My Ear Hair Hurts

Remember: cake is merely a delivery system for the icing. Cut out the middleman and just eat icing. You can buy it in a can or make it yourself. Grab a spoon and dig in.


Your love is like  an icepick to the kidney


I don't know about you, but if I lived in Indiana and anyone called me a hoosier, I'd run them over with a chainsaw.



Dear lefty

• Why do you have a mock advice column in your blog?
• Why are your questions always so stupid?

I just spent over 30 highly unsatisfying minutes with my best friend, Windows 10.
These were 30 minutes I wasn't in work, because the computer didn't want to connect to work. Then the 20 minute reboot, then the DNS-blindness, then the refusal to 'see' hardware that it saw perfectly 20 minutes ago, then another reboot. When it finally came up, Outlook once again came up full screen, even though I never use it full screen and have tried many suggestions on how to fix it. I'd replace the box with linux, but I'd have to get a signed note from God himself before my boss would consider it.

Windows: it's not an operating system, it's a virus.



Flying AIDS news

Headline: Everywhere
It's bad. It's going to get worse, unless you follow rules or get a shot or...
This will be the worst [insert period of time] ever.

There is a humongous list of things we may not do because of the Flying AIDS, yet children should go back to school. What's wrong with this picture?

Florida, never gone from the news long, reports that Chinese masks are showing up at many addresses, unsolicited. I guess the Chinese got bored of sending packets of seeds. Odd people, those Chinese. What does this say about Chinese Floridians?

The head of the Department of Natural Resources is telling employees to wear face masks on teleconferences — even when they’re not around others and at no risk of spreading the coronavirus.  Mrs lefty says, "Well, they're certainly drinking the Kool Aid."  In unrelated news, the Department of Natural Resources told its employees to wear condoms 24 hours per day, whether or not they're getting laid.

Hey, if you're in the mood to go back to the movies, you can get 15 cent tickets AMC. Hmmm.... 15 cent tickets... chance of Flying AIDS..... let's get a busload to go!

• speaking of teleconferences, please don't use Zoom. Zoom's privacy issues are all over the press, yet people keep using it. If someone asks you to use Zoom, explain to them that it's a real privacy and malware issue. There are alternatives.

Trumpie

• Trump unloads on ‘stone cold crazy’ Pelosi, ‘mad woman’ Kamala, ‘poor student’ AOC
• for all his faults, and there are many, he sure is entertaining sometimes

I joke that if Trump produced peace in the middle east, people would deny it and use it as grounds for impeachment. I'm a little shocked to read that Israel and the United Arab Emirates have reached a peace deal, which Trump helped broker. Good on all parties!  Oddly, the Palestinians are not pleased, referring to it as treason (which is why there will never be total peace in the middle east).

A man killed himself, allegedly because his wife wouldn't have sex with him.
"You can SUE for that?" you say.
This happened in India, where the decedent's mother is suing the wife for "abetment to suicide."
Although the US has the best and most litigious litigators in the tri-galaxy area, even they couldn't get much past failure to consumate.


Hollywood's Biggest Secret
Ok, Hollywood's Second Biggest Secret
It's Ed Begley, Jr.
You've seen him in black and white movies, current movies, older movies, and he Does. Not. Age.

• In Egypt, archaeologists have unearthed hieroglyphs depicting pharaohs with huge headgear, who look suspiciously like Ed Begley, Jr.
• In the Wild West, Ed Begley, Jr's saddles were #1 and his face was etched on the saddle. His motto was "Buy an Ed Begley, Jr saddle and sit on Ed's face!"
• In a recent inspection of a 1917 Ford Model T, there was a picture of Ed in the glove compartment.
• In the rubble of the Twin Towers, there were cases and cases of Ed Begley, Jr brand thermite: "Have a blow up on Ed!"
• Records indicate there was no Ed Begley, Sr.

Did you delete anything on Instagram?
It's supposed to take up 90 days. Turns out it might have kept things for more than a year.  I hate to say this again, but don't post anything online that you wouldn't post in the local library or give to your grandparents. Assume that when you post something, even privately, it's available for public view, or at least view by the employees of the service.



