Eating Pizza with a Spoon

 

Your love is like  cyanide chocolate bars, also available in a child-friendly juice box

The recovery of thousands of heart attacks and various cardiac and nerve maladies has been greatly helped by the announcement that Elon Musk won't be buying Twitter. I'm kinda disappointed... not that I'd wish an exploded cranium on anybody, but it was kinda funny to watch. Twitter has announced that they will continue their mandate of only allowing the speech they deem correct.  I mentioned this was coming. The second funniest and first most hypocritical part is that Twitter is suing Musk for not buying it.

Today I identify as  an abortion pill

Werk has another interesting course: discrimination training.

I have never discriminated against anybody, and I'm not going to take training on it. Nor am I going to take sexual harassment training: I could teach the damn course. I am frequently reminded it is not a HOW-TO.

Quite frankly, this pisses me off. Quite frankly, it will have to stand at the end of the line of things that piss me off. It's a frightfully long line. I don't need these stupid courses, nor do my workmates. It's insulting. I have never worked at a more integrated company and have seen zero negative interactions over my years. People are actually capable of getting along. Save the classes for those who don't. Unless this is one of those ridiculous mandates or Wokeness. I freely admit I only discriminate against the Stupid, but thus far, there's no woke term like 'stupidist.'

Today is the 4th anniversary of Marshall's passing.

If it can be said that a dog is man's best friend, then Marshall was definitely mine. He wasn't so much a dog as a force of nature. He didn't do a lot of dog things, though. The vet referred to him as a little human in a dog suit. He had friends in other countries. He was a best friend and pet-by-proxy to our neighbor: she would garden and he would move around and lay near her. It wasn't even because she threw hot dogs over the fence. He could remove the top from a styrofoam Dunkin cup faster than you could look down from driving, and he'd be face-down in the cup, sucking up as much coffee as he could. If you put the lid back on, he'd just take it off again. He sent social media posts to Marshall amps and Sass Jordan, among others. He was a star at the vet's, where everybody would stop what they were doing to come say hi to him. He knew who the good people were and would jump in their lap (all 44lbs of him). He was our 3rd rescue cocker. You can read more about him via the Marshall button up top.

He succumbed to cancer, much later than the vet gave him. He was never in pain.  The vet made a donation to the UofP Vet Hospital in his name. One of the things he taught me was to consciously appreciate what you have. His remains sit up high on a shelf, so he can overlook things. I miss him all the time. 

I shoulda known.

I have this little usb dongle for my mouse. When the laptop is sitting on my (wait for it...) lap... the dongle irritates me. Now I simply take it out.  Unfortunately I don't remember to remove it when it's in the office - I remember it when it's in the living room. Sooooooo.... it winds up alone on the coffee table. This is the worst thing I can do, unless I have a gross of dongles somewhere. A gross of dongles... heh. Try saying that in polite conversation sometime. Try polite conversation sometime. 

The coffee table, like many places in the house, has extremely negative magical powers. It's like taking the dongle, wrapping it inside a disappearing sock, putting it in the car's gas tank, and giving it to a manic shopper. I thought simply unplugging it and putting it on the table, in a very wide, empty space, would ensure its safety. I am a hopeful idiot.

So here I am, on a delightful Monday morning (seriously?), back in the office. Naturally I don't remember I removed the dongle until I'm well into work. You know what comes next, right? I keep grabbing for the mouse, that doesn't work because there's no dongle plugged in. Then I remind myself I have to locate the dongle and grab for the mouse all over again. It's like a Disney movie, except funny. Venturing out to the coffee table, I look in all that uncluttered space (2") and of course, the dongle is not there.

This requires explanation of Coffee Table Dynamics. In theory, a coffee table should not be a territorial acquisition game, like football or divorce. In practice, it is, but there's no scoring and the NFL gets nothing from it. It's not done in graduations - it's all or nothing, and it's never nothing. Stuff expands to take all horizontal space. I have (attempted to) carve out a space the size of my laptop, so I can always put the laptop down if I'm temporarily done with it. Over the years I have asserted my right to a small, laptop-shaped space on the table. Unfortunately, one does not simply acquire space, one must also defend it. Just because the space is there, does not mean it shall remain, sacrosanct. The open space is simply too much of a magnet for Shit, which simply gravitates to it. This is my explanation for it: I'd rather not think that anyone else in the house piles Shit there when I'm not looking. It's frequently remotes, which is odd because someone's always asking 'where's the remote?'  In fact, sometimes I put the laptop on the table and find a remote on top of it. I'm thinking about a way to electrify the keyboard so anyone touching it gets a nice little ZAP. But it's pie in the sky thinking.... nothing will keep Shit from forming in empty space. Sometimes it's mugs or glasses, which presents a different problem: you cannot simply push a mug in this house. Physics dictates when you push the mug, it will move. Not in this house. The Scientific Method has proven that when you push any mug or glass, it immediately tips over, generously spreading the goodness of whatever was in it, all over the table and things it shouldn't be spreading into. In thinking about it, we should put a paper towel dispenser on or under the table, for our many accidents.

