Captivity - Day 48 Measles?

According to one of the many attractive weatherladies, it's cold today. It's cold for the season. It's bloody May and we're not even in August. Somebody better have a bit of a chat with Mother Nature - this is unacceptable. Today's WeatherHottie was very pretty and knew her topic but there's something about a woman with shoulders the size of a football team's Front Four...

Mrs lefty's hobby is finding local channels and watching their news and commercials. This is not a difficult hobby, in that you turn on a local channel and watch their news. The best bit is watching the commercials. You wind up saying to yourself that the production quality would greatly improve if they hired a 5 year old with a crayon to produce the commercials. HAH. This iz Bahb, of Bahb's Tractor Feed and Phonograph Repair. Let Bahb takes care of yer tractor's phonograph feed! If y'all buys this week, we'll throw in a free baby and a bottle of local wine, with real grapes.

Last night I saw some yogurt, thinking I'd have that today for breakfast. Since I can't find chocolate yogurt, I eat other kinds. This morning there was no yogurt. I gave up trying to figure out why a long time ago, but the math says Mrs lefty or Penny the Wonder Spaniel. Penny can't open the fridge (as far as I know) and Mrs lefty opens the fridge too much, so I'm going with Mrs lefty. I think she rearranges the entire fridge after I go to bed. Aside from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I'm not sure why. I am sure it affects my already brittle sense of where things are. So if I'm the only one awake, I can't find any yogurt. It is also possible that she forgot where she put it, so no yogurt there either. This is starting to look hopeless for the yogurt so I go back to sugary chocolate cereal. Ahhhh.... I get it! She wants me to eat junk cereal so I die sooner. This is exactly why I keep the life insurance at levels where it's not worth it to kill me. A place for everything and nothing in its place.

I have a Google Math question: Google tells me I have 8192 page views for the day. I have 8191 page views for the week. Is this algebra? Quantum physics?


KLINGER - put on some pants!
Flying AIDS survivors banned from joining military.
Men in panties still ok.



Report from New Scientist: Mini-brains grown in a dish rapidly develop signs of Alzheimer's disease when infected with the common herpes virus that causes cold sores. Who comes up with this shit?  Hey Max... Yeah? We got this mini-brain grown in a dish.. let's put some herpes in it, ok?  BRILLIANT!



WATCH YOUR MEAT: Like the previous rioting over toilet paper, we're on the cusp of Meat Rioting. The story is that meat processing plants are shutting down because the animals are suspected of having the Flying AIDS. Or the employees. Or the employees who do things they shouldn't with the animals. The price of meat is going through the fake factory ceiling.


The hidden cost of gun violence: a NJ State Police detective shot on duty proposes to girlfriend after being released from hospital.


I've been through Kardashians, I've been through Survivor, and our current foe is Furries. You know - the Furries that get into costumes and sing for alleged judges? I didn't know about it til I saw the commercials - JFC, we have degraded. We need to get back to 'normal' from this Flying AIDS thing, lest people have what's left of their minds food processed into (more) mush.  TV is now owned by 2 entities: Wolf (any police or SUV show) and Mindless Live (Survivor, Contest, Love in an oil tank).

Literally the only thing I watch on broadcast tv is 911 (the original).  Perhaps because I don't care about my other tv setup or I don't care in general, Wife and I swap the remote control. She has all the power because she cares, and because she knows what stations are which numbers. Me - Big Vacuum Tube and Computer d00d, relies on his wife to know what channels to put on. I have made some progress, in that I can now change channels. She got me again, though, because she knows which channels we have. Since we have the Cheap Option, which includes internet and broadcast tv, we only pay $249 per month, so we can't expect too much.  My parents used this service the moment it became available in our old hood. I can't mention their name (because of some rule I just made up), but it rhymes with Bomcast. Now for the Old Man Rant: Why, I remember when it was $15 for basic cable. Now it's $15 to drive by one of their skyscrapers in Philly.

I have loved my job since day 1. My boss is a little weird, in that he trusts me, but we can work through these little bumps. Since we're Sheltering Here In Terror (SHIT), we have meetings from his house. Boss likes to keep his team sharp and every time we meet, there's a loud sound in the background. Once the screaming was a cat. Then what sounded like his shower was the coffee machine. After that, we heard a Caterpillar 4B, digging up the basement. This turned out to be a Caterpillar 4B, digging up his basement (for the panic room/bomb shelter). Next week we expect his entire family singing Christmas carols (but his son sings off-key.



