Captivity - Day 3

Covid-19: the biology of an effective therapy.
A vaccine may not arrive for at least a year, so what to do?
Tell your SO that sex has been shown to help prevent it, but only in sufficient quantity. What is sufficient quantity? Whatever you say it is.

The day started out like any other, except for the major virus and working from home. I have to admit my coffee is light years better than in the office. We have a Keurig machine at work, but it's a fact that the closer to Philly water you are, the worse the water tastes. By the time it hits our house, it has had a chance to mellow, by eating the pipes on its way.

Working at home is pretty cool - I don't know why I didn't start earlier.
Oh yeah - my boss told me no.
I told him we all needed to be using linux.
He was amused.
Now it's ok to use linux to work from home.
HA!
Vindicated, once again.
Let's face it - when Windows machines connect to the network, they're likely to be full of viruses anyway (97%, according to an article last week).


The dog is over the moon because I'm home.
Mrs lefty, not so much.
She's one of those Loud Talkers on the phone, so she's banished to the back yard every time the phone rings.
This has the effect of rolling downhill: whenever Wife goes out back, Dog comes into the office and stares pitifully at me. I have been reduced to a doggie door opener.



Idiot Governor Wolf considering shelter-in-place order.
Idiot Governor Wolf considering opening alcohol stores (it's state run in PA).
Idiot Governor Wolf wants all non-essential businesses closed at 8am this morning.
Idiot Governor Wolf's subjects ask where to send their bills if forced to close.
Idiot Governor Wolf calling on state police to enforce business closures.
Idiot Governor Wolf needs to find out the meaning of trebuchet.
Idiot Mayor Kenney has declared no non-essential people work in Philadephia. I'll bet he's forcing the $250/night hotels to house his illegal aliens.



A Portland strip club was forced to close, so the employees started delivering food. Perfect example of adjusting to the times. It still doesn't explain why burgers are $50....


There is some sad news for guitar players: Seymour Duncan has to stop work on their famous pickups for the time being, but they are available to answer questions.




We used to call it WFH: Working From Home.
Let's be safe out there... let me provide a few tips, which the very intelligent people who read ThermionicEmissions don't need...

1. Update your operating system
2. Virus scan your operating system
3. Back up your important files, just in case
4. For the maximum protection, plug right into your router - no wireless
5. If you are using wireless, make sure your wireless system is set to use WPA2 - anything else is NO GOOD. You're flying a red flag that says "HACK ME!" Turn off the feature that auto-joins pc's to your router (WPS?).
6. If possible, use one computer only for work. Keep it clean, although you should keep all computers clean.
7. It's a royal PITA, but use a computer's firewall. Windows has one, as does linux.
8. See #1 and #2
9. Once a week or so, clean the PC. Bleach Bit is a great program, but pay attention to the settings or your computer will 'forget' things.
10. Mac and linux have LittleSnitch, which is sort of a firewall. Use it.
11. Remember to take care of yourself too.
12. Nobody pays attention to this, but you're at your computer desk for 8 house a day. Go ergonomic: set your chair so your elbows are at a 90 degree angle. Do not bend your wrists up to get to the keyboard: this will result in pain and possibly repetitive stress injury. Check out an ergonomic keyboard - I love them. Get a comfortable mouse - some are wireless. Take frequent breaks (you can set a timer to schedule them).
13. Remember: if you have sex with your SO, it counts as having sex at work
14. if you have any questions, please ask. I've been doing this for a while.
15. Don't open email. Any email. Especially if it's corona-themed. If it's from a friend, ask them if they sent it before opening it. The subhumans are taking advantage of the virus to spread malware.
16. You'll be much safer with Mac or linux (had to)

These tips are good in general. Don't wait for a human or computer virus to pop up before observing good computer hygiene.

I Fought the Keurig and the Keurig Won

Even paranoids have enemies.
Sometimes it is personal.

A few years back, things seemed really dark.  Ok, things were really dark.  Weird stuff used to happen to me.  After a while it not only seemed personal, it was.  Whenever I went to a restaurant, I wouldn't get the right food or wouldn't get served.  My brother, the professional wiseass, asked me to stand with another group at the restaurant so he'd get seated.  It rained every time I took off work to go to the zoo (my coworkers bought me tickets and a raincoat for my birthday).  All I had to do was get in any line to bring it to a screeching halt.

