Vegan Shampoo: Gluten Free, Meat Free

In my latest Florida IT Disaster rant, an unnamed IT person was fired for clicking on a phishing link, 'forcing' that city to pay ransom.

You will notice that no action was taken against the designers and maintainers of the network that wasn't patched and didn't have backups. This is a tactic worthy of a political debate.

As for the IT person, they should be required to take a remedial phishing safety class, then teach safety/employee education classes at work. In lieu of being a sacrificial lamb.



I've mentioned this, but Ancient TV escapes me. A local-ish station pops up out of nowhere, playing absolutely ancient shows. I believe the shows are royalty free, so there is little cost to run the station. So now everyone can be treated to the absolute BEST shows of the 70s. And when I say absolute best, I mean shows that weren't all that good in the 70s.  Then there are the networks with 50s shows. You can now watch ridiculously formulaic, black and white shows that your parents and grandparents watched. You know, wholesome comedy.  The absolute worst is Buzzer, the game show network. One would think that a network featuring various game shows would be entertaining. However, they play the original shows. You are now watching Match Game 73, meaning the show aired in 1973. Everybody on the show, including the contestants, is dead (except Betty White, of course). There is one fun part, though: the prizes. The cars you could win are hysterical to see. The furnishings are even funnier. And you could get the absolute latest in audio - an all-in-one stereo system, featuring a turntable and an 8 track player!

I couldn't figure out why I sit next to Mrs lefty and watched some of this nonsense. It's because I like to see manly cars. Huge cars. 8 cylinder cars. With trunks you could fit a family in. Where you can have separate arguments in the front and back seats, without disturbing the other. Cars where you could ride around the block and watch the gas gauge go down. With bench seats - favorite seat of spaniels and all other dogs. They hate having to climb over the hump, with nowhere to sit in these stupid bucket seats. When tires were large and the wheel wasn't. When you could run over smaller cars and not notice it.

Sigh.
The good old days.
Can't buy a real car anymore.

On the bright side, our Hyundai is magnificent; with a mileage figure that old cars didn't match, ok fuel consumption, and absolutely no tuneups or getting dirty. The most maintenance required was putting in washer fluid and taking it in for regular oil changes. Highly recommended.



Dear lefty

• Please answer - I haven't gotten any personal abuse lately and I miss it.
• Answer what, you twat?

RyanAir has performed a little Marketing Magic. The 737 Max has been grounded for its propensity to fall out of the sky. In their marketing wisdom, Ryan has repainted the 737 Max logo to read 737-8200. Yes, this is another name for the plane, but....

In unrelated news, the Twin Towers have been renamed 737 Max.

Smoking and Drinking

Boris Johnson, (R-UK), came out against sin taxes, like taxes added to unhealthy foods. As the mayor did in Philly on 'unhealthy beverages.'  Boris (R-Missing), says obesity is the NHS' worst problem, costing a ton of money. He said that taxes are not the way to go, preferring a science-based solution.

A pleasant surprise is politician and newscaster referral to the Nanny State.
Hey - that's MY phrase!   This would never happen in the US, as government creep gets larger and larger, and we never met a single thing we didn't want to legislate; screw the Constitution.  For a ridiculous example, see tobacco in the US. There is an obscene amount of taxes levied on tobacco. Most don't complain because they don't smoke. Even when the "Don't Smoke - You're Going to DIE' warning appeared on ciggies, it did nothing. Obviously taxing doesn't work, nor does dictating. Taxes were found to affect the low income segment disproportionally, especially on sugary beverages.


Speaking of Blighty, this is apparently a big time for the national pastime of cricket. Although we have some idea of football/soccer, we're flummoxed on cricket. Any who wouldn't be? Reports are that 57% of Brits don't understand it either.

