Uggs - One Step Above Crocs

 Your love is like  chewing popsicle sticks

Street Work - Day 149 

5 minutes before the alarm went off, the noise started. It was earlier than normal. I'm not sure if I'd rather hear the road equipment or the guys tearing each other a new one. As I set up for work, the air horn started. By this point, these 'coincidences' stopped annoying me - I just shook my head. I think one of the behemoths was in reverse for a while- it kept blasting out BEEP BEEP - BEEP BEEP, which translated, means GET UP, YOU DOLT. This repeated for about 10 minutes. I prefer the less abusive warnings of my alarm, which doesn't really speak to me at all, unless you don't count my sad wail at having to get up now. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! If I could hook their machines up to the coffee machine, I'd have it made. It's only a matter of time til the Great Hammering Device starts. If I have a lot of meetings, somebody's roof will need repairing too.

Wife's internal children rushed to the window, because this is like Christmas for them. They're fascinated by Truck Ballet. They're telling me what the guys are doing and how they are doing it. This is a very different experience than mine...

HER: Well, first they have to rip up the street. They use a truck with a curved arm that dumps into a dumptruck. It's 3 long and 2 short when the truck is full. Did you know they have to call a towtruck if someone didn't move their car?

ME: God, I wish that would get quiet. 

HER: they were talking... one makes $50 an hour and the other guy $120

ME: God, I wish that would get quiet. 

Today I identify as  tapioca pudding

There have been many really talented and funny people who just can't get good roles, like Chevy Chase, Jack Black, and Wayne Brady.

A former eBay security official who pleaded guilty for his role in a cyberstalking conspiracy has asked for leniency in sentencing while blaming his actions in part on a "drinking culture" at eBay that contributed to his alcoholism.

They forced it down my throat! They were responsible for me mailing a bloody pig mask....

Meanwhile, job applications went up 150% at eBay.

• Olympics opening ceremony director sacked for Holocaust joke
• in 1990

Covid: China rejects WHO plan for second phase of virus origin probe

Says that checking if the virus is man-made and escaped from their lab is racist 

• The jungle-trekking Covid vaccinators helping to protect remote Indian villages.
• it may just be me, but if you have to build bridges and cross hazardous trails to vaccinate remote villages, perhaps you can leave them alone, because they're obviously not coming in contact with the Flying AIDS. They're more in danger from the people saving them.

this year alone Huawei has spent $1.24m schmoozing US officials – more than double the $470,000 spent over the whole of 2020. If the current level of activity continues, this year's spending is almost on course to match the $2.99m Huawei spent in 2019.

Never mind the tech that phones home to China - just throw more money at Congress....

UPDATES

• game changer is only getting worse
• ...EVer has let go a bit
• caramel has yet to lose its salt
• that's what I'm talkin bout has jumped the shark, but nobody told it
• future ban: crazy (that's crazy stupid)

Flying AIDS news 

Coronavirus: Was US money used to fund risky research in China?

Communication around masks is still terrible

Covid vaccine: Eight-week gap seen as sweet spot for Pfizer jab antibodies

We. Have. No. Idea.

• A Faceyspaces group dedicated to gardening in western New York state is celebrating a victory over the company's algorithms after having been repeatedly threatened with censure and deletion due to use of the word "hoe".
• Democratic bill would suspend Section 230 protections when social networks boost anti-vax conspiracies

One of these is egregiously illegal and immoral. Guess which.

About the car..... 

Our car remains at the collision place, where they're working on it.

We are still driving the rental.

This satisfactory situation could not be allowed to continue.

Rental place calls and says we should give them $1500 so we'd be paid up.

Errr.... no. In no way should that add up to $1500.

Rental Guy tells me that's true, but the insurance stopped paying for the rental two weeks ago.

Two weeks ago?

Wasn't anybody going to clue me in on this?

Was it some sort of secret and I didn't have a Need to Know?

I called Insurance. She explained to me that we have $1,000 for rental and we were past it. 

That part didn't seem to be Need to Know.

So I mentioned that we'd just be starting on the $1,000 if it didn't take them three weeks to get the car to the collision center.

We have never had a problem with our insurance. 

In this matter, they didn't so much drop the ball as slice a chunk out of it and put it up somebody's nose.

more misadventures as they occur.....

just remember... this could be you. We do it so you don't have to.

Street Thumpin', Rental Pumpin'

 Your love is like  skin scrapes on concrete

It's been quiet around the neighborhood, so we've been waiting for the other shoe.

In fact, Waiting for the Other Shoe would be a great blog name.

