Fuzzy Green Chairs

Know what a Stingray is? The one that isn't a Corvette.
A Stingray is a catch-all, as well as a brand name for IMSI catchers. Wasn't that helpful?
It's a device sold to law enforcement that gets put up as a fake cell tower, to catch and monitor your cell phone. You have no idea it's there; the phone operates normally.

One company found a bunch of them in DC. Nobody knows whose they are. The letter agencies are aware of them, but some claim not to know either. Very smart operation, guys.

So it wasn't enough that law enforcement spied on you, now it's all over the place in DC and no one is sure who is doing the spying. Or what's going to be done with, or about it.

Isn't that lovely?

• Panera Bread, Sears, and Best Buy have been hit by breaches. Check your accounts and act accordingly.

Question of the day: Does the color azure make anyone else manic?

The Faceyspaces Saga. On and on and on

• It's interesting to watch the Shitstorm facing Faceyspaces. Zuckerburg had a small point, telling people they ok'd the spying when they signed up. This is true; we know nobody reads the terms - they just hit OK.  Just the other day, I had to ok a license on my phone... rest assured I read the terms.
• And now, Zuckerburg is getting a lot of blowback over the privacy invasion that is the actual business of Faceyspaces. Yes, people, you are the product. Your data is being sold and not only do you lose your privacy, you're not making a cent on this. In case you didn't know, FB owns Instagram, so they have yet another data collector. While we're at it, Google owns YouTube.
• I want to emphasize that the Faceyspaces app on your phone has access to most of your data. It catalogs every phone call you make, as well as every text message. If you have friends that you might not tell your spouse about, FB knows. If you're texting with a 'special friend' that you might not tell your spouse about, FB knows. This is just the start of the info. At very least, uninstall the phone app and use a browser.
• Just because we're on this topic, Zuckerburg also mentioned that their reverse search function, where you enter an email or phone number to find a contact, was scraped, potentially exposing the data of two billion users (their total userbase).
• Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is leaving Faceyspaces. Good move, Steve, but this isn't exactly new.
• What is new (aside from me warning everyone) is that FB has extensive profiles on people who aren't on FB, including a lawyer for the ACLU. This article is not for the faint of heart.
• Hot off the presses: Faceyspaces just suspended another firm for "non profit academic research", which translates to "we've got all your data too".
• Check to see if your data was shared with Cambridge Analytica.
• Annnnnnnnd once again, I'm not a conspiracy theorist - I'm a futurist. Or just a guy who's very concerned about privacy and safety. I TOLD YOU SO.

Twitter is again showing their colors by shadowbanning Ted Cruz's tweets. I'm not a Cruz fan, or a republican fan, or a democrat fan, but they are doing things and need to be called out on them. It's not that private corporations are required to play fair, but they're being very sneaky about it and people need to know. Nowhere does Twitter let people know that they actively discriminate and outright censor everybody to the right of Rob Reiner. I stick up for conservatives in this case because next time, they could decide to start throwing out libertarians. One account was terminated because the owner objected to a court decision. 

What is shadowbanning? Making an account much less visible. It's a discovered then admitted process.  Followers of the account don't see all the tweets.  What kind of 'trusted' platform does this in the dark?

The CEO of Twitter, the infamous @Jack, openly called for a war against republicans recently, on the national stage.  This is a small first step toward disclosure, but Twitter needs to admit its bias and make it put it in their terms. Let the people make their decisions by themselves.

Meanwhile, conservatives (and even 4 or 5 us libertarians) are moving to gab.ai, which absolutely does not discriminate against anyone. Free speech comes with speech you don't like, and this means I have to put up with a small amount of antisemites and what look like nazis. They're ugly, and the scum of the earth, but  deserve free speech as much as anyone else. Like Twitter, you can block or not follow people you don't like.

Speaking of @Jack, an article, quoting anonymous internal sources, alleges that the initial checkmark removals and alt-right bans came directly from Jack.

