The Postal System either drinks heavily or needs to start drinking heavily

I would not trust the USPS to get a post card from my house to across the street in less than a week-if at all.

I have had two packages delivered by USPS in the last two months - both ridiculously late - both missing their estimates by days or weeks. At least one of the senders paid extra for second day delivery.

This is why people say mail delivery should go private; it's the perfect example. We've all heard the horror stories of UPS drivers peeing in bottles so they can make their deliveries. The USPS would never do something so draconian - they don't care when or IF your mail arrives.

Frank Zappa had an IQ of 174. That explains a lot.

Today is a quiet day. Or was a quiet day.

I had meetings. Naturally it got noisy. Very noisy. In fact the neighbors decided to have some trees cut down. Consequently the neighborhood is listening to Concerto for Chainsaw and Falling Tree Parts. I paid the men a visit and subtly encouraged them to go with something a bit more quiet - like explosives and large sheets of metal. I didn't speak Spanish so they just stood there and looked at me strangely. Oddly this is the same effect I have on English-speaking members of the public.

 Quantum computers only work if no one is observing them.

Wild beaver release approved for England

Eating wild beaver is good for your teeth ....

 

Failure, Rinse, Repeat: Why do Both History and Security Seem Doomed to Repeat Themselves?

I have been saying this for years. No matter what we learn we are doomed to re-learn it with each new technology.

 

Is that a Real Poncho or a WalMart Poncho

Your love is like   edible cotton underwear

It's been 9 years since Malaysia Air Flight MH370 'disappeared into thin air' (or water).  Scientists have developed a new theory, that comes on the heels of all the old theories. This theory involves barnacles. The previous theories involved seaweed, printer/copier/scanners, the Dow Index, and nose rings. Apparently in more temperate regions of the sea, barnacles grow longer nose hair. This PHD discovery went on to describe the micro plankton attached to the barnacle hairs, even though barnacles are sworn enemies of plankton. The plankton micro-impede the flow of the ocean, resulting in 'updated' patterns for airplanes that go missing. From Malaysia. So there is a new debris disappearance pattern. But still no debris.

This is a national embarrassment, and tragic for relatives and friends of the missing.

Next week, Very Smart Scientists (VSS) will theorize that a UFO came along and swallowed up the plane, which is why we can't find any debris, in spite of all the combined brainpower of the 3 people left looking into this (do not malign goat farmers - one leg is naturally longer due to standing on hills - you are seeing evolution at work).

In unrelated news, there is still no specific slur for Malaysians.

Sometimes I think it's more difficult to find a slur than MH370.

Fukushima: Discharge from Japan nuclear plant safe, tests show

The tests were performed with a plastic bucket and some sand, by the owners of the Fukushima plant. Anyone with a memory knows the same tests were performed when the accident first occurred. They dumped radioactive water and lied about it.

Scientists strengthen concrete by 30 percent with used coffee grounds

The concrete is reported to be stronger and more awake, with an improved sex life.

is there nothing coffee can't improve? 

3D printers printing without consent is a cautionary tale on cloud reliance

You can finally buy Lego’s Braille Bricks

This came after the 1965 Air France disaster, when the blind pilot tried to read regular Legos.

Passenger seat belt warnings should be mandatory, say feds  [including rear seats]

Because there is no area of our lives into which the federal government won't encroach. Seatbelts should be voluntary, as should those stupid warnings when you don't put them on. If I want my car to talk back to me, I'll marry it.

 I am not saying you shouldn't wear them... just that they shouldn't be mandatory. You're a big boy or girl, and you can make your own decisions.

 

Biden to bolster boondocks broadband with a billion bonus bucks (barely)

What would the poor broadband providers do without their country jumping in to pay for their expenses? Poor Comcast. Poor Verizon. Poor Biden administration, upset that its latest giveaway didn't break a billion. PRESIDENT GIVEAWAY IS SAD, DAMMIT!

Iraqi officials have ordered all electronic advertising screens to be shut down in Baghdad after a hacker used one to show a pornographic film.

Owner of signs said ad engagement was near 100%.

 

Xbox’s new “8 strikes” mod rollout judges hate speech 3x worse than cheating

That's right- Big Tech is now regulating speech on your Xbox. Go ahead and cheat - but don't you dare say anything hateful. While it's technically their right, look at their actions on the internet also.

 

I have a cousin. Ok, a cousin-in-law.  She's from the Polish side, which means I can't spell her last name. I met her for the first time at a party I threw for Mrs. lefty. I don't know what I did, but she thought I was the greatest thing since chocolate. Whenever Mrs. lefty visits her, she asks how I'm doing and packs a goodie bag to bring home for me. I asked Wife if she told Cousin that I can lick my eyebrows or something.... She has chronic pain and fights it with alcohol. I did not know this. While visiting, Wife left to pick something up. Cousin offered me a drink. I'm easy - water, Coke, just no diet soda. She brought me a vodka bottle with a straw. I thought I had a communication issue with Wife, but this was a whole new universe. Cousin thinks I'm cute, which identifies another problem that runs in the family...

I need to buy a pipe and a porch if this continues....

I am gross and perverted, I am obsessed and deranged

I have existed for years, But very little has changed

I am the tool of the government, and industry too

For I am destined to rule, and regulate you.

I might be vile and pernicious, but you can't look away

I make you think I'm delicious, with the stuff that I say

I am the best you can get, have you guessed me yet?

I'm the slime oozing out, from your tv set

I am the Slime   -Frank Zappa 

 

The Tale of a Demented Bread Boffer

 Your love is like  what is the name of those peppers... they're hotter than habaneros, and they make your foot hair fall out....

I haven't done drugs since I was a teen. Now, it's just the prescribed kind, which are sometimes way worse. Like the illegal ones, I have weird side effects. This one hit me over the head like a rocket launcher. At least I got some sleep... about 14 hours' worth. I'm not a doctor (or an airline pilot) but I suspect a smaller dose is warranted. I'd call the doctor, but this is the weekend and doctors don't return calls on weekends (or any day ending in -y). I'm going to make the Executive Decision to halve the dose. This amuses my wife because I sit there, trying to cut the already tiny pill in half. After a half hour, she's already gone from the house, due to the screaming and destruction of walls and concrete walkways. If I don't manage a lower dose, work will be 'interesting,' I'll be a large zombie, incapable of getting anything done. Hey - I'll fit right in with the others! No problem, mon! In fact I'm typing this while asleep.

Executive Decisions are fun. They empower you. Even if you have no flipping idea what you're doing. Screw the doctors! I suspect this gets me in trouble a lot. I freely admit I'm not smarter than the doctor.... but... sometimes I play smarter than the doctor. If it's a particularly prickly day, sometimes I'll tell the doctor they're wrong while we're in the appointment (small wonder they don't return my calls). This is called Problem Patient. I prefer not to think of myself as a Problem Patient so much as a really cute, intelligent, inquisitive patient (who doesn't get calls returned).  The problem here (for the doctor) is that I'm frequently right. This really angers Mrs. lefty, who I tell I'm always right. 

So I make a few Executive Decisions. Let's just say it's a good thing I can't prescribe myself any medicine. The last Executive Decision I made involved some decorating. Any decision I make around decorating is a Bad Decision [this is called a segue. It's a particularly bad segue, worthy of Monty Python, but not quite]. You see, I was born without the decorating gene. I am a freak of genetics. The scientists are baffled, because the decorating (and the clean) gene has been in my family for generations. I suspect it just needed a generation off, but the problem here is that I don't have kids, so the decorating/design and clean genes essentially committed suicide).

To make matters worse, I married a woman who also has no design gene, due to a car crash when she was little. Together, we could not design or place a small trash can, no less a house. I was repeatedly told the large red air compressor and large blue tube tester had no place in the living room, nor did the 'art project' involving transmissions. Mind you, I was not told this by the person I was married to - she agreed to it all. Some call her an enabler, I call her Sweetheart.

