Armageddon Not Scheduled for This Year - Rest Easy

Some exercise equipment commercial referenced all the benefits to using their latest Wonder Instrument of Torture. First, you'd look like or get their really hot model. Your shapely 310lb frame will fit into a size two when you're done. And it will benefit your core.

I'm sorry, but even with the sad state of public school anatomy curriculum, I don't have a core. Car radiators have a core. Apples have a core. You can core a fruit. We're reaching the core of the matter. You can core more, as well as coring less, but you have no core.

And exercise causes cancer.

• The CIA's "Vault 7" leak was an inside job, according to the FBI. The DIA begs to differ. In keeping with their mission, the TSA has no clue. The DHS isn't commenting because they're still trying to find Vault 6. Very quietly, the NSA is over there in the corner, snickering.

Securus Technologies gives the police the ability to track cell phone locations without a warrant.  Isn't that great? If they can't get your information from a court, they just get in touch with Securus. RIP Fourth Amendment.

• Remember that stupid window cleaner commercial where the birds kept crashing into the windows because they're so clean? Yup, it happens here. You're minding your own business, then BAM - another birdprint on the window. This enrages the woodpecker that pecks on the aluminum siding once a year.

What is it about my phone that causes loud noises and the laws of physics to rearrange themselves?

On a late phone meeting the other night, one of the kids walks in, speaking at the top of her lungs; "HEY LEFTY GUESS WHAT I WAS IN THE YARD AND.." I'm waving my hands and making the universal gesture for STFU - NOW! She waved her hands (loudly) and said she was sorry.

Ten minutes later, someone decided they needed a candle or seven lit, for a calm atmosphere.  Who can argue with a calm atmosphere? Even if there has never been one in the entire time in the house? She started by tripping over some imaginary object - BANG!  The dog BARKED to be let out, because there's something about my boss' voice that starts his bladder talking to him.

Back at table, the phone rings.

Back at the candles, they are getting lit, except for Number Three, which falls over with a SMASH of glass. BANG BANG BANG went the feet as more tripping ensued.

I snicker at the pointlessness and impossibility of getting anything done at home.

At this point I'm incredibly impressed by a glass candle holder whizzing past my head, on the way to a window. And finally, in a futile attempt to continue lighting candles, my wife knocked over a perfect split in bowling, where two candles are on the extreme left and one candle on the extreme right. It might actually be quieter to install a bowling alley in the living room.

• After about three years of consulting, I'm proud to have been offered a job at the company for which I'm consulting. As a full time employee, I'll have to attend orientation, where they'll teach me how to fill in forms, get very little done, and how to nap without snoring. No word on an attitude or whether it's self-developed. The difficult part will be the class in not communicating with my team or other teams.
• About 16 years ago, when I got my last big job, I called my grandmother first, to let her know. She was thrilled. I wish I could call her today. Hopefully they read this blog.

Google AdSense sent out an email about new Terms of Service. You'll get these from various online services because of GDPR-QRSTUV, over in the EU. It's a privacy platform that says advertisers must keep your information secure before they sell it to others. There are occasional ads on this blog, which is how bloggers earn a few pennies per year. In the past eight years or so, I've earned approximately... more or less.... just about... Nothing. This is one of the benefits of having fifteen readers (up from ten). Many years ago, when I was with a Large Network, I made money from blogging. Not guitar money, but a few bucks. When they got unpleasant, I moved here. That really showed them!  Which goes to show you that I do this for nothing. And why shouldn't I?  I appreciate you coming by to see what's going on in leftyWorld.  If you like it, please tell your friends, your parents, and your kids. If you don't like it, please tell your enemies and in-laws (and me).

• London's database of gang members is 87% BAME (Black, Asian, minority, ethnic) and is accused of being "racially discriminatory". It has been suggested that they add some white people to the list to balance things out.

Dave Fullarton was cleaning out a house belonging to a friend who had died, when he came across Army Captain Larry Casey's ashes. As Baltimore National Cemetery made arrangements for a full military burial, Dave put out an invitation on social media for people to attend the veteran's funeral.  Some played Internet Detective and located Casey's widow and daughter, who flew out on one day's notice.