There is a batsman that bowls the ball, which looks like it would cause an amazing amount of damage, should it come in contact with your person. It is referred to as bowling because the ball is made of the same thing bowling pins are made of, only there's no machine that returns them. No, the sport is so old that it relies on actual humans to move the ball. There is no sign of 3 finger holes on the ball, although rumor has it there are in the ladies' cricket league.

The field looks a lot like baseball, only with higher salaries and greater television ratings. This is carefully balanced by having to pay a tv license (they can't spell either) to actually watch stuff on tv. In spite of paying for tv, they also have an obscene amount of commercials. Embarrassed, the viewers claim American tv has more, but this is just projection, meant to make them feel ok with paying so much to watch men run around and get hit in the family jewels by balls with the tensile strength of SCUD missiles.

If the batter/bowler/truss-wearer manages to hit the ball, something definitely happens. This varies with the day of the week. Regardless, the sports reporters develop brain aneurysms commenting on hits, like hockey commentators in the US. Color commentary is slightly different too.

"Up now is Billy Hetherington-Smyth-Smith. Billy was conservative party ball washer, in addition to personally wetting his uniform in last year's finals."

"This score was quite the effort. It reminded me of two games ago, when they also scored."

"The team are playing wonderfully this season, allowing them to all work together on one player scoring."

In reality, nobody really knows how the game works, least of all the players. These athletes (ATH-uh-leets in the US) are not among society's best and brightest, referring to their jobs as somehow hitting the bowling ball and closely monitoring their bank accounts for copious rises in the balance. Some find this exercise too much and hire people to look at their bank accounts for them. Some make so much money they hire people to play for them, citing the risk of damage, should they have to run or something.

The bat is like a baseball bat, but flat, and more likely to cause damage on the other team's faces. The American practice of using aluminum bats has not caught on, even though it would cause more damage to faces (and groins). One reason for this is that the British pronounce it 'al you MIN e um', and the extra syllable costs more to air, due to the complex tax system, which reaches 90% of income.

Finally, the winner, although nobody knows how that is decided, takes the ashes. Nobody has ever questioned where the ashes came from, and why smoking is encouraged in this sport. Teams are considering changing ashes to rocks, as the sin tax on ashes is getting out of hand. Of course if they use rocks, they will also develop sin taxes.

Small wonder America gets a bad reputation for not understanding or following the sport... even the Brits don't understand it. This doesn't stop them from turning out in the hundreds of thousands to watch. Since the cricket watchers are of a higher socio-economic class, the sport lacks the excitement of soccer hooligan riots, the second most popular sport in the world; except America, where there are courts and jails in the stadiums.

Commenting on the upcoming acid test, Captain Ken Kesey said he was practicing all day, every day.

Lastly, no one has any idea why the founding batters chose to call it cricket. The name is slated to change, as the Society for the Protection of Insects, Brown Division, strongly objects to cruelty to crickets. Even if there are no crickets whatsoever in the game.

The preceding paragraphs are 100% fact free.

• 7-11 came up with an app!
• The next day, half a million dollars were stolen from customers because there was no security with password reset (anyone could change anyone else's password).

Are you tired of Security Theater? Being groped by the TSA in airports? Going through the body scanner? Wear sequins. They drive the body scanners crazy, so you'll go through the metal detector instead. And probably upset TSA agents.

• The family of a woman killed in the Las Vegas shooting is filing a lawsuit against gun makers.  Because them damn guns leaped into the air and shot her.
• There will obviously be lawsuits against alcohol manufacturers, car manufacturers, lake and ocean manufacturers, and anyone else who needs to be sued due to lack of personal responsibility.

After a recent typhoid fever scare, the LAPD recently announced the deployment of a germ-killing robot at Central Division on Skid Row.

The robot emits 5 minute pulses of UV light that the manufacturer says kills 80% to 90% of germs in the air & on open surfaces. I keep waiting for the punchline. If you tried this, you'd be jailed for practicing medicine without a license. This won't survive a lawsuit, good intentions aside. 

This is also a template for what's to come, should there be serious health issues.

