It's Not Polite to say Coccyx in Church

To my readers:
A very happy new year to you and yours.
To us and ours too. 2019 has been total crap and the faster gone, the better.

You know who you are: we miss you every day.



seen on twitter:

Just witnessed an airport proposal. She did not say yes.  [@wleaming]

Christmas came early for that guy. He really dodged a bullet there. [@JesseKellyDC]

After Mozilla got word that Avira and AVG Firefox extensions ate all your data, they pulled them. They're now back, after the extensions reduced the amount of tracking data being sent to their servers.    Seriously?

• Flying Robot Vacuum. If this ain't the Fifth Horseman....

Dear lefty

• What is your New Years resolution?
• To stop answering stupid questions.

Yeah, I discover things really late..
Go to your phone's app store and download some sort of online radio listening app. You may be surprised at what you can listen to... I did a search yesterday and came up with a lot of interesting UK radio; comedy and rock. There's sports, xmas stations, 50s music, and sports. It's also a great way to remember which musicians died recently. The foreign stations are very interesting, in that you can't understand what they're saying. This is just like the TOP HITS stations in the US! If you can't find something interesting, you're not hitting PAGE DOWN enough.

Speaking of dead musicians, "    ,    , and Palmer" won't be touring. Palmer is holed up in a steel room (he thinks) Death can't get into.

50% of the Beatles won't be touring, as will 50% of the Monkees. I wonder if the ones who died are getting together in the afterlife. John Lennon, George Harrison, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork. They can call themselves John, George, Davy, and Peter, singing songs about the live ones who left them but are eventually joining the group. The dead ones are occasionally joined by the 5th Beatle, producer George Martin, and the 6th Beatle, Billy Preston.

If Danny Gatton isn't dead, he'll be shocked that all of his guitars are for sale.

Kurt Cobain remains dead, but he has an excuse. Have you ever seen his wife?

Only 25% down is Led Zeppelin, however the one causing all the trouble is an alive one.

Badfinger has not one original member left, sorta. The guitar player joined after the first album came out, so he didn't play on it. He counts as the only one not dead (and is reported to be hiding out with Palmer).

It's a bad time for Jimi Hendrix, but he is more prolific dead than any time he was alive. His sister is making a ton of money, releasing all sorts of stuff and putting his likeness on barstools.

Nobody from Deep Purple is dead, but the members change monthly, so it's difficult to tell.

Zappa remains wherever Zappa went after he left, but his progeny, Dweezil, tours the country, playing his music. Dweezil is probably the only one who can play Frank's music.

The Allman Brothers are now Brothers of the Grave, with exactly two original member above ground. There's Jaimoe, and sometimes I wonder if he knows he's still alive. I watched him shining his cymbals once, during a song. And there's Dickie Betts, recovering from a near death involving falling off something (or someone). There were a lot of Allman Brothers, hence a lot of different deaths: cycle, tree, shotgun, and cancer. Strangely enough, not from drugs.

Chicago never recovered from the death of Terry Kath (guitar/vocals). No one else has died, except their career.

The three Kings of the blues have gone underground: B.B., Freddie, and Albert.

The entire ELO band disappeared, so it's possible they're dead. They were all replaced by Jeff Lynne, the voice of ELO.

Joe Cocker is no longer Feelin Alright.

As for the Winters, remember that Edgar is the living one and Johnny has departed. Sometimes Johnny looked dead long before he died.

Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead) has flown the coop. The only good news is that supplies of JD and meth have returned to their former numbers.

Slade is still on the road. Nobody died - the members just quit at random times.

Robert Palmer no longer sneaks Sally through the alley

Ritchie Hayward and Paul Barerre's departures have gutted Little Feat.

The Turtles (Happy Together) are alive and touring, as part of retro package tours. I don't think anyone died, or at least Volman and Kaylan haven't. Cancer tried to get Volman, but he won.

I need a hobby.

• Why do cats always land on their feet?

Conversations with the pharmacy

Hi, it's lefty. I need a refill on #125843.
Yes, we can fill that in 2 weeks.
Two weeks?
Yes, 2 weeks. The birth control, right?
I can assure you, nobody in the house, including the dog, takes birth control. Do I sound like I take birth control?
Oh. I musta got that number wrong.

You musta.

• Faceyspaces will stop mining contacts with your 2FA number.
• No they won't.

I miss the Old Days<tm>.
On New Years Eve, we'd sit around, complain that the fireworks displays were too crowded, then complain about the idiotic New Years shows, then ask "They call this shit music?" We'd play Flip the Nephew to figure out which show to watch the ball drop, talk about how much we hated last year, and go back to shooting up.

Come to think of it, just like every year!

• Just when you thought the NSA spy satellites were new: giant surveillance balloons. 2020 will bring us Giant Flying Octopusses with Telescopes. 

Today I identify as  an xmas tree, out on the curb

• If I played football, my position would obviously be offensive lineman. Or offensive quarterback. Maybe offensive coach.

No maudlin, semi-serious, sardonic, sarcastic blog would be complete without a list of notable deaths in 2019.