Department of Justice says Yale discriminates against whites and Asians


SJWs Worldwide

India, Jamaica, and Canada are also celebrating Kamala Harris' appointment, largely for the same reasons the democrats are: she's black, female, lived in Canada, and has Indian roots. In other words, India, Jamaica, and Canada are every bit as shallow and dim as America.


LA Times: Camping is often called America's favorite outdoor activity. But camping and national parks have a complicated past when it comes to racial equality and equal access for all. One modern barrier to entry: the cost of camping gear. Yes, camping is racist.

You Are Entering the No Emoji Zone

Remember the Pinebook? The $199 laptop I was typing about? The second batch is arriving and there are unboxing videos and reviews. Might be time to start looking.   Plus they will soon have a $149 linux-only phone that will work with all major linux distro phone projects. Buy phone, install OS, start making calls. - NO CRAPWARE. NO GOOGLE. NO APPLE.



Greetings to all new readers from outside the US.
You will not be accused of trying to sway the election.
If you want to sway the election, please do some good and sway it to the libertarians.

"A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody" Thomas Paine

• In the midst of all the crap on the radio and their tours, you should see Grace Potter. She sings, she plays guitar and organ, she writes, and she's really a pleasure to look at.  Listen to the grind of that Hammond! Listen to that voice.  I think I'm in love...

EMERGENCY - BREAKING NEWS!
Thieves in England stole over $1 million of adult toys from a delivery truck.
There has been no official word, but the rumor is that you will be arrested immediately if you hold it like a knife.




There's hope for us yet

22-year-old Ingebjørg Blindheim keeps track of people who want to kill themselves on Instagram (as opposed to those who read Instagram). She tries to provide help because she can't just sit back.

Read the story. Great successes and bad outcomes.
There are good humans out there - she is one. The only problem will come when she burns out. Therapists take frequent vacations to try to wash off some of the effects of their patients. This lady doesn't seem to.

Instagram instantly banned suicidal content, further driving it underground. I say leave it there.. people might think this is their only outlet (it isn't).



Dear lefty

• Who do I vote for in the local election?
• Whichever thief will do the least damage. Please read up on local elections first.

We recently voted for local offices.
Hint: it helps if you pay attention and have some idea of what the candidates stand for (besides getting elected). Those of us, who shall remain unnamed, but whose names rhyme with Mr and Mrs feftystrap, have to go online to a League of Women Voters site to see what and who is on the ballot. My favorite was the vote on the amendment to the state constitution. You had a choice of YES or NO. And that was the end of the entry. What the addition was is Top Secret; voters don't have a Need to Know.

They asked all candidates the same questions: what's your priority in the job, and how will you achieve this. This is the equivalent of "give us a few lines from your Vote for Me pamphlet."


What is your priority for the office?

• Well, I want world peace.   But you're running for coroner...
• It's for the children.
• Eliminating gender bias - all 237 of them.
• removing "Murder She Wrote" from tv
• removing politcs from politics
• memorizing the job description
• printing re-election pamphlets with state equipment
• mandating loud hair colors in schools without raising property taxes
• Taxes. No, service. No, opiates - that's it! Opiates. They're definitely a problem. Opiates.
• Legalizing drugs. For city employees.

How will you achieve this?

• Customer service.
• by being transparent
• doing the best job I can
• my 8 year liberal arts degree will stand me in good stead
• getting up in the morning to do the job
• people can talk to me
• I visit people all around the city, one very late evening, in the next state, unannounced
• eliminating grammar from the school curriculum will save us $10 per pupil - who need dat in duh real world?
• having meetings about opiates and looking damn serious
• fundraisers for school nose rings

There are levers for straight republican and straight democrat. How do they know they're straight? And why does it matter?

I would like to suggest two more levers: NOTA (none of the above) and TTBO (throw the bums out - you automatically vote for the challenger).

So get out there and vote.
Vote wisely, vote often.




