

 

Your love is like  grinding up your hard drive and eating it

Samsung says users will be able to clone their voice to respond to calls

What could possibly go wrong?

Here’s How We Broke Into a Bank Account Using an AI-Voice

Oh.

Today I identify as  the H in Jesus H Christ

 

Starbucks launches olive oil coffee drinks in Italy

Entire country gets up and walks out.

There are no Italians left in Italy - only Americans, iPhones at the ready, after the latest and greatest from Starbucks

• The debt ceiling is now so high, even rockets to Mars cannot see it. Scientists are still learning much about the Big Bang, and hope it will one day explain the origin and sheer size of the debt. As of this moment, NASA knows there is a rapidly expanding debt, but the ceiling is a mere theory, like an unbiased press or a law against Hawaiian pizza.

 

NSA shares guidance on how to secure your home network

You're saying to yourself, "Has he finally lost it? The NSA?"

Well... they're right.... follow their guidance.

The NSA also recommended keeping Windows, preferably Win11. This way all your data goes directly to them and they don't have to worry about getting a warrant. Not that they ever did.

Well, it happened. I didn't really think about it but it crept up on me. I should have noticed by back aches but you have to hit me pretty hard to get me to notice much of anything.  'My' chair is either imploding upon itself, trying to commit suicide, or desperately wants to get out of the house. I guess I should have known when the 'present' for me came in a strangely shaped box, that most that likely did not house guitars. My poor sainted Wife hadn't yet learned to Just Not Bother getting me anything, but she should have been getting to recognize That Look. Mothers have That Look, but the purpose is to let the children understand she means Business. I have no filters but also don't want to hurt anybody, so when I opened the box and beheld a chair, I developed that look. Readers know that the Unknown is the principle by which the house runs, and I clearly did not know I needed a chair. One look at The Look should have said it all. Wife got brighter over the years and there were fewer things I did not know I needed (except for the front lawn globe). Since I'm a little bit weird (really?), after I had removed the chair from the box, I got to put it together. This was the high point of the gift for me. If you think about it, one doesn't put together much furniture, unless it comes from that Scandinavian place that causes aneurysms from simply trying. You  have to figure it can be done, because it's sitting there in the showroom, all assembled-like, and you can even sit on it without it shooting bolts at your spouse, like a 357 magnum (do ya feel lucky, punk?). But after it comes home and someone draws the small straw and has to attempt assembly, things go downhill rapidly. Just as the instructions are opened, it is advised to call an ambulance. Normally ambulances do not stand by, waiting for an injury, but if you say "Ikea," they'll wait up to 30 minutes, free of charge. The president floated a trial balloon with Congress, to charge Ikea's parent company, Swedish Meatballs Inc, for all the injuries and use that money to open mental heath centers throughout the country. They would be called the Ikea Happy Place, so Ikea could feel better about appearing to be doing something. This was a great idea, but like most of them, did not work out well. Ikea refused compensation, but Biden is spending $25 billion on Happy Places and Ikea still gets their name in front. 

The chair is a unique shade of brown. And when I say unique, I mean it in the sense that Mrs. Hitler referred to her son as a unique boy. When you think brown, you think chocolate. Or at least I do. But this unique color doesn't bring to mind any variety of chocolate. In fact, it can best be characterized  as Rust. The funny part is that when the dog sits on it, sometimes she blends in. Because we try to coordinate our furniture with our dog.  It was soooo easy with black dogs. But this one had to be red. Anyway, the chair sat there, largely being a chair, which was as good as we figured it was going to be.  In fact, it sat right next to the sofa. The Life-Sucking Sofa. No matter what your mood, if you sit on the sofa, everything will flow out of you, possibly including your will to live.  Even after you consumed your morning allotment of 13 cups of coffee. One day I got tired of having the life sucked out of me (in a bad way) and tried out the chair. It was not a $2,345 Large-O-Lounger, but it reclined. It held me up and off its frame. It did not suck so much as an ounce of my soul. I started sitting in frequently, which made my soul happy, not having to regenerate every day. It got to the point where it was 'my chair.' This was frightening, because I am way too young to have a chair, or any piece of furniture, including car seats or wire reels. Nonetheless I sat there. The dog was bothered she couldn't sit next to me, so she took to FLYING to get to my lap. I don't know how many of you have ever been working and seen a dog fly over your laptop, right at you. It took a while to get used to Flying Cockers! I noticed after a while that little things were going wrong with the chair. The back was compressing, so I grabbed a pillow for support. That was fine until the bottom dropped out. Well, not all at once, but I sunk like the Titanic over time. It still reclines, only when it does, anybody walking behind it BANGS into it, creating a stressful sitting experience. I sat on the couch for some reason and almost immediately needed a nap. Oops - I forgot about the Life-Sucking Couch. A new chair will be expensive, so why not get a new couch. We're just gambling that the couch is what sucks out your life, as opposed to its spot in the house (over the gateway to hell). Have I mentioned it's only the far right position of the couch that sucks life? Maybe it was a hastily partially emotionally-draining half thrown together Ikea sofa in a previous life.