• Danny Aiello, 86
• Carol Channing
• Norman Orentreich, 96, "the father of modern hair transplantation"
• Peter Tork [Thorkelson], 77, complications of cancer
• Hal Blaine [Harold Belsky], 90, session drummer (The Wrecking Crew)
• Doris Day [Doris Kappelhoff], 97, pneumonia
• Dr. John [Malcolm John Rebennack], 77, no longer in the Right Place, Wrong Time
• Rip Torn [Elmore Raul Torn, Jr], 88 [not Rip Taylor]
• Peter Fonda, 79
• Valeria Harper, 80, cancer
• Rik Ocasek [Richard Otcasek], 75
• [Peter] Ginger Baker, 80, killed by life
• Rip Taylor, 88, [not Rip Torn]
• Marie Fredriksson, 61
• Dominick Arena, arrested Ted Kennedy after Chappaquiddick
• Rene Auberjonois, famous for nobody being able to spell his name, actor
• Paul Barrere - Little Feat guitar and vocals
• Tim Conway - master comic actor
• Dick Dale - king of surf guitar
• Daryl Dragon - The Captain, without Tenille
• Arte Johnson - Laugh In
• Aleksei Leonov - first person to walk in space
• Peggy Lipton - Mod Squad
• Eddie Money [Edward Mahoney], 70, esophageal cancer
• Art Neville - Neville Brothers keyboardist, vocalist
• Beverly Owen - Marilyn, The Munsters
• Leon Redbone - guitarist
• Charles Sanna - invented Swiss Miss Cocoa
• Carroll Spinney - Big Bird from Sesame Street
• Gerry Stickells - road manager for Jimi Hendrix, among others
• Nathaniel Taylor - Rollo on Sanford and Son
• Lorraine Warren - paranormal investigator, inspiration for the short ghostbuster in Poltergiest
• Bob Einstein - was Super Dave

There's a theme here. Guess what it is.....

Bored?

Check out Death List

Celebrity Death Pool

I really appreciate my existing readers plus the new ones from other countries.
If you're late to the party, this blog has no actual purpose, other than to amuse people and document the owner's slow descent into madness.

No Elephant Parking

The president is holding a conference where I work!
I'm sure it has nothing to do with me being asked to take the day off with pay.
There is a poll on how many times he says 'the best xxx'. Another poll on which one of us can get some quality time interviewing Melania. And $1,000 to the person who asks if this is the first set of implants on a First Lady.

We had to cancel the poll about the media treating the First Lady like they did the former First Lady (fashion icon and all around wonderful person) because we couldn't find anyone who thought they would.



Election Overview

The 2020 election will make history.
There are 457 democrats running, Trump, maybe another republican for fun, and one of any number of Clintons. The Libertarians (my people) haven't selected a candidate, the Greens get less press than my people, and the Socialist Party refused to support Bernie because he's too socialist.



Dear lefty:

• Why are there red spots on my wee wee?
• Because you'll nail anything that will stay still for 30 seconds.

Best Headline: "Tornado of poop" hits Massachusetts town after overpressurized sewage line experiences severe blockage.  Everyone wants to be California.

• Debate Season: when you watch these travesties (from any party), listen to the empty promises, some which don't align with reality, and ask yourself what the person has already done about the promise. The answer is nothing.
• Note the naked pandering.
• Remember the last debates. Remember the promises. Do you remember any results?
• Remember the hot air about things getting better when the opposite party gets into office. What happened? What are you being told now? Same thing.
• Our memories are short - about four years. Let's go over the script and decide to do something different. If we don't change our actions, we won't change the endless cycle of the same results.

A political parody, not too far from truth

Recently, Amelia Octavia Complex, democrat and Trump admirer, compared the illegal alien holding facilities to Auschwitz.  Her party did not take the statement lightly but used the opportunity to complain about the facilities. After Trump had them moved, Pelosi and Schumer were apoplectic because the illegals didn't get cable. After Trump gave them each $25,000 out of his own pocket, Pelosi publicly vilified the president for going outside government channels.

Trump put the illegal aliens up in his hotels, which drew the ire of Schumer, because they had a lot of stairs to walk down if the elevators broke, and still no cable. A problem solver, Trump built each of the illegals a house, again out of his pocket. The entire democratic party screamed, "IMPEACH" because the houses weren't in nice enough neighborhoods, and they still had no cable. No sane person should tolerate this. As a final move, the president gave all illegal aliens citizenship, expecting Pelosi would finally be satisfied. Pelosi stammered and shook, saying that illegal aliens should not get instant citizenship; instead, they needed to go through the official immigration process.

• Pro Tip: stay out of the Dominican Republic

Good Morning, Vietnam. Good Night, Georgia

For tax and other reasons, a lot of Hollywood's filming moved from Los Angeles to Georgia. They were doing well. Since Georgia passed the anti-abortion law, many businesses are boycotting, among them, some of the film industry.  It will be very interesting to see the end result of the boycotts. May the bite you take out of your own ass be large and painful, Georgia.