• Coca-Cola says you can party like it's 1985 again, because they're re-releasing New Coke!
• This is what we call not learning from your unbelievably huge mistakes. New Coke was a major flop and was quickly discontinued. Probably because it tasted like Pepsi.
• In totally unrelated news, the Gremlin, the Ford Pinto, and the Nova are being re-released. Now you can get your Ugly, Exploding, Doesn't Go on.
• Other throwbacks planning a reissue include polyester pantsuits, bowties, Radio Shack computers, and gonorrhea.

SJW Antics

A SUNY professor penned an article titled 'Seeing poor white people makes me happy'.   If you want more entertainment, click the link. Even other racists will hate this guy.


Liberal Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has noted that Ocasio-Cortez's comments make her a "Holocaust denier," which is a form of anti-Semitism.

Tonight's epic battle: the R Card vs the J Card.
Who will win this momentous social justice battle? Stay tuned!

Any group with more than one person in it will eventually eat itself.


Activists demand tampon dispensers in male bathrooms for "menstrual equality"
As with most things, Monty Python was years ahead of its time.

"Classical music is inherently racist." - an article in NewMusicBox.

God Would Be Mad

It's been a rough morning.
According to Wife, it has rained the last fifteen days. By default, she would be more correct than the forecasters.  When it's not raining, the humidity has been in the 90s; it's gross.

Back in the office first thing in the morning, it's 64 degrees with only 93% humidity. My arm hair is sweating. Wife suggests a fan. Like all married men, I have to ask her for wisdom, then I make the mistake of questioning her. But won't that just blow the humidity around?

Ok, fine, it's Fan Time.
There's a window fan, located, strangely enough, near the window.
So I get my climbing gear and lift the fan. Unfortunately the fan is held down by its own power cord.  Grumbling, I yank. POOF - here's the cord! And it's attached to an extension cord that will NOT pull, move, or do much but silently mock me. I have no idea where this cord goes. The humidity is not conducive to following it. And when I say humidity, my eyebrows are wet. Plus there's so much stuff on top of it that if I pull too hard, the entire room will disappear in some sort of Freak of Physics alternative universe, so I'm not tempting fate.

Battered but not beaten, I decide to steal the living room fan, as no one's using it at the moment. Et Voila - overnight, so much stuff has appeared on the fan's base that we'll need a dynamite crew to excavate it.

[sigh] Back to the room.
Well, since neither fan worked, I'll sit here in the humidity box, thinking about how uncomfortable it is... hey.... I'll take the window fan and put it somewhere that isn't a window. Sometimes I outdo myself. Most times myself is outdone by other stuff. And it works!!! No, really! It's so loud that I can't hear anything I'm supposed to be doing! Someone helpfully suggests an air conditioner, because it won't be a problem to install the new 145lb unit, then hand down the remaining ones, so I can put one in my office. I can do that with my eyes closed. I can also juggle chainsaws and deliver eggs to little children in December.

Hmmm.... my stomach is grumbing out Morse code. This would be wonderful if I knew Morse code. I went with hungry, which turned out to be a good guess. I know - I'll make one of my word famous salads that nobody knows about! Lettuce, a dressing or three, and tuna, making sure to pour the juice into a bowl for the dog, who considers it heavenly. The secret ingredient, which I shouldn't mention, is bacon crumbles. Pour, pour, pour, pour, pour, ok - enough. More dressings, please.

I am infatuated with this salad. World class idea. Except for that color.
I am absolutely positive that I put nothing in the salad that's blue-green and fuzzy. As it turns out, I did. Looking in the bacon crumbles bag, I notice the entire contents has that blue-green fuzzy color and texture. The new bag of bacon crumbles. I'm reasonably certain they're not supposed to be that color. And if they are, I'm not eating them. Unfortunately, being crumbles, they crumbled all over the lettuce, hiding in romaine heart ventricles, and falling close to the bottom of the plate. After I threw the entire plate at, but not in, the sink, I realized I didn't have what it takes to make another. It's heart-wrenching. I heated leftovers, walked out of the kitchen, and watched the fork try to commit suicide by jumping off my plate to the carpet. While attempting to hold back the tears, I noticed the air conditioner was on. In the living room, which had no one in it.