Every six months or so, we get the designing bug. Like my mother, we don't learn by repeated failure. Every now and then, while we're planning, I hear the voices... my ancestors.... saying things like "don't park that in the house" and "there are 47 shades of off-white and you picked that one" and "seats are for sitting, not for storage." This is the kind of thing you hear from normal people. People who don't randomly hear voices, commenting on their decorating. People whose houses are not decorated by hurricane. We don't consider it a narrow walkway - we consider it exercise and training (for what, I don't know). If you bend just the right way, you might put your back back in. Or fix that aching shoulder you woke up with.

So I guess the first rule is it's not necessary to have every spare foot of space occupied. But if this were true, what would we do with all our stuff?  Don't say basement because some of our Stuff has gone sentient and makes rude noises at us when we go down there. I love rude noises but the sentient part indicates we probably shouldn't put more Stuff down there. On the other hand, if I put more guitar amps down there, maybe the rude noises will get LOUDER and go off when neighbors walk by. There's a use for everything, you know.

So if we can't hide Stuff, we'd have to [dramatic music] get rid of it. Who gets rid of their stuff? We've spent forever acquiring our Stuff - what would be the point of getting rid of it? It would negate the time, effort, and emotion involved in procuring the Stuff in the first place. We can't stand inefficiency, and this is the worst kind. Plus there will undoubtedly be more Stuff in the future. So I agreed to no car parts over 200lbs (14.4778 litres Canadian). No amplifiers over 200lbs. No girlfriends over 200lbs (that one was pretty easy, but in negotiations, you have to let them think they won something). 

After many years together we discovered our Big Problem<tm>. It's vertical space. If we bring in a coffee table and sit it in front of the sofa, then go out for dinner, by the time we get back, it will be cluttered with stuff. It doesn't have to be movies either.. sometimes stuff pops up by itself. I hear, but haven't seen, that we put stuff there. Every vertical surface acquires stuff. So in the design, we have eliminated all vertical space. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to go furniture shopping and ask for furniture without vertical spaces? So we wind up buying furniture and sawing a leg off or something. We just need an angle steep enough to make stuff slide off it. Go ahead - laugh. Is every inch of vertical surface in your house free of detritus, mail, bills, and sex toys? If this fails, we're looking at electrifying the surfaces, so we get a brief ZZZZT when we put something there.

The dog's patron saint is the one for lost causes. I've mentioned her penchant for putting her toys all over the place and making sure the floor is dirty within an hour of me using the vacuum.  So she's going to be a bit of an obstacle to a clean layout. And NO, Grandma, we aren't getting rid of her.

The main occupiers of space are shoes and guitars. Guitars and shoes. Since we're miraculously free of rug rats, they each have their own room. We have to allow for growth, as they keep showing up at the front door (moreso shoes, of course). Well, it seems they've gone past the Point of No Return and gone nuclear. Right now, they're figuring out ways to escape their palace. I'm not sure if it's pre-existing shoes or (probably) new shoes, but several on-back-of-door shoe racks have appeared recently. They're built better than some steel building skeletons, and twice as heavy. So when you open the bathroom door, you inevitably slam part of the superstructure of the device into your leg. The door also weighs 343lbs (4 grams Canadian), so you can't shut it. If it ever gets shut, we'll never get into the bathroom again. The other one is on the bedroom door - a very unfortunate place for it. When I get in bed, there's already a wife and a dog in it. I invariably bang a body part on the shoe monstrosity, causing a noise. Ever protectant, the dog starts barking and won't stop for 5 minutes. She wasn't the smartest pup in the litter, just the prettiest, apparently. 

So I think the shoe room has gone nuclear and every shoe I see is new. I can't pull this off, at well over the minimum of $1,500 each, so mine tend to appear in the living room. I think they leave the room and put themselves against the furniture on purpose. Perhaps they want a small vacation from the guitar room and whatever goes on there (I hear tales...). So the equipment starts to migrate to the living room. John Entwhistle, the Who's bass player, had every inch of his walls decorated with guitars and basses. It's certainly an idea, but can take a toll on the finish and neck. So I have a small subset of my equipment near the couch. I promised to call a halt to it if the larger amplifiers started to appear.

I am told that the large, comfy devices near the couch are chairs. I've done some research on these so-called chairs, and it turned out to be true; people sit in them! This epiphany will require more consideration, at least in terms of having nothing on them. Of course if we never want anyone to come over, it's moot. In fact, we can get rid of all the chairs for more guitar shoe floor space. We could also use foldout chairs, but that's kinda cheesy. [you're now party to Great Thinking, or great amounts of thinking - you're here at the birth of something normal. something everyone else in the world has managed to accomplish.]

In the kitchen, the best thing that could happen, as I say about certain parts of the city, is a fire or small thermonuclear device. Again, I don't know much about design, but even I am suspicious of the workspace, which is about 6" (5' Canadian) between the oven and sink. We put in some workspace, but it's a little weird across the room. There are companies that put new faces on drawers and cabinets, which is a little funny, because it would just remind me of the previously ugly faces and we'd still have 6" in which to work. Ideally we should move the sink, but this is not something I can do. It's not in my wheelhouse. Nor is sanding, sawing, wood, metal, and most other things one needs to redo a house. You see, my wheelhouse is very small. At this point, there will be no jokes about my wheel, thank you. The sink, like the rest of the house, was put in by drunk monkeys. In order to get to the drain, water has to flow uphill. We had a clog once and called that Roto place. He was really confused by what should normally be accomplished with gravity. He eventually unclogged the pipes, but he divorced his wife, quit his job, and is now meditating near the top of a mountain near Sri Lanka somewhere. I hope he took his heavy coat.

The house came from plans. We've never seen them, and we're convinced neither had the builder. We get the impression that bits of the house were added on, possibly by spinning the wheel and adding whatever it landed on. We could make two bedrooms out of the master bedroom, but don't because it would be really awkward. 

I think the dining room would largely decorate itself, via the furniture my grandparents gave us. It's older than we are. It's in great shape. In fact, it was immaculate for its first 50 years, then got scratched when we moved it. I have a touch. It's going to hurt to saw a leg off that table, so things don't wind up on it. It will also take a toll on meals, I think [HERE'S THE POTATOES - WHOOSH!]. Currently there are over 27 different kinds of dog treats on it. If you become dead and are given the choice of reincarnation, choose being our dog. You get your own yard, treats, a sleep number bed, and a humongous fan club everywhere you go. The humans treat you like you're a person.

There's a tv involved. Where do you put that? In the basement, to keep the voices happy? What color paint on the walls? Take note that paint has pain inside it - let that be a warning. What about colors? We like everything black, which might cause a problem with paint. Then if we put very little of our Stuff back, it will be sparse. People will like it and wonder who we hired to do the place over. And within 3 days, we will be out shopping for new Stuff.

Today I identify as  a retarded decorator

One place I used to work had an odd call about someone's screen being upside down. Sure enough, when I arrived there, everything was upside down. I fixed it and was later told this wasn't the first call from this person. I know it can be done, but not how to do it.

I recount this because of my mother. We've been calling all day, with no answer. The last time, I had to go over there and discovered she had managed to turn her ringer off. We go out of our way to get mom-proof technology. I'm afraid of what I'll find this time... maybe she got into the SIM card and set the phone to ring on someone else's number. Oops, no, she not only turned off the ringer, she put the phone on airplane. These are things she cannot do if you ask her to. I am being repaid for everything I did as a child.

• LOS ANGELES (AP) — The woman arrested on suspicion of killing her three young children at her Los Angeles apartment had been involved in a custody dispute with their father, according to a newspaper report Sunday.
• I can't claim any knowledge of the law here, but I'm going to say she shouldn't have custody of the children.

Things could possibly get 'interesting' in Huntington Beach, CA, with a White Lives Matter march coming up. Citizens are demanding the city shed its association with right wing extremism.  Yes, from now on, only left wing extremists will be allowed to march, speak, and gather. When asked how this would fare against the First Amendment, the response was rapid: "If people are going to march here, they better say things we like. The First Amendment isn't absolute, especially when groups go off saying things we don't like." Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter will attend the march, with signs that say ALL LIVES MATTER. Antifa's signs will say CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG. At the end of the march, all groups will get together for a nice dinner, where they discover a common enemy: the Jews.

• Marxist BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors has been on a $3.2 million house buying binge.
• We don't have a full list of BLM members, but I suspect no other members have been on that kind of binge.