10,000 dogs are registered for workplace visits at Amazon

It is widely known that dogs (pets) help lower blood pressure. But don't let Amazon fool you: the dogs are being trained to do their owners' jobs. Artificial Intelligence will be brought in first and trained to fire the workers. If that fails, Bring On The Dogs!

Wife:  Is that a screwdriver in your pocket or are you happy to see me?

Me: Both.

My friend called for help setting up Win10.

I didn't know, I swear. I have never set 10 up. 

I suspect the reason people haven't RUN AWAY from Windows is that they didn't have to set it up - it was already on their computer. We went through each item over the phone and it was the most painful setup I have ever been through. Mind you. it was already installed - just not set up. You HAD TO have a Microsoft account.  There is no other operating system that requires this. It becomes clear they want to send you stuff. They want all sorts of your info to 'personalize your experience'. They want to sell you more of their alleged software. They want personal details - c'mon, it'll be fun! They want you on their mail system.  They want all your info because they're going to send you ADS. There is no other operating system that sends you ads.

Up to this point, you owned your operating system. Now it owns you and you rent it. It sends data to MS, the NSA, advertisers, and whomever else, even if you turn telemetry off. It's the all-powerful oracle that sits over in the corner, doing whatever it wants. It will eventually force you to go to Win11. If your current hardware is not sufficient to run the latest Bloat OS, it will put a watermark on your desktop; a permanent notice. You will have to wear the scarlet letters (MS) until you upgrade. 

I am stunned that the world just sits there and runs this monstrosity. There are 2 other operating systems with large userbases, that you would be fine with. One expensive, with its own hardware; one free, which will run on almost anything. Do not feed Microsoft and be dictated to by your own operating system.

This Blowjob-Powered Dildo Keyboard Is Perfect If Your Job Sucks Dick

If you're fond of clicking on links, click this one when you're by yourself, not on a work computer, and there are no children within a 5 mile radius. On the bright side, it looks like your Significant Other will appreciate your new 'typing' skills.

This one deserves a Google warning.

‘Mommy brain’ doesn’t capture how the brain transforms during pregnancy

It has been discovered that the brain actually shrinks while its owner is pregnant.

Also when assuming political office, and around election time.

 

Twitter, owned by a strange, rich fellow called Musk, has laid off another 200 employees, in an attempt to provide worse service than ever before. Faceyspaces administrators were heard to say, "Wow, they're even worse than us!"

US says Google routinely destroyed evidence and lied about use of auto-delete

The CIA is apoplectic, and was heard to say, "F- you - that's our job."

Drag shows are next on hitlist for US state that is heading back to dark ages

Yes, the great, evolved state of Tennessee wants to ban drag shows AND healthcare for trans youth. These people are monsters. They're hard at work on legislation. I hope it won't pass or hold up in court. It looks like a variation of laws to keep adult businesses out.

I want to say to my LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters that there is no greater friend to them than libertarians. Not because we necessarily agree on their lifestyle, but because the government should have no say in it; only the people living it. So long as it hurts nobody, and a drag show certainly doesn't hurt anybody (unless they fall off their high heels). Nobody is forcing anybody to go into any club. Denying healthcare is another matter. It's criminal and immoral. This from people who claim to be religious.....

The republicans are going (more) batty. introducing all sorts of what the dems would call 'hate' laws. Neither of them is worth their weight in cow chips.

This Hacker Hoodie Uses Surveillance Camera Parts to Blind Surveillance Cameras

Blinds them with their own tech. You can make it and the software is open source. We need to take back our privacy. The engineer also produced a hat that does the same thing.  

