It's Not Polite to say Coccyx in Church

To my readers:
A very happy new year to you and yours.
To us and ours too. 2019 has been total crap and the faster gone, the better.

You know who you are: we miss you every day.



seen on twitter:

Just witnessed an airport proposal. She did not say yes.  [@wleaming]

Christmas came early for that guy. He really dodged a bullet there. [@JesseKellyDC]

After Mozilla got word that Avira and AVG Firefox extensions ate all your data, they pulled them. They're now back, after the extensions reduced the amount of tracking data being sent to their servers.    Seriously?

• Flying Robot Vacuum. If this ain't the Fifth Horseman....

Dear lefty

• What is your New Years resolution?
• To stop answering stupid questions.

Yeah, I discover things really late..
Go to your phone's app store and download some sort of online radio listening app. You may be surprised at what you can listen to... I did a search yesterday and came up with a lot of interesting UK radio; comedy and rock. There's sports, xmas stations, 50s music, and sports. It's also a great way to remember which musicians died recently. The foreign stations are very interesting, in that you can't understand what they're saying. This is just like the TOP HITS stations in the US! If you can't find something interesting, you're not hitting PAGE DOWN enough.

Speaking of dead musicians, "    ,    , and Palmer" won't be touring. Palmer is holed up in a steel room (he thinks) Death can't get into.

50% of the Beatles won't be touring, as will 50% of the Monkees. I wonder if the ones who died are getting together in the afterlife. John Lennon, George Harrison, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork. They can call themselves John, George, Davy, and Peter, singing songs about the live ones who left them but are eventually joining the group. The dead ones are occasionally joined by the 5th Beatle, producer George Martin, and the 6th Beatle, Billy Preston.

If Danny Gatton isn't dead, he'll be shocked that all of his guitars are for sale.

Kurt Cobain remains dead, but he has an excuse. Have you ever seen his wife?

Only 25% down is Led Zeppelin, however the one causing all the trouble is an alive one.

Badfinger has not one original member left, sorta. The guitar player joined after the first album came out, so he didn't play on it. He counts as the only one not dead (and is reported to be hiding out with Palmer).

It's a bad time for Jimi Hendrix, but he is more prolific dead than any time he was alive. His sister is making a ton of money, releasing all sorts of stuff and putting his likeness on barstools.

Nobody from Deep Purple is dead, but the members change monthly, so it's difficult to tell.

Zappa remains wherever Zappa went after he left, but his progeny, Dweezil, tours the country, playing his music. Dweezil is probably the only one who can play Frank's music.

The Allman Brothers are now Brothers of the Grave, with exactly two original member above ground. There's Jaimoe, and sometimes I wonder if he knows he's still alive. I watched him shining his cymbals once, during a song. And there's Dickie Betts, recovering from a near death involving falling off something (or someone). There were a lot of Allman Brothers, hence a lot of different deaths: cycle, tree, shotgun, and cancer. Strangely enough, not from drugs.

Chicago never recovered from the death of Terry Kath (guitar/vocals). No one else has died, except their career.

The three Kings of the blues have gone underground: B.B., Freddie, and Albert.

The entire ELO band disappeared, so it's possible they're dead. They were all replaced by Jeff Lynne, the voice of ELO.

Joe Cocker is no longer Feelin Alright.

As for the Winters, remember that Edgar is the living one and Johnny has departed. Sometimes Johnny looked dead long before he died.

Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead) has flown the coop. The only good news is that supplies of JD and meth have returned to their former numbers.

Slade is still on the road. Nobody died - the members just quit at random times.

Robert Palmer no longer sneaks Sally through the alley

Ritchie Hayward and Paul Barerre's departures have gutted Little Feat.

The Turtles (Happy Together) are alive and touring, as part of retro package tours. I don't think anyone died, or at least Volman and Kaylan haven't. Cancer tried to get Volman, but he won.

I need a hobby.

• Why do cats always land on their feet?

Conversations with the pharmacy

Hi, it's lefty. I need a refill on #125843.
Yes, we can fill that in 2 weeks.
Two weeks?
Yes, 2 weeks. The birth control, right?
I can assure you, nobody in the house, including the dog, takes birth control. Do I sound like I take birth control?
Oh. I musta got that number wrong.

You musta.

• Faceyspaces will stop mining contacts with your 2FA number.
• No they won't.

I miss the Old Days<tm>.
On New Years Eve, we'd sit around, complain that the fireworks displays were too crowded, then complain about the idiotic New Years shows, then ask "They call this shit music?" We'd play Flip the Nephew to figure out which show to watch the ball drop, talk about how much we hated last year, and go back to shooting up.

Come to think of it, just like every year!

• Just when you thought the NSA spy satellites were new: giant surveillance balloons. 2020 will bring us Giant Flying Octopusses with Telescopes. 

Today I identify as  an xmas tree, out on the curb

• If I played football, my position would obviously be offensive lineman. Or offensive quarterback. Maybe offensive coach.

