We'll Have a Gay Old Time?

 Your love is like  an audience with a very unhappy Saddam Hussain

I'll bet you were so busy with your daily routine that you didn't know the Flying AIDS and Cancer were cured! They must have been: there are new iOS emojis and a Friends reunion.

Today I identify as  an old sunroof that leaks on everybody in the car

Bad business ideas: the pasta pillow

• In the You're Kidding department, a UN study indicates working a 55 hour week increases the risk of death
• Congress has taken this seriously and has shrunken its 45 day work year to 30

I just got done watching the 60 Minutes segment on UFO/UAPs. I was very interested to see what would be gone over, and perhaps, revealed. My immediate sense is that there was nothing new... however, it brought the current information to the public, who otherwise wouldn't investigate or care.  So I guess the purpose was to take away the giggle factor and continue to lay the groundwork for..... something.

Reminder: the effort to study UFO/UAPs is alleged to have started when Harry Reid got $22 million approved. In reality, we have been studying them since before 1947 at Roswell. The information is given to some agency, then disappears. The Harry Reid show is dog and pony. When we find out where years and years of information went, we'll know who has been studying it all along. The group is pretty well compartmented, when even the president and Congress can't get at it.

Continue to watch carefully and skeptically.

Remember MOVE, when a city literally bombed its residents and burned down the block?

Oops - remains marked for cremation were still around, from 1985, in cold storage. Philly's Medical Examiner office is very nervous.

• Eric Clapton lashed out at lockdown and vaccine propaganda, after his vaccine caused temporary paralysis of his hands and legs.

A self-driving taxi got stuck in traffic in Chandler, Arizona. When the service team showed up to repair it, it escaped and blocked a three-lane road. [Who wants to go to the doctor?] 

Told you so.

It's a great idea but it's Not Ready for Prime Time.

And the public is carrying a bullseye on its ass.

We can't let a week go by without more fascinating Tesla news. In this case, it's Tesla driver news. A man was arrested by the CHP for being in the back seat of his Tesla, with no one in the driver's seat. Shortly after being released from jail, he was pulled over for the same thing. Tesla is the modern day Darwin.

• US airlines may start weighing passengers at the gate.
• what could possibly go wrong?
• who could possibly be offended?
• stay tuned for the hilarity!

a Space Force lieutenant colonel was jettisoned after he made remarks critical of the US military on a conservative podcast. But at least we have those spiffy new uniforms.

• Acclaimed British author Richard Cohen's new book on historians is cancelled in the US amid backlash at him for 'not including enough black academics'
• Acclaimed British author Ignatz Dumbweezle's new book on the Apollo space program is cancelled in the US amid backlash at him for 'not including enough black astronauts.'  Dumbweezle tried to explain that the Apollo program didn't have a black astronaut, but they were having none of it.

In Montana, drug-sniffer dog Karma alerted 100% of the time. Some handlers refer to their dogs as "probable cause on four legs."  Local, state, and federal authorities have netted more than $68 billion in civil forfeiture, starting with a bad search. Think about that.

• Here's a nice nugget for your next party: did you know there is a Socialist Rifle Association?

The Microsoft board decided Bill Gates had to go because of a relationship with a staffer.

Still not punished for Windows 

• The most recent Saturday Night Live had the worst ratings ever (3.5 million)
• hmm.... why could that be?

Hugs are coming back. Not everyone is thrilled.

Why would they be? Huggers are the most annoying forms of life, aside from life insurance salesmen. Compulsive huggers should be forced to attend programs.

We all have a personal space radius - mine is 20' in all directions. Having this radius breached should set off loud alarms; so loud it stuns the attempted hugger back to reality and helps them realize not everyone wants their clammy paws all over them. Just because I exist isn't an excuse for you to touch me. I may agree to a handshake, which is a start. Perhaps you can hold out your hand to see if I go for a handshake, then ask if a hug would be ok. Better yet, just assume no one wants a hug and go from there. After you get out of jail for excessive hugging, you should be forced to wear a large sign (or tattoo), that says "WARNING: Hugger" so people can get a head start on you. If you even get invited to parties, you have the effect of chasing everybody around the room because they don't want to be hugged. What kind of mental defect do you have that tells you everyone wants a hug from you, and that a hug is somehow a good thing? Right next to your Free Hugs booth is my Shots Upside Your Head with a Sledgehammer booth. It's not free... people pay me $1 to hit you upside the head when you try to hug them.

EDIT: if the hugger is Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), forget everything I said

Credit where it's due: China just landed on Mars

Uh-oh: it gave the Rover the Flying AIDS

Target just joined Walmart, Costco, and Trader Joe's in dropping mask requirements for vaccinated people.  Each store will have a full staff of medical people to determine whether or not you got the shot and will put a tattoo on your forehead. They claim it's temporary. But who minds trading the mask for a bright new tattoo? At least you can breathe. If it is determined you lied, Security will throw you out of the store bodily. If you can't remember, they will check your medical records, do extensive blood work, and an anal probe. *The anal probe isn't necessary, they just like giving them, plus it shows you're serious about shopping there.