Naturally the other shoe arrived, in the form of the Neighborhood Mover Slamming Thing from last time. It has the flat platform that it launches at the ground with great force. This causes the houses on the block to shake each time. It knocks pictures off the wall and moves furniture to different floors. Many of the neighbors like where the furniture wound up and are keeping it there. Since we live in the No Design Ability House, any movement is an improvement. The couch on the roof may have to be overridden, but we'll live with it for a week or so.

It must be a new physical year, or fiscal year, depending on pronunciation. There are ripped up roads all over the place. Don't tell anybody, but the improvements are nothing but ripped up roads, for the fun of it. The streets department has a wicked sense of humor. Different departments have a Noise Contest, judged by City Hall, when they can be bothered to come into work. They bring out a noise level meter and the loudest machine wins. This led to a little cheating this time, with some crews using fireworks and explosives under the machines. One used gas tanks. A fun time was had by all. Except the people that live in the houses. It was even louder than a Who concert or a Boeing 787 taking off, assuming it managed to pass inspection.

But wait!!!!!  The trash truck is here, in bold competition with the Great Bang Truck.

So naturally I had to get on the phone with Support four times. I was 90 minutes 'late' for work.

Today I identify as  mixed gender pronouns. 

• it's not like the band I just saw on tv is put together for the show, but the left handed bass player is strumming the bass like a guitar

CAR(s)

The collision center continues to move forward with the repair. The repair cost is more than I paid for most of my old cars.

The rental squad decides to charge you random numbers randomly. They like to keep their customers on their toes. If you no like, dey come around you house, capiche?

We still haven't figured out how to turn down the tsunami of air conditioning or pair it with BlueTooth. But it starts every time, and we're used to settling. Strangely, there is no USB port.

• Duckduckgo, the search engine that doesn't track you, now has an email service that removes trackers. You can get a free @duck.com address now.

Biden blasts social media after Facebook stonewalls admin over vaccine misinformation

When the president, or any member of government, tells a site or person what they can and can't say, it's a violation of the First Amendment. Not that Joe gives a rip about the First Amendment. Or the Second.

• How your personal data is being scraped from social media

Finding 'Grace': Murder, DNA and ancestry

Great story about solving an old murder

Reminding you that the ancestry sites are used by the authorities (and marketers)

• Reminder from the lDC [lefty Disease Control] that if you are on birth control pills and taking antibiotics, use a different form of birth control.  The antibiotics make the pills less potent and you won't like the result.

I could have been in the Olympics..

No, really.

There's just no event for napping.

• Less Than 7% of the Human Genome Is Actually Uniquely Human, Study Finds
• you really are a slug

15,000-year-old viruses discovered in Tibetan glacier ice

Fauci says we must all be vaccinated against every one 

This is America

A Texas man cited 7 times for grass over the 12" limit opened fire on landscapers and police who were there to enforce the limit.

Fortunately no one was hit in the 4 hour SWAT standoff.

The man was arrested and had on some sort of hazmat suit

It's only a matter of time til this is me, right? Without the gun, of course.

But seriously, folks... why are there grass height laws, and why do police come out to enforce them?

Another example of government in action: using force 

I got an overnight envelope that required returning.

I went online to schedule the pickup.

This was my first mistake.

There's nowhere to schedule a pickup.

I can make an account if I like. I can schedule babysitting or auto repair, but not a pickup.

In the Good Olde Days<tm>, you called a number or scheduled online.

These are not the Good Olde Days<tm> 

The website is very easy to navigate, so long as you're not trying to schedule a pickup.

There's a HELP function, which connects me to a virtual assistant. This is not actually a human, nor can you find one, possibly at the entire worldwide, well-known service. This is a bot, configured with the help of Artificial Stupidity, so if you enter "schedule pickup," it responds with 13 suggestions, none of which are correct. Now I'd think scheduling a pickup is roughly 50% of their business, so not being able to find it seems... I dunno.... weird?

I continue with HELP, trying "pickup envelope," which gives me another 13 suggestions with the word 'pickup' in them, but - SURPRISE! - nothing helpful. Even if it were to make a horrible mistake and include helpful information, you can't click it. So it will say "schedule envelope pickup" but you can't go anywhere from there. This website was clearly designed to be user-hostile.

I could schedule a ground pickup. How am I supposed to know what a ground pickup is? Well, the truck runs on the ground, no? But this is an envelope, which may not be ground.

So the best way to deal with this is to ignore it. Unfortunately if I ignore it, I won't win the Idiot's Clearing House offer of 15 cents a week for life. So I gotta get this in.