Police in Windsor, Virginia, pulled their guns on a Black and Latino man immediately after pulling him over at a gas station for a traffic stop, according to body camera footage of the December 2020 incident. Second Lieutenant Caron Nazario, a member of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, was still wearing his full uniform en route home from work in his Chevy Tahoe when he asked, “I’m serving this country, and this is how I’m treated?” The officers later pepper-sprayed him, kneed him in the legs, handcuffed him, and threatened to bring charges against him if he complained about their conduct, according to the footage and Nazario’s lawsuit. 

The man was obviously DWB (Driving While Black), and the police felt threatened. Anybody can buy an army uniform. The police owned up to their misbehavior, apologized, and offered Mr. Nazario a hooker.

 More and more and more requirements are being implemented to show people do not have the Flying AIDS. This includes sporting and, more importantly, musical events. Nobody thought they could come up with something more ridiculous and time consuming at a concert venue, yet the American spirit prevailed...

• 4hr public transportation ride, because we're green. Looking at some of the subway stations, you would be green too.
• Long lines at the doors of the venue, waiting for them to open
• Long lines at the doors after the doors open
• Making friends in line, wondering WTF is going on
• finally making it to the front of the line, where it's time for a ticket scrutinizer, weapons patdown, bomb sniffing dog, removal of most of the stuff you brought to the concert because someone decided it was illegal within the last 5 minutes, rectal scan, examination of any Flying AIDS paperwork, rectal temperature taking for Flying AIDS, questions about where you've been the past 2 weeks by a detective or someone playing a detective on tv
• turn around and go back home. Even Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix on the same bill ain't worth it

Flying AIDS news 

8 adverse reactions at a Georgia site got the J&J vaccine paused, making it the 4th state to do so

The CDC is evaluating the reactions and says "There is nothing to see here. We are positive that hearts jumping out of bodies after the vaccination have nothing to do with the vaccine."

Pfizer's vaccine cannot stop the SAFRICA strain.

America's Doctor, Anthony Fauci, is hiding studying in the White House basement, rolling some dice to figure out what to say next.

• Everybody is looking forward to getting back to work, except half of Americans: the introverts.

Israel appears to confirm attack on Iran nuclear facility

ISRAEL: we got the bastards!

IRAN: The blackout is in no way due to any outside influence. We just forgot to pay Iran Electric.

US: we cannot confirm or deny anything our good friends in Israel did the other night, at 2:47am, in the general vicinity of the Irani nuclear facility, with tomahawk missiles.

IRAN: Did we say electric shutoff? We're merely complying with the treaty we signed. We realized we were lying and wanted to show good faith to the world.

My prayers have been answered. 

Las Vegas tried to become the only state to ban ornamental grass.

The moment that law goes into effect, we're moving. NO MORE MOWING!

Oh wait...   grass that no one ever walks on or otherwise uses in street medians, housing developments and office parks 

F*ck.

* Demented Bread Boffer courtesy of Frank Zappa - Broken Hearts are for Assholes

Carpet Flavored Coffee and the Search for the Perfect Anvil

HAPPY WHATEVER

May the Flying Spaghetti Monster touch you with his noodly appendage.

 Your love is like  hot buttered used motor oil

Happy Solstice. It's the beginning of winter, known and hated by most. Winter showed up determined to make its presence known, with very low temperatures and easier-to-find Carnation chocolate malt powder.

For some reason, known only to someone, I got to drive my own new car. How was I supposed to know you press the brake before it'll start? The UltraBrite<tm> display said I should probably start the car or it would eat up the battery and the neighbors would all laugh at me (again). It seems you can do anything you want via the display, except what you want to do at that moment. Also, no tv. But who needs tv when you can drive down the road with the UltraBrite<tm> display 'talking' to you. What would have been nice to talk to was the mirror adjust. Every little knob and button in the car is lit, except the mirror control. 

Eventually I got it drivable, preferring to leave the seat adjusted for Mrs lefty. Gallantry comes with a price, and when I got out of the car, my lumbar region was over my head. It was not as funny as it looked... it was hilarious. I remember an older Lincoln commercial where the seats had presets(!), so 2 people could set it for their preference and not PISS OFF the other one. The center console had lots of buttons and stuff, none that seemed useful while driving. I am going to trust the designers of the UltraBrite<tm> display and that it's not distracting to drive with several floodlights in your eyes at night. Even if I crash, I can take solace in knowing what song is playing, what album it's from, and that I accepted the legalese I have to accept before I put the car in gear. Every time that displays, Sherman Mitnick, Esq., gets $0.57. Sherman's South Dakota firm came up with the paragraphs, that mean nothing, but you're required to agree to before you drive. Stop and read it some time... you agree to give your firstborn to the car company. In many cases, this is a perk of ownership, especially when you watch the true murder shows where the firstborn slaughters the entire family for the insurance money, but gets caught when he accidentally shoots himself and runs out of gas.

No matter how much Bluetooth pairing I did, I could not make my phone start the car from inside the house. This is a definite negative, in spite of the Butt Warmers. There are 3 levels of Butt Warmer: warm, mmmmm hot, and 3rd degree ass burn. There are Asshole Detectors: little lights on the mirrors that light up when there's an asshole driver near you. They stayed on the entire trip.

We're trying to keep the dog out for as long as we can, and enjoy not having mud on our asses when we arrive (we're known for that anyway). Sometimes we arrive at our destination and hear "Hey lefty, why is there no mud on your ass?" It really freaks out new people.

Before every plane flight, the pilot walks around the plane, to make sure everything's in order, and the 2 big wings are still there. It's better to find this out before you start moving than on the runway.... Southwest 757, uh, you're a little short wings, over. So I got out my imaginary clipboard (it's blue) and did a quick trip about the car: Tires - 4 - check. Body - 1 - check. Drink holders - 2 - check. Ready for takeoff.  Like some pilots, I had my alcoholic beverage coffee all ready to go. This particular plane, when I put it in reverse, killed my music and tried to show me video. It was the most boring clip I had ever seen... it looked like something one would see if they were in the trunk, with the lid up a little. Of course this is impossible - I make sure to shut the trunk if anybody's in there. 

The car rode damn fine, even with the banging of the bodies cargo in the trunk. I felt like I was driving a luxury car, which generally means it's over 20 years old. Aside from a few errant pedestrians, the ride was free of bumps. The most bizarre part of the entire new car experience was the family member concerned about the size of the trunk. We stopped asking why a long time ago and send her a picture with Mrs lefty posing in the trunk. Yes, it's roomy. 

In spite of the fact that it is a 'dumb' car, it greets Mrs lefty every time she gets into it. This was a bit of a shock when I got in... it asked me where she was. This bothered me more than usual because the car has no speech function.  It's like dogs: they're hers within a day. Meh- I'm not complaining.. she's a keeper. Mrs lefty too.

Today I identify as meat

Things We Like To Hear Around the Holidays 

the neighbors singing "I saw daddy kissing Santa Claus"

Single girls, single girls

Going all the way

Oh what fun they are to ride

At the end of shopping day - hey!

And "The Little Jewish Boy"

I'm Hasidic, baruch ata tah

First there was PONG. It was a console you hooked up to your tv, or rather you had your kids hook up to your tv. With a little line, you PONGed a ball back and forth, kinda like tennis, but without the screaming at the judge. It competed with Go Fish for the most boring game ever. Mind you it cost a lot of money. Then you went to arcades to play PONG (and Frogger), depleting the nation's supply of quarters, as well as your allowance for the week (and next week).

Games got better. Resolution got higher. They got more realistic and did more.  You played on your computer instead of the tv. You raced cars on what looked like a real track. You ran people over and stole cars. The game ran much faster than you did. The only thing you were missing was the $5,500 arcade game that you'd routinely physically abuse. You lost your desire to abuse the game when it was on your computer, or else you bought a lot of controllers. 

Years passed and you (allegedly) grew up. Now you can buy a small or medium sized arcade game console. You can choose to play PONG or Frogger. What goes around comes around. You give it to your nephew, he laughs behind your back, then his father plays with it. What goes around comes around. 