Today I identify as  a small spot on your screen... a particularly persistent one, that's very difficult to get off, even with a soft cloth and water.

• Here's a fun stat I just picked up: polls show black voters are less tolerant of gays.
• Totally unrelated: Pete Buttigieg appears in new KFC commercial.

Best book title this week: Tectonics of the Nanga Purbat Syntaxis and the Western Himalaya




No thank you, I'd rather  put Legos up my nose





Heroes of the Stupid

A 35 year old man in Milwaukie, OR, stood in front of La Salle Catholic College Preparatory and repeatedly said he was going to "kill people."

The school's armed guard confronted the man.
The man shouted at the guard, took off his clothes, put them back on, then walked away. He was later arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

They should probably give him additional charges for being stupid enough to be stupid in front of a school. On the other hand, he showed them he was not armed.





SJW Simpering

The term 'Anglo-Saxon' should be DROPPED from modern speech, says scholar. Scholar claims the term is used by white supremacists to refer to white British people and should be banned.


An Iowa student at a town hall grilled a politician about 'colleges shifting the financial burden to students' and further, 'what will he do about the plight of undocumented students'. What would his free college plan do about this?


AP:
The Democratic presidential race started with a record six female candidates, but only one is polling in the top tier. Is it sexism or just politics?


Google's spellchecker coughs at Pete Buttigieg. Homophobia?

The Meetings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Dear Coworkers:
After a brief survey of my calendar, it has come to my attention that we, as a group, have two days of the week without meetings. This is not in keeping with the mission of Sid's Widgets, a company founded on the principle of producing absolutely nothing useful through doing absolutely nothing useful.

Our first step on the Road to Nothing is to identify the hard workers and producers. These are the heart of any great organization. Unfortunately we're not a great organization, so we must identify these corporate successes and wear them down to nothing. When we find someone blazing a trail, we assume they're actually accomplishing something, so we do the only thing we can: we put them in meetings. Meetings, especially repeating meetings, can suck the soul out of anything with a heartbeat, which is why we have so many of them.

Let's take the case of Bob. Bob Phlegma was a real up and comer in Accounting. Bob realized if we amortize the deductibles and treble the bottom end, we could save millions and get the job done in half the time. This is the sort of genius with which we're occasionally plagued. Rather than firing Mr. Phlegma and exposing the corporation to a series of lawsuits for discriminating against older balding white males, we put Bob in meetings. Nothing slows down any attempt at progress like meetings. Especially Accounting meetings. You've no doubt met accountants. They're about as exciting as watching blood paint dry, on their best days. Put together an entire room of them, plus veteran meeters who know how to run, prolong, and schedule new meetings, and you have an affair where staff has been known to occasionally die at work. We keep a mortician on staff for just these times. The interesting thing is that the mortician said he can't drain any bodily fluids because the meetings have already sucked the life out of his ex-coworkers. Thus the mortician also produces nothing, in line with company values and goals.

The meeting always starts out with a rehash of the last meeting, which rehashed the previous meeting. If that doesn't take up the entire meeting and fuel the identical animosities, we allow someone to carefully propose a new topic, such as pens. Embossed pens. Exactly how many pens is left for later meetings, should the process get that far.

For the seriously out-there employee, the one who thrives on meetings, making at least the mandatory eight of them per day and still getting actual work done, there is nothing left but the saddest method: no, not firing - promotion!  We call this "Firing UP" because as soon as you promote someone, they get less done because of increased responsibilities (mostly meetings) and because managers never get anything done anyway, aside from annoying their managees. This way there will be the required 8 meetings per day, PLUS team meetings, strategy meetings, lunch meetings, and Congrats Meetings (at Tillie's Topless Tiphouse and Chinese Laundry). With a manager who couldn't get anything done even if they were in the mood to, the staff can get back to doing whatever they were doing before Manglement, only less.

So, dear coworkers, this explains my shock at finding our calendar short of meetings. If I get any further ahead, I risk promotion.