• My carbon footprint is size 11

Let me put your day in perspective

Penny just returned from a chemo treatment.
There was a couple who was looking after their mom's dog while she was in the hospital. They got a call that Mom died. Then a staff member came out to tell them the dog died.

Stay close to your people and pets. Appreciate them every day. You never know...

• Angela Merkel (R-Germany) has been seen with really bad tremors. It was so bad, her assistant mistakenly called her Hillary. The staff said it was hot outside and she was dehydrated. 
• Like you, I've seen a lot of people in hot weather (except my Siberian readers), none with serious body tremors. It was painful to watch.

Politics is Politics:

The British liberal party just accused the conservative party of being the party of antisemitism. Sound familiar?

This shouldn't be a problem in a country where it's against the law to say anything bad about anybody online.

• This week's Word We Can Live Without: staycation

SJW News

Toy Story 4 slammed for 'lack of lead black characters and disablism'

The knitting community is dealing with racism.
While they're at it, they banned pro-Trump content.

• An Alabama Ford dealer offered a free shotgun, bible, and American flag when buying a new vehicle.  The promotion stopped abruptly, when Ford Motor Company asked them to STOP IT.
• It's not like the items aren't going to be in the vehicle the next day anyway..

and Leon's getting larrrrrger!

This Blog Needs More Diversity and Inclusion

Some guy on tv is arguing that more diversity is needed in government, to celebrate a large pool of skills and foster inclusion.

He went on to say he bases himself on Martin Luther King.
I'm not MLK's biographer, but my understanding is that Dr. King wanted black people to elevate themselves, not be given preference because of their color.



ThermionicEmissions would like to thank the president for not bombing Iraq. Or Iran. We predicted the warmongers would win and thus far, they haven't. We need to eradicate constant war and focus on Home.




Entertainment News

• Led Zeppelin's legal team will be headed back to court over the charges they stole the intro to Stairway to Heaven. The last trial was set aside because the judge didn't give the correct instructions to the jury. The forty attorneys for the Zep expect their side will do well.
• There is a new Adam Sandler movie.. but who cares?

Florida News

A Florida man was arrested after dancing naked and "trying to have relations with a railing" at McDonald's. McDonalds now serves aphrodisiacs?

A Florida man told deputies the cocaine on his nose was not his.

An Uber driver's ear detached during a fight at a Florida airport.
Spontaneously?hot

Philly News

A Philly woman was fatally stabbed in a dispute over a parking space.

This is normal in a city that believes triple parking is a God-given right.

Dear lefty:

• Why do so many young ladies post naked pictures of themselves on Reddit?
• To answer the question accurately, I will need the exact locations of the pictures.

As I type this, the 90 year old neighbor is mowing her lawn. Again. Weekly.

I should probably feel bad I have to be forced to mow mine every few weeks.

We tried to get a service to do both lawns, but she says she likes mowing. Somehow, the list of things I want to be able to do when I'm 90 does not include mowing. Hell, the list of things I want to do now doesn't include mowing.

90 - wow.

I know someone who found out, overnight, he was going into hospice due to  cancer. What do you say in this situation? We don't deal well with death as a society to begin with...

After a period of deep introspection, I decided we need some up to date greeting cards

• Sorry You're Dying
• Sorry I Gave You Herpes
• Can I Have Your Girlfriends (When You Die)?
• Sorry Your Social Media Accounts Got Hacked
• I Love to Sing (at funerals)

Hallmark has not responded to my suggestions yet.

Speaking of death and introspection, there will be an auction of the late Burt Reynolds' possessions soon. The items range from credit cards to boots to his one-off Camaro for the Bandit movies.

You and I are nobody (I think). We are extremely unlikely to see our Stuff auctioned after we go wherever we go, if we go at all. 

Think about it: somebody had to go into his house and collect these things. 

Would you want your entire life to be auctioned off upon your passing? ("I won't care" is one acceptable answer.)

What kind of Stuff will be found post-mortem?

Your collection of 1970s Playboys

Farrah Fawcett and Kim Karsdashian posters

A drawer full of condoms, way past their expiration date

The chair you farted in for the last 30 years of your life

Your collection of belly button lint (from others)

27 small hard drives full of 1980s porn

43 used socks

The password to your Faceyspaces account

It's damn creepy, from the point of view of the living.

It also raises way too many ugly philosophical questions.

• I have a lot of trouble remembering things said to me yesterday, but I can identify some of the officers on LivePD by name (including the dogs).
• I have a lot of trouble remembering things said to me yesterday, but

Why is it that we can't bring a 4oz bottle on a plane but you can walk through our southern border?  Apparently Security Theater does not apply across the board...

Don't you want to kill me?

That Was Fast. Too Fast.

I met her at my last job. A real down to earth lady and a genuine sweetheart, able to give back as good as she got, sometimes to a bunch of male coworkers. She bounced around at different positions and getting promoted out of departments. She got laid off and came right back as an IT person. She picked up quickly and was already a hit with everyone.

In fact, she was so nice,  she had to keep being told not to give people whatever they wanted, at the expense of taking care of other issues. She couldn't say no (a trait I admire in women).