What are you gonna do?
I'm through being mad for the rest of the month and I'm NOT going back to CostCo, so it's Time for Ice Cream, Yayyyyyy!!!!!!!

How was your morning?

• ThermionicEmissions is sad to say Rest in Peace to Peter 'Mars' Cowling, best know as Pat Travers' bassist on Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights) and Crash and Burn. Mars had a style and groove that you had to hear to appreciate. He could be busy or not, but the song went on. During this period, Travers had his best band ever, in my opinion. Pat Thrall on guitar, Mars, and Tommy Aldridge (Whitesnake) on drums. Very solid. Highly recommended. There goes another good one, this time from leukemia.
• Pat is a great guitarist, has some hot new stuff, and did some surprising instrumentals, like The Big Event, on which he plays keyboards too.

In the midst of all the crap started by everyone's favorite loudmouth, Roseanne, she admitted a while back to having multiple personality disorder. There are seven of them. Dr lefty says there might be more, but she hasn't discovered them yet. I wonder who else does in Hollywood...  maybe some of the pop stars, who break down completely, then go on a talk show and behave strangely.

Speaking of her crap, she blamed the tweet on Ambien, a sleep aid. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a sleep medicine jump out of the bottle and tweet. For that matter, making someone racist is not listed as a side effect of Ambien. On the other hand, a friend used to hide his keys in the freezer before bed because Ambien caused him to take trips in the middle of the night. His roommate told him all about it.

Lastly, I don't think the tweet was particularly racist unless you're really looking to find it.

Jarrett was the "product of a combination of "Planet of the Apes" and the Muslim Brotherhood."

Agree or not, it's vintage Roseanne. And I'm not a Roseanne fan.

• A Taco Bell manager stabbed his 21 year old employee, allegedly over a woman. Taco Bell Corporate said that they welcome different management styles but don't think this one is working out well.

Out in Denver, two young brothers decided to have a lemonade stand, with all profits donated to charity. Their parents taught them well. Within a short time of opening, the police arrived. The stand was shut down for lack of permit. It had earned $200. Further investigation could not pinpoint any law requiring kids to have permits for lemonade stands. They were not cutting into anybody's business or blocking streets, which is illegal.  Vote libertarian- we don't tolerate this crap.

• Alaska has been overwhelmed with skyrocketing numbers of new cases of gonorrhea. This is the second highest rate, behind Mississippi (do what you want with that). Chlamydia and syphilis are also an issue.  I don't know what all the confusion is about: there's nothing to DO up there but have sex.

In case you don't already know this, your cell phone company is selling your data and there's nothing you can do about it. I'd contact them, file some complaints, and speak to your representative. As much as I hate government interference, this is the only way to get the ancient law brought up to date.

• Remember the big brouhaha over the baker who refused to make the wedding cake for a gay wedding? The Supreme Court just ruled narrowly for the baker.
• I find the baker's stance reprehensible, but on principle, I believe they did the right thing. The government does not belong in the cake business. Or any other business. If you applaud the baker's stance, give him your business. If you find it distasteful, take your dollars elsewhere. Let the market decide. 

Microsoft, everyone's favorite huge, evil corporation, just bought Github for about $7.5 billion. MS was the largest user of the service, which provided a place to store and download open source software, from tiny to huge. As a result, developers are fleeing, some to Gitlab. So MS bought Github - what could possibly go wrong?

Speaking of Faceyspaces, a 'bug' may have made 14 million users' posts public. Facebook asked 14 million users to review posts made between 18 May and 22 May. These events are weekly at this point. Is this enough for you?  I just saw an article about using the Tor browser to access Faceyspaces. Might be worth a try. 