• Fascinating: someone is restoring the Apollo Guidance Computer. It works, except for the memory that doesn't. It was put together with integrated circuits, some with Write Once capability, like some recordable CDs. 52 years later... remember this when you throw your old, slow computer away. Your phone is magnitudes of order ahead of this computer. Your phone's memory is a physical tiny speck and has an incredible amount of storage, compared to the core memory in the computer. The computer couldn't even access the internet....

States have had mottos as long as they've had license plates (1863). Governors of all 43 states (and New Jersey) got together and decided to update their license plates. Aside from changing the colors, they are soliciting new slogans, perfectly setting up this next item - NEW STATE MOTTOS

PA: Hell with Humidity

PA: Park Here - $50

CA: Come for the Weather, Stay for the Weirdos

CA: Everything East of the San Andreas Fault Will Fall Into the Atlantic

NJ: My Balls Itch

NJ: New York Without the Positive Attitude

MI: One Step from Canada, Eh?

KY: Home of DUI Lawn Tractor Races

VA: We're Not DC - We're a Separate State

MD: We've Got Crabs

MA: Pock Yuh Cah Heeya

FL: Dinner's At Four

FL: We're Just Renting from Disney

FL: We Have Your Parents

FL: Habla Ingles?

AR: We're Sure There's Something Good Here

SC: We Have Tobacco

NC: Just North of South Carolina

DC: Screw You

DC: Not Really A State

NY: You Can't Park Here

NY: Keeping You Safe from Soda

DE: Still Bigger Than Rhode Island

RI: Small but Impotent

NV: Gambling AND Hookers!

AZ: Satan Vacations Here

MT: Cold and Flat, Like Mom

MS: It's Easier to Spell Mesothelioma

SD: Because North Dakota Was Taken

MO: We Have A Kansas City Too

KS: Fuck Toto

OH: Make a Left at PA

MN: The US North Pole

TX: Not Everything's Bigger Here

TX: Open Carry - Think Before You Insult

AK: Sorry About Canada

UT: Take Home a Few Mormons

UT: Sidewalks Close at 5

ID: You Da Ho

PR: Send More Money




Firefox version 62 and up, will soon let you know if a website has been breached. They will check via the online service 'Have I Been Pwned (HIBP)' and will deliver the results in your address bar, via an icon. When you click, you'll get the full information. This is a good thing, provided HIBP is not purchased by Google, Faceyspaces, or other information gatherers.

• I just read an article on mental health and cybersecurity.  heh heh heh....

In case you were wondering where your tax dollars are going, both the DEA and ICE are putting hidden cameras in streetlights. The better to spy on you, my sweet!

• Dear lefty:  Mr Shlomo Ick asks why flies make honey.
• Yes.

It's always great to be in the news, but it's never good. Ten years after passage of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, mandating coverage for behavioral health, Pennsylvania is dead last. How did the rest fare? 43 states received either a "D" or an "F".

When the state made seatbelts mandatory, there were fines for ignoring the law. Guess what will happen to health insurers. No, guess.

P.S. Like all laws, this is misnamed. It does not grant parity: it mandates coverage. There is no maximum coverage for broken limbs, but there is for behavioral health.

• I come to you today on a matter of great urgency.

Japan Airlines pilots failed breathalyzer tests 19 times.

Ok, it's funny on the surface, sorta, but this is horrible. Plane trips are among the safest modes of transportation. Every problem presented an opportunity to make it safer and the airlines/manufacturers have done a great job. In IT, the weakest link is the people: this is not something we need in the air.

Speaking of air disasters, a man sued British Airways for sitting him next to a fat passenger. In response, the fat passenger sued the man for not referring to him as a Person of Size plus Egregious Hurting of Feelings.  The airline will fight this tooth and nail, using every legal resource available to them, because if this guy (5'3") wins, everyone forced into any of their seats can sue.

• Police: "Stop trying to kill yourself with that knife or we'll shoot you"

Whenever you see a car creating a drive-through in a convenience store, the first thing to say to yourself is "That's an old person, who confused the brake with the accelerator." Because it always is.

• More suicides are caused by the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook than financial disasters.