The history goes like this: some of Casey's ashes were spread in a memorial service and the rest were given to his best friend, many years earlier.

Approximately 300 people, including veterans and police, turned out for the funeral.                              I think I've got something in my eye.

• in the Alternate Universe Department, this time it's not me! My wife noticed that when she called her mother, it went right to voicemail. And Mom never noticed. No one else in the entire huge family has this problem. Mom is stymied.
• In order to call her mom, she has to call another family member to call Mom first, then have Mom call her. This should be fun if she needs to get in touch quickly.

Hell truly has frozen over. The pope told a gay man that God made him like this and God loves him. Well, Mr. Pope, from what I understand, that's a very Catholic thing to say - good on ya!  Don't they say love the sinner, hate the sin? Because this is so interesting, let me add that the remarks were made to a victim of clerical sexual abuse. A cynic might say that the insurance company made him say it.

Hoarders has refused to do a show on our house, as we have walkways and nothing's piled higher than anyone's head, Marshall excluded. I'm not sure whether to feel happy or excluded. In that spirit, we're house cleaning.

I have a computer room. Rather, I had a computer room. It's still physically there, but might have blipped into an alternate universe. When I opened the door, it had returned to our universe and I got nostalgic for the times my wife yelled at me because I spent all my time in there computing and building Stuff. So I started the front end loader and got enough things out so I could enter. Then more stuff. Then I remembered I forgot or refused to throw things out, so I went lighter, using a snow shovel. Having carved out enough space to work at the desk, I figured I could clean as I went along.

Perhaps I was a bit too ambitious.

But no experience is without learning, so I learned a few things...

• as little as 1/2" of dust on a keyboard can impair typing
• just because it's a huge outlet strip, with all sorts of things plugged into it, doesn't mean there's actually power there, or to all of the outlets. Fortunately I figured this out before the laptop laughed and shut itself down.
• Old square displays confuse the hell out of laptops, rendering at least one of the screens useless.
• mice with balls still work, people with them, not so much
• I had forgotten about the sensual experience of using a gel mousepad that's leaking gel. Amazon will benefit like mad.
• anything I want to use will be plugged into something else
• I have an odd number of speakers
• it's 20 degrees hotter than the rest of the house and to open the window is going to take some sort of gymnastics that might get me into the Olympics
• like fixing computers, there will be some amount of screaming and cursing involved
• I missed my ergonomic keyboards like mad

UK Spying

The UK government has voted itself a new spying bill that's positively draconian in scope. Nicknamed the Snooper's Charter, it requires providers to keep your browsing history for a year. The information will be available, without a warrant, to the Usual Suspects, plus such important State Security entities as the Gambling Commission.

While this is another step in the lack of privacy landslide in the UK, the US and other countries would be well-served to keep their eyes on its progress. The UK seems to be a testing ground of sorts for Bad Anti-Privacy Laws.

That said, this article features some really good information for everyone to protect their communications, like Signal messenger, Tor, and VPNs. Even if you're not planning to take security seriously, read it and familiarize yourself with the situation.

• In case you were kept awake at night, wondering what is the cause for male homosexuality, your answer is here. [Hint: ghosts]

I realize 2016 isn't over yet, but this headline is in the running for best of the year: Are White People Promoting Homosexuality as a Means of Undermining the Black Struggle?

• Speaking of 2016, and I wish we weren't, we bid farewell to some larger than life people in their fields: Greg Lake and John Glenn. Remember the good old days, when rock stars would die of drug overdoses? Now it's cancer. Emerson, Lake and Palmer: and then there was one.

With the rise in Utter Nonsense that is Fake News, remember this: Fake News is anything that particular person does not want you to read. The irony of Hillary warning about Fake News is strong: her administration fed Fake News to the media. In spite of this, Trump won.

• This morning I asked the dog that since he's so smart, why doesn't he let himself outside and back in. He replied that he's so smart he has us do it for him.  Can't argue.

Do you have a Netgear R6400, R7000, R8000 (go check - I'll wait). If you do, turn it the hell off and replace it or wait til Netgear releases a fix. The article linked will tell you how to check to see if your router is vulnerable. The routers look like little spaceships from some new space-horror movie, with lots of antennae.