I finally figured GO and scheduled a ground pickup, as my house is on the ground, firmly, I hope. It told me to wait a few (years), then check the status page. WHAT status page? There is NO status page, as there is no schedule envelope pickup page. I think they're just messing with us now. 

So I may or may not have scheduled a pickup - I have no way of knowing. Guess I'll have to wait for the imaginary status page to indicate I have an imaginary pickup on some imaginary day this week.

It's not like they can't slip me in - I don't get out much, so they can show up whenever they want. In fact, they can take it from me when they make one of their 3 daily deliveries from the Shoe Delivery Network for Wife. Why didn't I think of that in the first place?  Nah, they'd just tell me I have to schedule online. My street might become a very dangerous place for these trucks if I can't get this envelope out. Of course if I stopped the shoe deliveries, my house might become a very dangerous place for me.

TOKYO (AP) — The chiropractor for the American women’s wrestling team has apologized after comparing Olympic COVID-19 protocols to Nazi Germany in a social media post.

We're offended so were automatically right.

Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, former general secretary of the U.S. bishops’ conference, announced his resignation Tuesday, after The Pillar found evidence the priest engaged in serial sexual misconduct, while he held a critical oversight role in the Catholic Church’s response to the recent spate of sexual abuse and misconduct scandals.

They are a criminal organization and should be investigated as such.

• Sperm Bank Holds Contest to Find Out Who Has the Best Jizz
• Had to turn away 100 women and 13 men - swallowers not allowed as judges

The new Flying AIDS (D) has affected vaccinated Capitol staffers in DC

Former surgeon general: CDC should fix ‘premature, misinterpreted’ mask guidance

We. Have. No. Idea.

We had a power outage the other night.

Power outages are ugly because they cut off Important Services: air conditioning and internet. We looked at each other and said, "WHERE'S THE INTERNET?" 

This started a cascading effect, namely, no pr0n and no napping, because it was close to 90 and ridiculously humid. Just sitting there was an activity that would cover you in sweat and grunge. If we were going to be sweaty and grungy, that was not the activity we wanted to cause it.

We 'found' the internet, in that we could use our phones to hook other stuff into.

Power outages have met the future with electrical provider websites;  you can look at the outage and get an estimate of how long it will continue. PECO has gotten into the future, that's fer sure. After a few hours, they were 'aware of an outage in the area, that affected 1200 houses.'  Ummmm..... no. This went for as far as the eye could see in all directions. Some of the traffic lights were out too. Businesses were open, but you'd never know it to look at them. Six hours later, PECO was still aware there was a problem. No estimates. Only 1200 houses without power were closer to 47,000. Small math error. 

So after 12 hours, electricity returned, around 4am. We were offering prayers of thanks to the air conditioner gods.

Wife got another 'great deal,' this time on a car battery-sized brick to power things in an outage. I wanted to know how they claimed it would run a fridge, because it was pretty light. To its credit, it charged my phone. I couldn't quite get across that this device was not the same thing as a unit that would power all the computers during an outage. I'm sure the commercial was awesome. THE NEW POWER 9000. GOT A POWER OUTAGE? THIS IS THE UNIT FOR YOU. IT WILL POWER YOUR PHONE. IT WILL POWER YOUR LAPTOP. IT WILL POWER YOUR CAR. IT WILL POWER YOUR PHONE. IT WILL POWER YOUR ENTIRE KITCHEN AND THE REST OF THE HOUSE. IT WILL POWER YOUR PHONE. BUT WAIT!!!!!

So I have to get a UPS, a real device to power the computers. This will be expensive, because it has the word Battery in it. Everything with the word battery is expensive. Even a battery holder is expensive. I don't know how, but I have a little Texas in me: bigger is better. I like big cars and big 17" laptops. If you're bored during a power outage, run a 17" laptop off battery and watch the gauge go down. Use it as a counting game for children. I lowered the brightness by 50% and it didn't matter.

TIP: get a tablet. Set it up to get your email and with your bookmarks. Use it during outages.

Or, you know, have family time. Or some sex. Try reading in the dark. Count salt shakers. Count salt.

here's something you don't see often..

Stop Shaking My House

 Your love is like  being run over by 18 individual wheels

Today is my important group meeting, so naturally as it starts, the construction/demolition crew parked literally outside the house starts its morning activities. It sounds like a cross between a 5' circular saw and some baseball bats, slamming away on some sheet metal. What are the odds?