Wisdom

• The only problem with leaving and going someplace else is that you take yourself with you.

    -- Ester (Abraham and Jerry), Abraham-Hicks Publications

I love my boss, but we don't live in the same worlds (universes). I made reference to Frank Zappa's song Montana (I might be movin to Montana soon) and Boss asked if I was really moving. Still, it's light years better than the Twilight Zone, with a pond that had plastic ducks, and a ladies' fashion show that had men in it. One was teaching the women how to walk in heels.

lefty Exits the House -but not the Building

 After who knows how many weeks, we finally got outside the house (for more than taking out the trash or leaving presents for neighbors that are no longer with us). We did the right thing, going to the mall's page to check their hours. Then we were off the the place that rhymes with Billadelphia Mills Outlet Mart. Go ahead, laugh... it was much better when it was Franklin Mills. 

So many closed businesses. Large holes in the mall. Most new stores were low rent. You'd also be hard pressed to find stores that were there for more than a few years. We checked in advance for food. Out of two food courts, one shrunk down and absorbed all its stores, like a woman's private parts absorbing the man they eat. And then there was one food court. To call it a food court is to be generous. It had a lot of seating and looked like it wanted to be a food court when it grew up, but in order to be a true food court, and I shouldn't give away this business secret, you need actual food restaurants. There was a Sbarro, but there's a Sbarro in every food court - it's mandated by local law. After having tried Sbarro once or twice, I stopped because they violated one of the laws of physics: it came out faster than it went in. In fact, I don't know a single person who eats there, yet there they are. I have a theory.... Sbarros are a money laundering scheme. For the mafia or government, I don't know, but how could they stay open otherwise? There are damn near three other restaurants too, bringing the total to damn near four restaurants. So what I'm saying here is this does not constitute a food court. It barely constitutes a strip of shops. There were two fully-functioning food courts in years past. They got sucked up like your tax breaks.

Since the last time I was at the mall, they removed every bench, for our shopping convenience and pleasure. When you consider an average couple, one will find most of the stores irresistible and one won't. Take a guess at which is which. So I went outside to sit and BOOM - not a bench in sight. Handicapped people use the mall too, and might need to sit down now and again. So there's the entrance to a store, and ten men sitting on the floor outside because there's no benches anywhere. Mrs. lefty says it's because they don't want anybody sitting around because of the Flying AIDS. If so, certain mall people are in the cheap scotch again.

For the entire time there have been cell phones, there have been people walking around while looking at them. This is some sort of black magic to me. I have to be careful while sitting and looking at the phone. I'd be walking into things, like benches, if there were any.

There were two stores I wanted to see, in the one hundred stores present. Sam Ash music went all Guitar Center by halving its inventory. I guess it's the Flying AIDS economy.... I'm not blaming them, it just sucks as a customer. The other store was Cinnabon. Those things are so good, it's almost a sexual thrill. And BOOM - the store was closed. It was starting to get personal.

About half of the stores required a breathing arrestor (mask). Haven't we flattened the curve yet, Fauci? If you go to Philly restaurants, you have to provide PROOF of vaccination and wear a mask. The technical term for this is Shooting darts at a moving target in the dark.

Didn't expect a Victoria's Secret, but there it was. Guys - have you ever looked at the price tags on that stuff? Even on the half-off racks, it was too expensive. I know Victoria's Secret: it's how you can get so many people to pay so much for so little. Victoria's operates on the Fantasy Principle; if you buy this, you'll look just like the model in the picture. You'll find this in the cosmetic business (if I wear this, I'll look just like the model on the magazine), as well as the home repair business (if I buy lots of tools, I'll be able to build stuff). In all cases, you're going to be very disappointed (unless you already look like the model in the picture or can build stuff). I learned a very important thing: you should not yell out "Honey, are you still a 36C or did you put on weight again?" But Mrs. lefty is naturally smarter than me... while waiting in the interminable line for the lone cashier, she asked me if I saw anything I liked for her. Why yes, I did; I pointed them out while we stood in front of them. That way she could play stupid, and even if she went to get them, I wouldn't have the patience to stand in line. So she got what she wanted and made it look like I had been given the chance to get what I wanted. Major Wife Skills. Then there's the push-pull of What Women Want vs What Men Want. I noticed everything I looked at was full of holes and very small. She looked at things with no holes, that came to her knees. In the end, this is extremely confusing to the male of the species, because even if something is purchased, it's not likely he's going to see it much. In some cases, at all.

