lefty Exits the House -but not the Building

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What could possibly go wrong?

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

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

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

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

Isn't Antisemitism in Germany just a little disconcerting?

Flying AIDS News 

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

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

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

 

Coke and M&Ms - a Manly Breakfast

Overheard at the mall: "did you have your comb for the dinosaur?"

Overheard at most of the mall's cell phone stores: WOULD YOU PICK A PHONE, DAMMIT? We have to eat sometime this week.

Funny I should mention the mall and phones, because we just came back from the phone store at the mall. One of the financial Einsteins in the house realized that if we both have the same carrier, the bill would be considerably less. I had problems with her carrier, so I fled. Years later, she's joining me. Or is supposed to. Her phone developed what can only be called encephalitis.... it scrambles the contacts' name, phone number, picture, and bra size. It does this randomly, so she can never be sure who she called. While this may work for people who like to make new friends, they don't live in our house and are not welcome. I tested her phone for virii and it's clean. I looked online and talked to Phone People, none of whom had ever heard of this, so it was time for a new phone. In some sort of ironic happenstance, I sometimes come up as her gynecologist. Or at least her last name. Bless her, she somehow knows who the phone thinks the contact is.

After calling AAA and ordering one of those flatbed trucks with a winch, I got her into the car to get a new phone. She sat down on a comfy chair, as did I. We continued to sit, while I pointed out some features of the 4 non-iDevices she could buy. For a major phone carrier, there isn't what you'd call a good range of phones. You can have a flip phone, a midline phone, or a $1,000 Samsung. I should have stopped talking because she was obviously in mental contact with them, figuring out which would be best for her. By all means, don't listen to the guy who researched the hell out of the available phones before buying his. Sometimes, 30 minutes too late, I know when to shut up.

ME: What are you looking for - a large screen?
HER: that's part of it.
ME: what's the other part?
HER: ('what am I doing here?' look) I like my phone.
ME: if you like playing "Guess the Contact" each time you have to use it, I won't argue. The new ones are all faster and larger than yours.
HER: ('am I still here?' look)

Since everyone gets nailed by a salesperson the moment they walk in the door, we were left alone the whole time. We had to locate one, but two were busy with customers and the third with his Faceyspaces account. Eventually he got bored with cat pictures and offered to help us out. She couldn't transfer her number without several Super Encrypted, Triple Secret Probation numbers, known only to the phone's owner, meaning no one had ever seen them before. She called her carrier and got disconnected 4 times. It almost hurt to not say "See, this is why you need to change carriers," but I value my reproductive apparatus too much. The numbers were also in her carrier app on the phone. Only no one had ever operated the carrier app. Is it always this difficult buying a new phone? Her carrier also has a store in the mall, as required by law.

So we went up to the 40th floor of the mall and passed the carrier's store, as required by law.  We were both really hungry, so against better judgment, we went to the food court. Well, we were supposed to, but everyone wanted to stop and look in each store, then each window display and didn't I see those red sneakers and we'll have to go back for those pink flamingo bedsheets and .. AREN'T WE HUNGRY ALREADY? Yeah, but did you see those red sneakers? The mall redid the food court a while ago, and they did a great job, except in filling it with stores that you'd buy food from without fear of poisoning. The only place I'd eat at was closed, this being the Lord's day. We had our choice of Nonames Pizza, Sushi Ptomaine Palace, Chinese Great Restaurant, and Cajun Chinese Great Restaurant. And naturally, Starbucks. This is the only mall in which a Wendy's closed. Of course this was the Wendy's that told me they ran out of ketchup. The next time I went, they ran out of fries...maybe closing was a gift to consumers. How does one of the largest fast food chains on the PLANET run out of fries? Did the health inspectors find roaches that the employees were smoking? Were they deemed too stupid to remain open? Since there were no ice cream stores, we gave up. In spite of me telling Faceyspaces Salesman to hold til we got the requested info, I got a new phone plan, but there's still only me on it. I got 4 gigs of data, but have yet to use 1. I have unlimited texting and talking but never text or talk. I'm the perfect cell phone customer.... so long as the phone works, I'm ok. I don't really use anything I pay for.. I wonder if there's an internet only device that doesn't make phone calls and allows 10 texts per month. Oh wait, there IS a device like that - a tablet. Fortunately I'm not fat enough to have the size pockets required for a tablet.