• Hey, how about those Stingray devices that police use to get your phone information? They just showed up around the White House area. The DHS sent a letter and Congressman Ron Wyden is MAD, demanding FCC action.
• It would be ironic if the People were spying on the government. They suspect hackers. Hackers who have somehow managed to get Stingrays up around DC. This could be quite dangerous, plus these devices have no place  in government hands. They clearly violate the 4th Amendment (search and seizure).
• this is not the first time the situation has been addressed, which shows the great speed of the government. I'm surprised - they have no problem using it against us, but aren't generally as tolerant against them.

In fifty years, college professors will study ancient forms of communication with their students. The newest textbook talks about this old means of one-way communication, called The Web. On the Web was everything from drugs, guns, something called Faceyspaces, and a lot of early forms of porn. In fact, half the web was devoted to porn.

In a tiny little corner of the web, they discovered blogs. In a tiny little corner of blogs was something called ThermionicEmissions. This is where the class would focus for the first day or so.

The blog was written in Ancient English. We know most of the words, but the idioms will have to be worked out. The spelling seems to be different than other blogs. There are also words we cannot find in all of our reference material. This leftystrat person might be taking liberties with the language but we cannot ask him and his dog won't tell. The author, leftystrat, is long gone, survived by his dog; ironically, with a cancer diagnosis.

The reason for choosing this difficult blog is not only his curious use of language, but that our advanced Loopyologists have studied the meanings of the words, along with the themes therein. Loopyologists, as you remember, is the current name for psychiatrist, after that field was found to be 100% ineffective and full of random ineffectual weirdos.

As best we can tell, the intent of the blog was to document the author's disdain for most of humanity, especially the less intelligence-gifted. Although we cannot follow the links because the Web no longer exists, our best people have theorized that they go to stories of the day. The final feature was where the author would share what he believed to be his really bad luck, paranormal things that affected him during his days, and his wife. I say wives, but this is particularly perplexing, because he referred to her in the plural. Perhaps this was yet another liberty he took. The one trait that even a first year student can pick up is sarcasm. It was a theme that ran through every entry. He was prolific in it, much moreso than we could ever use it in the present.

As I said, the Loopyologists have had a go at the entries, especially the seemingly paranormal things that just seemed to affect him and nobody else. They have determined that, far from listing things to amuse others, he was actually documenting his descent into madness. [class gasps]

But what about the Sanity Room?

Fifty years ago was long before the invention of the Sanity Room. This poor fellow suffered terribly, but kept his sense of humor and attempted to make others laugh. We are now checking with the Ministry of Sainthood to confer the title of honorary saint upon him.

Has his dog spoken on this?

Yes. He would like something called Cat Food. We are researching his request.

• Hawaii is being overrun with lava from a nasty eruption. It's getting close to highways. Naturally, tourism is up. Dick Cheney is under watch, due to his propensity for throwing virgins into volcanoes. 

I'll admit it - I like Chik Filet.
I don't like that they're closed on Sundays, but that's not my call to make.
Fortunately for us, the day happened to be Monday. This was a relief because as you read, the other day, the mall that was open 10-9 was really open 10-6.  Pushing our luck, we visited another place with hours of 10-9. And everyone agreed on Chik Filet. Order placed, name given, seats taken.

Name called, I get the food and there's one drink too few. As there were only two of us, they were off by exactly one, but never took higher math classes. Both of the ladies were very busy running around and ignoring me. I know my car's invisible; apparently I am too. Or I make the car invisible (I didn't take higher math either). Summoning everything I learned from Harry Potter, I said the magic words, "Anorexia Nervosa" and POOF, the yardstick appeared in my hand. I held it out at such an angle that the employee crashed right into it while ignoring me and talking to the lady ten feet to my left. While this is going on, I'm turning around to where the wife is sitting, with that CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT look in my eye.