This corporate sucking up to everybody who's a hero during the Flying AIDS pandemic is nauseating. The first commercial is nice. The next 12 are mind-numbingly insane. We get you, Ford... we understand you're offering no payments forever on your new trucks, but does that mean the front line responders assemble them? How about the trashmen? The clerks at fast food stores? They guys at the sex shops?

Captivity - Day 32 WHO, UN, FCC, GTFO

It's Day 32 of our World Mask Countup



The sun is out. Like I said, it's a trap. It was really cold. Then it snowed for a bit, then sun again. I gave up trying. Unfortunately so did the sun, but there are plenty of people over the world, getting it wrong. They're called weathermen. And women.


Today's act of civil disobedience is driving around your area with no seatbelts and no mask. * you're gonna need balls - Philly police are known to carry garden hose, which doesn't leave marks. Plus most of the cops have a lot of free time on their hands, after announcing they will not show up for minor crime. They are not kidding.. I saw a convenience store with 6 police cars parked. Someone robbed the place and ran out. The store owner asked if the police were going to do something about it. The bastard had the nerve to interrupt donuts. The police asked if they called 911. Nope. They asked if he had a gun. Nope. They told the poor guy they're not allowed to work minor crimes unless there's a gun involved, then went back to their jelly donuts.

So if you ever need the Philly PD, you have to phrase your request thusly:  Hello 911? I'd like to report my neighbor for having grass over the 3" limit. AND SHE HAS A GUN!



I think the doctor needs to adjust my medicine.
I'm sitting there, minding my own business, when out of the corner of my eye, a blanket had turned into the dog.  Everyone did LSD when they were young, but it wasn't as effective as what I was seeing.  A long shard of cardboard started moving. I worked out that if Penny wasn't eating it, it was not moving. I have to admit that jamming with Jimi Hendrix was pretty mind-blowing. Hmmmm,,, I wonder if I really want this 'fixed..'

• I'd get way more work done if the cabinets and chairs would stop getting all melty

I do not want to shelter-in-place; I don't care if it's Mila Kunis' place.
That would not be good.

Hello, Honey?
If you haven't heard, Idiot Governor says we have to shelter-in- place.
What does that mean?
You have to stay indoors, in a place.
When are you coming home?
We'll have to ask Idiot Governor.
Where are you?
Mila Kunis' place.
WHAT are you doing at Mila Kunis' place?
You know these stars - none of them can operate a toothbrush, unless there's a toothbrush app in their iDevice. Do you have any idea how hard it is to use 'that pose'? They buy the phones and then spend 14 days learning how to make it look natural.



Governments across the globe are talking about when to let people out of their homes. The World Health Organization, largely seen as as cash hole, is struggling (to come up with something fund-able), but they're hiding behind the UN, where no one would bother looking for them. I've seen grown men offer to cut off a limb, cook it, and eat with his best friends, rather than go to the UN.

President says we're de-funding World Health Organization.
Out of nowhere, WHO says, "Trust us. The worst is ahead of us."
"We're not kidding."
"We're the WHO - trust us."
"We've gone through billions of dollars this calendar year."
"The Center for Disease Control butt-dialed us once.
"Trust us. Please. We're the frickin' WHO"
Well, it's a secret, but trust us. We're spot on here.
Think of the tax writeoffs!
WHO wears masks normally? US.
How do you know this?  State secret. Trust us.
We saw what was happening and bought tons of masks. No, they're for us
If you fund us now, we'll throw in the UN.

It’s only days until Gucci, Coach, and Target bring out their designer masks.

You would not be caught dead in a generic white mask.

It’s way too early to wear white.

There's a Walmart mask, but no one will wear it. The kids would rather die from the Flying AIDS than wear that mask. It's full of graffiti and diapers - the mask too. Children will be behind in life because their parents cannot afford Gucci masks. There will be thefts. A black market on the Dark Web.

Somebody call the Fashion Police!  

There's what sounds like a Saturn 5 rocket launch happening next door.

After 2 days of cutting, planting, and serving as the only nice place on the block, the fuel truck is in place and working. They have one of those elevator thingies so you can get to the top, where the best seats are. I don't know a lot about rocketry, but I think there's going to be a bit of damage done to the rest of the block. Idiot Mayor won't do anything until we remind him that there was a black, Jewish, lesbian, vegan on the flight.