I guess I have to emphasize the postivie: they waited til after the meeting to pull out the Stomping Machine. I've never seen a stomping machine, but it you stand in your house and slam a foot onto the floor every second, it's kinda like that, only it shakes your entire house and all the neighbors' houses. Maybe the machine is just a giant foot that slams into the street - I don't know... I'm a knowledge worker. Plus I'd have to walk out of my office all the way to the front window to check. It's like God stomping His feet on your street, just outside your house. How you explain any of this to your teammates is your problem.

A short while after I get off the phone with the Geological Services and assure them that this isn't an earthquake, God stops jumping. The neighbors all hope their houses are ok, including the atheists. The agnostics are still trying to figure out what happened.

Then the minor tool racket started. It was relatively quiet, which meant it would only be moments before the next Really Loud Truck Tool<tm> started up. I could record it for everyone, but the recording would do no justice to the way the houses jumped up and down. I don't even know if God jumping up and down will record. Or if you can see Him in a mirror, like Dracula.

Because my house and the neighborhood was shaking, I needed a few more pots of coffee to keep me awake.  The dog was up late last night, going ballistic because there was a fox outside. Some of the birds mess with her by dive-bombing her. No idea what the foxes do, other than show up.

BANG BANG BANG, goes the door, which is a different banging than God's. The nice hardhat tells me they're gonna block my drive for a few hours. That was nice. Now back to my meeting.

Strangely, the Serious Banging went away for a bit. The house-size hole in the street was new. 

Then I got something new. From the noises, it was either a car-sized can opener or a city block sized rumbler. My entire house was shaking like never before. Some parts of me were actually enjoying it more than others. It's not something you feel every day, unless you ride one of those machines, I guess. Those guys probably have no intestines left - everything's just jumbled up into some sort of pinkish mess.

A quick visual examination showed this to be a machine called The Convincer. It had a nasty looking steel plate that banged and shook the tar, stones, twigs, and small children into a flat spot that cars could drive over (and screw up their suspension). A bunch of neighborhood women found this machine's effects "strangely entrancing" and vowed to take turns calling the city to get more street work done.

BANG BANG BANG goes the door, again. It's a different hardhat, telling me the water is being rerouted and it will be shut down for an hour. IF I had somehow convinced Mrs. lefty to have sex at work then shower with me, this would definitely have been a problem. At least for the shower part. Since my luck runs closer to Charlie Brown, I just got the door and thanked them.

By the time the Transformers Machines left, the street was drivable, some people were orgasmic, and one guy's going to come home and find out his house moved 1" to the left.

Mrs. lefty slept through this.

• where does one get this 'childhood' thing? is it expensive?

Today I identify as  Dr. Cocker, the cocker doctor

• Australia is going gaga for alcohol-free wine and beer
• Australia is a very silly place 

Biden tells Putin critical infrastructure sectors 'off limits' to Russian hacking

Putin promises and swears to leave critical infrastructure sectors alone 

• America is going through a weird time, where historical monuments are being defaced and demolished.
• In Japan, a giant Buddhist statue got a Flying AIDS face mask.
• History has tears in its eyes 

Today in rugby news, hooker Tom Young was called 'prostitute' by a US website

2 countries separated by a common language 

• Remember I warned about contact-tracing apps?
• Western Australia police used contact-tracing data to investigate crimes

Flying AIDS news

After ruining 75M J&J doses, Emergent gets FDA clearance for 25M doses

FDA approves (and gets) better drugs than the rest of us 

COVID SCIENCE-COVID-19 may cause loss of brain tissue

Some vaccine experts having second thoughts about rushing to inoculate kids

• CHICAGO Mayor Lori Lightfoot has declared racism a public health crisis – and will give $10million in Covid money to fight it.
• That's right - racism spreads like mad and can kill those infected with it 
• never mind people who are actually dying

Jeff Beck Group - the guy in front is Rod Stewart

. The 2nd guy is Ron Wood (Stones)

Why is Your Car in that Hole?

 Your love is like  bad brown acid, circulating around the front

I'm not psychic, but I know I'm going to have some important phone conferences today. I know this because there's some sort of machinery on the street, ripping it up and doing repairs. I can't hear myself think. It's a great day, though... I'm trying to work, dog is barking at the machinery, and Wife is sitting on the step, waiting to tell the construction guys they're not doing it right.

The crew is doing a quarter of a block at one time, to keep the noise and aggravation up, as well as the salaries. I did not know there was equipment that could BANG on the ground and literally shake several houses on either side. It's like jumping up and down on a floor and everyone near you can feel it. Then there's the Slightly Limited Banger Machine, which makes more noise but doesn't shake houses. The men make between $35 and $75 an hour, with the upper numbers determined by skill. The $55 per hour guy (only one per job) is the guy who gives hand signals all day. No one knows why. The $65 per hour guy follows along with a clipboard. The $75 per hour guy is home in bed. Construction is fascinating.