I guess we could discuss the issue, but first we must figure out who's at the heart of it. Penny can probably be ruled out; she's only interested in the table when there's food on it. She will stand on two legs and walk around til she finds it. I jealously guard my small laptop fortress, so I'm hoping it isn't me. That leaves one person - Wife. She would be a great person to speak to about this, but I must balance the need for empty space with the need to have my ass not chewed out. Besides, when I tell her I need the space, she agrees, then the remotes pile up there anyway and she doesn't remember the conversation. This is when dissociation comes in handy.

I finally got tired of grabbing a mouse that didn't work and got ready for an intensive search of the table. I got my miner's hat with the flashlight, a small LED flashlight that can show you what's going on on the moon, and a big old magnifying glass. After a few cups of coffee, I was more or less sort of awake and had my nose really close to the table. This was extremely brave of me, because one never knows what may jump up and bite. Thank God remotes don't bite. After a few hours I found it! The joy was palpable. It was two feet away from where I put it, which makes perfect sense. Perhaps it had migrated for the season, to a part of the table that has a nicer climate. It was more difficult to find because it was between two pens. Of course it was between pens... we seem to collect pens. We have 457 of them on the table, none of which work. This is where it gets weird(er).. in my office I have one pen. It works. I have a small box of new pens that I assume work. And that's all. They take up precious little room and do nothing to hide dongles. Let me brag by saying there is much (3") clear space in my office and when I remove a dongle (ouch), I find it immediately.

In a few hours, Wife will wake up and ask me what's happening. I dare not explain. It's nice outside and broken bones will not help me mow.  HEY... it sounds like a decent tradeoff....

It's worse than before. Because of the Flying AIDS, businesses have closed. The only relatively new ones are E-cigs and tattoo parlors. Why nothing else? And why is there no pasta in the supermarket? You couldn't buy any spaghetti for any amount of money the other day. They had everything else, at twice the price it used to be. It was sickening. $25 for dog food, and it wasn't the 40lb bag.

People of good conscience are asking themselves why the invasion of Ukraine is still going on. One company has taken the bull by the pancreas and done something: Lego pulled out of Russia. I think this is the turning point.

After its assault on the sovereignty of women's bodies, the Supreme Court is going after gay marriage. At this point, you start to see why the libertarian party is gaining members. You Own You is my contribution to this fracas. People are allowing a body of appointed people to infringe upon you owning your own body. Then they're going after the insane concept that people need the state to marry. I propose a registry where you can record your union, regardless of sex, because it's no one's business, especially the state's.

Why do you need to register your car? You're paying the government to use your own property. It's time we start to question the status quo.

• BMW has stripped a gear and is selling heated seat subscriptions for $18/month (South Korea only)
• odd.. my seat warmer requires that you push the seat warmer button
• BMW also started selling turn signal subscriptions but gave it up when nobody wanted them.

The president of Sri Lanka, Gotabay Rajapaksa, fled the country on a military jet. Asked for commend, Biden said, "Am I still getting my ice cream cone?"

The large amount of outside noise led me to believe it was the Street Refresh, wherein every year the city tears up our street and repaves, accomplishing nothing except work for the contractor. No, it is a junk hauler. They're removing stuff from the (ex) Crazy Lady's house. Putting aside the lack of love we had for each other, this is what her life amounted to.  I watched for a minute, as my 13th cup of coffee was being made, and realized I'm experiencing Existential Agita. Have you ever experienced it?

Diversity in Cybersecurity: Fostering Gender-Inclusive Teams That Perform Better

Stop it.