We're in another one of those God-Help-Me stores that are filled with women because all the men have taken their place in the hanging line right outside the store. Yes, they're voluntarily hanging themselves rather than go in the (candle) store. Being the nice guy I am (for the entire first of January) I went in. I have bags and drinks and bags. Both hands and arms are full. I looked like Kim Kardashian's valet on a small shopping trip. I have a pair of smoothies; tropical punch and strawberry, but the real issue here is that after tasting both, we can't figure out which is which. If you gave them to us randomly and asked what flavor they were, we couldn't tell you. All I could come up with is 'Ick.' The way to get past this problem is to redesignate them Cold Slushy Substance, then you expect nothing when you swallow them. It bears noting that we also have some fresh cookies too, of the Toll House variety, in our bags. But I can't tell you where we got them... you know.. Toll House in the mall.. or anything. She turns around to me and says "Hold this." At this point, I'm wondering which appendage she'd prefer I use, when it hit me: I need to invent the Prehensile Penis. Being hidden notwithstanding, the penis is not really useful as-is in a store. Well, unless you can find a spot where no one will see you, but it's not great in most normal retail situations, except possibly holding donuts, which also assumes certain things about the size and state of the penis in question. But if it were Prehensile, it could hold stuff, stiff or otherwise. This leaves the gentleman with another appendage to carry purchased items and the lady with more buying to do because there is now 25% more carrying capacity (are you listening, GMC?). Win-win! And then when you get home, there's no telling what other uses there are for a prehensile penis. Win-win-win!

After we got home, the bags got piled up on the floor for review, because nothing is technically purchased until it's reviewed (aka Booty Call). Beat to hell, she goes to bed. As it's time for dessert (it's always time for dessert), I want my cookie. Now.

AND THE FSCKING BAGS ARE NOT THERE ANYMORE.  I just located dirty pots that I didn't even know we had (probably someone else's) but I cannot find the bags I just put there 30 minutes ago. The honey for tea moves every few days. The crackers wander. The work boots generally hang out in a sink or two (the left one anyway). Even the exhaust systems for GMC cars from 1973-1975 take weeks to move. Yet the bag with who knows what she bought AND MY COOKIES is gone. If it were daytime, I'd do what I do 365 days of the year - ask her. But if I were stupid enough to try and wake her, I might return missing parts. It would be a sad day if I had finally gotten the prehensile penis thing going, knowwhatImean? 

Not having eaten all day and smart enough to avoid the Food Court Wannabe, we decided on our favorite Mexican place. Closed. Ok, time for barbecue. Closed. It was beginning to feel personal. Wendy's was closed. The One True Pizza - closed. Every one of our favorite restaurants and even more non-favorite restaurants were closed. It was New Year's Day - people tend to eat out. Everything used to be open. Did I miss the email? Should I have risked my GI system and gone to Sbarro? You have to drive fast after eating there, so you get home to your personal toilet before.. uhhh... things start happening. You know, before you look like something from Alien. You could use a mall toilet if you want. We checked the mall directory and located two toilets. That's two toilets for about a solid mile of mall. Perhaps they took the toilets AND the benches out for our shopping pleasure.

SO..... we got out after many many weeks. Every time we tried, there was something stopping us (snow, traffic, intestines, Large Japanese Monster Avoidance). Was it worth it? The answer can be stated in roughly two words: Not really. But if we continued to be trapped in the house, we'd never know. We need some sort of time travel visualizer (alternate phase inducer, string theory thingie). Not to time travel, but to see what would have happened had we actually gone. Then the two of us could sit there, shake our heads, and say geez, we're really glad we didn't do that.

So I don't have my cookies, but there's ice cream in the freezer - I can smell it. It cannot hide from me anymore - those days are gone. I wonder how much I'm going to lose it before I can't blog anymore. Maybe at that time I'll use voice dictation (the wife). Assuming she hasn't lost it first.

While shopping, I saw what could possibly be the greatest achievement of modern society ever: battery-powered fake candles. Not exciting, but they came with a remote control. Now you don't even have to get off your corpulent hairy buttocks to light your candles - you remain on the couch and press a button. This is life-changing. If your microwave could deliver your food to you or the delivery guy could bring the pizza to your couch, there would be no cause or reason to leave the couch. Ok, one.