They're putting in what looks like huge water pipes, but we know they're Shaker Pipes, so after they close everything up, the pipes will randomly shake and make noise, to bother the hell out of anyone working from home. The noise was so loud, the neighbors stopped mowing their lawns, because nobody could hear them. The suburbs get this automatic metal scraper, which scrapes across the street at random hours. I thought for sure we'd get one. Not to worry, the neighbors will find a way to compensate. Just when my house stopped shaking, rattling, and rolling, I got down on my knees and got thankful. Mrs. lefty said not to worry, this was their lunch break. When the noise stopped right out front, I was doubly thankful. Mrs. lefty, always a shining light of positivity, suggested I not be all that thankful - all they were doing is moving 25' down and starting again. 

A brief chat with the gents said they'd be cleared in a little while. They have to block everything off so no one will jump out in front of any construction trucks. After a recent spate of people getting creamed by trains because they were, for some reason, on the tracks, this lit me up like a Christmas tree. I would love to see people driving out in front of these trucks - especially the one with the 20' mangling blade. It would make "Saw" look like a limp penis. It would slice the car like bologna. Now that's entertainment.

The guys don't care, but Mrs. lefty and UPS/Fedex have worked out a deal, where her packages will be delivered to a house down the street, so she can get them later. There are at least 4 pairs of shoes and several squeezy tubes of Miracle Medicine from the BIN (Buy It Now) Network. One does not come between a woman and her deliveries.

• Happy 80th, Bob Dylan

a New Hampshire couple used 80 lbs of dynamite at a gender reveal party for their baby

911 gets frantic calls, hilarity ensues 

• the UK, famous for weird city names, has another: Stow-on-the-Wold, where a street's power had to be shut down to rescue a cat. It's in Gloucestershire, you know.
• Keen-eyed readers know that this isn't a rescue - it's the cat, testing how fast the rescue trucks respond

Regardless of how you feel about Ted Cruz, this is hysterical:

"Holy crap. Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea,” Cruz writes in a tweet comparing a Russian military ad to a U.S. Army recruiting ad. The Russian ad features recruits shaving their heads and suiting up for a parachute mission, interspersed with shots of a bullet being loaded into a weapon. The American ad, posted earlier this month, is a sunny animated clip featuring a narrative voice over from a female soldier raised by two women explaining why she decided to join the US Army.

Today I identify as a 5 year old boy transitioning to a 6 year old girl because my insane parents said to. All I said was, "Girls have it better in school" and WHAM, I'm on hormones.

• 21 people died in a marathon in China
• nobody listens to me - exercise causes cancer and running is dangerous too

Crypto payments over $10,000 would be reported to IRS under Treasury plan

of course they would.... it's your money, so naturally they want it. They also want keys to decrypt payments 

• For those of you who were terrified by the changeover from Trump to Biden, it could've been worse...
• Samoa's first female prime minister was locked out of parliament by losing opponent

The IMF says $50 billion is needed to end the Flying AIDS pandemic in 2022.

Uhhh... yeah... right. If there is 'international' in the title, you should scrutinize anything they say.

2022? Place an EMERGENCY call to Fauci!

One of the amplifiers I'm looking for just came up for sale. At $5700, we've made a joint decision to let someone else buy it. The problem here, as I see it, is that I'm not rich.

Odd Plea from the guy who types this shit: if, heaven forbid, you or someone close loses a husband, please do not say "You're the man now," to his eldest male child.

How UFO sightings went from joke to national security worry in Washington

(Washington Post)

US submarines detect mysterious speeding crafts underwater ahead of Pentagon UFO report

(Express.co.uk)

Oh yeah, they're in the water too

'Tipping point': Suspense builds ahead of major Pentagon report on UFOs

(Washington Times)

President Biden starts his day by lifting weights

Nobody told him they were Snickers bars

Laptop Hinges That Heal

Black Lives Matter.

Click here to see what ThermionicEmissions is doing for black people.

We would like to acknowledge the first responders, at the convenience stores, at Dunkin Donuts, and Dairy Queen.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way......

Today's Irony News:
Mexico closes border to US due to Flying AIDS fears

I pretended all was well and ran some errands today.
The construction guys tearing up the street... no, what I mean is the guys who leave the Caterpillars and construction signs want us to know they're aware of the Flying AIDS and have put precautions in place: there's a sign that says Covid 19 precautions in effect. It doesn't appear they're doing anything anyway and we can't imagine what kind of precautions are necessary for heavy equipment, but we play along at home.