1. There are many (stock) problems for which diversity will not help
2. If you demand certificates, odds are there's less diversity there. Qualified candidates may not make it past HR
3. There is a terrible shortage of security people. Maybe you need to spend more time hiring than on diversity studies and quotas and Chief Diversity Officers
4. Once again: Hire the right person for the job, regardless of any other criteria

[This is is one of those videos you see after someone dies and everyone is gathered for the reading of the will]

If you're seeing this, I'm dead.

Hi, Mom, siblings, nephews and nieces. Wife too (unless she killed me).

The funny thing is that when I made this tape, I had no idea how my exit was going to occur. Would I be shot at age 92 by a jealous husband? Would my no smoking and no drinking lifestyle lead to cancer? Had I finally managed to hitch a ride on a nuclear device? Did I simply trip, causing my own downfall? Did my emotional support elephant, Iqbal, fall on me? My parents told me I was an accident. I wonder if my death was too.

The smart money should be on me saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. Live with no filters, die by no filters. Wife is also a good bet: with the amount of true crime books she's read and shows she's seen, the mafia comes to her for tips. So the answer depends on whether or not my body showed up. I'd prefer a closed-casket funeral anyway, as most who know me would. With my luck, I'd get wheeled around on the retarded casket wheels, just like the shopping carts I always got.  Screech, screech, bump bump, stop.

My wife specified cremation when she goes. She used to specify it a lot for me when I was alive. She made sure our ashes would be in different places, so she wouldn't have to put up with me for the rest of eternity. Cremation was only a warm up, pardon the pun, for where we were going anyway.

I lived a good life. No I didn't. I lived a tortured, depressed artist's life. The saddest part was that I never went anywhere with my (alleged) art. I didn't even cut off any of my body parts. I spent every day over 25 sick about my hair loss. They say it comes from the mother's side, but she had a full head of hair. Medical science could make penises useful for four hours, but not hair grow where it stopped growing.

I don't want to mislead you into thinking there was nothing good in my life. I had some damn fine pizza. Some guitars. And... uh.... you know....  other stuff. I was married once, but multiply. How do you phrase it when someone with multiple personalities has multiple orgasms?  (YAY?)

Is my hand attached to my junk for some reason?

Now, to what you greedy bastards are all here for:

I leave my collection of nose hair to the IRS, who never knew I had it. The joke's on them - it's not all my hair.

[laughing] You thought I had money? Here, have a hoagie and a soda.

It is truly sad I won't get to see everybody fighting over the guitars.

I leave my house to my nephews, with the proviso they let Wife live in it til she needs diapers. Wait til those little bastards find out how much it costs to run a house -even when it's free.

my Telecaster goes to Keith Richards. He's a lot older than me, but refuses to die. 

To my wife, I leave the greatest present of all; my death. 

Will someone please let the dog in? Thanks.

This Death Thing Must Stop

Work is weird.

Of course work is weird - it's work.

The current employer could not be anywhere near as weird as the previous one, but it has its own particular weirditees. Everything requires a process, including getting a computer and desk. Just because the 2437 form was filled out doesn't mean there's a computer or desk waiting: no one knows where the form goes or how the process works - only that most of the time it doesn't. It was decided I had the job at the beginning of December, and my January 2nd start date came and went, with no computer and no desk. It took an additional six weeks for the computer to arrive. I discovered that it wasn't mandatory to do your job here either, when my boss saw things undone and merrily breezed past them, as if this were normal (it was). After a number of years, this still astounds me. If there's one thing the Twilight Zone<tm> taught me, it was to do your job well and communicate progress. This turned out to be laughably unnecessary. I have the problem of all newbies: I do my work and expect the same from others. My coworkers just laugh at me (most people do) and tell me the job will eventually remove my soul so I'll be just like them (shudder). If someone asks for something that can't be done immediately, I communicate progress. They laugh, shake their heads, and say, "Newbie."  I have requests that were made months ago. When I send reminders, they're promptly ignored. My employer is a parody of itself, like Congress.

• A nod to the draconian government of the UK, which just enacted the most sweeping snooping legislation in the entire world. Naturally there was barely a whimper from the Great Unwashed.
• Why do I care - I'm in the US. Because the UK is frequently a staging ground for the US. Rest assured, it's coming. -Ever vigilant.