I didn't have time to study the devices intimately, but all they needed to make them absolutely perfect was an auto-off feature. You know... after 8 hours, they turn themselves off. I know people who have auto-off curling irons, auto-off heaters, auto-off ovens and stoves, leading to auto-off houses. Some people cannot be trusted with electricity or heat, lest they burn the place down. Sometimes the insurance company requires you to purchase these items before they'll cover your house or apartment.

• Hey, you know those guys who were 'guarding' Jeffrey Epstein when he 'committed suicide'? The guards who were napping and doing other Important Stuff instead of their rounds? Federal charges were very quietly dropped against them on December 13, but not made public til December 30th. Lots of really shady, hidden decisions.
• Jeffrey Epstein was murdered and no one will answer for it. Regardless of charges against him, murder is a pretty serious crime and justice must be done.
• The only surprise in this travesty of justice is that Ghislane Maxwell is still alive.

I sat down in 'my chair' the other day and it had become.... fragile.... weak. I think it might be leaving the house, part by part. Either that or I will come down one morning to find it in a pile of its component parts. If I find it like this, it will be of great importance not to sit in it. I'd probably wind up with nails in places I shouldn't have nails. Or worse, splinters.

I don't want to go through this. The chair I sit on seems to do the job, except for constantly getting the laptop cord caught in it when I stop reclining. I'd have to go to actual furniture stores to look. I haven't spent much time in actual furniture stores in longer than the radio has been playing absolute crap. I just know when I go into one, some guy in a rug, with a really bad, mismatched plaid suit, named Herb (think WKRP), is going to assail me just upon my passing through the portal. Herb will ask me what I was looking for. Not knowing, I'll tell him I was looking for a good place to get a suit (now we know where to avoid). Maybe I'll look at him and keep making rug references. The problem here is that Herb will insist upon talking to me, which tends to really spoil my day.

 The thing is, I don't know what I want, aside from 'chair that moves backwards.' Since I have spent several dog lifetimes not being in a furniture store, I don't know what's available, and, heaven forbid, what it costs.  I don't know if there's a profile for people like me in Sales School. If there is, it's probably called AVOID AT ALL COSTS. Herb, I have a deal for you: LEAVE ME ALONE and if I buy a chair, I'll tell them you sold it to me. I'm sure all salesmen aren't like used car salesmen, but I don't want to deal with any of them. Herb, if you hover, I'll bite you.

The next problem is the chairs will cost more than guitars, which will set up an internal conflict. Guitar-recliner. Recliner-guitar. That's before we discuss Sofa. This is fraught with problems and will probably require a referee and an accountant. Possibly the bomb squad.

There is so much to do and so little of it getting done

This week in Tesla: we have absolutely nothing about fire or spontaneous explosions. Tesla is recalling 475,00 of its Model 3 and Model S because rearview camera and trunk issues 'increase risk of crashing.' I suppose we can say fire is involved if they crash. Although from some of the less than intelligent folks driving the cars, the rearview camera is faulty because they're using it to watch Taylor Swift videos.

As for the trunk, a faulty hood latch may lead to the trunk opening without warning. So if you're riding down the highway and see a car wandering over three lanes, with an open hood, the kids can now say, "Look, Mom, there's a Tesla!"

As violence rises against Jews in Germany, one group has a radically simple scheme to fight back - "Meet a Jew"

What could possibly go wrong?

You will be patted down at the gate for weapons and rotten fruit.

Meet a Jew follows on the failure of several similar programs:

• Meet an illegal immigrant
• Meet the boss' nephew who got promoted over you
• Meet a Fuhrer

The program will run all week, except of course Friday night and Saturday.

Isn't Antisemitism in Germany just a little disconcerting?

Flying AIDS News 

EXCLUSIVE: Are we on the brink of OVER-vaccinating in the fight against Covid? Experts warn dishing out fourth jabs in spring may be unnecessary - and Omicron may be world's 'natural' vaccine that finally ends pandemic

New York governor declares racism 'public health emergency' amid new anti-discrimination legislation

Right after this, the public health people announced they were going to take race into consideration for who to give Flying AIDS medicines that may be less available. Maybe the governor was right.