Nothing has changed at Dairy Queen: you still have to wear a mask and only 2 people are allowed in the store at one time. This results in a small city developing at their door, hungrily waiting for an ice cream product. It also results in me not stopping there, as I have the patience of a pregnant gnat. Years from now, these people will still be there.. the Soft Serve Zombies.


The most horrid thing caused by the Flying AIDS is that nude beaches feature no clothes, but you have to wear a mask. On your face.


Human sitcom Governor Gavin Newsom (R-Uranus) ordered all California wineries closed. Except his.



Never mind the Flying AIDS, Australia has a flesh eating bacteria problem. If you catch both, you could wind up on a respirator without any skin. Now shut up and go have lunch.

Waaaaay back before the bean counters started running things, you could get a good job and count on being there for life. You had a pension, steady work, and maybe even a Coke machine. 

Not anymore.

Especially the Coke machine.

What did a steady job get you?

Funny you should ask...  in the 1895's (1950's for the non-dyslexic), Leo Fender started making guitars. To give you an idea of how successful he was, you won't see a group onstage these days without a Fender guitar or amplifier. Jimi Hendrix played a Fender Stratocaster (yeah, me too). But this isn't about Leo, Jimi, or even me... this is about a little-known member of the Fender assembly line, Abigail Ybarra.

Abigail Ybarra was with Fender early on, winding pickups (those things under the strings, that use a coil of wire). Guitar players are weird on a good day; it goes downhill from there. A famous artist, or better, a famous deceased artist, obviously has something to show all guitar players, the world over.... it's just a matter of what it is. Jimi had Marshall amps. Eric Johnson has a pedal called the Fuzz Face (as did Jimi). Stevie Ray Vaughan had a pedal called the Tube Screamer, which caused a cheap box to go to $300 to start. Like I said - weird.

When dating a Fender guitar, you do not take her to a Mexican restaurant. You open her up and look for signs of the date she was made. There are also identifying initials.  People noticed the AY initials coming up a lot around pickups, so they got excited because they had Abigail Ybarra-wound pickups. Because of this, there is now an official Abigail Ybarra set of pickups you can order from Fender. She's well-known in the lunatic Fender fringe. She's famous simply for doing her job. And now one can buy Abigail Ybarra-wound pickups.

What have we learned?

1. It paid to have a job for life.
2. guitar players are waaaay out there on the stupid suspicious scale

All of my dogs have had... weird... somewhat human... talents.
Penny is a dog. And that's apparently where it stops.
I tell you this as she sits next to me, with her latest toy: a dish sponge, that she got out of its wrapper.

Today I'm reviewing Microsoft Teams.

After a considerable amount of time with it, my review is thus:

Don't.

Well, sure it works. It's solid and doesn't crash much. But the design team was off that week, so anybody who could hold a crayon was in charge. It's done in early You Can't Get There from Here style. The most notable feature is the audio/video settings. Naturally I keep the mic and camera OFF.  Microsoft supports people like me by not remembering audio/video settings. I have to turn them both off every time I use the program. Ah, Microsoft, your quirks are why I love you.  (and why I use linux)

Captivity - Day 70 not as exciting as day 69

A Real Pollock

We have several problems, here at the ThermionicRange, even discounting its inhabitants. Stuff falls off walls, stuff falls off tables, and dirty dishes reproduce in the sink.

Most people would be fascinated with this. Entire tv shows have been done on it.  At this point, I'm less interested in the cause than the solution. A plastic glass leapt off the table, following a house guest. While we're not all that fond of guests, even I know this is not the way to go about it. The worst is Gravity Days. You've had them, whether you know it or not. You pick up a glass, which immediately goes to the floor. You drop the sponge in the sink a time or 12. Expensive possessions rocket to the floor while you're holding them or walk past them. Or look at them.  Sometimes, even thinking about them causes an electro-gravitical pulse, knocking the object where it is most likely to commit suicide.


Yesterday was a particularly bad Gravity Day, unlike we've seen in months. I walked into my Office of Captivity and immediately lost 10 items. I watched them go down, like a train off a cliff, some in a loose alphabetical order. Normal humans would be very amused by this gravitical display; I growled (a frequent, useful response that can cover a lot of ground). After a few hours, I grew agitated with this somewhat amusing display: all it was missing was a song and dance routine above the couch. So what do we do? We take lemons and make Orange Crush.

