Captivity - Day 34 a clean colon is a happy colon

Every now and then, I remind myself of the ahhhhhhh feeling I get from bathing; usually once a month or so.  Working from home is exhilarating... so many negative things (in-person meetings, clothes, silicone toys, etc). If you're particularly eager to get out of a meeting, tell them you're not wearing anything below your shirt. Or women's underwear - adjust to taste. Or just a bra - people are fascinated by bras (unless it's a guy figuring how to take one off). Then there's the interruptions... PLEASE TELL THE DOG TO STOP BARKING, put a tit in the kid's mouth, why is it that you only become chatty when I'm in a meeting? Does the sound of talking from my phone give it away?

My stomach is getting weird (moreso). It lets me know I'm hungry before I know it. It's not the generic grumble, like normal people have; this kind actually speaks.  When you're sitting there, minding your business, you start hearing stuff. It can even impersonate some of your friends and relatives. So if you hear one of your friends knocking on the door and cursing lightly, it's more of a complaint than a standard. Just the other night I heard it say "How bout some food, doofus?, in my brother's voice. It scares the dog." Lately it has been ordering pizza, in my voice. It also tries to pick up the owner's wife  Even my stomach noises are doing better than me. Mind you, Mrs lefty wants to know why the owner's wife is always knocking at our door..


Speaking of stomach noises, they sound like they're speaking. Even Mrs lefty says so. We're just never sure what language it's speaking. They're pretty loud, especially when they speak to her.

HEY - did you just call me a fatass who couldn't ride a scooter?
Wasn't me. Talk to the stomach.
No, YOU talk to the stomach, when you want some dinner.



Chocolate covered ants
That is all.

I'm not too concerned about the hallucinations because I heard about them while growing up. At that time they were drug-induced. Doing the Science, I don't do drugs (much to the surprise of others), I barely drink and when I do, I drink like a girl. No pills other than prescription (I have my own prescription pad), and I was weaned off lead paint by the age of 22. I miss that delicate taste. Blue really did taste better than brown.

So none of them explain why those just folded towels look like a dog. Fortunately it's not moving.
However, the things that are moving are a little frightening.
Yesterday the stairs slid down and became a water slide. This needs watching, because I use the stairs.

Ya know how you stare at something for a bit and it starts moving? I don't have to wait. As I type, there's a vertical junk storage thingy on the table. Everything in it is moving, but not at the same time. It looks like it might be sending Morse code, but the laugh is on it - I don't know Morse code. The gorilla hand is holding up a car stereo, as it sometimes does. The part that's odd is that it never moves. Til tonight, I guess.  The garbage pile in my office sits next to a cleaning towel, and keeps being Mrs lefty all day. There's a perfect answer for this: even Normies could see it out of the sides of their eyes. Now that I know what it is, I keep looking at it, like it's her.

Oh yeah, I don't take LSD either.

The dog has been resting on the couch most of the night. She has the fascinating ability to disguise herself as a blanket. Even though I know this, I keep looking at her, to make sure she's ok. The radio antenna has got some motion to it, but only at the end. Last and least, soda cans have started appearing on the coffee table. Anyone, even the fashion-impaired, knows you don't put soda cans on a coffee table. Fortunately it's been cleaned. How do I know? Because I can see 1 square inch of the table top. If progress continues at its current speed, I'll see TWO square inches of table top by December!!

Meanwhile, Sir Paul is tuning up in the guitar room, He says I have more lefty guitars than he does.  Stop sucking up, Paul.


Speaking of which, I'm not getting any audio hallucinations.
The top audio hallucination, as reported by Audio Hallucination Magazine, is Taylor Swift. It's not only this maddening - you sing and dance along with it.



One of the main purposes of this blog is actually to document one weirdo's descent into madness. Apparently we just put the water on to boil.

Philly Gets its Own Shooting

You saw it on the news. You caught live feeds on Youtube. You listened to the scanners. Philly's very own shooting. Unfortunately it's not a mass shooting event, with only 6 police shot (none seriously, thankfully). Here's a timeline, sorta:


Philly police went to serve a drug warrant on a man in North Philly.

When they got to the neighborhood, they were taunted and had projectiles thrown at them.

• probably the same people who say the police need to protect them from drug violence.

Police entered the house.

Man with a semi-automatic rifle let loose on them.

Police wisely use doors and windows to exit.