• I'm passing this along, even though I know my people don't use iDevices. 12 iPhone security tips for iOS 12. I plan to use as many as I can. 
• The world has taken a large step toward security by using HTTPS instead of HTTP to get to websites. In case you doubt the seriousness of this, important, secure businesses like banks use HTTPS. In case you're still not convinced, PornHub uses it too. To use it yourself, install your browser's version of the HTTPS Everywhere extension, which will only allow HTTPS connections unless the site doesn't support it. You won't have to do anything after installation.

Last night we saw one of those drug commercials with a 15 minute list of possible side effects. It was a cancer drug for post-menopausal women. My favorite warning of all time is "don't take this new med if you're allergic to it." If you experience death, call 1-800-LETS-SUE. The other warning was not to give it to anyone if they may be pregnant. I'm not a doctor (although I'm interested in gynecology and specialize in psych disorders), but post-menopausal women don't get pregnant. Even the alleged Immaculate Conception occurred before the lady in question was 40. Speaking of which, how can anybody be part of a religion which refers to 'without sex' as 'immaculate'?

How can anybody take seriously a blog that starts a paragraph with drugs, migrates to the Virgin Mary, then closes with a Christian sex question?

• If you're ever bored, go through the labels list for this blog. I think anybody thinking of reading ThermionicEmissions should look at them. It's a delightfully absurd hodgepodge of words, which will excite or completely put off a prospective reader.

A new study by Yale professor Cydney Dupree suggests that white Americans who hold liberal socio-political views use language that makes them appear less competent in an effort to get along with racial minorities. Yale. Education has also become a parody of itself. Missing is the black outrage because white liberal Americans think they're stupid.

Meanwhile, every department in which I worked had absolutely no trouble interacting with 'minorities.' We were a team full of minorities, including the rarest of them: women. All that matters is that you do your job well; that's where the difficulty interacting came in. We were either way ahead of our time or woefully behind.

• I will never forget the day the hiring manager came into our office and told us he needed to see more faces of color in our department. As he was finishing, he looked directly at me, as if he was expecting a witty retort. For some reason, perhaps naked fear of job-hunting, my mouth stayed shut. Little did I know, this event foreshadowed the profound stupidity that was to follow. WE NEED DIVERSITY! Why, are minorities better at IT? WE NEED DIVERSITY! What about hiring the best person for the job, regardless of anything else? WE NEED DIVERSITY!
• That particular job made me a pretty happy employee, because I could do my job the best way possible and still pull off goofiness in a way I became known for (and accepted!). While on a late night project, the head of HR asked if we'd like a beer. I told her I didn't drink. She looked at me in horror and said, "You mean you're like this without drugs or alcohol?" It was one of my finest moments.
• I discovered one of my coworkers was a cheerleader in high school. She told me not to tell anybody. Naturally I procured pom poms and followed her down the main hallway, shaking them, right past a managerial meeting. She turned red, the managers fell off their chairs, and I smiled. They left me alone because I did my job well.
• Another Red Moment came when I was under a desk, hooking up a computer. Someone at a nearby desk started a rant about Stupid IT never fixing anything. I popped up from under the desk and she turned shades of red her department had never seen. Her coworkers were in hysterics. She apologized at regular intervals.

Whether or not you consider it valid, people line up for Past Life Regression. Let us suspend disbelief and consider it for a bit.... everybody who comes out says they were a famous person in a prior life: Joan of Arc, Pope John Paul XVIIQ - CMM, or Atilla the Hun. If this is true, who picked up the trash? Who cooked the food? Who taught New Yorkers to add an 'r' to random words (brar, sawr)? After studying this for damn near fifteen seconds, I think I have the rhythm of the method. Let me translate:

• I was Napoleon: I was Napoleon Smith, the guy who fetched hyena meat and wiped Napoleon's ass for him
• I was a highly-decorated naval seaman:  I was frightfully, obnoxiously, annoyingly gay and enjoyed seamen
• I was a famous obstetrician: I got a lot of women pregnant
• I was George Washington, the father of our nation: I got a lot of women pregnant
• I was a very early champion of women's rights: I got a lot of women pregnant and insisted on abortions
• I was JFK: I got a lot of women pregnant
• I was Thomas Crapper - inventor of the toilet: I was the guy who cleaned shit out of Rome's sewers
• I was a judge of early French cuisine: I was a vulture that only ate dead things
• I was a health pioneer, celebrated the world over with raised arms: I was a mosquito, carrying malaria

Careful what you wish for department:

Our dogs have always been small furry people. I wondered what it would be like to adopt a dog that was actually a dog. Yes, we got one. She defends the house by standing at the window and barking like a lunatic when someone is on her sidewalk. I watched her 'find' something, then dig a hole in the yard to go after it. I have only seen dogs dig in cartoons. Then I get dragged out when the door opened because there was a bird flying over her yard.