• Important Stuff you missed over the weekend: nothing.

Remember the Colonial Theater? It's the place where The Blob was filmed. It's been totally redone and is a delightful place to see a movie or concert. They just let me know that if I'm 70 or older, my IRA distributions can benefit the theater, but only tax-deferred gifts of up to $100,000. Drat - if I were only 70 or older...

• I need to stop this entry right now for a very important bulletin: the Opera browser was split off into another one called Vivaldi. In the latest version, you can now select themes! But wait... as if that weren't enough, you can schedule the time for the theme to change! Vivaldi works on most operating systems, for your convenience.

I received an email, asking to evaluate a course I took. They asked fifteen minutes of my time. In acknowledging my time, they said that every tenth evaluator would win a t-shirt with their logo.  I was never a math star, but with their courses starting at $300, I'm thinking of holding out for maybe a t-shirt AND some pocket lint.

• Kentucky Fried Chicken, hereafter referred to as KFC (or WTF), has admitted that their Colonel's Club has suffered a breach, 'possibly' exposing 1.2 million customers' details. WHAT? Did any of us know that there's a Colonel's Club at KFC? A loyalty program for greasy, heart attack inducing deep fried grease bits? No wonder this country's in trouble.

Speaking of the Irrepressibly Stupid, the UN has declared Wonder Woman as the ambassador for empowering women. As if that weren't Stupid enough, feminist outrage stepped right in, within microseconds, and demanded a stop be put to this travesty for a few reasons: she is a fictional character who wears thigh high boots and exposed cleavage (because Mother Teresa was unavailable for the position), she is too white, closely associated with the American flag, and "not culturally sensitive." This proves that the UN is a ridiculous, useless organization (in case we didn't already know this) and that feminists are a ridiculous parody of themselves (in case we didn't already know this). Perhaps we should all get together, at KFC, and find common ground.

I learned some Good Stuff growing up. My mother did a pretty good job. In grade school, I noticed some of my friends really didn't like black people. This was confusing and low-class to us, even in our mostly white neighborhood. It occurred to me that - hey... racism is learned. I also saw a small amount of antisemitism, also flowing down, but nowhere near as prevalent as the racism. The few Jewish kids in the 'hood were sometimes harangued by the parents of their friends, although it didn't seem to be a problem in school.

Fast forward to The Online Age, where everyone you don't like is Literally Hitler. As a merrymaker, I have seen comics do really funny things with Hitler, especially Monty Python (who could make cardboard hilarious). There were a few features of his that invited poking and I do like to poke.

Everything online is obviously a reflection of Real Life<tm>, to some degree; so I see a lot of Hitler references, 99.9% of them intended to beat down someone's speech or point. With the Hitler references are the Jew references. At first they were kinda funny. Then no so much. After a while I realized that there were groups of people who really, seriously did not like Jews, blaming them for everything from retail sales issues to a secret plot to ruin the world. The 'watchdog' agency, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), may have done some good in the past but right now they're a ridiculous parody of themselves, pointing their finger and screaming "ANTISEMITE" at everything and everyone. Kinda like the Black Lives Matter and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Recently I've run into some really bad examples of humanity online. They don't necessarily leap out, screaming, "JEWS! JEWS! JEWS DID IT!" but they're pretty close. It's a bit unnerving being around these people, even online. I see a lot more of this than overt racism, but it might be the places I visit.

Also popping up is the White Genocide movement. These guys are also a bit different. They seem to feel that movements to let foreigners in the country is white genocide. I think. They'll be the first to say White Lives Matter (all lives matter, even the Stupid). I'm sure they have a few points in their favor but I haven't studied the platform.

My first instinct is to block these people or not visit these sites. But Howard Stern, bastion of civility, taught everyone a lesson. One of his recurring guests was the KKK Guy. Howard kept him front and center and took a lot of heat for it. In my mind, Howard exposed his enemy and kept him front and center, where millions of people could see what he was up to and realize that, yes, this ugliness still exists.  So I no longer block any of this nonsense, preferring to see it for what it is. While the ADL has become a ridiculous parody of itself, I suppose some of it bears watching (by all of us).  And of course, this will be blamed on Trump, as if he personally gave out licenses to these folks. Regardless, we enjoy free speech and I'll fight for anyone's right to it.