Like everything else, this topic will show up late. It's International Men's Day.
Men (and women) - take this day to stop suffering in silence. Get yourself some help for any mental/emotional issues. The most important thing for you to understand is that you don't have to feel this way. The stigma around mental health is slowly going away. You might be surprised to discover that people are right up front about their issues and diagnosis. They're getting help - why shouldn't you? If you're confused, leave me a comment (which will not be published) and maybe I can point you in a helpful direction.

• You don't see a lot of girls (or boys) named Penelope lately.

As we all know, Faceyspaces is a large, moving target, especially for this blog. Today it's Instagram (oddly enough, owned by Faceyspaces). Instagram warned people who used the download your data tool that their password was visible in plain old unencrypted English. Of course they "take the privacy of their customers seriously," etc etc. I'd be really tired of hearing this, if I were a user of these systems. 

• Because you read ThermionicEmissions, we know you're already brilliant. If you want to take a shot at getting brilliant-er, you can take this Harvard Introduction to computer science course, free, online. This course is very popular, attracting 700 students per class, and is very well known outside Harvard. After the class, you'll not only have valuable knowledge, you will be able to speak with a Harvard accent and tell people you went to Harvard. Not bad for a little effort on your part.

As we get to know our new dog, Penny, we find out all sorts of things. Since she was a stray, we have no history or information. I can say confidently that she was some sort of hunting dog. As we go outside, she drags me down the steps because there's a goddamn bird flying over her yard. The unmitigated audacity of this bird. This is unfortunate because the neighbor's yard is something of a bird hotel and sanctuary.  The dog, who had to go outside rather than pee inside, froze, raised a paw, and monitored the rest of the birds. After I reminded her we were outside, she took care of business. Then it's time to patrol the yard. She vigorously patrols her yard, looking for whatever dogs look for, like the Vatican patrols pews for new altar boys. Yes, the Vatican is in trouble for yet another scandal involving coverups of child molestation. Did you like that segue?

Speaking of segues, I saw that the dog was shredding candy wrappers. This is not surprising, nor alarming. I figured if she couldn't have candy, she could shred the wrappers. Today she brought me an M&M wrapper, which was cute. Unfortunately when I took it, it was full of M&Ms. Yes, she somehow figured out how to provide herself with candy. Chocolate candy, which is fatal to dogs, but only in the right quantity. We had a bit of a chat and it won't happen again (until she figures out how to get it at on top of the fridge).

Some more loveliness from the SJW crowd. This particular warrior wants straight white males to delete their twitter accounts, to make it a safe space for.. ummm.... people who aren't straight white males, I guess.

How is this different from Famous Bigot TV Character, Archie Bunker, wanting Eyetalians and Eyerish out of his neighborhood? Or 'the blacks'? These people have become a parody of themselves.

Let's send her a present:

It's Never Too Early (to Be Late)

From Austin, Texas to the world (and back to Houston) here's Stevie Ray Vaughan, playing Texas Flood.

• If I understand this correctly, the lovely FLOTUS got on a plane for Houston and the press blew up because she was wearing heels. This is what passes for journalism (and political discourse). The real fun came later in the day, when Boy George said he wouldn't hear of Melania bashing.
• Ladies and gentlemen, we are observing history as it happens... the republican party is inclusive of gays. Some gays are voting republican. A musician has said something positive about a republican. Republicans are repeating what he said. The whole world has gone topsy-turvy. Dogs sleeping with cats, sun blocked out, people with eye injuries after the sun was blocked out...
• The dems are automatically obstructing everything, having taken over for the republicans, who did it during Obama.
• No, nothing's going to change as far as we are concerned: we'll still get screwed.  But if someone told you, twenty years ago, that gays and republicans would be playing together nicely, you would have had them committed for their own good.

Selena Gomez's Instagram account was hacked, resulting in nude pictures of Justin Bieber being displayed for a short period of time. This is not related to The Fappening and the account was restored quickly. These celebrity accounts are falling like dominoes. Funny as it may be, if you don't take security seriously enough, you will be next. I don't care how many Bieber nudes you have - I don't want to see them.