While I sit here sweating, with frozen feet, I start wondering why I'm sitting here sweating, with frozen feet. In bed, I need a blanket over the bottom 12" of me. Go ahead - make something of that. The other day was fun: I was freezing at warm home temps. By the end of the day, I felt fine, and it was cold in the house. Perhaps my internal thermostat is having a silent argument with the house thermostat. It certainly wouldn't be the weirdest thing happening in the house, by far, especially since the glass that took a leap off the table as my friend walked by. Or the way the house seems to move away from the street, in almost imperceptible increments.

• Ebay wrote to tell me they have a lefty Ed Sheeran guitar on auction. What is an Ed Sheeran guitar? Should I be afraid? 

California, the Land of Weird, never fails to astound the world. In fact, aliens from other solar systems routinely tune in California because even they can't believe what goes on there (and they travel using wormholes, which are about to be outlawed in California). Governor Jerry Brown (D - The Happy Place) signed legislation 'that fights childhood obesity by mandating that restaurants and fast food spots may no longer list sugary drinks on their kids' menus.' The only drinks they can list is(sic) water and milk.

The Californians who don't defecate in the street are very happy about this. The other 49 states just shake their heads and continue mumbling. The aliens are howling. 

As for me, I'm naturally torqued off about it. It is not the job of government to look after health by mandating stuff on or off menus. They can't produce usable health insurance, outside or through the government, so I don't trust them to take on the herculean task of Menu Mandating.

The ever-helpful legislators say this is necessary to keep children healthy.

Yes, because the air quality is certainly fine. Only about 1% of them defecate on the street, and they're in northern CA. Hot dogs, burgers and deep fried salted potatoes are perfectly healthy - just not sugary drinks.  Mind you, parents can still order the deadly sugary drinks for their children, but if they're listed on the kids' menu, it could cost the restaurant $500. The thinking man's solution is to stop providing kids' menus. This won't work because California legislators don't think. Because they don't think, they don't understand the repercussions.. what's going to happen when children, who are told there's no soda, see their parents drinking soda? The howling and screaming will be unearthly, which will force legislators to mandate hearing protection or sound-absorbing walls.

Even sadder with be the people holding up banks.... Give me all the money: I have a sugary drink and I'm not afraid to drink it!

A few years back, some miscreant in high office in New York made soda cups over 32oz illegal (to fight childhood obesity, even though adults buy them).  Ebay opened a market specially for vintage large cups. Before that, Philadelphia mandated calorie count on all menus... if you don't know that Deep Twice Refried Battered Onion Loaf Bits are a heart attack on a plate, perhaps you should keep stuffing your face with them. It's ok - the restaurant has the mandatory defibrillator.

I don't know about you, but I'm a big boy, entitled to and capable of making my own decisions about what to shove into my amazingly huge trap. This BS legislation is silly interference in business, like forcing a bakery to bake a cake for two same-gendered goldfish occupying the same bowl. Not only is it silly - no one told the goldfish you can't eat cake in water. But seriously folks, you produced your kids (most of you anyway) and it's your job to raise them as you see fit. All the information you need is available for you to make informed decisions. This is yet another intrusion, putting the government in place of you, the parents.  Meanwhile, have you seen these legislators? They need laws to protect them from Adult Obesity.

Hi, we're from the government and we're here to help you.

• Iran wants the world to know it's mad, and it's doing so by burning the American flag. Whenever Iran (or Iraq) is mad, they burn the American flag. When the Lord High Kahkah is constipated, they burn the American flag. When some other country that doesn't matter invades Iran, it burns the American flag. I smell a Trump joke in the making.
• Iran has a Special Peoples' Revolutionary Rabble Squad for just this purpose. 99% of the time, their streets are empty. When there's the slightest sign of unrest or the Lord High Kahkah sneezes, they call out the Squad. They show up with Iranian flags, lighter fluid, and crates of American flags (made in China).  Except for Iqbal. Iqbal is a Special Iranian, and tends to show up with the wrong flag or peanut butter instead of lighter fluid. They bring him along because it makes them feel better (and the peanut butter is mighty tasty).

Speaking of Iran, I'd like to make an appeal for sanity around US politics.