Describing herself as a feco-phobe, she used to get Lemon Face whenever someone said 'butt sex.' She'd say ewwwwwwwwwwww. We named a piece of network equipment ewwwwwwwww, in her honor. We used to say 'butt sex' a lot, just to watch her reaction. This was a woman you could say anything to without a reaction. Except, apparently, butt sex.

At a work social outing, she met Mrs lefty and made fast friends, even doing strange arts and crafts at the outing. They laughed at our coworkers as they displayed their social ineptitudes (mine too).

I left, she left, and we did lunch, but she was pretty bad with email and we know how I am with Faceyspaces.

Today the text chain found me to let me know she left us.
She was a young woman with 4 kids.


ThermionicEmissions salutes and bids a sad farewell to Mupht.
The existential agita is high today.

Absolutely - Your Data is Safe With Us

Today's IT fact: Healthcare is now the most vulnerable industry to data breaches, with 328 breaches in 2017 alone (accounting for 60% percent of all breaches last year). The total estimated cost of these breaches reached $1.2 billion.

Remember this when your doctor talks about Electronic Health Records and offers you a URL to look at your records and talk to his office online. 

• The trash truck just left. Before it got to the next house, the Crazy Lady's cans were taken back to their resting place. This is weekly and for some reason, fascinates me. The thing is, the Crazy Lady has nothing to do with it. She has somehow managed to coordinate this dance with neighbors and whatever creatures Crazy Ladies socialize with. She has them all fooled, looking like she's having trouble getting around, when the fact is she's only 439 years old, which is midlife for her species (whatever that is).
• One day I discovered a neighbor working on her patio roof. I suggested concealing a bowling ball up there, with a trapdoor. He knows I'm sometimes odd, but he looked at me with questions on his face. Turns out he has no idea how evil she is and is doing work for her because he's a genuinely nice guy who helps people. This also gives her plenty of time to call the city and complain about some imaginary violation on my property. After which she'll leave us some fresh tomatoes from her garden.
• I need to start limping a bit. Then maybe the neighbors will take my trash to the curb precisely at the earliest time allowed, the day before the truck comes, then take them back to the house the moment the trucks leave. Snow plowing would also be good, as well as mowing the lawn. I try not to be unreasonable.

Speaking of neighbors, I have to remember not to cheat on my wife.

This is not really a difficult thing to remember, but I've already had an illustration of what would happen if I went insane and tried.

I'd get caught.

I  say this because every time I'm with a female in an honest circumstance, someone I know happens to pass by. I kid you not. One day I didn't have a ride home, so I asked a female coworker and offered pizza in exchange. As we're eating, my sister-in-law walks into the shop. I introduced them, being perfectly honest. Because it sounds perfectly honest to say 'she's my coworker'. Mrs leftystrat is friends with this coworker and refers to her as my Work Wife, so no harm done.

Another time I'm in the same pizzeria with another person who did me a favor (of a non-sexual nature) and Wife's niece walks in. Niece lives forty minutes away but loves this pizza.

Second niece, who lives around the corner, occasionally carpools with me. We're at a red light and there's a knock on the window. A gentleman is telling Niece that her left rear tire is really low and she could use some air. I looked up and the gentleman was the neighbor who worked on Crazy Lady's porch because he's genuinely a good person. We said hello and I explained that the very attractive young lady was Wife's niece.

So if I were theoretically ever so stupid as to want to cheat on my poor, long-suffering wife, I'd have to move to another state to try (at which point my parents will be visiting that state and staying at the same motel).

• Headline: Morbidly obese couple have sex for the FIRST time in their 11-year relationship - after losing almost half of their combined 1,256lb weight.
• No. Just no.

Sometimes you read an article so ridiculous that you check to make sure it's not dated 4/1. Unfortunately, this is not April Fools Day:

Microsoft is cracking down on what people say while using their services online. According to a new services agreement written by the company, the tech giant is planning to ban accounts that use “offensive language” and will go through your private data to “investigate” users.

Read the sickening article. 
We know of my great love for all things Microsoft; this is a great example of why, especially awful on the heels of the Faceyspaces privacy debacle.
This will not affect me, but if you use Office, Xbox, Skype, or certain others, you will be affected. I'd advise you to curtail your use of these services, even if you don't produce content that will trigger an alert.

I know that you're not putting anything in your documents involving obscenity or bestiality, but this is the first step to dictating what you can say and how they own your data. Remember lefty's law #2: if you can't touch your data, you no longer own your data.

One does not have to be looking for conspiracies to see what's going on here - it's happening in real time.  You will look back on this and realize how this was a major step that pushed us across the line to censorship and official corporate monitoring of your data. And you agreed to it. Think about it now, while you still have the option.

Things is getting weird and concerning.

• Speaking of movies, don't forget to see Bedazzled. The original, not the Liz Hurley remake (although Liz Hurley...). The dialogue is unbelievably funny and beyond merely witty. Check out some quotes. I'm told this is a spoof on Faust, but I'm a Philistine and don't know anyone called Faust.