Watch where you hang out, virtually or in Real Life<tm>.

Is the Ghost of J. Edgar Hoover Watching Us?

And if so, is he wearing something fabulous?     |
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As it turns out, the cottage where Bruce Springsteen wrote Born to Run is up for sale. If we think about it, what good has come out of New Jersey? Let's see.... Bon Jovi... Springsteen... Chris Christie... me... Nah, that house should be bulldozed.

• Tom Brady says Frosted Flakes and Coca-Cola are 'poison.' He's just pissed that he can't figure out how to let the air out of either of them.  And there, ladies and gentleman, is my sports reference for 2015.

The nightmare continues: My wife, in a severely altered state, spent so much time on Faceyspaces that her cousin referred to her as a Faceyspaces Whore. It was an ugly sight (site), with her making a sandwich while looking at her phone. Minute after minute elapsed. By the time I cleaned a sink full of dishes, she was still standing there, sandwich half-made, drool coming out of her mouth, catching up on the latest selfies from her nieces, who were posing in front of toxic waste dumps and in bathrooms.

While out visiting over the weekend, there were two Facetime sessions at once, involving my mother, brother, cousin, cousin, Philly and Israel. I am so embarrassed that I can no longer attend family functions (as if I did in the first place). My family is a bunch of iHoles.

Speaking of visiting family, one of the visits involved a relatively recent baby.  What does one say when visiting a home with a new baby when one doesn't like babies? Yup, that's the most recent baby I have ever seen. He looks just like his father, if his father looked like the mailman. Here, have this very silly baby outfit. Hey, how about them [insert sports team]? Please show me baby pictures - better yet, videos!

I also discovered that we have a serious anomaly in the family: hot cousins. My family is so devoid of attractive females, I just naturally assume they're from someone else's family. Question: is it still incest if we have no babies and they're third cousins? And how, exactly, do you bring this up? "Hey - wanna pretend to make three-eyed babies?"

• THREATS IN OUR SKIES continue, as a drunk passenger stripped and asked a stewardess for sex. As a result the plane had to make an emergency landing. Be fair - the drunken Irishman (redundant?) took off his undies before waving his penis about. I'm wondering what the problem was - in the pre 9-11 days, this would qualify as in-flight entertainment.
• Another drunk man (no word on whether or not he was Irish) was thrown off an American Air flight for making gun signs with his fingers. I wonder what the finger sign is for box-cutter....

Homosexuality discovered to be caused by dead parents' curse or grief over ex-parrot. Or so it is thought in China, where a man was beaten and tortured to cure him of his homosexuality. Officials blamed his condition on parents or parrot. Unfortunately for China and, by extension, the medical establishment all over the world, he still prefers penis.

• I think I have an interim solution for the immigration issue: tell the Mexicans that the Muslims are coming here to steal their illegal jobs and healthcare.

ThermionicEmissions salutes the unnamed K-9 officer who died in the line of duty in Anderson County, SC., on 10/21/2015, of a gunshot wound.

• Remember the hack of the CIA director's AOL email account? The CIA has condemned Wikileaks for publishing documents from it. You know, rather than condemning the CIA director having an AOL account. To be fair, I predict that there will be no official inquiry into the CIA director, unlike Hillary.

You've got to hand it to the Germans... after Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed a Palestinian leader told the Nazis to kill the Jews, Germany stood up and insisted it was responsible. Next week, Cancun, Dick Cheney, and Poland will claim responsibility.

• Joe Biden has announced that he is not going to run for president in 2016. He said, "I will sit this one out because the election doesn't need one more clown. It would be impossible to distinguish myself from this bunch."

Remember the drought in California?  Because everyone did so well at conservation, Los Angeles is raising its water rates.

• SELFIES R US: This week's installment features migrants in Slovenia setting fire to their own tents in protest of having to wait one day for their UK papers. While the fire burned, they took selfies.