• With the Horrors in Houston, once again Amateur Radio has stepped up and helped. Like 9-11 and Katrina, these amateurs (hams) put their operational skills to work. Radio works when cells go down or are overloaded. It works locally to globally. Even the government (uh-oh) recognizes the value and has contributed financially to the effort.

The hearing-impaired dog just went off like an alarm, in Attack Mode<tm>. The mailman showed up. Normally Marshall sleeps by the door, just feet away from the mailman. Today he happened to be monitoring from another spot and actually saw the home invader mailman, setting off the Dog Alarm. I haven't heard that in a long time. It was nice and everything, but I didn't really miss it.

• The Definition of Marriage: I get homicidal when I hear JG Wentworth commercials. So she sings along with them.

The NYPD will be tossing 36,000 Windows phones after a year because Microsoft has decided not to support the phones. Way to go, Microsoft! Do you have any idea what the phones must have cost the NYPD?  Rest assured this contract came through friends, so there was significant money involved (plus who in their right mind purchases Windows phones?). Now they will have to purchase another 36,000 phones. If I were a NY taxpayer, I'd be pretty upset. This is a valuable, visible lesson for any governmental purchase; this stuff goes on all day, every day.

• When Life Gets Tough - annoy people. It's good for your spirits.

The Bed
I live in a non-standard household.
No, really?
Really.
You're putting us on.
No, really.

The house is non-standard. The occupants are non-standard. Even the dog is non-standard. The neighbors are non-standard. Even the sun is non-standard, in that it won't shine in the house. Seriously - light doesn't penetrate the house.

Ok, perhaps that's not the sun's fault.
The house came from a kit. Believe it or not, stuff got delivered and someone built it. It's pretty interesting, if you think about it. It's still standing, which is very fortunate. Unfortunately the person who assembled the house seemed to get everything right except for one small niggle: the house got turned around. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was dyslexic. Maybe some neighborhood joker turn the plans around when he stepped away. Maybe he was $*#@ing stupid - I don't know. The end result is that the house is perfectly set up for a vampire - the sun doesn't get in. While my deathly pallor has caused some to accuse me of sleeping during the day, perhaps in a coffin, this is not true. Although I may try to avoid direct sunlight, I do like to know it's still out there. And none of it gets in, although I'm sure the siding is always warm.

Where was I?
Oh yeah, non-standard.

Being married to a non-standard wife is... well... non-standard. She has The Mother of All Sleep Disorders, which means she has to catch it where she can. This frequently means she's in bed before I am. I have no problem with this - I'm used to getting in bed in the dark. I spend a large portion of my life in the dark - why shouldn't it extend to the bedroom?

I wouldn't dream of turning the bedroom light on and waking anyone, especially the dog, so I always walk into a dark room. This would be no issue for normal people, but as I said, we're non-standard.

Like Charlie Brown kicking the ball, I assume, foolishly, that there's a clean path from the door to the bed. If there were enough light for video, I could produce some classic video. Maybe some of that green video that you can shoot in the dark.  The first obstacle I have to look for is Marshall, who may or may not be a few steps in, completely blocking access to the bed. Trying to be a good person, I really attempt to step over and not disturb him. This is sometimes funny when he's not there and I wind up stepping over nothing. This potentially sets me up for a great stumble, turn, stumble, fall.. right into bed.

Well, maybe not directly into bed. Something will invariably will have appeared in front of the bed. How it gets there, I can't even begin to guess: maybe stuff rearranges itself when the lights go out. Maybe there's some Quantum Rearrangement happening... this isn't my field, so I feel it best not to spend too much time on it. It would only hurt. So I trip on the dog that may or may not be there, stumble, turn, stumble, trip, teeter, then fall onto the bed.

While I'm falling, I have to worry about the Quantum Spaniel, who may or may not be in the bed already, whether or not I tripped on him when he may or may not have been in the way of the bed. For someone who isn't in the field, I sure deal with quantum physics a lot.  So Marshall may be laying at the foot of the bed, or on my pillow. I have to fall in a way that I won't fall on top of the poor guy.