My wife is watching some movie about Jewish gangsters of yore. Yes, I know they existed but never stopped to think about them.

Jewish gangsters.

Time for a little stereotyping.....

You owe me a favor. If you don't complete it, I'll sue you raw.

What do you mean you can't pay? I'll beat you with 3 day old bagels.

Oy, dis interest is meshugga. I shall cut it down to 99%, for you.

You know Moishe, right? Moishe the tailor. He forgot his protection money and got audited.

• If you're giving a PowerPoint presentation to several departments at work, remember to close your porn. Trust me.

I've read some winners lately. I really enjoyed the complaints that gun control was too white. Ladies and gentlemen, if we manage to surpass this, we can be 100% positive that the rest of the universe is laughing at us (as opposed to mostly certain).

Holy Cross Theology Professor Says Jesus Was a ‘Drag King’ with ‘Queer Desires’

Go ahead. Try to beat that.
And while you're beating that, perhaps you can define 'Drag King'. A woman who dresses up like a man? Will we all be watching Rachel Maddow's Drag Race on tv?

Saint John’s constant references to Jesus wanting water, giving water, and leaking water “speak to Jesus’ gender indeterminacy and hence his cross-dressing and other queer desires,” Liew contends.

Well, that's certainly an original interpretation of the New Testament. I don't want to come off as a biblical know-it-all, but I'm beating my brains, trying to figure how the actual expert got from water to queer. We're obviously out of our depth. Maybe the guy's subconscious has been writing up these theories.

• There's a very interesting article in California's Mercury News about deportation of illegal aliens. In short, ICE is deciding on whether or not to deport an illegal who has been deported three times and has a drunk driving conviction. His wife and children, US citizens, want to pack up and move to Canada if Dad gets deported.
• The path to Canada is fraught with hills and valleys (mostly hills). Canada will accept refugees from terror in their home country. Since it's difficult to prove this in Mexico, they've got a problem getting in. They want to apply for permanent citizenship.
• What the tens of thousands of people streaming into Canada don't know is that they need to prove they have skills that would benefit Canada and that they won't be a drain on the system.
• For some strange reason, the article is reasonably balanced. Recommended reading.

While we're in California, a San Francisco policeman pulled over a self-driving car and gave it a ticket, for driving too close to a pedestrian. How do you pull over a self-driving car? Who gets the ticket? Can I bring my emotional support elephant?

• Headline: 'World's worst' super-gonorrhea befuddles doctors...
• Yes, it's super-gonorrhea.. faster than a teenage virgin. More powerful than all antibiotics. Able to leap tall condoms in a single bound!

Last weekend, hackers got to Baltimore's 911 system.
I'm not all that fond of hacking websites, but this is different: it could cost lives. How would you feel if you needed an ambulance for a serious issue, and the system was offline or backed up because it got hacked?

• Good news for the stragglers who have not abandoned Faceyspaces: Firefox has an extension called Facebook Container Extension, which prevents FB from tracking you across the web.

Walmart made a 'business decision' to pull Cosmopolitan magazine from their checkout areas. It might not have been entirely a business decision, as Walmart recently heard from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), which had launched a campaign to pull Cosmo from checkout areas in an effort to make them more “family-friendly and sexploitation-free.” They claim the magazine "regularly promote pornography, sexting, BDSM, group sex, anal sex, and more.."

Isn't it wonderful that we have somebody looking out for us, to make sure we don't see things they don't want us to see?  Like the women who stood behind the alcohol prohibition of the early 1900s?  Women are actually campaigning against consensual sex. That's shooting yourself in the vagina, isn't it?

• Our friend and neighbor, the schizophrenic, is a really nice guy. When he was able, he'd plow our sidewalk when it snowed. It doesn't take a professional to understand he's paranoid, but we all have our issues (especially in our house). Yesterday, Mrs leftystrat pet-sat for him, so he could get some stuff accomplished, as he doesn't get out much. The guy, a vet, barely makes enough to get by. 
• When he returned from his trip, he had purchased lunch for both of us. You can't tell him no. Solid guy. There's some good in the world (contrary to the stuff I put here).

Sister Wives

Is this four times the fun? Looks more like four times the trouble. 

Avoid.

• Need some ideas about how to see if an email is legit? Check this out.

Just remember that if you're unlocking an iOS device with the fingerprints of a dead person, it only works with the recently dead, so jump on that corpse ASAP.

Really Deep Thoughts - Really

Really, what's the point of life?

Everybody has asked this at one time or another: it's my turn.

What becomes of you when you're gone? While we all have our ideas of where we 'go' after our time has passed, what of our space on Earth? What did we leave, if anything? Do we have to leave anything?  Does it matter?

When we go, we leave some sort of impression. Do we truly live on when people remember us?

What of our Stuff?

Like most grandparents, mine kept a shoebox with all of my accomplishments over the years. They were very enthusiastic about this, so it was more like the size of a 1971 Cadillac. 

As I mentioned, my grandmother died years back. As I saw some of her furniture and whatnot come into her children's houses, I stood, stunned, when I thought of my shoebox. It opened this whole quasi-existential dilemma. This is not about me (ok, it is), and not really about the shoebox.  