To Amuse and Confuse

A Chicago woman is tired of all the violence. Her idea for the fix is to call a "sex strike". Women agree to abstinence until the men of the community put down their guns. She said "you have to hit people where it hurts."  Why stop there - world peace or you get nothing.

• The Islamic State paper carried a picture of the Schweppes soda can and materials used to make the bomb that took down the Russian airliner. The ironic part is that the airline charged the passenger three dollars for the can.

What do you do when hundreds of protesters are outside of the building where President Obama and other leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group are meeting? Crank up the Katy Perry on a convenient p.a. system!  Nothing gets rid of unruly mobs like Katy Perry.

• A woman started strolling down the lanes of San Francisco's Bay Bridge, while stripping down to her underwear. It took California Highway Patrol twenty minutes to corral the offending stripper. In a move nobody could have predicted, police took the lady to the San Francisco General Hospital for a psych evaluation. What could possibly be wrong with spreading a little joy to some poor folks driving home from work?

As mentioned a while back, a woman who was carrying a loaded gun in her vagina when she was booked into jail is about to be sentenced to several years in jail. The arrest is part of Tennessee's successful new Gun in Vagina-Go to Jail program.

• The University of Missouri will march today, demanding that the KKK stop wearing white robes.

SCOOP: I'll bet you didn't know that today is United Nations World Toilet Day. Who says the UN is a useless organization? WARNING: link contains toilets.

• Watching the College Entitlement Festival is somewhat alarming these days. A Columbia student claims to be traumatized by reading about white people. I did not make this up.

A Pennsylvania woman accused of running a prostitution ring said her only crime was operating a massage business without a license. As for sex, she said she charged fifty dollars for a massage and if anything else happened, it was just between friends. She did not solicit but did accept money afterwards. Why can't we all get along? And where is this massage place - just for the sake of accuracy, of course...

• Apple Music chief says finding music is online is too difficult for women. I routinely say Stupid Things and hear about it later, but this guy hit one out of the park and into the next country. See? Nothing good comes from Apple.

In 2005 the CIA was in federal court, refusing to disclose its federal budget. From 1963.

• In case you never gave it any thought, adults all over the world are looked down upon for choosing not to have children. And I thought it was tough being a libertarian.

GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY:  ISIS has been warned that if they are planning attacks in New York, they will have to contend with the Sicilian mafia. There is no word on whether New York has been 'asked' to pay for the protection.

• Remember the God Hates Fags people? This is a really good story about one of their members.

It's Black Friday(-ish) time and there may be deals to be had. Consider this Oral-B SmartSeries Electric Rechargeable Toothbrush with Bluetooth!  Hang on... with Bluetooth? A toothbrush. With Bluetooth. Do we perhaps need to start it early, like our car, to warm it up? Does it communicate with your phone to assess your brushing prowess? Does it summon the Tooth Fairy in emergencies? Will it call an ambulance if your teeth stop responding?

BRIEF BIT O' SOUNDS

• Something About Rosanna: Rosanna Arquette is really something special. I cannot tell you how I know this. She is the direct inspiration for Toto's Rosanna and Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes. She must know stuff.

This guy discovered a bug in the linux Gnome desktop.

He Reminds Me of a Penguin

In a move that has rocked the entire northern hemisphere (and parts of New Jersey), President Obama has 'extended the Afghan military presence.'  Support our troops - bring them home.

• The US State Department suggests that Israel might be using excessive force to confront a wave of Palestinian stabbings. Israel is not amused. Meanwhile, US state program to put police in armored personnel carriers with automatic weapons to shoot pet dogs and random others is on track for the year.

Technology scares the hell out of people, survey finds. Survey also reveals that it's cold in the winter and Rosie Perez's voice can peel the paint off cars.

• PUMPKINS? What in the universe is up with pumpkin? Yes, we're approaching that season, but this is excessive. Pumpkin coffee (my wife's favorite at Dunkin Donuts), pumpkin bread, pumpkin beer, other pumpkin baking products, pumpkin alcohols and pumpkin sex toys. I see it all over the place - my wife assures me it's been going on all along. Yet more proof that I either don't care or don't get out much (both, most likely).

If you're not paranoid about your privacy, you're crazy. Don't rely on my rantings - read this article and see for yourself. Read this sitting down.

• I said gum, stupid!  A Kyle, Texas, student caused mass panic when he asked someone for some gum and another student heard gun. A letter had to go home to all parents, explaining the situation.  PANIC!!!