• Best headline: Improving Windows' quality by making it not boot

The Vatican says the vaccine is morally acceptable.

Apparently so is child molestation.

The Moderna vaccine has been approved.

The differences between this and the Pfizer vaccine are slim, but here is what we know so far: instead of your right arm, your left arm falls off. It makes your nipples permanently hard but kills your sex drive. Instead of not being able to sue Pfizer, you're not able to sue Moderna. Your toenails will turn green, then rainbow, in support of Black Lives Matter. 

A growing number of lawmakers are declining an early shot. Some claim they're waiting for frontline people to get theirs first. The rest of the cowards are getting theirs due to Continuity of Government plans. Continuity of Government is a concept by which American citizens get killed, but government has special procedures and hideouts so government can continue in the event of something terrible.

You're probably asking yourself if there's any different, good news, now that we've all had it with the Flying AIDS. Well hold onto your hats - the scientist who helped discover Ebola says a much deadlier virus is eventually on its way.

It's very interesting to see what is purchased during the Flying AIDS lockdown. Sexbots are coming. I told you, ladies, you'd better start being nicer to men.

• I hear there are a lot more cybersecurity jobs available.

Dear lefty 

• What do you want for xmas?
• peace, man. the Non-Aggression Principle. the Constitution. a 1950s left handed Stratocaster.
• What are you getting for xmas?
• a car payment 

• Peter Jackson (some movies) is putting together a different view on the Beatles'  'Let it Be'. It won't be out til 2021 but check out the montage.
• John Lennon would have been 80 this year. 80.

I get bored easily. I have a big mouth. As a result, I like to push things.

At my first real job, I got my coworker to take her shirt off so I could see her in her bra. She said it was no big deal. I have perfected raising one eyebrow, ala Spock, occasionally adding a 'fascinating'. She also couldn't see the point of sex- it didn't do much for her. One of my greatest failures was not being able to get her to let me practice on her, to see if I could bring more joy to the act. It was one of many unselfish acts I proposed.

At the Twilight Zone<tm>, I got a coworker to stand still so we could shoot gummy bears down her shirt. Come to think of it, it might have been more her idea than mine. All I wanted was to be a gummy bear (or to retrieve them). God, I miss those days. Mostly I miss the coworker.

We had another coworker that agreed to gummys down the shirt, but he lacked a few of the necessary parts to play the game properly.

This is why I don't babysit. Well, that and I don't like children.

My current place of employment has no fun like that. The lone female in my group has 15 years and 150 pounds on me, plus we never see each other. It's a blessing that my coworkers don't see me. We also have one who's a dead ringer for Predator and I'm not asking him to play the gummy game. I suspect one of my coworkers has another job that he does while allegedly doing ours. Other team members occasionally have to be awakened, leading to the question 'what do they DO while working?' Some of these people have all the speed and ability of government workers, without the healthcare plans. I get a lot of credit for getting things done. Little do they know I'm off napping and it's the dog. Another guy is completely immersed in taking selfies. He changes his picture every week and is usually busy banging his (or someone's) wife. Because I'm a little more awake than the others and occasionally answer questions, I've become the go-to guy. I spent 10 years trying to avoid this at the last place.  It's like a curse: you've been found Competent, therefore you're stuck with it forever. You know what happens to people found Competent in tech? They're promoted to Manglement. Because if you're good in tech, you must be good at managing people. I still wake up screaming from the last time this happened.

• Youtube banned any videos having anything to do with election fraud. Whether there was or wasn't... banning?
• If there was fraud, it's a public service.
• If there was no fraud, it would just show how stupid the uploaders are. Nothing to lose, Youtube. Unless there's an agenda....

2 people and their service puppy opened a Delta jet cabin door before takeoff, and took the slide down. They realized The Masked Furry was on and they had forgotten to set their DVR. The police were going to take them into custody, but let them go after everybody in the plane beat the crap out of them for causing a 9 hour delay. An Airbus A321 carries 191 people, each one had their whacks at the 2 Furry Watchers. When it was over, their service puppy peed on them.

• I remember growing up and what it was like to be a child at this wondrous time of year. On Christmas eve, we'd all gather around the tree until one of us figured out there was no Christmas tree. Weird parents are a bitch.

The news is outta hand with stories of Russian hacking of our high government departments. Can you imagine what would happen if the Russians hacked your network?

• uTorrent operations, downloading the latest movies, generating complaint emails threatening to sue
• a few teammates downloading Johnny's pr0n stash of coworkers, taken from when people asked him to copy pictures from their phones to the network
• 127 petabytes of mp3s and cat pictures
• a very small amount of what your company actually does 
• It turns out this is even better than antivirus, because the hackers get so bored looking for anything of value, they give up and go elsewhere.

Microsoft says the Russians were not the first to hack SolarWinds but doesn't name names. President Trump agrees, naming Switzerland.

I tried SolarWinds a long time ago. It was a real pig. That aside, it's time to get SolarWinds servers back to a blank state and install something else. SolarWinds was warned about this at least a year ago, plus the Russians weren't the only ones in there.

On the other hand, the hacking has done a lot for world relations: nation-states get to sit in our important servers, pooling resources and getting along like never before.

• I washed my blanket. An entire dog came out of it. Penny was incredulous, stuck her nose into it, and vowed to start all over again.

December 21st, generally in most years, is the birthday of the great Frank Zappa.

The man managed to do what few ever did: wrote his own music and funded it. This was more incredible because it's not like the music got a lot of support on radio. Or much of anywhere else. The fans bought it. Zappa would pay the entire band to rehearse for a few weeks, then tour. He always got the best, because only the best could play his music. He was a ferocious and different guitar player, who sometimes put down his axe and literally led the band with his trusty baton. He was more than intelligent, to the point that he could hold his own with any interviewer and members of Congress.

We will never see another like him. Nobody puts that kind of wit on top of that kind of complexity, or instrumental complexity by itself. Fortunately we have a lot of audio and video he left behind. The movie put together by Alex Winter (Bill and Ted) is now available for viewing online. 

Mrs lefty refers to some of the instrumentals as Cartoon Music. It took a while, but I've come to really appreciate it. I don't understand classical music or composition, but he helped a lot. One of his biggest influences was Edgar Varese. If you listen to any Varese, you'll immediately understand. And Frank would just sit there at the piano and compose. It baffles me where his music came from. I wish I were half of Zappa. A quarter. His fans are rabid: some can tell you which show at the Tower Theater in Philly was better- early or late.

I was totally blown away when I first heard Billy the Mountain. The song was edited so it only took up one side on the album. It was a story from beginning to end and pretty funny/absurd. Songs just didn't take up half an album - even from Yes. The band included Flo&Eddie, aka The Turtles (Happy Together, which they did on the Live at the Fillmore 1970). To learn and perform 22-30+ minutes of song is ridiculously difficult, moreso to Zappa's specifications. 

[sigh]

More terrible news: guitar legend Leslie West's heart gave out and he's on a respirator.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster

The 2020 Prolapse Awards Are Here!

There are way too many videos online.
Most of them are ill-advised.
You can talk at them and tell them and advise them, but POOF - up they go.
Learn from these misguided ballfaces.
Ask yourself one question: "Will I be proud of this when I'm somebody's grandparent?"

So, kids, take your penis out of that woman (or man), put it back in your pants, and sing or something. That will be a lot less difficult to explain to the grandkids than sodomy. If you don't care, wait 5 years and ask yourself again.


Bob: Bill! Howya doin?
Bill: Oh great, man. How are you?
Bob: Couldn't be better. How's the family?
Bill: Well, Susan's fine. You remember my daughter, Wendy?
Bob: Sure - how's she?
Bill: Great. She's an escort.
Bob: You must be very proud.

And they say *I* have no filters....



It took the better part of a year to figure out the dog's smarter than me.
Penny - wanna go outside?  POOF - to the door.
Penny - let's go nite nite.  POOF - up the steps, into bed.
Penny - wanna go for a ride in the car?  POOF - to the door.
Penny - take out the trash, please - [dumb look]



Oldest material on Earth discovered
Unrelated: Nancy Pelosi strongly objects to her baby rattle on display.