            _____Yes, I'm aware of what I just said.

We're of different faiths, locations, and degrees of baldness, yet we manage to get along (or quietly don't get along). The recent and current situation is downright disgusting.  In case any of the troublemakers read this blog (stop laughing), I mean NO VIOLENCE. The end does not justify the means. You have no divine right to commit whatever crimes you wish. As in war, God is not really on your side.

These words do not denote any particular political affiliation, although republican and democrat spring to mind. This time it's the followers, not the politicians. A potential nominee shouldn't require Secret Service protection, nor should the children of other potential politicians. This is ugly and nasty, and we're talking American politics here. 

Our system has ways built in to deal with dissent. Protest, bothering your reps, and even voting. First Amendment protections don't apply to blocking streets, buildings, or bridges. Nor rioting or burning down buildings. You have no right to make anonymous threats, in person threats, threaten family members, or organize violence. We have incredibly dirty politics and some really shameful examples of pols screwing the people, but this is beyond the pale. Let the politicians be slime: have some self-respect.

My brilliant wife observed that the violence will continue in order to get their candidate into office, so the new bitching can start, along with the efforts to get rid of THAT set. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity (attributed to Albert Einstein). So go vote for democrats, get pissed, complain, then vote for republicans. Then complain, so replace them with democrats.  This has been going on as long as there was voting, yet we continue to expect a different result. Everybody wants CHANGE, yet no one will vote for it. The government continues to get bigger and bigger, spending more of your money every year. Civil rights are being eaten away. You are a subject of the government, not its boss. Your words, typing, surfing and phone calls are subject to unwarranted spying. Even when there's a warrant, it's complete BS. This is the result of voting for who we've been voting for. Does no one see this?

Hey, maybe those Libertarians deserve another look.
There are other parties too. None of them will get into office until you vote for them.

• During work, I listen to music, to quiet the internal voices. You don't want them out, trust me. Observations:
• A man who got his due around Woodstock but should be a household name: Leslie West (Leslie Weinstein, Mountain). He's done a lot of work, with a lot of friends, lost a leg, and plays those notes so tastefully. They sustain. The man means what he plays.
• Another word for Stone Temple Pilots. The band that made all sorts of albums with Scott Weiland up front. No two songs were alike. In fact, no two songs sounded like the same band. They had a talent for impersonation too. They could do the Doors, jazz, way too screamy rock, and really beautiful melodies (that didn't make the radio). They had all sorts of odd harmonies, which Scott continued on his solo albums. It was weird in general, but pleasantly weird. Very different from STP and most other bands. The song I heard today sounded close to Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman) and so unfamiliar that I had to look to see who it was. There's a new lead singer, as Scott overdosed and died, but I haven't heard much of them. He could definitely sound like Scott.

We men are shallow, sometimes stupid, and very easily manipulated. Show us a pair of boobies, even promise to show us boobies, or just a pretty woman, and we'll do whatever you want.

Although I'm generally different, I'll admit to being easily manipulated.

There's a commercial that annoys most sentient beings, for something like a credit card, but I never remember the product in ads. I discovered one female in the background who knocked me out: tall, leggy, big hair, heels. Unlike the rest of men on the internet, I did not go searching to find out who she is, but rest assured others have, possibly erecting (sorry) a web page in her honor. Dammit, now I have to look. Only I don't remember the product, still. She was carrying a pizza, automatically making her more attractive. I traced this back to one of the commercial's earlier scenes, with people eating. 

I don't know this woman. I will never know this woman. But I put a few ounces of actual effort into looking at her. I can't even turn my head from the tv when it's on. Yes, I'm a guy - a really sad but normal example.  What kind of Stupid Stuff do you do? I know of one female reader, but she's immune to advertising too.

• Pro Tip: If you happen to find yourself 60' in the air, on top of one of those high rise building size fuel refinery tanks, don't smoke. Actually, go ahead and smoke, but make sure everybody in the blast radius is evacuated first.

I have this theory that when a person hits an incredibly high degree of stupidity, they self-immolate. Either no one has hit that level yet or my theory requires more thought.

• Don't forget the Philly Fall Guitar show, which isn't in Philly, and doesn't feel like fall. The date has already passed, but I wanted to remind you for next July and November. I already attended it, unless it was canceled. I cried because there were so many vintage lefty guitars I couldn't afford. Then I woke up.