The male brain is programmed to seek out sex over food. ....and to whom is this news? Our Central Processing Unit is centrally located.

• A man dressed as a priest stripped down and performed 'a sexual act' on the altar stage. Police and the church are looking for the man (he forgot to fill out his job application).

A Minnesota man killed his 84 year old grandmother for blowing her nose at the dinner table. Manners - use them or die.

• PLANE JUSTICE: Things got interesting on an Aer Lingus (that sounds dirty) flight, when a man bit another passenger then died. Not to be outdone, a Southwest traveler choked another passenger for reclining a seat. Any of us who have flown will agree that choking is too good for people who do this, as well as parents with screaming babies.

CIA Director John Brennan had a secret AOL account. SURPRISE - it got hacked. Now let's get serious here - in the first place, no one with any clearance at all should have an AOL account. Second, the guy is a CIA Director. Where do we get these people? But wait - there's more! Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson's Comcast account was also hacked by the same miscreant. These poeple are 'protecting' us. Do ya feel protected today, punk - DO YA? You will notice that the hacker got in trouble, not the people who are supposed to know better. So there's Hillary, John, and Jeh - it sounds like a really bad 60's folk group.

• MATH TIME: 

• The federal penalty for not having health insurance will rise in 2016 to $695 or 2% of income.
• For the subsidized, taxpayer subsidies pay roughly 70% of monthly premiums 
• The subsidized pay roughly $100 per month
• I pay over $100 per week (with a $5,500 deductible) 
• If I just pay the $695 penalty, it would pay for itself in under two months and I'd still wind up paying for my own visits, just as if I had a $5,500 deductible.
• These blithering Keystone Kops were supposed to fix health insurance. It is broken beyond measure.

NATIONAL HISPANIC MONTH: So it's National Hispanic month, as you can tell from the bold letters that started this. Take it from me, ok?  I work in an interesting place, which shares but a few oddities from the last VERY interesting place, one being Happenings. Both places have public-ish spots where they host events. Events at the old place included dances, fashion shows, and beauty pageants. The newer place seems to have its share of events but I haven't gotten a feel for what they are. Until yesterday. I was walking down the hall, minding my own business, when it became impossible to continue minding my own business, due to the insistent, LOUD, semi-rhythmic pounding on a drum. I was half aghast and half amused. My coworker just shook his head and said, "National Hispanic Month." Due to the flyers strewn about, I agreed. Then I saw the drummer and the featured entertainment: a scantily-clad guy with a cardboard Indian headdress. He was chanting HUH HUH HUH HUH, the way you'd chant it to an insistent, LOUD drum. I turned to my coworker and told him I just knew someone was going to be offended by this. The problem, at this point, was figuring out who.

Meanwhile, I still can't get National Guitar Month, National Left-Handers Month, or National Left-Handed Guitarist Month flyers or events or corporate-wide emails.

• Federal tax collected set a new record this year, at $3,248,723,000,000. That's $21,833 per working person. Yet we have a $438,900,000,000 deficit. This is what happens when you vote republican or democrat. This is why they're two sides of the same coin. Go ahead and argue R vs D - you're gonna get screwed either way (except the dems will insist you get free lube, then raise taxes to pay for it and the reps will require lube, benefitting their lube donor corporations). See where your tax dollars are going.

The Vatican is denying that the pope has a small tumor. Gee, I wonder who could have started that rumor...

• TODAY's QUOTE: “One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all. And kill the Jews.”
  Wernher von Braun

TECH

Tighten up and secure your browser(s). All browsers, all operating systems.
NOW.

TUNES

Today's special is on another wunderkind: Jonny Lang. He started very young, in the Stevie Ray Vaughan mold and the hits kept coming. Jonny was a part of Experience Hendrix, which we attended last year.

The first time I heard Lie to Me, I wondered if it was a Joe Cocker song I had somehow missed. This little dude has a voice like an old, whiskey-soaked veteran. A buddy said the veins on the side of his neck looked like they were going to pop when he sang. And he can play! The little bastard has his own Fender signature guitar.

Breakin' Me is a nice mid-tempo song. Here's a live version.

Still Rainin' is another groove-filled romp, complete with cool female background vocals.

What did you expect to find on Mars?

Why Do You Think It's Called a Strip Mall?

Two relative strangers met and hooked up in California.  While this no doubt happens all the time, it rarely happens in front of a strip mall.  Hey, when you gotta hump, you gotta hump, right?