Strangely enough, the lady ten feet to my left told the employee that she was missing some fries. As employee whizzed by, I got out my Opera Voice and told her I was missing a large lemonade too. She asked what size.

After the lady got her chicken testicles or whatever she was missing, Employee went for the cups. I was in luck! She headed straight for the lemonade dispenser. It was heavenly. Then she told me that the lemonade had run out and did I mind if she topped it off with diet lemonade. I doubled Opera Voice and told her NO WAY - that stuff gives you cancer. So she dumped my not-quite-full lemonade into the sink and got another cup, into which she poured only diet lemonade. As she handed it to me, I made the universal sign for no diet soda please, which involved just the slightest pressure of my hand around her neck.

I realize she was at work, and probably busy, but how many of her customers tell her that artificial sweeteners give you cancer? You'd think that would stick in her mind, even for the sheer horror of someone saying it to her. Nope. I started to wonder what else I could say to her but decided not to torture her any more than requiring my order to be correct.

With full understanding, she apologized and went off to get a refill for the Real lemonade. Out she came, with a rather large container of lemonade. With a sticker that said DIET.  I looked around for the source of the joke. I checked myself in the mirror for the word 'diet' on my face or t-shirt. Nothing to be found. So I asked politely if this was DIET lemonade. She thought so too and mumbled something about being so stupid. I smiled and she went back to procure more Real lemonade. What we don't know is that there IS no 'in back' - she went next door to Cow Filet for the lemonade. She loaded up the machine, complete with lemon seeds (probably from a carton labeled 'Real Imitation Lemon Seed-like Substance') and got yet another large cup. I watched very carefully. I thought maybe she ran a hose from diet to Real and was trying to poison me anyway.

She apologized profusely and I wished her a nice day. Lo and bloody well behold, it was Real lemonade. No poison, no one spit in it, and as far as I know, no one picked their nose in it.

Back at the table, Wife was wondering what was going on. She wasn't surprised, as this used to happen 95% of the time. We agreed that the girl did not look that stupid. It might have been a trick though... she might have been blonde and colored her hair brown. That's called artificial intelligence.

Warning: they have an iced lemonade or something similar on their menu. I tried it. Only order it if you're in the mood for something that tastes like a lemon milkshake.

Our table faced Chik Filet, so we got to watch the action. They closed at 6, because the mall closed at nine, and who could possibly want food at 6? Wife asked why. I suggested that maybe God would be mad if they worked after 6 on a Monday.  All the lights were off and the staff was cleaning things. We watched about 20 people come up and ask if they were open. Yes, we always turn the lights off and clean when we're open.



Whilst walking, we came across a music store. I haven't seen one of these in a long time, so we went in. It's a good thing they put 'music store' on the front, because it looked like a $5 store, with some music hidden in the back.

Also in the back was a shelf dedicated to all sorts of turntables. You know.. for playing records. Remember records? Only the turntables were cheap junk, some styled to look like vintage stereos. And next to them were records. I don't know if it was the records, the turntables, or the acid that caused the flashback, but there I was, in my teens, spending all my money on records (as opposed to now, when I spend all my money on the dog's doctors). And now records are the Latest Thing. Everything old is new again. Except the records cost three times what I used to pay. And yes, I realize I bought records just after the paleolithic age, so there would be something of a price difference. They cost more than CDs now. My turntable is still out in the open because some of my favorite stuff never made it to CD. And now we're back to vinyl.

Absolutely - Your Data is Safe With Us

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

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

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

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

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

I'd get caught.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things is getting weird and concerning.

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

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

Jewish gangsters.

Time for a little stereotyping.....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sister Wives

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

Avoid.

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

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

Really Deep Thoughts - Really

Really, what's the point of life?

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

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

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

What of our Stuff?

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

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

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

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

Which brings me to Me.

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

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

I'm kind of attached to my Stuff.

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

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

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

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

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