No maudlin, semi-serious, sardonic, sarcastic blog would be complete without a list of notable deaths in 2019.

• Danny Aiello, 86
• Carol Channing
• Norman Orentreich, 96, "the father of modern hair transplantation"
• Peter Tork [Thorkelson], 77, complications of cancer
• Hal Blaine [Harold Belsky], 90, session drummer (The Wrecking Crew)
• Doris Day [Doris Kappelhoff], 97, pneumonia
• Dr. John [Malcolm John Rebennack], 77, no longer in the Right Place, Wrong Time
• Rip Torn [Elmore Raul Torn, Jr], 88 [not Rip Taylor]
• Peter Fonda, 79
• Valeria Harper, 80, cancer
• Rik Ocasek [Richard Otcasek], 75
• [Peter] Ginger Baker, 80, killed by life
• Rip Taylor, 88, [not Rip Torn]
• Marie Fredriksson, 61
• Dominick Arena, arrested Ted Kennedy after Chappaquiddick
• Rene Auberjonois, famous for nobody being able to spell his name, actor
• Paul Barrere - Little Feat guitar and vocals
• Tim Conway - master comic actor
• Dick Dale - king of surf guitar
• Daryl Dragon - The Captain, without Tenille
• Arte Johnson - Laugh In
• Aleksei Leonov - first person to walk in space
• Peggy Lipton - Mod Squad
• Eddie Money [Edward Mahoney], 70, esophageal cancer
• Art Neville - Neville Brothers keyboardist, vocalist
• Beverly Owen - Marilyn, The Munsters
• Leon Redbone - guitarist
• Charles Sanna - invented Swiss Miss Cocoa
• Carroll Spinney - Big Bird from Sesame Street
• Gerry Stickells - road manager for Jimi Hendrix, among others
• Nathaniel Taylor - Rollo on Sanford and Son
• Lorraine Warren - paranormal investigator, inspiration for the short ghostbuster in Poltergiest
• Bob Einstein - was Super Dave

There's a theme here. Guess what it is.....

Bored?

Check out Death List

Celebrity Death Pool

I really appreciate my existing readers plus the new ones from other countries.
If you're late to the party, this blog has no actual purpose, other than to amuse people and document the owner's slow descent into madness.

Fists, Rocks, Chains, Knives, and Guns

UK Knife Crime Protection Orders would impose sanctions - including bans on using social media - on anyone aged 12 or over suspected of being involved in knife crime, even if they have not been caught with a blade....

While Americans snort and fall down laughing, this brings up several points:
First, the UK is very silly.
Second, the UK is a staging ground for what's coming.
Third, nothing changes.

Let's face it - we can pretty much replace knife with gun. This makes the panic more interesting and enlightening. You know the criminals are saying, "We can't stab him - we'll be locked out of Faceyspaces!" I'm sure we can agree that threats of punishment are useless, just as they are for most crime. You can get the death penalty for murder - does that stop anybody? I will admit that no one has ever proposed a social media ban for murder (or even shooting). How a social media ban would work is yet another interesting topic. Don't forget, the UK has made it 'illegal' to say Bad Things about people online... the police will visit. This also trips up the American concept of due process - you're punished before you're proven innocent or guilty... somewhat draconian, wouldn't you say?

This brings home that people will find a way to assault others, whether verbally or with implements. Banning any of them won't help - people will just use others. The problem goes deeper, a concept we won't bother discussing at the moment. Eventually people will be assaulting others with phasers, tasers, lasers, masers, ray guns, and invisibility beams. We'll see the same impotent responses too.

• Apparently there was a sale on candy.... three very large party packs of caramel M&Ms just appeared. The first one is almost done, because it's like crack to me. I'd think she wanted to kill me with chocolate, but we don't have enough life insurance to make it worthwhile for her (on purpose). 

Dear lefty:

• Is there anything good about Philly?
• Yes, leaving it to get to the surrounding suburbs.

Washington state declared a state of emergency over an outbreak of measles.

Not to be outdone, Alabama declared a state of emergency over expected bad weather.

California is about to declare a state of emergency over a shortage of cosmetic plastic.

Florida (God's waiting room) has been hit hard with a shortage of waitresses for the 3-4pm dinner shift.

A homeless Georgia man is accused of breaking into a funeral home and raping a woman's corpse.

When asked why, he said that raping a man's corpse would be gay.

• for some reason I really want to be here right now. To play and to feel....

It was a new day. A new week. There was sun outside. The temps were above single digits.
The children, recently frozen to the ground, were being collected and taken inside.
The snow lost its battle with temperature, I lost my battle with the printer, and a lot of people continued to hate the president. The marital conversation with the baseball bats had taken a temporary break, and I got invited to perform at an album release party. I accepted before they told me how they wanted me to perform.

• To the families of passengers on Flight 234: When we say we'll have you on the runway in 5 minutes, we're not kidding. We will let you know when we find the rest of the plane.