Perp fires out the window at random intervals.

• Street cleared of everybody but SWAT and a few police. No one hurt.

Perp livestreams on Faceyspaces.

• Because nothing happens til it's on Faceyspaces first.

No contact with perp, in spite of bullhorns and phone calls.

News goes viral - the whole world's watching.

A daycare center advises parents the kids are safe but don't pick them up yet.

Eventually the police commissioner makes the first statement. Next at the mic was the mayor, using his first sentence to call for gun control.

• Oh, sorry, Mayor Sanctuary City.. the gun was illegally obtained. Your gun control laws won't prevent this. It's already illegal to own the rifle and illegal to sell drugs. Any other agendas you'd like to go over?

Democratic candidates for president go into Gun Control Mode with the press.

• Sure didn't take them long. Again, the rifle was illegally obtained. In fact, the criminals will be the only ones with guns if you get your way. Never let facts stand in the way of an argument.

Hours later, the perp's attorney gets involved and convinces him to surrender peacefully.

• A very smart attorney who is also wise. "They won't shoot you with the whole world watching."

On the way to jail, perp falls down several flights of steps, then punches himself in the face and body repeatedly (unverified) (completely made up).


Credit to the Philly Police for lack of stormtroopering. They did not rush the house, preferring instead to talk it out first. Philly got a serious black eye during the MOVE situation. A satchel of explosives was dropped on a house by the police commissioner, taking out the house, an inhabitant or two, and the entire block. The taxpayers had to pay to rebuild the entire block. As is typical, the taxpayers had to pay to re-rebuild the block when the original construction was found to be seriously faulty.



Some libertarians say this makes a hell of a point for legalizing drugs and not tampering with the Second Amendment. Do you agree?




UPDATE: I heard a very small snatch of a press conference, possibly from Philly's governor, possibly mayor: I'm going to push the legislature to start passing laws to get the guns out of the hands of criminals.

Huh?

It's already illegal for criminals to have guns. Are you feeling ok today?

1984 Was So 20 Years Ago

There is now a wireless hack that will allow someone to unlock 100 million Volkswagens. And you thought emissions cheating was bad,,,

• Know what's weird? Twitter. It's unlike other places, in terms of variety. There's the ex-NSA guy. The current judges. The girls who show off their boobs for free (and unfortunately, the ones who want you to pay for the privilege). Aging divas who post selfies for reassurance. People who repeat things until they're convinced of them. More than one left-handed guitar player. Tons who want to sell you something and visit their Faceyspaces page. And the one who brags about the famous athletes she banged and the ones she wants to.

Still keeping with our No Olympics Policy, I can only say that there's a lot of them about. And, in spite of my love of Brazilian women, the place is a shithole. Also, if you like big boobs, you're shit out of luck.

• Know what's great about drugs? None of them work right on me. Think of the money I've saved!

it's national tell a joke day: A VA employee sits down at his desk and fulfills requests.

Thank you.

I'm available for children's parties.

• There have been lots of accusations lately where one party blames the other for being corrupt. Hint: they're both correct.

Work gives me a headache. Not work itself, but my coworkers. The cubicle to the left features a phone ring that sounds like an annoying whistle, which the cube to the right automatically parrots every time. The cube in the back has a bird chirp so real that people keep looking up for the bird. The cube on the left also has a hearing problem, so every time his phone goes off, we have to be pulled off the ceiling.

• Ok, I don't know much about geography or floods, but I'm going to go ahead and say it's time to get out of certain parts of Louisiana. Good thoughts to the fine people there. I hope they survive and thrive.

Aetna said that it would sharply reduce its participation in Obamacare's public marketplaces next year. Yes, another win for Obamacare and another loss for the people.

• Ban Ki-moon, outgoing secretary-general of the United Nations, says he would personally like a woman to take over for him.  Why does having indoor plumbing qualify one for this position? Hey, I know.. we'll send Hillary! The UN is practically worthless and we ignore it anyway....

I have an adversarial relationship with Yelp: it sucks plus I don't use it. Trying to locate a restaurant between two hotels a few blocks apart was a nightmare. Not only did it come up with an incredible amount of choices (good), most weren't open at the moment (bad). The reviews were less than helpful. 