My cars, always land yachts, were invisible.  No one saw me.  People would cut in front of me as if I didn't exist.  Night or day.  My wife had it even worse... people would cut across lanes just to hit her.  We were asshole magnets behind the wheel (and in person, but that's a different story for a different blog).

This was documented by outside parties.  A nephew once sat there amazed and said we weren't making it up - he was seeing it for himself.  He thought we were kidding.

Anyway, things improved.  I don't know whether it was voodoo, chanting, Santeria, or the horde of gypsy mutant psychics I kept on the payroll, but I was most grateful for the turnaround.

Every now and then, little things start to pop up that make me wonder if I'm headed back to the Dark Place.  My wife just shakes her head and says I live in the Dark Place regardless.

I don't want to think things are headed back and for the most part, they aren't.  It's just this damn coffee machine.

Work has a long and storied history of coffee and coffee machines.  I work with a bunch of hardcore coffee snobs and regular coffee junkies, as well as one or two heretics who don't like coffee.  We started off with company-provided coffee, which is swill (not that we didn't appreciate the effort).  Then someone brought in a Mr. Coffee.  Never satisfied, I brought in a grinder, as one cannot appreciate coffee from a can or any other form that isn't a bean.  The downside became apparent immediately: in spite of being neat freaks to the point of needing treatment, my coworkers wouldn't clean the coffee pot.

Since I came in early, I made most of the coffee.  This was obviously a problem with a dirty pot.  It was an even bigger problem when the pot was dark and hairy (like me).  I have `organizational issues' (read: slob) but it was important not to brew coffee with dirty implements.  After I got tired of cleaning the pot, I went back to company-provided coffee.

Time passed and Coffee Fever intensified.  Stupidly, I brought in more beans.  We went to locate the coffee make and couldn't.  Yes, one of our clinically insane neat freaks cleaned up and the coffee maker had disappeared into eternity (along with the coworker, thankfully).  This is why I maintain that optimism gets you nowhere.


Finally someone got a deal on a Keurig machine.  These are the self-contained magical boxes into which you put a little plastic cup and fill the reservoir with water, providing you with the magic elixir at work.  And the best part of this is that you don't have to clean the infernal machine.  Of course you do have to fill it up with water, a task that almost completely escapes my coworkers, in spite of the extremely bright blue flashing light that says ADD WATER, IMBECILE.  And running the odd cycle of vinegar to clean the machine out.

The Keurig sufficed for about a week until I wanted to give up again.  The range of coffees available for it produced watery brown liquid, suitable only for very sweet old ladies and certain female coworkers who enjoy the flavoring more than the coffee.  It took a few weeks to discover coffee with names like JET FUEL and TUMMY ROT, which were right up my alley.

It was nearly Coffee Nirvana except that we still weren't using real beans.  I purchased an expensive adapter designed exactly for this purpose, which failed miserably.  We had one of our more scientific and plumbing-minded coworkers attack the adapter and the problem for the better part of an hour, to no avail.  In fact, the net effect was a sound that made us think the machine had a prostate problem.  And water all over the place.

A few months later we located a cheaper adapter which almost worked.  Gone were the prostate noises and water spurting but it still wasn't strong enough.  The biggest surprise [wait for it!] was that no one would clean the adapter after they used it.  In fact, the little green thingie still sits in back of the Keurig, dirty from the last time someone used it.  I gave up.

So anyway, I set out to describe the current Keurig war.   Once we discovered coffee of the proper strength, it was pretty much smooth sailing.  When I say pretty much, I mean the problems started shortly thereafter.  And naturally they were my problems.

When I'd complain that something didn't work for me in a browser, a coworker would always say "It works for me."  It became a departmental mantra and extended itself to the Keurig.  The problems, like all problems, started early on a Monday morning.  I would arrive and innocently attempt to make a cup of coffee.  This was my first mistake.

Most of the time, the machine would just sit there and stare at me.  I could even hear it laughing at me, very quietly and internal-like.  It wouldn't do a thing - not even blink a light.

So I started powering it up and `letting it warm up'.  Sometimes it would stare at me.  Other times it would indicate that it had made coffee but not actually produce any.