• Cut undersea cable plunges Yemen into days-long internet outage
• Last time there were 2 cut, a letter agency's ships were in the area

The military is building long-range facial recognition that works in the dark.
Of course they are.



Google plans to drop tracking cookie support by 2022.
Since this amounts to shooting themself in the foot, wait for the other shoe to drop.

Verizon offers no-tracking search engine - promises to protect your privacy.
Kick the ball, Charlie Brown.


Want to try linux? Check out Linux Lite  
Should you use linux?

Microsoft's new Edge browser released - what you need to know
Don't use it.



US may subsidize Huawei alternatives with $1.25 billion fund
Oh look - reps and dems came together and it's going to cost you. Every time they come together it's going to cost you. Like the recent budget bill....



European lawmakers want all phones to have same charger
Apple wet its pants laughing.


Bose is closing all of its retail stores in North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia
Requires closing 8 countries and a special adapter for full fidelity




I'm at work, on a conference call. The audio is LOUD, and the volume control won't turn it down. *$(#ing Windows 10, I say to myself. After some examination, I figure it out: Bluetooth managed to connect one machine's audio to another machine's speakers. By itself.



Today I identify as   large crud cottage cheese with anchovies



Alex Winter (Bill and Ted's Great Adventure) has finally finished his documentary on Frank Zappa. Alex had unprecedented access to all the music, interviews, and family documents. This was a labor of love and backed by fans (I contributed to the Kickstarter). It will premiere at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. I won't exactly be able to fly there, but can't wait for it to go national.

Speaking of the great Frank Zappa, he often cited Edgar Varese as an influence. I listened to some Varese recently, and there's absolutely no doubt about his influence. This is not the influence that made it to Catholic Girls or Titties and Beer; it's the one that led to what I've heard called 'cartoon music'. Orchestral music plus binging and bonging and percussion. Give him a listen if you like the Zappa stuff.

• Google researchers used neural networks to make weather forecasts
• They had to be more accurate than the guys on tv

The president wants Apple to unlock the phone of a shooter.
Meh- it's only the Constitution.

Dating and fertility apps among those snitching to 'out of control' ad tech

• Text alerts: Time to Fuck!
• Text alerts: Call her, dammit
• ads from diaper companies
• ads for pregnancy tests
• ads for maternity bras
• ads for lacy bras

DING: text message
Welcome to Bob's Health System appointment reminders.

DING: reality
Why yes, I have an appointment, but my welcome did not remind me of it.

• A Komodo dragon destroyed a BBC camera by trying to have sex with it
• You know you're doing it right when your partner can no longer move!

How digital sleuths unravelled the mystery of Iran's plane crash.
Iran had to admit they shot it down. "In error".

• Parasite that makes mice unafraid of cats may quash other fears. 
• Dentist?

Heroes of the Stupid

"Nasal Ranger" nasal smell-amplifier to crack down on marijuana
I keep looking for the April Fools date.  
The war on drugs is a dismal failure. The only people who benefit are the people hired for it, plus the contracts, like above.




SJW Snottiness

Associate dean at University of Illinois came out in defense of mandatory diversity statements in university hiring practices... because "traditional markers of mathematical excellence" get in the way of diversity."

In other words, smart people are disrupting the cause of diversity.

There Are Some Days, and This Is One

This is the kind of thing we read this blog for: a Michigan highway billboard was hacked to play porn for 15-20 minutes. This is positive hacking. They destroyed nothing, made some people happy, possibly caused some outrage and a car crash, and everybody gets a funny story. I'd avoid the rush, however, to move to Michigan, as police have a bit of video and are searching for the perps.

For those of you who are upset about their work computer being locked down, there's a fake browser update that will infect the entire network with banking trojans. If you're locked down and updates are automatically installed for you, this won't matter.

Anyone who has read at least one of these entries knows of my great love for Faceyspaces. Well, it hurts like hell, but I have to back Faceyspaces. No, really.  Attorney General Bill Barr, along with the UK and Australia, is about to ask Lord Zuck not to go ahead with his plans for end-to-end encryption across its messaging services until it can guarantee the added privacy does not reduce public safety.

When you're done producing filling for your barf bag, allow me to translate: We, the Five Eyes, are rather upset at your attempt to keep all of your information away from our five prying eyes. If you don't leave everything wide open or accept one of our Extremely Safe Backdoors, you are making it very difficult for us to steal scan your information for terroristic threats and to keep the world safe from democracy. Because everybody except lefty and two of his friends uses Faceyspaces, it is our largest source of information. If you do not allow us access, we will convince the founder of Faceyspaces, the NSA, to allow us access.

Remember when back doors were something fun?



Dear lefty

• How do you categorize people?
• There are only 2 classes of people: Munsters and Addams Family

Today I identify as a shrubbery



China recently celebrated 70 years of communism with parades and displays of weapons. And riots and a shooting of a protester. The people of the People's Republic also celebrate, but only when they're told to.

In unrelated news, The US celebrated their public education system by publishing these stunning results: first in spending of any country per student, 38th in results.

In yet still more actively unrelated news, Maria Bartiromo reports that... well... I don't really care - look at that face. She's a classic.

In related news, police are filing criminal charges against the person they shot during the riots.    I always say, "If you shoot them, they'll never do it again."  

The young man will be charged with rioting and assaulting a policeman.
Back in Tianamen Square, the lone protester was finally charged with assaulting a tank.

No thank you, I'd rather spend a few weeks with with Richard Nixon, in his  underground bunker.

• Every now and then, one must give thanks for even random positive events: today I'm thankful that the new project will no longer require Windows 10. I argued so politely and so strenuously, they redid the project just for me.
• Sometimes a good thing comes in the middle of tragedy. This is one.

Bernie Sanders, genial old Silly Person, noted communist, and inveterate alpaca plooker, said there should be no more billionaires*. What a funny old dude. He says random sentences with 'free' in them, generating cheers from his fanbase; like Bruce Springsteen, but much more expensive.

*Unrelated news: Billionaires said there should be no more Bernie Sanders.

• Today I want to share something of great import. I feel it will enrich your life and keep your kids happy too. Unfortunately I already forgot what it is. The mind is a terrible thing to... ummmm...

I am proud to let everyone know I like Orange Crush.
I am proud to raise my eyebrow upon seeing a bottle of Watermelon Crush.
I am proud to say eewwwwwwwwww upon tasting it. Yes, they got it right, but watermelon soda? Join my campaign for Kidney Stone Crush.





When a reporter for the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command interviewed Frank Zappa for the Command's news syndicate, the story was held by a superior who demanded that Zappa - who had been rather hard on the Army - answer one more question: just who does he think will defend the country without the Army?

Zappa's reply: "From what? The biggest threat to America today is its own federal government.... Will the Army protect anybody from the FBI? The CIA? The Republican party? The Democratic party? The biggest dangers we face today don't even need to sneak past our billion-dollar defense system... they issue the contracts for them."

The interview was not run.

We need Frank more than ever today....





Heroes of the Stupid

A federal judge ruled that Harvard University’s undergraduate admissions program is constitutional, rejecting a challenge accusing the school of discrimination against Asian American applicants.

In a decision released on Tuesday, US district judge Allison Burroughs in Boston said that while Harvard’s admissions program is not perfect, “the court will not dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster, solely because it could do better”.   Reached for comment, the KKK was outraged that their Harvard admissions will be capped at 20%.

Why is my cable bill so ridiculous? It couldn't be because of added fees, could it?



SJW Time

University and College Union apologises after failing to include Jews on list of groups of Holocaust victims (the Jewish Chronicle).

It described how the Nazis had persecuted groups such as “trade unions, including social democrats and Communists”, “Europe’s Roma and Sinti people”, “Black people”, “disabled people”, “freemasons”, “gay and lesbian people”, “Jehovah’s witnesses” and “'asocials’, which included beggars, alcoholics, drug addicts prostitutes and pacifists” were persecuted by the Nazi regime.

The international section in your supermarket is racist. The food is segregated.

sometimes you need to keep your soda cold

Horton Hears Voices

A Florida man was arrested after going on a multi-state crime spree, ending with him being found naked, inside a chicken coop in New York. This sounds like meth: discuss.