The box was no doubt a source of pride and love. It fulfilled its mission in their lives. But now the box is an orphan; it floats in space and time. A possession of paper, with emotion attached to it. But now the emotion has no owner.

My parents have a box like this. It is now time to change the topic.

Which brings me to Me.

For some reason, I feel I need to leave something. Why? Is this common?

I have done many things of which I am not proud. When I'm feeling down, they come visit, and dance in my head. On the other hand, I will certainly leave a lasting impression, mostly in a positive way. I've made a difference in a lot of lives, mostly people around multiple personality disorder. I keep a virtual shoebox of emails from people asking questions and getting information they needed. Sometimes I look inside the shoebox... it has emotion attached to it and makes me feel really good to have helped a little. note: this is not bragging or virtue signalling.. it's just inventory. Mostly (hopefully), I've left laughter and entertainment (intentional or otherwise).  I guess that's a decent legacy. I guess it only has to matter to me, because it will be nothing in one generation. Dust.

I'm kind of attached to my Stuff.

While all the other kids were buying nice cars and spending money on dating, I bought guitars and amps and related things. When people rented apartments and bought houses, if there was spare money, it went to guitars. When I went on vacation, I had already scoped out where the music stores were. The result of this is apparently quite an enviable collection. It's interesting and frightening that the 'dog' guitars I bought are now considered vintage and desirable. I also paid frightening amounts, just like everyone else, for a house.

When I'm done here, what happens?
I can't leave anything to Marshall, as the actuarial tables have him predeceasing me. Mrs. lefty obviously gets everything. The equipment that I loved and poured everything into becomes orphaned. It will eventually find new homes, via one of those 'collector died' sales. The house will probably make the news and local legend, as one of those 'crazy old couple' stories.

I think I'm going to leave everything to the SPCA. Or establish lefty's Home for Wayward Women. Damn, I was dead sober serious up until the last paragraph.

What will I think then?
The atheists say I'll be rotting in a box.
The Buddhists say I'll be coming back.
My mom says if there's any justice, I'll come back as a parent with a child like me.
The Judeo-Christians say I'll be one of two places. At least one lets me observe. I'll be with my loved ones; and most importantly, my pets.
Others say I'll join my 'higher self' or the Universe, perhaps coming back, perhaps 'moving on', depending on what I need to learn.

If I don't know I'm dead, I could haunt a place forever. You don't want that, trust me. The moment I figure out I can 'do stuff', there will be no end to the merriment. I'll have found my Eternal Gig. One wonders if this isn't heaven...

The Unemployment Follies (#6) - Lefty's Flying CIrcus

Yes, it's another installment of the Unemployment Follies, starring the leftystrat household; the wives, the pets and me.  Judging by the title, you know I'm still without serious employment (or even non-serious employment).

SINKING?

How are things, you ask?
Things are, by and large, still things, only shrunk down by fifty percent. It getting time to call some creditors.  Do you think I can explain to them that since my income dropped by fifty percent, my payments will drop accordingly?

Perception is everything, though.
To anybody looking in, I must look like I'm on some pretty heavy drugs. I spend every day looking for jobs for a few hours, then do some housework (while my wife holds me at gunpoint).  But I'm surprisingly calm.

Of course, I'm probably the only one who's calm. The wife is absolutely Not Impressed with my state of Not Working.  She (et.al.) is in a state of PTSD-induced unrest.  She keeps me on the straight and narrow, memorizing my phone and in-person interviews and asking me if they're still happening.  While the dog is still loving having me home, the wife is definitely not.  Since I have been home, she has taken up a new hobby: laundry.  Nobody knows why but a girl has to have her recreation time.  I tired telling her that it's not necessary to wash clothes every day but there's no dissuading her.  I was kinda hoping she would take up nymphomania but things don't always work out the way one would like.

The neighbor who asked if the house will be going up for sheriff's sale has been really nice, bringing over stuff from the garden.  The other neighbor has been leaving care packages.  For some reason, they include a lot of bread.  Fortunately the dog loves bread, as if we could keep him out of it.  My mom just made us dinner.  We're not destitute by any means but I feel rich in friends and family (ok, and slightly embarrassed).  I even took down the NOT STARVING sign on the house.

AUTO-MOBILE

I'm not exactly certain which neighbors know what but the reactions are priceless. The lady across the street came over to congratulate my wife on the new car.  My wife had to tell her it was a rental.  The good neighbor took one look at the rental car and said, "Oh dear... not again!"  Several other neighbors no doubt think we own a car lot (or are drug dealers).

I have come up with a solution for our next car.  The first part is to NOT LET HER DRIVE.  The other part is to purchase the car and three entire sets of bodies (to be stored at the body shop).  This way, when people hit us (and they WILL hit us), all we have to do is drop the car at the shop and have them replace the body part(s) from our existing inventory.  We won't even have to call the insurance company (at least until we're through the three entire sets of bodies).