After watching my coffee cup do the long jump to the floor, taking a paper plate with it, I decided Something Must Be Done. This is usually the start of some really hideous, expensive, time-wasting endeavor. I do not disappoint. A man can only take a certain amount of crap before the Internal Twig<tm> snaps and Stuff begins to occur. In normal people, this can take years. Here, it's 10 minutes. Or less.

Something had to be done, and I was(n't) the man to do it.  As Mrs lefty was out, finding out which stores were open for Emergency Shopping, I was watching stuff leap to its death while I worked. Pro Tip: MUTE your work phone before letting loose a string of profanity, detailing what you like about a task or program or dog. It was not pretty. It had been 3 minutes and I had gone past my limit (temper AND credit card), so I decided to take a different mode: I launched the items myself. It's like your car breaking and you know it's going to be at least 4 figures to fix it, so you ram it into a convenient stop light or police car. This turned out to be my inspiration, my muse, my ability to finally conquer constipation!

I picked up a coffee cup and launched it outside the office.
This felt so good AND appealed to my artistic sensibilities (I *have* no artistic sensibilities), so I threw something else. Coffee mugs weren't a problem - I like to keep at least a week's worth in the office - makes things comfortable and discourages people from sitting. During my Own Private Physics Experiment, I notice the harder I threw an offending item, the further it went outside the office. Essentially, I had launched a couple boxes of Stuff out of my office. It's not MY fault - it's the damn Flying AIDS that forced me to work from home.

Mrs lefty returned, not quite suicidal from the shoe stores being closed, and was truly curious about the (additional) mess outside my office. "I was redecorating." Like most stuff I say, she said nothing. I was upset, as I didn't even get an eye roll from her. My general solution is to up the ridiculousness of my statement, but I wanted to play this cool.

her - "What is this?"
I was redecorating.
"Oh. Why are my 4 vases in pieces on the floor?"
To make omlettes, you have to break some vases.
"Ah, and this colorful display on the couch?"
The grape juice kept trying to leap off the laptop, so I took care of the matter proactively - aren't you proud of me?

As she walked around the house, she'd ask ridiculous questions about why, and what a muse was. I got tired of explaining, so I turned this into a business opportunity: lefty Pollock. People will pay me millions to come to their houses and throw their own crap at their walls. I will be THE new artist. I'm weird, I can't draw, and I have more social problems than most of the artists put together. In other words, I'm PERFECT. I'll finally be able to afford those guitars that are older than me!


It's raining again, which means someone's mowing. What IS it around here? There should be signs up or something. WARNING: No Silence Zone. Mowing and Construction Ahead. If we forced them to use electric tools instead of gas or pneumatic, it would at least be fun to watch. Ever put aluminum foil in the microwave?     (PS: don't)



A moment of respect, please.
George Floyd's mother got on tv last night and thanked everyone for their support. She asked for peace. She must be among the strongest people on the planet.


People are not very accepting of Minnesota jokes yet. Maybe they just don't like black humor. Oops. Sick humor.


The Blob, filmed just outside of Philly, will be running this weekend, at the very theater it was filmed at.  I had a great friend who lived right there. He is missed.

Captivity - Day 69 heh heh

I was waiting the entire captivity period to type that.
(get it - period?)

Twitter's anti-porn filters (We'll save the world from posts WE find offensive!) blocked access to Boris Johnson's chief advisor, Dominic Cummings, from gaining traction on the platform. Also caught in the filters were Nancy Nuckers, Stacy Swellows, Bill Yunt, and Steve Hardin; Johnson's Porn Advisory Board. When asked for comment, Johnson said, "We have to identify the porn before we block it."

It is a sickening color of brown and green.
Last night I got out of mowing because it was going to rain.
But WAIT... it's raining and there's still mowing. It sounds more of the electric and solo melody, but I still don't care. They're religious and if the old dude with boat and animals comes by, they'll ask him to mow, one last time.


I tried to make a point with Mrs lefty (uh-oh) last night. On days when the Precision Stereo Multi-Altitude Mowing Team isn't outside, doing their work, I now have the Precision Stereo Multi-altitude Construction Team. I don't know what they're building and I don't care. The 2 groups have coordinated so they never perform their suites on the same day. The mower team takes Monday, Wednesday and Friday, while the house team has Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. This way there's %&$ing NOISE every #&@ing day of the *&%ing the week. Since Mrs lefty knows the owner of the Construction team, I asked that she tell him to have the noise stopped. She looked at me, with that eyes rolled back look she always has when I talk, and said nothing. HEY - I work at home too. I have to listen to this #&@#ing noise every (#&$ing day. How about some consideration for people who telework without pneumatic equipment? AHA - we can use our lack of noise and force them to listen to it one day a week. They'll commit suicide! And we'll have a quiet neighborhood again.