On Monday mornings, I took to running a cup of water through, just for fun.  This worked, provided I didn't try to put a coffee pod in the machine.

After a while, it became Sport.  Several coworkers in the area would stop what they were doing to see what the machine would do to me on that particular morning.  They never hesitated to mention that it worked for them.

Just yesterday the machine tried to give me nothing again, claiming it already had.  It was the coffee equivalent of Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch.  So I tried outsmarting it by hitting the button again.  Unfortunately the machine was too smart for me and refused to acknowledge the button press.

Thinking quickly, I pulled up the handle, to make the machine think I had put in a different coffee pod, and hit the button yet again.  The machine's response was to give me a cup of coffee, plus the cup it didn't give me the first time.  My cup literally ranneth over.

Of course that meant war.

I procured another coffee pod but waited enough time to make the Keurig think I was someone else.  Quickly inserting the pod, I hit the button.   To my great surprise (not to mention the applause of everyone assembled), I had achieved coffee!  After only three or four tries!

Flushed with success, I took the rest of the day off.

Define Cruelty

I remember all the way back to Friday.  I was telling a friend that I was going to get up off my posterior and head out over the weekend.  I was almost excited.

Then it snowed.  It was almost as if it were personal.

But the true definition of cruelty, and I'm sure you'll agree if you think about it, is a non-cooperative coffee machine on Monday morning.

I've been at the present job for ten years.  Over that time, we've spent days, weeks, and months working on a suitable Coffee Strategy.  Coffee doesn't come easy.  Yes, we do have the coffee machines thoughtfully provided by our employer.  These are really convenient little machines and, when loaded, produce something in the general neighborhood of coffee (or hot chocolate) but not close enough for me.  And they're frequently not loaded, producing the sickest shades of coffee and hot chocolate imaginable.  Unfortunately they don't taste much better than they look, loaded or not.

Being a proper coffee fanatic, I decided the only way to go was to bring in beans, a grinder, and a four pot coffee maker.  This became so successful that we evolved to a twelve cup coffee maker.

It was at this point that we hit our Major Stumbling Block<tm>.  I noticed that if I didn't make coffee, it didn't get made.  Somewhat coincidentally, if I didn't clean the pot, it didn't get cleaned.  Suffice it to say that a dirty coffee pot can grow some of the most interesting blue-green `stuff' you've ever seen.  After a while it evolves speech.  This, while interesting, becomes a bit of a pain in the ass, as it just sits there, saying:

"Clean me."
"Clean me."

Then we discovered Keurig.  These are miraculous machines, wherein you fill them with water, put in a cup, put in a little coffee pod, push the button, and coffee appears in your cup.

And you don't have to wash any pots.

This was a miracle for us, provided we could get someone to pick up the coffee pods.  It was almost foolproof.

Until this morning, of course.

Here we are, yet another Monday, coming into work and pressing the BREW button for some of that magical go-juice.

And the machine just stared back at us.


A helpful person observed that sometimes it starts slowly.  I added that perhaps it's having prostate issues: it gets started slowly but eventually disburses liquid.

And it gave me half a cup of brew.

This is simply cruel.  Monday morning, of all mornings, is precisely the wrong morning to mess with my coffee.  I have barely enough oomph to operate the coffee machine, no less hurl it across the room in a petulant frenzy (a petulant frenzy?).

While we're on the topic, this particular machine is not without its drawbacks.  While it's basically effortless in the coffee-making area, one still has to procure things like cups, sugar, and creamer.  I have noticed that at least one of these things is missing when I go to make my singular cup of coffee.

I may go to put in sugar, only to find it empty.  After I procure more sugar, via an act that is probably illegal in at least thirty states, I get back to notice that the creamer is also short.  It took me way too long to remember to check everything before I hit BREW.

Since there were no additional cups, I had to go to the kitchen to dump out my measly half cup of coffee (which was starting to eat through the cup anyway) and get some more cups.  I ran a cup of plain water, which took on an eerie brown and crunchy shade, and had another go at regular old coffee.

VOILA!  An actual cup of coffee.  Success at last.

Of course I feel sorry for anyone who has to deal with me today, but at least I got my coffee.

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Today is Halloween.  My department is dressing as MIS people with bad attitudes.

By all accounts, we've nailed it.