Speaking of accidents, my dear wife finally realized that she has a sprained knee and opposite ankle.  This is somewhat compounded by both of her feet swelling like clown feet.  The neighborhood children want to use them for pool floats.  In fact, she's sitting next to me as I type this, blissfully unaware of the content.  Swelling feet are going to look minor in comparison with what she's going to do to me.

Speaking of doing things to me, I have to do my part to help by wrapping ace bandages around her ankles.  Here we are, with this perfect deviant sexual aid, and we're using it for health reasons. Again, I am embarrassed.


WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY?

So when I'm not job-hunting, doing housework at gunpoint or wrapping my wife's ankles for health reasons, there is always TV.  I prefer internet tv, as there's almost always something I want to watch. My wife, on the other hand, lives on broadcast tv. You know, old style, plug in the rabbit ears, horrible reception television.  What makes this really horrible is that she likes to watch ancient black and white movies (from just after they added sound) and really old, horrible sitcoms from before we were born. Leave it to Beaver, anyone?

The absolute worst time of the day is during the day, when all the court shows are on. Judge Lynn, Judge Stanislaus, and the most repugnant (and famous) show of all, Judge Judy.  I am convinced that we can eliminate the national debt by selling tickets to have a whack at Judge Judy with a two-by-four (with a railroad spike in it).  There's Divorce Count, People's Court and Banana Nut Bread Court. After being an involuntary spectator in all of these courtrooms, I figure there's really only one court we need: Grammar Court.  Have you heard how these people speak?

With any tv, you get the absolute best part - commercials.  There is a current commercial for a digital tv antenna that boasts tremendous reception and no cable costs.  For those of us with a functional brain, this is a rabbit-ears equivalent that's being sold as a small miracle.

I also discovered that with a certain cable service, one can DVR up to fifteen programs at once.  This is stunning news, that must be reported at once to either Guiness World Records or your local exterminator.  The first thing that occurs to me is why you need to record up to fifteen programs at once when you can barely find one program that's even halfway decent at any time.

Then there's the sue Sue SUE attorney ads.  No matter what the ailment, they can get you MONEY. And they can do it NOW!  Their close cousins are the drug ads.  If you have suffered from a sore groin, hypertension or death, please call 1-800-SUE-YOU2.

Huh? If you have suffered from death, please call?  Dunno about you, but I'd love to be there to watch that phone call.

Today we got an extremely rare treat.. we got to watch CHIPS on the Antedeluvian Channel.  I never saw the show when it came out but I was aware of it and the fact that it was a joke.  Today I found out precisely why it was a joke.  Absolutely the worst acting, writing and shooting job I have ever seen.  You know things are bad when you find yourself longing for the clarity, wit, and fashion sense of The Fresh Prince of BelAir.

We watched stuff like that?
CHIPS was bloody huge in its day (tell them, Eric).

Also amusing were the wacky antics of the police in ADAM-12.  This museum-view of the police took place when people used dial phones and before police started randomly beating people, shooting dogs, and breaking into apartments, shooting babies, then discovering they had the wrong house.  They used antiquated phrases like 'Yes Sir', 'Yes Ma'am' and 'You get it, Pete.'  There was something odd about police in California arresting lowlifes with southern accents.


THE JOB

So how goes the job hunt?
Apparently pretty poorly, judging from the title of this post.  I hope I'm still going to be amusing when I get a new job.

Since I last wrote, I've been approached for jobs in Arkansas, New York, New Jersey and possibly Saudi Arabia (relocation costs covered!).  When travel time is over an hour, the job stops being local.

I'm told this is the time for information security people.  You'd think that the recent breaches at Target, Home Depot and (horrors!) Dairy Queen would indicate the need for security professionals.  One recruiter told me all the security people are employed (except for this one, obviously).

But I'm online, on phone and on the toilet a lot.  Things are opening up (so to speak).  I'm even in a pilot program from the state to help the unemployed find jobs.  The last time I went to the pilot program, the doors were all locked.  I suspect the pilot crashed.  It does make me wonder why I was specially chosen.  Is it because I'm the first ex-Jew they have ever seen?  Maybe it's because my dog is black.

I Talk to Dead People

For people who have difficulty around death, it is suggested to speak to the deceased as if they were in the room.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

It was around my junior year of high school.  I was a precocious little turd, with a preference for doing things my own way.  In fact, very little has changed, save some gray hair.  I was (and continue to be) primarily a guitar player.  School served to annoy me and generally get in my way.

For some strange reason my high school offered a guitar class.  They even had guitars, albeit not a single left-handed one.  It could have been considered training for all my years of guitar shopping.  The teacher, an accomplished musician who could play a few different instruments, wasn't exactly an accomplished guitarist, so I was left on my own to learn and do a little teaching here and there.

It was at about this time that I realized I was not possessed of the patience and nerves of a good teacher.  If the student did not `get it' the first time, I was in no mood to try again.  In fact, I would rather have hit the student with his guitar than sit there and try to teach him.  I understand that this is my problem and to this day haven't tried to teach guitar again.

So I had a lot of alone time with my guitar.  There is a plaque where I used to sit, memorializing the place as the `leftystrat Honorary Hallway'.