Now the NSA is really in your computer.  Our good friends near DC have been caught sneaking malware into the firmware of hard drives, as discovered by Kaspersky.  This also brings up the fact that the drive manufacturers allowed this. These are some evil folks, folks.  Lady Gaga or Beyonce had better do something fast...

A Tinder app is said to enable flings at Carnival in Rio.  And let's face it... if you've gotta go down... {ahem}, Rio isn't such a bad place to do it.

Mystery Mars haze baffles scientists. Well, it's not so much haze as the Martians steam-cleaning the rovers for us.

STUDY: Dogs are smarter than people think.  Not watching tv helps.

Show-winning dog semen sells for $2,000.  Further proof that I'm in the wrong business.

Rowdy women attack man at 50 Shades.  So I'm thinking to myself that this is my golden opportunity: stand outside the theater and clean up!  Right up until we discover that the man in question asked the ladies to lower the volume a bit and got the wrong kind of head.

Woman pulls gun on man after being denied sex. Wow, I didn't know we could DO that!

======================================

It's Snow Time in the old neighborhood. Again. This time the forecasters called for three to six inches. Within hours, it was one to three.  In an extreme slip-up, we got three to six.  What are the odds that a weather forecaster will be correct?

As a result, I worked from the couch, where I am generally headquartered.  I was treated to the somewhat altered-state neighbor shoveling early.  I strongly suspect he has some sort of noise-enhancing attachment built into his shovel. Still, this is better than last year, with the snow blower. Snow blowers, while a great concept, bother me almost as much as lawn mowers.  Let's face it - they require so much care and maintenance that they're unlikely at best to be there for you when you need them (as one could argue about a wife).

After work, I shoveled. It wasn't bad at all (especially as I didn't have to start a snow blower). Then I heard this loud noise, incredibly similar to the neighbor's amplified shovel.  This is largely because it was the neighbor's shovel, this time being powered by the 437 year old being from hell who owns the place.  In the autumn, she has some sort of laser-powered Leaf Alarm to tell her when our leaves hit the ground.  I'll bet you she also has a laser-powered Snow Detector too. As soon as it starts snowing, she forces the tenant into Snow Bondage.  Apparently his snow job was not sufficient, as she was out there again, probably cataloging and cleaning individual flakes from the tarmac.

-------------------------------------------------

I thoroughly ruined someone's day today, or at least I hope I did.  

I don't get out much and I don't have anywhere near enough fun, so I have to get it where I can (kinda like sex).

There's a street on the way to work that has a 25mph speed limit and they're not kidding. I suspect half of the town's revenue comes from speeding tickets. I was warned early to obey and obey I do.

Not everybody obeys and this is where the fun starts.

Sometimes people don't want to do the speed limit, so they pass you in great haste. The only problem here is that it's only a two-lane road, so they cross into the wrong lane to pass you. While I have yet to see anyone ticketed (or beaten) for this, hope springs eternal.  When I drive a higher performance car, I speed up while they're trying to pass: it amuses me.

Today's idiot was a special breed.  He got right up my tailpipe from the start. When this happens, I naturally make sure I'm doing exactly 25mph, if not 24.  This did not impress Sparky, who stayed in close formation. Trick Number Two: brush the brake pedal so the brake lights come on. Sparky backed off a bit but in short order, he was trying to climb into my trunk.  Firing up the brake lights again only pissed Sparky off and he blinked his lights at me.

Imagine - he blinked his lights at me.

A brief glance at the speedometer told me I was doing 1mph over the limit, so I slowed down. Sparky backed off.  Not for long, of course, despite passing several 25mph signs.  By this point, Sparky's face was no doubt starting to turn red and veins were popping out of his head.  In fact, he got more aggressive and would not back up, even with the Brake Light Treatment.  

Finally some sense must have seeped in and he backed off. I suspect he might have seen some speed limit signs.  Oh no, he was back again, this time weaving all over his lane, as if he were going to somehow rocket past me.  I smiled and continued to do the speed limit in a nearly offensive manner.

At this point, Sparky probably had to give the steering wheel to his passenger, as he was having a Coronary Event (formerly heart attack).  He finally got around me because he had to get into the turning lane. He shot me a look.  I smiled.

I won.


And as I close this episode, I have but one wish: that both the cat and the dog stop farting.  I'm going to asphyxiate here.