• CCTV footage shows the wife of Belgium's ambassador to South Korea assaulting shop staff in Seoul. She claims diplomatic immunity.
• Funny, that's what my wife says every time she slaps me.

As China and US population falls, what can they do to encourage people to procreate?

• why do we need more of them?
• state-sponsored alcohol or vouchers to bars
• Procreation Bars
• free state procreating facilities
• discount on alcohol over 2 pints
• billboards: Do Your Patriotic Duty - Fsck!
• Make a little tax writeoff now!

The world's first GMO mosquitoes were released in the Florida Keys. The idea is to mate with existing mosquitoes and render them sterile. There was a lot of pushback, but naturally, they were released anyway. Currently, they have zeroed in on their targets and are mating with alligators all over the area.

Ebay is banning hentai and closing the site's Adults Only section "in the interest of safety". 

I must be stupid, because I can't figure out what adult products have to do with safety.

Another one of those days. The only thing is, I haven't had them like this lately. Things have calmed down since I converted to the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No, wait, maybe it was just staying in due to the Flying AIDS. Yeah, that's it.

It was Tax Time, and we linux users were screwed, as usual. For the past couple of years, I used a product that rhymes with BlurboTax. I had to run it in a Win 7 virtual machine because we don't do Windows. This year's edition won't run on Win 7, so screwed again. No choice but to do them online, via BlurboTax's website.

The thing moved quickly, but was disingenuously-worded and full of ads for their services. When I checked out, it charged me $40 for my state return, which I explicitly told it I didn't want done. I was not happy, and when I say not happy, I mean the dog freaked out and RAN. I talked to them on the phone, and the nice lady put me through to a supervisor. This should have been my first clue. She explains to me that the extra $40 was not for e-filing the state, it was for preparing the state. Nowhere on the site does it explain this. Further, the actual Windows version of their software does not operate like this. I honestly tried to hold my inner Satan back... it wasn't her fault and I don't abuse people on phones or in restaurants. Apparently the threat of Satan did something and they're going to refund me the extra. Of course it's been 6 hours and I haven't received the email......

Mrs. lefty came in from errands. SOME MF'ER HIT MY CAR.

It was a ding and a scrape. Naturally no one left a note... they just hit it and drove away.

This car is virtually new. For most of my life, I've never had a new, or an unblemished car. The last car was unblemished, for the first 6 months, then assholes started coming out of the woodwork to hit it. I kid you not - there were around a dozen accidents. The car was an asshole magnet. Now here we are, 4 months into this beautiful car and BANG SCRATCH. 

It's gonna take a lot of ice cream to salvage this day.

Ice cream and sex. 

I'll definitely get ice cream.

*Fun Fact: the income tax was temporary, during a war. Now the income tax is permanent, as is war.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace - a How-To

What did I learn at school work today?
I learned there are specific things you may not pick on.
This comes as a bit of a shock to me after learning that there is no discrimination tolerated in the workplace or the country. I am an equal opportunity unnerver: I hate everybody equally, and I strive to keep discrimination out of my unnerving and picking. Apparently I have to discriminate based upon certain criteria:

• Under sex, I may not needle anyone over pregnancy. Does this mean if somebody tells a woman how wonderful she looks with her pregnant glow, they're harassing her? I can understand asking her where she found clothes for her size elephant, but not positive comments on her appearance. As if that weren't fun enough, you can't make light of someone's genetic information (hey - nice chromosomes!), gender identity (Hey Tony - do you identify as male or female on Tuesdays?), or marital stuff (you're married? What a putz!). Naturally this group includes transgendered people (Tina - about your date.... didja tell him you had a penis yet?).
• Under sex, it's unwelcome sexual advances (but not welcome ones, including to pregnant women, if you're into that sort of thing), requests for sexual favors (no statement on wanted or unwanted), conduct of a sexual nature (getting caught in the Boom Boom Room), and when it interferes with performance (Mr. Smith, your constant harassment of the janitorial staff, although wanted, has impacted your (and their) performance. You can't get your job done effectively during Mop Time, which you have scheduled in the Boom Boom Room every hour or so). Homework: Is asking  "How long does it take you to recharge?" sexual harassment?
• I may NOT post critiques of my coworkers on social media (if it affects my work performance). Goodbye ThermionicEmissions.
• Anyone observing harassment must immediately go to HR, to have the incident graded. HR has the best sexual harassment jokes.
• If one of the people under you is reported to have harassed someone, you are hereby ordered to cover it up with great speed; including ripping, shredding, and small fires.