SAD NEWS:  Years back, my little hamlet discovered that an adult video store would be opening locally. The natives came out with pitchforks and torches and pledged to do anything possible to avoid having this plague in their town. They even tried to get their business license denied for silly, trumped up reasons. Law triumphed and the store opened on schedule. At no point did the crime statistics rise or the hamlet turn into some sort of modern Sodom and Gomorrah. It just sat there, silently, out of view due to bushes and the lack of windows. The only real excitement came when I discovered The Religious picketing the store by holding bibles and saying words at the building.

Either The Big Man<tm> took a while to come through or economics succeeded where prayers didn't and the store is closing. Wife says this is just like Playboy being beaten by the availability of free online material. It's kinda sad, like the end of an era when hobby stores started closing [sigh]. The only bright side is the 50% off sale. Perhaps the store in the next town over will succeed due to their emphasis on items that aren't video (or so I hear).

To borrow a theme from public radio beg-a-thons, this is the type of information that you won't get on other blogs. It is attention to detail that successfully combines economics and porn in the same story. But please don't send money - I'd feel horribly guilty, as my heritage dictates. But please do tell your friends, family, and people you don't like about the blog: I need to break the ten reader mark.

SNAKES ON MTV

Way back in the 80's, another group I enjoyed watching on MTV (when they played actual music) was Whitesnake. Whitesnake actually goes waaaaay back, through quite a lot of incarnations, with the only common element being the singer, David Coverdale. Mr. Coverdale was in Deep Purple for a while, as well as doing vocals on a Jimmy Page album, causing Robert Plant to refer to him as "David Cover-version" (the British like to hyphenate). 

Where was I? Oh yeah, MTV.  After the band's shift from bluesy rock to a more metallic tone, someone had the brilliant idea of making videos featuring David and his incredibly hot girlfriend at the time, Tawny Kitaen.  Tawny's performance generally involved having impossibly large hair and looking impossibly good, while wandering about, storming out, or gyrating orgiastically upon a Jaguar (presumably David's). This was all a young, hormone-filled guy could want in a video. Fun fact: Mrs. Whitesnake eventually dated a baseball player and went to jail for beating the crap out of him. That's hot.

I can't help but consider Whitesnake a guilty pleasure: metallic leanings but still managing to stay tuneful.
Is This Love is a perfect power-metal love song. I wound up playing it and humming it a lot after purchasing the album. Round about this time, David was having a really difficult time with guitarists. I don't know if they kept exploding, imploding, or doing horrible things to their nostrils, but a number of them came and went. This was ironic, as the people in the video were not the people on the album. This continued through two albums and featured John Sykes, Adrian Vandenburg (in the video), Vivian Campbell (Def Leppard), and Steve Vai (Zappa, David Lee Roth, solo). This being the 80's, Vandenburg's hair was almost as big as Tawny's (he's Dutch, you know). The criteria for the video seems to be large hair and long leather coats.

The band was rounded out by Rudy Sarzo, who became notable because he'd lick the neck of his bass and Tommy Aldridge, late of Pat Travers, on drums. Tommy is a world class pounder and is in the band to this day. He occasionally came onstage dressed in only a diaper. Did I mention he's a drummer?

The really huge hit was Here I Go Again, in which the band wanted to convey that they were Very Serious about music. They were so serious that the video featured two Jaguars (and Tawny doing her own stunts). Right before the guitar solo, David hits a note that only dogs and the random hedgehog can hear. Seriously - there are overweight classical music altos that cannot hit that note.

An earlier song that classic rock aficianados might remember is Slow An' Easy. This song kinda illustrates why Robert Plant made that comment. I really like the song regardless. The video personnel seems to include John Sykes and someone who looks like Cozy Powell (Jeff Beck Group) on drums. This song did not do too well on MTV, probably because Mrs. Whitesnake was not in it.

Another Whitesnake staple is Give Me All Your Love. I think part of their musical success recipe was doubling the guitars with keyboards (give it a listen) and a really memorable sing-along chorus.

I'm having a blast at their expense but I do like them and I'm really jealous that I can't be flying across that stage, having the time of my life, and getting more tookie than Elvis. David is the prototypical frontman and still hits just about every note - the man does some serious vocal gymnastics, even though he's ninety. Ok, sixty-something. The latest incarnation of the band features Tommy Aldridge and Reb Beach (Winger). They still sound good.

PLAY Guitar Hero?  I AM a guitar hero.