Thinking further, I prefer small furry people.




Things are going nicely in society's rapid descent to the place where the red guy with the horns is in charge. As proof, I submit this page, which describes a child being prepared for sex change surgery. Have I mentioned he's 6 and is in line for chemical castration at 8?

WTF?

Standard Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and know absolutely nothing about gender reassignment. Of course there's a however coming... However (I told you it was coming), it doesn't take a PhD (Piled High and Deep) to figure out that a 6 year old is not legally allowed to and is not capable of making this decision, Then there's another small issue: he hasn't hit puberty yet. If the mother child decided to become an alcoholic, would this be ok?

Here is where it truly devolves to Peak Stupid:

• Mom has changed his name to Luna and dresses him in female clothes
• Mom enrolled him in school as a female.
• Mom has support and financial backing
• There is a nasty custody battle
• (non-custodial) Dad, who seems relatively sane, is required to pay for this
• Dad has been accused of abuse for saying his son is male
• The 'debate' is being fought on social and religious issues.

Of course the plea is slanted (it's Dad asking for help), so we can be sure this isn't the full story. But I'm sure the main concept (sex change) is correct.

Fact: children under a certain age (16-18?) cannot have nose jobs for cosmetic reasons.

Announcement: today I identify as a 6 year old and demand to be treated as such. I'm enrolling in first grade and will sue if I am age-bullied. Hopefully I will not be the tallest kid in class - that's hard on kids. Since I'm so socially awkward, I won't bother the girls (or the boys, probably). Class Clown status is virtually assured, like the last time I was 6. If they give me a Chromebook, the class will get a presentation on security. If they give me a Macbook, I will spend the rest of the week in the principal's office. Ah, good times....

• Have you noticed the commercials for the products called "That's What I Call Music"? Inevitably it's not.

As Captain Picard Kirk said, or one of those other captains, "Keep your friends' genitals.." no.. wait.. "Keep your friends close, keep your enemies in France." No, that wasn't it either. France... maybe it was Napoleon. Remember the good old days, when people with certain disorders thought they were Napoleon? You don't see many Napoleons these days. Is this a good thing? Not if you wear your socks on your ears it isn't.

Pithy emissions aside, the last few days have been rough and I felt a strange compulsion (different from my other strange compulsions) to say something (not again), as if saying something is going to make a difference. No, they haven't changed the medicine again.

A superstitious relative says death happens in threes.

[Rod Serling voice] A perfectly ordinary couple, going about their lives.

His mother goes into the hospital and passes in short order.

Immediately after the funeral, they got a call and drove three hours to say goodbye to her father. A few days prior they went to visit their neighbor, with end stage cancer, to say goodbye. He died several hours after they left. While putting together the shiva/wake for his mother, she received news that her father died.

If this were us, I'd start calling us the Angels of Death. People could pay us not to visit their loved ones. Or to visit their loved ones, depending on how they felt about them.

How sadly lucky these people were, to be able to say goodbye. 

If they didn't get the chance, it would haunt them (sorry) for the rest of their lives. The message here is to value what you have. To never be in a position where you'll regret what you said or didn't say. Don't let friends and family be ignorant of your feelings for them. Before you leave mad, ask yourself how you'd feel if that was the last time you spoke to them.  Remember the Big Picture. The only nice thing I can relate is the couple visiting their terminal neighbor brought him joy, possibly the last joy he experienced.

Say what you will, but we treasured each day with Marshall. When he left, we weren't burdened with 'we could have done better'. Unfortunately this doesn't stop grief - it just doesn't add to it. (he's talking about his dead dog again...)

We knew one of the three people well. We had the pleasure of meeting another, with whom I shared a hobby. One passing is more than enough.... three caused a serious ripple in reality. For the couple mentioned above... can you imagine? The only comfort seemed to be friends and loved ones showing up.

We have a lot of thinking to do. Maybe you do too. Maybe you already did. 

Care to tell people what you came up with?

• Coming up next on ThermionicEmissions Television: Things I have pulled out of my foot.