The wife has not moved.

Now that I have done the Bedroom Dance across the entire room, I find myself (or most of myself) in bed, hopefully not on top of any living being. Regardless of marital status, it is unacceptable to land on your spouse for most, if not any reasons.

If Quantum Spaniel wasn't at the foot of the bed, he is snoozing on or about my pillow.  At this point it's ok to wake him so he'll move his fuzzy butt out of my way. So now he fakes sleep and plays stupid. Huh? You want me to what? Get up? MOVE? I don't understand. Say it a few more times. Gently tap my butt, so I can continue to pretend I don't understand. I can figure out how to get all sorts of things outside my reach but I'm really stupid when I don't want to leave your pillow.

FINALLY he moves to a different spot and I settle down to Blissful Sleep.

No I don't.

Stuff appears in my bed. Different Stuff than appears on the floor. Sometimes a pile of clothes. Last night, several packages of new sheets. Maybe a towel. Some books. A chainsaw. The odd bit of jewelry. Colored markers.. there's no telling and no reason for it.. the stuff is just there. The only thing these have in common is that they quickly become airborne, accompanied by screaming (usually mine).

The wife has not moved.

Along with the screaming is the nightly Litany of Self Pity. There's no written version but it goes something like this: GOD $(#&ING DAMMIT, CAN'T I GET INTO $&#@ING BED JUST ONCE WITHOUT THIS #&@&ING NONSENSE? IT'S DARK AND I DON'T WANT TO BOTHER ANYODY AND ALL I ASK IS AN UNOBSTRUCTED PLACE TO #*@&ING SLEEP. NO DOG. NO CRAYONS. NO CLOTHES. NO CHAINSAW. I WORK ALL DAY AND ALL I ASK FOR IS A BED I CAN GET INTO WITHOUT PAIN OR OBJECTS THAT DON'T %*#&ING BELONG THERE. I ASK FOR VERY LITTLE - AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I $(#&ING GET.

The wife has not moved.

Sometimes I do a little reading from my phone before I nod off. As soon as I silently click and the light comes on, the wife startles and sits up. NOW she sits up. The words are always the same: "What's wrong?" Nothing. "Oh."

The Sleep Number mattress leaks, but only my side, so I have to pump it up. She sleeps through that too - or at very least does not hit me with a cast iron pan, which is also in the bed, for reasons no one can explain.

My Eyebrows Hurt

Mrs lefty hands me a paper from the state. There's some sort of Tax Amnesty thing happening and perhaps, since this is the last day, I should call.

Why?

Because the paper says I own lots of hundreds of dollars for something and if I pay now, I'll get a discount. Mrs lefty says we should make payment arrangements. Mr lefty says we should have a look at this.

The paper, which looks legitimate, says we own money for Voluntary Fair Use Tax.  Well, taking the obvious road; if it's voluntary, we don't have to pay it. This is apparently not a useful answer and the state has no sense of humor.

So I call the state to try and figure out what all of this is. Being the state, I get a recording, reminding me how important my call is to them. It's so important, the recording reminds me at one minute intervals. During the hold, I get four calls from Mrs lefty about Very Important Stuff, plus a few texts from friends and family, and a whole lot of email.

I also get to look up Fair Use Tax. This is such an obscure item, it barely appears in search engines. A few pages later I have a grasp on this tax. It's very clever: this is a tax-grab. The state, upset that one can purchase things out of state and avoid sales tax, has rectified the problem by enacting a Voluntary Fair Use Tax. Any time legislation or tax has a positive name, you had better watch out. The trick here is that they have decided that the tax-free purchase has to hit state transportation, thus you owe tax. Even if you think of buying something from a different state, you owe the tax. To make matters more amusing, the tax is even higher in two cities.