Dear lefty:

• If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?
• The one down the block that has huge branches falling down randomly, because it's being eaten by some bug no one can identify.

We bid fond farewell to Dr. John (Mac Rebennak - 77) who passed from a heart attack. If you don't know who he is, you probably remember his hit "Right Place, Wrong Time." He was a very influential musician (piano and guitar, gruff vocals) and helped keep Louisiana on the musical map.

• Remember Ring Dings? The small round chocolate cake with white filling and chocolate covering? There's now a vanilla covering and white cake. Trust me on this, they're worth a try.
• You don't get this kind of information from normal blogs...

This week's imaginary reader participation exercise:

Moon landing: true or hoax?

• Ancient Jewish curse: may your in-laws be Joan Rivers, Rosie Perez, and Fran Drescher

My life would be even better if I never heard these words or phrases again:

• guac
• game changer
• no brainer
• imma
• easy peasy
• not tonight
• the best EVer
• your dog has cancer

Dear lefty:

• As a future Miss America, how will you make the world a better place?
• sue the Miss America pageant until they allow men
• fix everything for the children
• remove the stigma from having facial hair and wearing ball gowns
• eliminate abortion after birth
• legalize drugs - mandate them if necessary
• put an end to the scourge of doorbell-licking
• tube top Tuesdays!

Penny's Corner

The chemotherapy continues. Everyone is very happy with her progress and she might not need the final treatment - they're going to re-evaluate her. How does one re-evaluate chemo? Yes, the dog continues to not have cancer? Additionally, this might mean not having to take a third mortgage on the house.

The chemo has been no help whatsoever with her licking my pants and sofa cushions. Mrs lefty doesn't even lick my pants, why should the dog?

Penny loves spending time in her yard. Currently she's installing some large holes in the lawn. She's much more excited about installing holes than I am, but then again, everybody is more excited than I am.

• In a controversial decision, the BBC has decided to stop airing news. They discovered that some people were sad and others triggered by events in the news and the BBC apologises for any offence it might have caused. Instead, there will be a constant display of puppies, kitties, and shrubbery.

I've been to a total of two car shows, so I'm what you'd call very experienced and opinionated. Actually I'm opinionated to begin with, hence this blog. Also hence the way people remember they had something to do when I show up. 

I like car shows, but have no idea why. The cars are nice, many of which were made before my mother ever had the idea she could make babies. Some before my mother ever had the idea she existed. 

Strangely, I have only one complaint: next to the 58 Chevys there are always the 2012 Camaros, with more chrome than a dealer's lot of new cars. The engines inevitable have dual quad carburetors and that blower thingie that requires cutting a hole in the hood. How do you drive with that monstrosity blocking your view? Apparently you don't.  It turns out the size of the owner's penis is inversely proportional to the height of the engine (or so I hear). In any case, I don't want to see these things (or their penises) - the older cars are more fun to look at. 

At one point I saw something I've never seen before. It was ancient. It had wooden tire spokes. The windshield was a round piece of glass, attached to the steering wheel column. There were no doors. Turned out to be a Ford Model T! It won the award for the oldest car I've ever seen. The old folks who came with it looked like they worked on the assembly line. The sponsor has an ambulance standing by, in case any of the entries died. There's a contingency plan to get the bodies out of there without anybody noticing. They do this by disguising the ambulance as the car from Ghostbusters, so it passes unnoticed.

We remembered that the cars of our youth were not stock if there was a huge engine that came through the hood. Some cars were jokes and junk when they originally came out but now they're old and vintage, like my guitars (and me, sometimes). The restorers truly did a great job, down to the seats and covering. Seeing the late 50s cars made me wistful for the guitars made those years (no, I was not around then). If I can find a late 50s lefty, it's somewhat expensive, in the way houses are expensive. Many of the transmissions on the cars are lacking PRNDLs - instead they have numbers like 1 2 3 4. I don't like that kind. Real men are secure enough to have their gears shifted for them. 

Be skeptical when you see people in high places speak against Fake News. They try to make it sound ridiculous, like newscasters talking about people seeing UFOs. It is a fact that the CIA infiltrated newsrooms, like the one with Walter Cronkite, and planted stories as an experiment. They even had people on the payroll. From very early, there was a gentlemen's agreement not to print certain 'interesting' behaviors of presidents (JFK for one). So fake news isn't a recent phenomenon. There are YouTube videos with snippets of newscasters all speaking from a script - all using the same words. 

The news now just pushes agendas. You will see certain themes, among them inflammatory stories of people doing damage with guns. You will not see stories about someone with a gun saving others. You will see the talking heads laugh off UFOs. You will see a great emphasis on sports and social media input. Local news is somewhat less biased but generally fluff and downright stupid. If you want news from an alternate viewpoint, you can tune in news from a different country, but they're also pushing an agenda - it's just harder to see. 

Some news networks have been caught making things up and staging national news, but they're local and on a set, trying to look like they're on scene. Most news networks are against the president, except Fox. This says people up the food chain are scared. Of course Fox just waves the flag, so they're not much better.

Don't laugh off claims of Fake News. Trump did not invent the claim - he's just the first to verbalize it. You've been consuming it forever.

I am gross and perverted

I'm obsessed 'n deranged

I have existed for years

But very little has changed

I'm the tool of the Government

And industry too

For I am destined to rule

And regulate you

I may be vile and pernicious

But you can't look away

I make you think I'm delicious

With the stuff that I say

I'm the best you can get

Have you guessed me yet?

I'm the slime oozin' out

From your TV set

You will obey me while I lead you

And eat the garbage that I feed you

Until the day that we don't need you

Don't go for help . . . no one will heed you

Your mind is totally controlled

It has been stuffed into my mold

And you will do as you are told

Until the rights to you are sold

That's right, folks . . .Don't touch that dial

Well, I am the slime from your video

Oozin' along on your livin' room floor

I am the slime from your video

Can't stop the slime, people, lookit me go

I Am the Slime - Frank Zappa

Imaginary Interview: Mike Nesmith

From time to time, ThermionicEmissions interviews interesting people, usually ones who play guitar. Imagine that. So far Justin Currie (Del Amitri) and Jimi Hendrix (Jimi Hendrix) have appeared in these pages. Unfortunately the interviews are all one-way because.... can you see me trying to contact Jimi? Justin? "Hey, man, big fan. Would you do an interview for a blog with several actual readers?" Or "I thought you were dead, man..."

Inspired by a recent interview video on YouTube, I figured Mr. Nesmith (Nez to people who know him. I don't know him.) would be a prime target person of interest for the blog.

• Nez (may I call you Nez?), it's so great to see you after all these years. I'm not sure what it is that's different.. must be the hat. No, wait, we're related (one pair of chrome domes).

• Congrats on that Liquid Paper thing - your mom was a genius.

• Where did the hat come from? Was it after a meeting of the Executive Committee? Did you know that your concessions don't sell the proper shade of green? And no choice of buttons.

• You mentioned you're not a collector, even of guitars. What are/were your favorite guitars over the years? What is your desert island guitar?

• The guitar-centric interviews always talk about guitars, but what about amps? I saw some old footage of you guys, dressed in white. You were playing a 3 pickup SG (LP) through what looked like a combination Marshall and Acoustic(?) speaker setup. Did you enjoy that? Where are you on the tube/solid state argument? What is your desert island amp?

• Some of the Monkees interviews have taken time and experience into view, specifically about the external producers/band as a product years. You put your hand through a wall during a meeting with Don(nie) Kirschner. Can you tell me about that, along with any differences in your thoughts today?

• Joanne is a song that really resonates with me. Can you tell me how it was written - by experience, perhaps? Did your writing methods change during and after the Monkees?

• Aside from the obvious differences, how do your solo work performances compare to Monkees shows? Have you ever been chased by adolescent girls after a solo show?  <-- this is what we call a setup

• I write some mean parodies but can't seem to cross over into serious songs. The parodies go over well but I think it's time to add real songs to the resume. Any advice?

• Did growing up in Texas prepare you for stardom and fame around the globe?   <-- this is also what we call a setup, or a Really Dumb Question.