Being the advanced little twerp that I was, I figured out how to rewire and modify guitars, using my own as test dummies.  One day, this stunning vision of a blonde senior wandered into guitar class for some reason.  From that moment, I was in trouble.

Historically speaking, my success with women certainly did not come from a natural understanding of them.  Nor was it my smooth manner, hirsute appearance, rampant sarcasm, or any form of social grace.  In fact, there is no discernible reason for any success at all with women, from the onset of puberty to the present.

I simply knew that girls looked really nice and I would love to be able to play with them.  Armed with only that knowledge, I needed to figure out a way to meet this blonde guitar player.

Hey - she was a guitar player with a decent copy of a Fender Stratocaster.  I too had a Fender Stratocaster.  And I figured out a way to get more sounds out of it than the stock setup.  Hmmm..... 

I introduced myself, told her about my switching system, and about four hours later, she was at my house, watching me operate on her guitar.  Later on she said it was terrifying to watch me drill into her guitar.

We became fast friends.   She lived fifteen minutes away and spent a lot of time at my house.  She was a frequent dinner guest and pretty much a member of the family.  I taught her some songs on guitar, which became my undoing.  She would sit there and try the same song over and over and over again.  After she mastered it, she would continue to play it over and over and over again.  This drove me up a tree.

She smoked, which drove everyone around me up a tree.  The rule was that smokers had to go outside - no smoking in the house.  My mother could detect one part per million of cigarette smoke.  I swear she could hear a match strike from two floors away.

One day this girl leaned over and planted one on me.  From that moment on, I was slain. An `older woman' was my first girlfriend.  This was a huge deal in high school.  The poor thing had to deal with a lot of grief because she was gorgeous and popular and I was... not.  I was kind of infamous.  The anti-popular.  And nowhere near the top of the looks scale.

I fell hard, as one does.  We spoke each other's language.  We understood each other.  We finished the other's sentences.  Two became one (and all that rot).

Good things rarely last, which is a lesson I learned the hard way with this girl.  She moved on quite a bit earlier than I did, to be polite.  This was my first love and then my Introduction to Heartache.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Years passed.  Women passed.  Guitars amassed.  Computers came onto the scene and I was an early adopter.   Back in the heady days of CompUSA, I ran into her.  Still heartsore, it was wonderful to see her again.  We exchanged numbers, then phone calls, then hung out here and there.  Her boyfriend at the time worked for NASA (yes, a real rocket scientist!).  We all went to see ZZ Top for the first time.  I think it was the Recycler tour.

A little later on she got married then divorced (as tends to happen).  We hung out during a rough time.  She was the kind of person who could (and did) disappear for years at a time and when you see her again, it all continued as if there were no gaps.  We were friends from way back.  It was nice to have a friend with that kind of history.

She fell off the end of the earth somehow after this.  

Life continued.

Around this time I started to develop a reputation for Karens.  One day I looked around and discovered there were a few of them.   My friend was Karen#1.  The woman I was living with at the time was Karen#2.  Everyone thought it was pretty funny but I learned early that the Karens themselves were not nearly as amused as everyone else with their label.

I ran straight into Karen#3 one day at work.  Due to a poorly heated and grounded room, there were literally sparks.  We moved in together and married.  She is most amused by all the Karens but is still not fond of the #3 moniker.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I'm not sure I remember how but Karen#1 and I managed to find each other.  She emailed me her phone number.  She had somehow run into another friend of my who sang in a band and took pictures of them.  Photography was her passion.  She kept asking me to check them out on Faceyspaces.  I kept telling her I'd rather cut off my own arm than join Faceyspaces.

Her number sat in my cell phone for a while, reminding me to call her and continue our friendship.   I don't have a ton of friends, especially of the ancient dear friend variety, so more was always better.

Time (and life) continued.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

My grandparents and I were very close.  I was the first grandchild so the sun rose and set out my buttocks.  Fortunately I didn't realize this too early.  

My grandmother, tired of mid-atlantic weather, moved to Maine.  After a few years she was due to turn ninety and the family was all headed to Maine to celebrate.  I had a reputation for not showing up at family events and got the requisite stern lecture from my mother: You had better go see your grandmother.  She won't be here forever and you will regret it if you don't.

I was kind of agitated, as I fully intended to drive the eight hours to the hinterlands of Maine.  It turned out to be a great time for all.  She was very surprised to see me (yeah, my reputation was well-deserved).

My grandmother waited a few months then left us.  Some said she had done all she needed to do: the party was the cherry on top of it all.

There I was, right at the end of my mother's cliche:  I went and I am glad I did.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I got a weird call from my best friend tonight.  He sounded hesitant.   He went to look up Karen#1 and came across a memorial page.  She died.  No idea when, no idea of the cause.  I was looking forward to introducing Karens#1 and #3.

Unlike the chance with my grandmother, I failed to take the opportunity to renew my friendship with Karen#1.  

 And I am the worse for it.

Hang onto those who are dear to you: they have an annoying tendency to disappear without permission.