Or we could call the police and tell them the construction guys are not social distancing.


My scanner program just alerted me that there were threats to behead Governor Whitmer in Micambo County. Minnesota. Are these a bunch of calls or one? Note: we do not want the woman to be hurt in any way: that's what the legal process is for.


Bad Bad Target

I think an official, impartial investigation must be opened into Target.
I don't know what they did but it was enough to piss off 2 whole groups of people in 2 different groups on 2 different nights.  Even though I don't know what Target did, I take the word of my brothers and sisters in the Floyd protests. Perhaps an impartial investigation can turn up what kind of racism or shit they have pulled on the people. It's probably the white man - crackas tryin to keep them down.

But in these days of riots and demonstration, they may be looting, but at least they're social distancing.


(RIP friends and family) It's impermissible.


if you want to listen to the police feed, go to broadcastify.com
Youtube for live video.

I hate to sound like this but PEACE. Make your point peacefully and respectfully.

Don't Ask for Creativity Before 8am

A little joy for you this morning: iPhone apps with camera permissions can take pictures and video, using the front or rear camera, without you noticing. There is nothing you can do about it at present, other than cover your camera lenses.

• Hey - where's your stick? Sensitive data on Heathrow Airport security was found on an abandoned memory stick. Most of it wasn't encrypted.
• This can be avoided in a number of ways:

1. hold onto your memory sticks, stupid.
2. encrypt the entire stick, stupid
3. don't allow this data to leave the network, stupid
4. if this didn't come from an insider, you're in deep doo-doo, stupid

• This isn't new security practice. It shouldn't come as a surprise to any computer security student.

A bug just discovered in LG IoT (Internet of Things) communication technology can allow someone to create an account and access all your LG smart appliances. This could result in your toaster committing suicide by walking into your preheated oven, then calling police and fire to tell them it's a false alarm after your smoke detectors go off.

Do not put this stuff in your house. When you go appliance shopping, tell the eager salesperson that you want dumb appliances. You want your appliances so dumb, they can run for office.  When the salesperson ignores you because he has no dumb appliances to sell, tell him you read ThermionicEmissions and you're scared shitless. This blog will either become highly read or Google will be petitioned to remove it by the IoT Safety Committee (somewhat related to the Congressional Ethics Committee).

• It's time for the Weekly Marshall Update.  Marshall is halfway through his chemo. His bloodwork is very good and Doggy Onco Doc is very happy with his progress. He has a small colored bandage around a different leg after each visit.
• We are extremely thankful for the clinical luck.
• As you'd expect, there's weirdness afoot. For the first time in recent memory, Marshall is acting like he used to. The dog who was having trouble getting up steps and jumping on furniture now sleeps in bed and relaxes on the couch. 
• Tissue shredding has recommenced! It's a good thing I get into bed in the dark, lest I see that night's freshly-shredded tissues from the trash can. The dirty ones make much better shredding.

This morning, the news introduced us to Rosebud, the therapy chicken.

Therapy chicken.

This is going to be hysterical on airplane flights.

mmmmm... tastes like chicken...

• It's dark and dreary. I suppose it's not necessary to say that, as it's our default weather. Regardless Loud Construction, Inc, is already out, making the circular saw on concrete noise.
• This goes on roughly seven days a week, yet water never gets into the power tools and electrocutes the handler.
• WTF are they building - a secret bunker? Pizza shop for soon to be missing children?

Pretenders' front woman Chrissie Hynde warned the audience of their strict no cellphones policy. The phones came out and never left. She let the audience have it midway through the first song, saying if it continued, she'd stop singing. They continued but she didn't. The band shortened its set as a result.

The self-important screaming from the audience on social media stated that the band was there for the audience and the audience was paying for the band, so they should be allowed to do whatever they want. 

I'm not a fan, but go Chrissie!

• To my vast legion of left-handed musician readers, The Southpaw Store, Disneyland in Houston, is having a sale on lefty ukuleles. The policy of this blog is still that it is not polite to speak French or play ukulele in public.

Don't forget, kids... it's Halloween!  Now get out there and offend somebody!

Appropriate someone's culture. Be creative. If all else fails, try blackface.

• My wife is so good to me... she got me a Halloween shirt that says JACKING-LANTERN.

Harvey Weinstein has been banned for life from the Producers Guild.

Because he got caught.

None of this was a secret within the industry.

Nor was Kevin Spacey. The stories are coming out about many underage males he got drunk and propositioned. He used the Gay Excuse to get out of it but gay does not equal pedophile.