My wife is, to use a really horrid phrase, all that and a bag of chips.
We try to eat healthy. I have taken the unprecedented step of trading one soda per day for lemon water (I'm down to 5 sodas per day!). It hurts, but one must do what one can. Also cutting out most of the junk sugar, which hurts even more. I keep hearing that white sugar is poison. If that's true, I say let the suicide continue!

Wife always comes up with Interesting Stuff. This week it's veggie chips. Not content with regular veggie chips, these are sweet potato and beet chips. It may sound disgusting, and in fact is. Well, the beet chips anyway. You have this large bag of chips, half of which you will not eat, lest you turn as purple as the chips. Beet chips. Whose wonderful friggin' idea was that? Ok, marketing staff - we need the Next Big Thing in allegedly healthy snacks. Because people feel good about eating a 400 calorie veggie chip instead of a 40 calorie potato chip.

• It's a good time to be a criminal in the UK. Well, a female criminal anyway. "Women should no longer be sent to prison unless they have committed a serious crime," the Justice Secretary said yesterday.
• Just when you thought you heard the height of ridiculous, the UK comes along and tops it. In their quest for equality, women have achieved it and better. They are now more equal than their penile-equipped opposite numbers.
• If you're male, make sure you identify as female during the crime, which must be respected.

A Michigan State University economist found $21 TRILLION in unauthorized government Defense Department spending. Government Math does not take into account inflation (or reality). This is made worse by the Defense Department budget being $9.5 trillion.

Take a moment to consider this. Your tax dollars are funding a $21 trillion Defense Department spend, among millions of other things. Ever wonder how much the government steals collects in taxes? I'm sure the figures are available for those who look, but $21 trillion for defense spending alone? Not including staff and property? There is no time better than now to abolish the income tax, illegally passed, as a 'temporary' measure. Look at what your hard earned money is funding. From the last chart I saw, Defense is not the largest part of the budget - entitlements are (welfare, Medicare, Medicaid).

If you wish to give your money to Defense or entitlements, that's fine with me. Just don't take mine by force. If you don't believe income tax is taken by force, try not paying yours.

Things would be much better if we cut government radically. Maintain a strong defensive military. Keep the roads in good shape. Don't commission studies on cow flatulence or fund arts. Don't send billions in financial and military aid to our allies. You'll have a lot more of your own money to spend or save as you wish, plus limited government interference. Sound good?

By the way, the last admission of not being able to account for trillions of dollars was given by Donald Rumsfeld on 9-10-2001 and obscured by something that happened the next day.

• Because we learn from our failures, particularly the Equifax data breach, Exactis, a data broker, recently exposed over 300 million personal records. The database was attached to the internet without a firewall. Without a firewall. This is a kindergarten level booboo. What blithering idiot connects a computer to the net without protection? Exactis, apparently.
• Data including personal interests, home and email addresses, religious beliefs, smoking status, phone numbers, and even the number, age and sex of a family's children was available to anyone who looked. It remains to be seen whether they're too big to jail, like Equifax.
• Speaking of Equifax, a former manager, who sold shares in the company before it disclosed the breach, has been charged with insider trading. He settled, returning his $75,000 gain, plus profits. He is the second insider to be charged. I was mistaken when I said no one would be charged for this.

Things to tell your friends at parties:
At the beginning of 2018, 63% of Web traffic comes from mobile devices; it is expected to pass 2/3 of all traffic by the end of the year. You should probably follow this up with a Kardashian quote, so your friends don't look at you funny.

• Hey, what's Faceyspaces up to this week? They've filed for a number of patents on technologies that help them spy on even more user data, including sleeping, during tv shows, tracking daily routines, checking cell phone location against friends' cell phones, identify and track phone cameras. Patents don't mean the technology is in place, but this is Faceyspaces we're talking about. This will show you how they think.

If you're a Ticketmaster customer, anywhere except North America, your information probably got stolen.

• You can't pay for this kind of entertainment: President Trump put "Low IQ" Maxine Waters on notice for her call to verbally harass and harm Trump supporters.
• It is illegal to incite a riot of ten or more people.

I mostly enter the bedroom at night, with the lights off, to avoid waking anyone, woman or dog.

Creak goes the door.
Noiselessly he enters.
The almost noiseless bump, as he walks right into a 6' clothing wall.
The sudden loud cursing as he gives up the idea of not waking anybody and decides maybe they need to be awakened after all.

When I'm not walking into walls of clothes in the dark, I have to admit it's a great idea. Marshall gets to move around less impeded and has more area to rest (although he seems to like the bed now, out of spite). Do not walk into a dark room and sit on your bed, next to or on top of a sleeping spaniel with a Cone of Shame. It's an experience you will not want to repeat, and one that will cause numerous expensive hours of therapy just to get you back in the room, no less in the bed.