Forty five minutes later, I reach a very cheerful state worker, who proceeds to explain to me that I owe hundreds of dollars and can get amnesty if I pay now. Like most reasonable humans, I ask what the tax is for, or on. Like most state workers, she has absolutely no idea. Her best suggestion was to dig up our tax return from 2000. Ummm.... no. Even if I could unearth the return, there would be no item that required hundreds of dollars of tax, or I would have paid it. Statie then says she's not a tax professional. So I ask again, can she tell me where it's from. She tries to sell me on paying today but still cannot tell me why I own the tax or even what the tax is.

Let me lay this out for you... we receive a tax document that says we owe hundreds of dollars for something that happened seventeen years ago. We can get a discount if we pay today, but no one can tell us why we allegedly owe the money.  I have a feeling I'll have to dispute this. I hope it doesn't involve a phone call.

• There is snoring coming from the bathroom. I'm torn between curiosity, inertia, and the realization that it's not going to be the weirdest thing to happen today.

Honda (yes, that Honda) was forced to shut down a manufacturing plant on Tokyo after the WannaCry virus made a return. Are these the people you trust with making you car 'connected' in the computer age? This is a preview of what's to come, this time, in your car.

• In reference to the Department of Defense Inspector General's report on the NSA, well, the NSA doesn't come off so well. After Snowden, there were steps recommended, which were performed in a rather half-assed way. Rest assured, your data is not collected in a half-assed way.

What's faster to transfer a terabyte of data from San Francisco to London: a 100mbps internet connection or a British Airways 747? This is an interesting explanation of how data moves across the net (and on a plane). The best line from the article is "If airlines experienced aircraft loss at the rate the Internet sees packet loss there'd be 28 crashes per day in the US alone."

• A police officer at the airport in Flint, Michigan, was stabbed and is in critical condition. The airport was closed down and the perp is in custody. The talking head news person said there was no apparent cause for the stabbing. I beg to differ - the apparent cause was the guy with the knife. I should probably avoid getting into tv news.
• On the other hand, imagine how interesting tv news would get if I were on it.
• On the third hand, my career would last just under a week, with Las Vegas giving me very poor odds.
• On any remaining hands, the Canadian-born knife-wielder shouted "Allahu Akbar" before stabbing the policeman. Who could have seen that coming?

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, wants to offer amnesty for the illegal aliens who lived in the Grenfell Tower, the building that just experienced a tragic fire. This is his priority.

• Followup: Evergreen State College, coming off a protest around a day without white people, has had so much of this going on that they have been forced to hold graduation off-campus. Because nothing is being done to correct the matter. The professor who disagreed with day without white people was forced to teach off-campus for his own safety. He and his family have been forced to move. Anyone who disagrees with antifa is branded a fascist and is a target for violence. A Daily Caller author has suggested antifa be considered a terrorist group. Nothing is being done.

I don't claim to understand and am not sure I want to, but an Instagram model was killed the other day by an exploding whipped cream dispenser. It's hardcore when one dies for one's ice cream (if that's what was involved). Your can of whipped cream is still safe - this is a high-end, CO2 injected, high-performance cream whipping machine. The local news brough in an expert who said the blunt force looked like when hockey players take a puck to the chest. This household will stick with a can of non-leathal Redi-Whip.

• Two twenty-something British men were arrested for planning to hack into Microsoft and steal user data. After further examination and testing, the case was dropped because they were just trying to use Windows 10 and the behavior was normal.

Today is National Take Your Dog to Work Day. What could possibly go wrong? All of my coworkers were astounded to see someone attractive walking anywhere near me. Then it was time for Trashcan Inspection, followed by Desk Inspection, followed by Search for Snacks and Maybe Attention. It's a full day's work for Marshall. If I can keep him from defecating on the boss' desk, I will consider it a complete success.

• In what could be the only good news ever produced by a computer virus, traffic cameras in Australia were hit with the WannaCry ransomware.

Today's best psychology journal title: Vegan Sexuality: Challenging Heteronormative Masculinity through Meat-free Sex. You can't make this shit up.

There might be a name for this and if there isn't, we need one.

I just offered Marshall a bacon-like treat. He groggily looked up at me, sniffed the morsel, and put his head back down. I threw the thing on the ground, he sniffed it, then ate it. Does it taste better from the carpet than my hand?