The other day we wandered into a store and the owner got started on Yelp. Apparently every few months, perhaps as the result of a salesman change, he gets calls from Yelp, offering to enhance his position. This is quite obviously pay-for-play, which undermines their own stated business model. He said it was nothing more than a platform for trolls. The reviewers didn't say a word to him, yet posted negative reviews. If the platform had any validity, I'd have given him five stars. Honest, personable, knowledgeable, and great customer service. 

• I just read a fascinating(?) story from an Olympic swimmer about performing during her period. For your reading pleasure and general health, I have conveniently forgotten to include the link.

A nation of morons has expanded to include many nations. Pop star Adele tweeted about a burrito, which got retweeted 31,000 times.

• A second information layer of DNA has been found. This is a mixed blessing, as I still don't understand the first layer.

My area got some cooling thunderstorms last night, so it's only going up to 93 today.

This is how McDonalds can fix the $15/hr minimum wage problem

Hey, Where's Joe?

Many years back, I interviewed and was eventually hired by Joe.  He told me later that the tipping point to his decision to hire me (aside from my meager salary requirement) was signing my email Geekus Maximus.

Joe (not his real name, but then again, it might be) was a great boss.  His sense of humor and job knowledge were superb.  He knew sarcasm but wasn't as accomplished as me so we traded skills.  Every department he walked through waved and snickered.  He was an unholy terror with sexual harassment, moreso than me, but knew what he could get away with.

Joe also schooled me on learning to speak to vice presidents and other assorted vermin up the corporate chain.  He told me to just think about what I would be like with about ninety percent of my brain removed and phrase things accordingly.

It turned out that Joe was inaccurate: it was closer to ninety-five percent.

That aside, we were a small, closely-knit band of IT operatives.  We were the lowest of the low.  One day we heard an overhead announcement for the IT Password Committee.  I turned to Joe and asked him what that was about.  He looked and me and offered that he had no idea.  No one had thought to consult the IT people about the IT Password Committee.  So it was in the Twilight Zone (and so it shall always be).

Joe had chronic pain from a back injury.  He also liked certain substances to help with the pain, as the prescribed medicine didn't work very well.  In fact, Joe liked certain substances on general principles.  People who had been to his parties all testified to this (although not in court, thankfully).

The work atmosphere got even more interesting when Rob joined our merry little band.  Rob was a classic underachiever: he would whine for three days about going on the road in order to build up the steam to actually go on the road and do his job.   Rob also enjoyed certain substances, including certain other substances.  He would show up for work in sunglasses and sit at his desk, mostly asleep, after his many nights of amusement.  He was our departmental DUI champ with a total of one.

As Joe's pain got worse, he became absent a bit.  Then a bit more.  Then a lot.  He began actively seeking certain substances for the pain.  It actually got to the point where he could be missing for an entire week.  Needless to say, work became interesting.

Manglement grew weary of absences and started making unreasonable demands like `come to work a few days per week' and `please bring a doctor's note'.  This did not work for Joe.

At about this point I started being defacto manager, as there was no one else.  One day I was minding my business, driving myself to work, when the phone rang.  It was Rob, calling to let me know he got popped for his second DUI (a new departmental record), and btw, he had an eight-ball with him at the time, so it looked like he wasn't going to be coming to work for about eighteen months.

I pride myself on my ability to go with the flow.  I'd simply figure out a way to accomplish more with less of us.  The next call, which I debated upon answering, was Joe.  He said he was going away for treatment for a few weeks; he was addicted to medicine.  And wasn't I proud of him for admitting it?

Wow.

After that, I decided to drive to work with the phone off.  At very least I would never receive any more bad news.

Unfortunately for all of us, Joe kinda lost touch.  We'd call and he wouldn't get back to us.  His employer called and he wouldn't get back to them.  Eventually they grew tired of the routine and terminated his employment.

The building was in shock, as were the denizens.  Everybody loved Joe.  We heard he was a proud man - too proud to return.  It was not like he couldn't return, even socially, yet he disappeared.  No matter how people tried to contact him, he did not respond.  We obviously had to respect his decision (even though we knew where he lived).

Every now and then people would ask "Hey, have you heard from Joe?"

Rob never returned either and the company moved on.  It's been over five years.  If Joe walked in the front door today, he'd still be stampeded by his friends, running up for a hug.  We often lamented his absence.

Today I discovered through the grapevine that Joe died last month or so.   He became a victim of his addiction.  ThermionicEmissions sends out best wishes to Joe, his wife, and his sons.

Joe, you stupid mf-er.