The good news is that GAB, the right-leaning social network, is back up. They secured a new provider which supports free speech. Again, like them or not, we have a duty to protect free speech. Ever Vigilant.

• a man coming into an Irish airport had his luggage searched and was questioned in depth about the metal thing in his bag. It was a faucet from a sink and was confiscated because it was considered a weapon. Is their water that bad?  The next fellow lost his hacksaw blade. They're not well in Ireland: security OR people who carry hacksaw blades in their luggage. And they don't come with live subtitles.
• Me own mudder was stopped with a tretening amount o water and some weapons grade hand moisturizer.
• There's an interesting airport security job I saw on tv. Travelers are allowed to have porn on their laptops, but obviously nothing illegal (like anything involving children). The security person has to go through all the porn to make sure it's legal. I inquired about the job, but there's a backlog of 1,117 applicants and there is no salary. Plenty of benefits, though.....

Very recently, Muslims formed a human shield around synagogues, to prevent violence (Israel, I think). They raised $200k for victims. That's some good stuff. My hat is off to them. Even the Jews aren't shielding their synagogues. Quite frankly, I'm not human shielding any building, at least until I get automatic weapons.

• It's black and rainy outside today. Still. There's no light coming through the windows. The neighbors asked us to close the shades because we're letting all the light out.
• But I need to include something positive, lest you think I'm 100% negative: it went from 53 and raining to 63 and raining. I feel much better now.
• It was much nicer on Mars.

My dear new dog turns out to be even smarter than we thought... I asked if she likes the space heater, and she turned around and looked at it. She's starting to realize that my leg, with which she wants to be more than friends, wants little to do with her, so she's taking it out on a sofa pillow. The sofa pillow I use for naps. Perhaps we should wash it or something.

This is the only dog I've seen who does not lay on the floor. It's the couch or a chair for her. It's fun to watch, until she comes in from the rain and mud.

Since she was a stray, we don't have an age, other than 3-5 years. So she winds up to be a 3-5 year old hyperactive puppy. She's into absolutely everything. At least she's an equal opportunity shredder: the other night I removed a hardback book from her shedding. So she went to the magazine behind it. When I took that, she went after the weekend circulars. She loves her new home, even when parts of it need to be removed from her mouth.



Faceyspaces is at it again, and this time it's a real winner:  People You May Know. It suggests people who have been physically near you. This stuff is getting sicker by the month. Read it and weep. All sorts of new information about you will be revealed to other Facebookies (and stalkers, police, friends, enemies, ad people, information brokers, etc). The author tells of a father who went to a meeting for suicidal teens and one of the teens popped up as someone he might know. I know we don't have any Facebookers here, but tell your friends and family (that actually listen to you). Some say privacy is dead, but there are steps you can take to prevent things from getting worse. I'm not sure turning off Location will help here, as FB can (and will) get the location information from cell towers. The only sure way to prevent this is to turn the phone off [shudder]. While pondering this, read about the larger view of Faceyspaces.

Which reminds me - if you use wireless, you want to turn that off on your phone the moment you leave the house. Let's say your home network is called BOB'S HOME NETWORK. When you leave the house, your phone gets to feeling abandoned and keeps asking for BOB'S HOME NETWORK.  Are you BOB'S HOME NETWORK? I need to find BOB'S HOME NETWORK. Oh, BOB'S HOME NETWORK - where are you?  It will keep doing this until you get back home. All wireless systems (and hackers, and listeners, etc) have access to this. Stores are now collecting this information and matching it to other information they collected, building the perfect profile of you, then selling the information for profit. You're not getting a penny, by the way.

• While we're talking about information, I want you to stop before you type any information into any site on the web. Ask yourself if putting this information into the wild is safe (even if you're using https). When you have a text chat on Faceyspaces, in private, assume it will be monitored or at least looked at. If you like sexting someone directly, the service will read it. If you talk about doing something nasty, they have direct access and will read it. Never assume privacy the moment you type something. Always assume it will be read and behave accordingly.

Hey - how about a nationwide privately-owned biometrics system? One company has fingerprint data, the other facial recognition data. There is a reason I tell you about this stuff. The future is here and it's worse than you imagined. Worse than some novel about a dystopian future, featuring tumbleweeds, a tv that watches you, and mechanical comfort elephants that talk. I leave no one behind me when I stop being alive, but you might have children...