• Does the quality of groupies change over the years? Do you have any film? Regale us with stories, please. Are the STDs any better or worse these days?

• There were Monkees feuds over the years: how do you view them and what are your thoughts on them now, in light of 50% of the group missing?

• You and Frank Zappa always strike me as being too cool for the room, but not intentionally. You're both bright, but tell me why I get that impression. I know Frank appeared on a show and in your movie, Head.

• How could/should Head have been made differently? Would it include less of Certain Substances in the writing process? Do you ever see Jack Nicholson these days? Speaking of Certain Substances, do you ever see Jimi Hendrix these days?

• Were you ever inspired to stand in front of a wall of Marshalls and pull a Jimi? Did you ever get the Purple Haze riff down after he showed it to you?

• Aside from Jimi and the Beatles, what other rock royalty did you meet? How about Jeff Beck? Would you guys sign my #1 Strat?

• You guys are pretty humble in your talk of the Beatles, but they threw a party for you, partied with you, you saw them record, and you outsold them at one point. Do you have any further comment on that? The four kings of EMI are sitting stately on the floor....

• How could anyone drive the Monkeemobile with that huge intake thingie coming out of the hood? Didn't it obstruct the view (or was that the idea)?

• You were (and are) a serious hero to many kids growing up in many generations. I know you were to me. You don't think highly of yourself as a guitar player, but you were very influential. What do you think about that?

• If you could be a lawnmower, what kind of lawnmower would you be?

Thanks so much, Nez. We'll be looking for you on tour with Mickey and solo.

Resolving Not to Resolve

Continuing the embarrassment, Work replaced the iDevice 6 with an iDevice 7.
When they gave me the 6, I asked my boss to get me an android. He said he was ok with that, but I needed some sort of doctor's note. This time I figured I'd approach it differently: I asked the tech handing out the phones how much of a bribe he'd need to give me an android. He told me to go to the next department, where they all had androids.  HEY.....!!  I'll take a bag phone at this point.

So I got stuck with another iDevice.
It feels quite inferior next to my personal phone, both in operating system and size. Don't let anyone tell you different: women like big phones.
Work being what it is, I got a phone. Just a phone. Mind you, they went the extra distance and charged it for me. So the phone powered on, but the Ultra Triple Secret Logon is so secret, I don't have it.  We changed carriers recently, from the reliable one with great coverage to the One That Doesn't Work. Because of the change, over 2 months ago, no one knew to send out the new information. It was a total surprise.

So the bad news is I can't use my phone.
The good news is I can't use my phone.

P.S. one week later, still no Ultra Triple Secret Logon.
P.P.S. three weeks later, a minor miracle happened - it worked without intervention!
P.P.P.S. I had a guitar adapter that plugged into the headphone jack so I could play through the phone. The iDevice HAS NO HEADPHONE JACK. Just one of the many reasons I hate Apple.

• Let's talk life insurance. There are 2 kinds: the one that you pay for and the one you get when you haven't bought enough for your spouse to do away with you.

One of my favorite people I never met is the never-equaled and never will be Frank Zappa. Check this article out - it's a very good, light overview. Zappa would have been 78 on 12/28/2018. I wonder what he'd be up to....

• My friend offered his wife her favorite: a foot massage. She said no thanks, her feet hurt. He asked if her breasts hurt too.

Dear lefty

• Will you resolve to lose some of that weight?
• Will you resolve to lose some of that ugly?

The new 'networks' showing ancient tv shows leave no doubt about the kind of people still watching broadcast tv. Magnum PI is back. My wife shrieks and turns the channel because his shorts are shorter than a Kardashian. I'm sure they didn't seem odd at the time, but neither did sawing off limbs without anesthetic.

Precisely one hour after I wrote the above, I discovered there's a remake of Magnum PI coming to your tv. We are doomed. Can't they make it a cartoon and put it on 6am Saturdays?  "Hey Mom, WAKE UP - why are his shorts so small?"

• Is it a sign of affection when a dog belches in your face?

Why Stunning Ukrainian Women Are Seeking Men Abroad.

Wanna know what's wrong with your country?

Wanna know what's right?

The owner of a website that hooks Ukrainian women up with western men answers questions. The answers are alternately hilarious and frightening. The main answer deals with standard of living (and hygiene).

It might be worth a trip to the site, but do so using the Private browser tab, in case you have a wife or girlfriend.

• a Las Vegas customer ran over and killed her manicurist to avoid payment.
• This is a perfect example of Americans getting more stupid: everybody knows nails are cheaper than dents.

A fitting end to 2018

One of the kids telling Penny she'll love this treat.. it's the kind Marshall ate when he was dying.  Ahh, children....

• it turns out the dog can't say "fungal spore"

Dear lefty

• Where do you get the crap you type?
• Your mother.

Don't you hate it when your hotel room has a GSM (cell phone) listening device? A person in Wales found it behind an outlet. What he was doing behind the outlet, I have no idea - maybe planting his own

I hate to have to say this, but our first 2018 Rock Death is Roy Sawyer, better known as Mr. Eye-Patch in Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. Their biggest hit is "When you're in love with a beautiful woman", but their most fun hit was "Cover of the Rolling Stone." He was 81, no cause of death listed.

• a fisherman in Florida (of course) found a 60lb package of cocaine. He immediately reported the 40lb package to the US Coast Guard.

The truly important news of 2019 can be summed up thusly: there is a gadget for brownies that looks like an old ice cube tray divider. It allows you to get brownies already cut, and all can be ends, if you like.

Tech 21 - Guitar Content Only

GUITAR STUFF - read at your own peril


Tech21 is the manufacturer of the famous SansAmp no-amp rigs that plug right into an amp or console. The current series is the Fly Rig, available in basic or different artist flavors. Without even touching the tones, the concept is tremendous. An amplifier/effects rig in a small (12" ?) pedal. A lot of my fellow guitar players keep one of these in their bag in case their amp lets out the Magic Smoke and stops working [Magic Smoke makes all electronics run. If you let the Magic Smoke out, the device won't run anymore]. Some people use these as fly rigs (stop it), where they go to small or hastily put together shows without their amp - they just fly out with one of these boxes. Amp moving costs a lot of money too, especially overseas.

Richie Kotzen has a signature model, which he uses in his everyday rig, into an onstage clean amp. You can't get more authentic than that. He spent a lot of time developing it with Tech21, to their credit.

Tech21 has a page of videos on YouTube, as is mandatory these days. It's great because anyone can hear what they sound like before auditioning one for themselves or ordering one. They're reasonably priced too. And here is where I have a few issues (other issues, thank you). I want to reiterate that these are great pedals and incredibly useful. You're getting my opinion only here.

In the Pete Thorn video, he does a good job demoing the pedal. I'm with him right up until he starts saying it's a great sounding pedal. Pete is a phenomenal guitar player, with a ton of unbelievably good sounding vintage and custom amps. I don't see this kind of comparison as valid. It's not that I don't think the pedal sounds good or works well in a track... it's just the comparison.

In some of the videos, additional pedals are used. I didn't watch the videos to hear how the device sounds with other pedals; I want to hear it by itself. Show me what it can do. Putting a DS-1 in line to sound like Joe Satriani is like putting a Fuzz Face in line to sound like Jimi. Want to impress potential customers? Create the sound with the Fly Rig itself. No, you won't nail Van Halen's Unchained without the external flanger, but that's completely forgivable.

Now that I've given my personal opinion, let me give my personal opinion (on the viability of a Fly Rig in my rig) (sorry). I'm not what you'd call a working musician, as most musicians aren't. However I'm a pretty well-equipped non-working musician. Instead of buying Nice Stuff all my life, everything went into gear. My amps run from a real tweed Champ to a 74 Marshall half stack. I have some concept of tone, and it tends to line up nicely with general consensus.

Quite frankly, the boxes don't sound like or as good as amps. Nothing's wrong here, as one cannot reasonably expect a pedal to sound like a Fender tweed Deluxe or tan Bassman. I'm not all that crazy about the sound. However, I agree with many who carry it in their spares case. I also think it's very valuable for recording, in that the tones will sit nicely in the track, as well as not needing to crank up the Plexi at 2am. Further, I would rather hear the amp behind me, blowing sound at me onstage, not through monitors.