The only problem here is that the 6' wall of clothing includes many of my clothes. And they're the very important kind: clean. It looks like the wall was created by using the clean clothes as the base, then dumping out several hampers' worth of dirty clothes on top. Apparently this was not a problem, as it was for the dog. However, this will be a problem when she, who does the laundry, realizes that she now has 6' of dirty clothes that she made dirty. Her Dirt Sensors will go on overload. Good thing I have weeks of extra clothes. Bad thing they're all under the dirty ones.

Speaking of bed, getting into bed has reached critical mass again. Something about my bed, particularly my spot, causes deep distortions in the fabric of space and time. Either physics or my wife or Marshall is really unhappy about me getting into an unmolested bed (stay with me - it's not what you think). Most normal humans (that explains it) walk into a room and get into bed. Poof - that simple. Not me.  Once I bump into the 6' wall of clothing or someone's collection of hangers that were left on the floor to sort by color, I locate the bed, managing to hit it about 68% of the time, sometimes by falling on it. Anyone else could go to sleep and that would be all. Since it's our house, things don't work that way.

I do not get into bed without problems. They're not earth shattering problems, but they tend to get annoying on a nightly basis. They should be interesting because they're different every night, but no. Last night I sat on something. Fortunately it wasn't the dog because I don't want a cone up my butt. No, this felt like what it was; a pile of clothes, as determined by the sensory apparatus in my ass. It was an interesting pile of neatly folded clothes, perhaps put there to avoid getting dirty as part of the 6' wall of clothes. Regardless, none of this was helping me get into bed and off to sleep, so I moved them. Right on top of my wife, who continued sleeping. I figured she'd know what to do with them, if Marshall didn't make pillows out of them (she got up the next morning and asked why there were clothes in the bed). If there are no clothes, the mattress has shifted a foot off its normal position. If the mattress was hanging four feet in the air, it would no longer surprise me.

Sometimes I have to move the dog off my pillow, which is apparently a very popular spot when I'm not there. In fact, sometimes I'm lucky to find a pillow at all, after it was snatched by the Pillow Pilferers, aka my wife. She has twelve of them - why steal mine? After moving the dog and locating the pillow, something else feels wrong. Yes, the main sheet has SPROINGED loose from the mattress and is somewhere in the middle of the bed. The middle of the bed is a slippery designation which can range from True Middle to the last 6" that I've been allotted for the night. Trying to locate the end of the sheet is only slightly more difficult than world peace, so I try to ignore it. It turns out that I forget all about the sheet when I discover half the pillow is hanging off the bed. My personal sheet (we have to use two because someone steals it and twirls it around themselves, in an allegedly unconscious move) has been stolen and all I have is my blanket, which isn't all that useful in high temperature/high humidity situations.

Are you getting the idea?
It's very difficult to get in bed at all, without entertainment.

I wonder if the wife and dog only pretend to be asleep, but are actually doing these things for their amusement. They're both very clever.

Every night I check my alarm. This is because I need to know it's set and will go off at the correct time, so when the correct time arrives, it won't go off and I will remember that I checked it. This is important when I'm screaming because the alarm didn't go off. This alarm, given to me by my late grandmother, is distinguished by its yellowing plastic and a HUGE crack/dent in the top, which happened when it didn't go off one day and I showed it I was displeased.

Plugging my phone into the charger, I discover there's no plug - it has snaked its way down to the back of the bed, requiring bedroom fishing, a sport that I just invented. It's on the floor next to my earbuds, which I use so as to not disturb Wife with the All Night Porn Binges. Or the radio, depending on my mood.

The other night there was barely any room because of the elephant. Sometimes it's stuffed animals, in addition to the real one(s).

I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas, I'll never know    - Groucho Marx

 The other night it was a 1982 Chevy wagon. This was most unfortunate, as the 70s Chevys had more room under them, so I could slide right in. In fact, I had a 75 Chevy wagon with so much room under the hood, my dad could fit in there and close the hood. He still needed a light to work on the engine. Also found were army men (we don't HAVE any army men), lingerie (I don't HAVE any lingerie), hangars (the airplane kind), and dust that's about to die from old age. There's an awful lot of movement in bed for people who aren't doing that other thing people do in bed. And by that, I mean snoring. She snores so loudly that I can feel the floor vibrating downstairs. Apparently that's nothing compared to MY snoring, which upsets even the 75% deaf dog, as well as the antedeluvian dust. Tiny amounts of this dust were around to comfort Jesus during that rather unpleasant being nailed to wood affair. I was against it.

So yeah, getting into bed is always a negatively interesting activity. If there were an Olympic getting into bed event, I would win the gold, with the silver winner far off in my dust. With Jesus.