A 4 year old boy in Washington state found a handgun and shot his 8 months pregnant mother in the face. Fortunately her condition has improved, and the child, much to his disappointment, will not remain an only child.

• A Texas man was killed when his vape pen exploded. RIP.
• Nobody listens to me when I say smoking kills.

Dear lefty:

• Sonny Smellenbad, of Selma, San Francisco, asks why he has so much trouble smelling salts
• Because when you were born, your mother didn't know if you were hers or not.

President Trump gave his 2nd State of the Union speech recently. 

Opposition boycotted the speech, saying Trump lied. Asked what he lied about, they said it didn't matter - whatever it is, they're against it.

• I hate to say this, but the 4th season of Monty Python suffered greatly from the absence of John Cleese. Reached for comment, Mr. Cleese said, "The season is dead. It's a stiff. It's bleedin demised."

Hey, it's been at least 5 minutes since my last rant, so here's another. We call this Let's Ship with UPS:

Some work equipment developed an attitude so they sent me replacements. They came with a UPS return label, which was their first mistake. I sealed the box up and went online to schedule a pickup. That was my first mistake. Like most of us, avoiding human contact is a bonus.  Got through all the forms online with no grief, then it asked me for payment. It's a prepaid label, complete with tracking number. Naturally there is no way to indicate this, although I certainly tried.

Shit - human contact.

Well, maybe not. The phone sent me to a voice response system, to which I gave all my information again. I had no idea blood type was so important to shipping. Sure enough, it wanted payment too. So far this is two automated systems that wanted money. I need one of these, so whoever calls me has to pay, with no option not to pay before talking to me. I picked out random words to say to the system, including some rather interesting ones, and finally got shipped to an operator. I could understand most words she spoke, which worried me.  At the end, she told me that since I scheduled a pickup, there would be a $20.17 charge for a pickup.

No there wouldn't.

Bill it to my employer. They sent me the bloody label. It's their friggin equipment. Believe me, they want it back in the region of NOW. They will pay the charge. They're a rather large organization. In fact, they're a really large organization. Bill them.

Nope. She kept with the script.

I wondered how far her training went and did they cover Master-level sarcasm.

She kept with the script, only worded differently.

She was good.

Even after I explained my company's budget, the fact they sent me the label to return it ($437 next day shipping), and read her home address to her, she asked me how I wanted to pay.

I didn't.

She suggested I could get the receiver to call her and tell her how they were going to pay. They wouldn't schedule the pickup until they heard from the company. You worked some jobs at some places - I know this. You had shipper/receivers. Nobody on the planet ever called your shipper/receivers to ask how they were going to pay for a package's pick up charge. Even if they had, the employees weren't about to give out their personal credit cards. Or blood type. 

I shook my head in defeat, as I pulled out my card. That package was going nowhere until *I* paid the charge to have a truck come pick it up. By now those drones were starting to sound attractive, especially versus talking to UPS. The shipping instructions said PREPAID. They didn't say PREPAID except you have to go to a UPS location to drop it off. They also didn't say "you have to take off during work hours to go drop the package off." I was perfectly willing to give them my firstborn, but no....

Next time I have to call UPS, I'll save the trouble and call City Hall instead. Twice the pain in half the time, and no one will pick my package up anyway.

BUT WAIT!!!!

My company was not amused by this and rang UPS immediately. I got a phone number to get a refund immediately. The system gave me 3 choices, one of which it couldn't understand. Repeatedly. Eventually I continued in the system, reaching a Refund Person. Refund person took the details, said, Ohhhh" and had to send me somewhere else.  Of course she did - I needed a refund and went to the refund department - how stupid could I be? Off to Billing, where I got to hear the same jaunty two chords for about 10 minutes, while they hoped beyond hope that I got fed up and hung up. The mean time for holding is 8 minutes, per a study on this kind of thing, so they wait at least 10 before answering.

Another nice lady answered and asked for my tracking number: a 34 digit imaginary code, including the day of the week, week of the year, the employee's employee number and nostril size. This number should have transferred with my call, but industry studies say pretending it didn't got people to hang up faster, avoiding any refund and buffing up the bottom line. Oh dear... the tracking number isn't in the system yet.

Not in the system.
No.
You delivered it this morning.
Yes.
You picked it up yesterday.
Yes.
And charged me for the privilege.
Yes. Think of it as an Uber.
It was prepaid.
Well, you don't prepay Uber. It's the original shipper's responsibility to tell us to pick up the package. You get a preprinted label.
I got a prepaid label. It said prepaid.
I see.
No you don't. These people have shipped a few parcels - they know what they're doing.
You will have to wait until it's 'in the system' for a refund.
You didn't have any trouble charging me when it wasn't in the system.
A refund can't be processed until it's billed, which only happens on a full moon in Decemburary, weekly. You can then request a refund. Or do it online, where you can't hear us laughing at you directly.