Suggestion: you did a great job on packaging the pedals. They're ideal because they're very small, and that's my issue.. I was not born with balance, grace, or the ability to see well on a dark stage. I'd make the pedal wider, so Stage Ballet isn't necessary. As for width, 12" isn't enough (STOP IT!). I'd give it another 6" or so, to comfortably get my huge, flat feet to hit the correct switch. My feet are so flat (HOW FLAT ARE THEY?) they're so flat that NIST uses them as a standard.

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The Character Series pedals are designed to sound like a specific amp, available in Blonde (60s Fender blonde amps), British (Marshall), and Liverpool (Vox AC30/15), among others. I'll save us a lot of extra reading and say my opinion of these is the same as the Fly Rig: they don't really sound like their name, but they get you in the ballpark and are great as a utility, spare, or recording pedal.

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The future will bring us pedals that sound really close to the original tone. This is happening in software these days, at least in terms of improvements. Software is somewhat (incredibly) difficult to use in a live setting, so it lives in the studio for now. Well.... not entirely... these Tech 21 products are analog (discrete parts, like they used from the first ever pedal). Digital pedals use software to manipulate the bits and bobs to achieve the desired effect (sorry again).

A big problem in any emulator is emulating vacuum tubes (valves in the UK). It's not easy, but if ads are any indication, tubes are important, Most emulators, pedals, and amps use the phrase "Sounds just like tubes". Another bump is emulating 'sag', which is the positive effect of tubes squashing their power supply. One of the best tones ever comes from tubes operating close to their maximum specs.  So TURN IT UP! has a sound basis in electronics, as well as tone.

If you can't get, can't afford, can't tell the difference, or don't want to schlep large, heavy tube amps, buy pedals. This is probably one of the weirdest non-reviews Tech 21 has ever come across.



As one would expect, cheaper clones, made (way) offshore, are available in many flavors, and have their own YouTube videos.





** go ahead - accuse me of being a dinosaur. If using close to the original amplifiers the pedals attempt to emulate is being a dinosaur... if being very picky about tone is being a dinosaur... if Jeff Beck, Jimi Page, and Frank Zappa are still using/used the originals.... I'm a dinosaur. When El Becko and Page hit the stage without their Marshall tube backline and sound seriously good, it will be time for me to give a serious listen to what they're using. When Frank Zappa hits the stage without his impossibly complex tube rig, I will seriously start to question reality. After the show, of course.

Frosting a Cake with a Paper Knife

A very common story told by people who have technically died and come back, is the Near Death Experience (NDE).  You know the story... traveling down a long hallway toward the light.. or a garden where your late relatives are waiting for you.

Sit down for a moment.
Stop the external and internal noise.
Go into the dark, maybe to the light, maybe a local light.
Are your friends and relatives there? Which ones?
What is their message, if any?
Think about it.



My wife experienced it.
She was up on the ceiling looking down.
Saw dead relatives.
They told her it's not time - go back.
Fortunately she did.


You're free to poo-poo it. You can tell me it's hypoxia and they're hallucinating (except they all seem to hallucinate the same thing).  It's a thought exercise. You don't even have to believe it's real.

• Things are going relatively well, in that I haven't heard more about the alpacas.

Parents are weird.

Even the most rational of parents have interesting little quirks.

My parents have some rather huge ones.

They're going on vacation, which is wonderful and we're all jealous. A family tradition is to take family to the airport. 

But not my parents. They leave early.

Early?

A day early.

From the airport?

No, but near the airport.

My mother, who can tell you who is about to call before the phone rings, likes to sleep at a hotel by the airport so they can get on the plane in the morning. To this day, no one understands why. I am the reason for many odd things she does, but I'm not owning this one.

• heard on tv: The Lesbian Cheering Squad is his latest picture.

The Pentagon has issued a directive restricting the use of fitness trackers and other devices at sensitive locations or high risk war zones.   The reason for this is that they got caught using the devices that divulged their location. In other words, nobody had an inkling that these devices could cause a problem, until it was pointed out in public. Then a directive was issued.

How long has ThermionicEmissions been warning about these devices? Please don't tell me one low level security d00d outdid the Pentagon by going ahead in his time machine and seeing what was going to happen. What clairvoyance! It's almost like he IS the future.

Seriously, folks.... we know the govt is a humongous monolithic organization that gets nothing done overnight (or century - you've worked at large corporations), but this....  this was not hiding in some black corner of the Dark Web, in back of Hitler's Rolls, under the picture of J. Edgar Hoover in full dress. This was a huge, beaconing, genuine emergency, visible to anyone who took a minute to think about safety and privacy.  I don't expect Joe Consumer would spend much time on this, but it shouldn't require a Serious Security Professional Prognosticator to check the Magic IT Ball to see the future.

These are the folks who protect our nation. Who spin up unbelievably huge new departments to help 'protect' us, at a cost exceeding the GNPs of most countries combined. You know better than to get me started on the result of this (TSA), right? Smile when you read your pay stub and see what you're paying for this.

This could be the harbinger of Bad Things in the armed forces. Wait - let me check my time machine.... fwwwwwip - yup, this is not going to be pretty.  Within the next few years, the Pentagon will restrict 'checking in' to Afghanistan location apps and posting your lattitide/longitude on Faceyspaces. No selfies of you in the sand on Instagram. And NO tweeting your location if you're in a country 'helping its leaders to better position the upcoming vote'. 

If this sort of thing is allowed to continue, it will no longer be fun to be in the military!


The Pentagon is welcome to contact me for consulting, but I'll save them a lot of money by having the NSA pass along what they gather from reading this blog. It's win-win. I get to blog, they get free warnings, and I get to help my country.

HONEY.... it's the phone... the Pentagon's calling again...

• a top supplier of iDevices had to shut down for a bit because of ransomware all over their network.  I told you iDevices are dangerous!

According to F-Secure, spam is through the roof because of the demise of Adobe Flash. Because people aren't using Flash, the criminals' pickings aren't as easy, so they turn to spam.  Here's the best part: long ago I was told that spam was so prevalent because 10% of its recipients clicked on it. Last year it was 13.4% and so far this year, it's at 14.2%. I often lament the fact that we're so incredibly stupid. I truly hoped that with time and knowledge, we'd become less stupid. That was stupid of me. We're spreading our stupid deeper and wider than ever before. We're actually getting more stupid. Not only do we not learn, we flatly refuse to, in favor of growing more stupid. But how stupid can we get, you ask? Don't ask, I say... they will never let you down.

• If you want to go against what security people say and insist on using public wifi, here are some tips to keep yourself relatively safe.

Overheard from an equipment vendor: "Our security team said we are not allowed to use the WiFi in our hotel room during this hacking convention, so I am running to the lobby to answer some emails."

We are doomed.

• They say, whoever they are, that our mind wants to see patterns in something we don't understand, so that's why we see things that aren't there. I wonder if this goes for the ears... The television is usually on at a volume which allows it to be heard in most of Australia, so I'm forever yelling COULD YOU TURN IT DOWN A BIT - AT LEAST TO AFRICA? I was just about to yell again, when I saw the tv was off. This means I'm hearing a tv that isn't on. The technical term for this is auditory hallucination. The technical remedy is antipsychotics. After too long or too many, one starts to sound like Ozzy Osbourne and shake a lot. I'd prefer to think my ears want to hear patterns.
• And that, my friends, is how babies are made.

COWORKER FOLLIES

HIM: This list has the information you want

ME: Do you remember the site for that information?

HIM: Whaddaya mean - the list?

ME: The site where it resides

HIM: On the list. Let me take a picture of the list and text it to you

ME: WHERE THE DEVICE LIVES, where it is plugged into power, where it sits behind a door, its location, where it gets a network plug, where it blinks its lights, where people go to fix it when it breaks, DID YOU LEAVE YOUR MEDICINE HOME AGAIN TODAY?

Frosting a cake with a paper knife... refers to a very old tv commercial for canned icing. It's so moist, you can spread it with a paper knife. Then she does. This was satirized by Frank Zappa in 'Flakes':

I am a moron and this is my wife
She's frosting a cake with a paper knife....