• Best Buy and Kmart say they're victims of the same third party breach that affected Delta and Sears.

One day we're sitting on the couch, snacking and doing what people do when sitting on the couch (no, not fighting). All of the sudden I hear STOP IT. Huh?  Stop making that noise. What noise? That noise.... you're not doing it right. Huh? You have to take a bunch out at one time and eat them. You can't reach in and get them one at a time. That noise drives me crazy.  

Oh.

Notice my contribution to the discussion largely consisted of Huh?

So I'm minding my own business, as I do, when the wife goes by, on the way to a different floor. Minutes later, I hear the dog shrieking to come in. Wife let him out. The longer he waits, the higher the pitch and frequency of the shrieking. The neighbors probably think he's being abused. My question to you: is my wife being passive aggressive by making me go get the dog?

Because if it is, I need to eat some snacks.

• I just heard about free range eggs. Do they allow the eggs to roam? What does that look like? Do the neighborhood teens wonder if they got more for their drug money?

Overheard: 

I'm out of bullets.

How did that happen?

I shot them all.

• A sex robot inventor said his creations helped save his marriage. He would turn to the robot when his wife wasn't in the mood. This is almost like my concept of Vice Wife; the woman who would take over when the Wife was not able to perform the duties of her office.
• Ever clever, my wife said perhaps she should get a Vice Husband. I'm a fair guy - go ahead. The only duties of office I fail at are mowing and trash.
• I predict the inventor's next disagreement will involve who cleans the doll when he's done.

I don't have much to say about the Cosby trial, other than noticing he's in great shape at comedy gigs and bumbles and stumbles like an aged Hillary Clinton on the way into the courthouse. He was rushed the other day by a topless woman, protesting his actions. The woman was identified as an actor who appeared on his show a few times, whose character was named Roofie Johnson.

• A West Virginia woman was arrested for beheading her boyfriend before telling cops, “You have to take me back and let me get my heads,” as they drove her away from the bloody scene, authorities said. Her lawyer is complaining about the judge asking for a test of mental competence, stating that it tarred his client's good reputation and her impending run for public office.

A man who ate a Carolina Reaper, the hottest pepper known to man, experienced dry heaving, neck pain, and bad headaches, referred to as thunderclap headaches. Who could have imagined that a man eating the hottest pepper on the planet would experience any negative effects?

The next time someone expects sympathy for their migraine, poo poo the idea and tell them to come back when they have a real headache.

• Baltimore, a hell hole even bigger than Philly, is attempting to drive tourism in new and untested ways. A man was jogging nude through rush hour traffic. Note to Baltimore: you might want to try it with a woman. 

Even YouTube isn't immune to hackers. Someone got into YT and deleted all sorts of videos, including Shakira's Vero YT account.  In the spirit of international brotherhood, I have volunteered to sacrifice my time to comfort her on this tragic loss.

• Pro Tip: before you come in the house and yell "Nipple check on aisle three", make sure no one but the owner of said nipples can hear you.

Why is it always California?

A bill has been introduced in California, which would require state-sanctioned fact checkers to approve online content. It's a shame we can't mandate fact checkers for lawmakers.

• Proving that satire is dead, the mayor of London has enacted knife control.
• The UK spends a lot of time laughing at the US, but now it's our turn. The police can stop anyone they suspect of carrying a knife and search them.
• First the ubiquitous spy public cameras, then the ban on speech that hurts feelings, and now Stop And Search for knives. It sounds more like a police state than the great country it was.

After getting cut off in traffic, Texas' own Ryan McFaul did the only thing a reasonable man could do: pulled out his BB gun and shot at a church's windows. The BBs went through the outer pane of the dual pane glass and no one was hurt. McFaul is out on $5,000 bond, with the condition that he holds the gun backwards the next time he shoots.

• Security Theater: Next time you're getting groped by the TSA at the airport, you better have your snacks ready for inspection. In yet another bid to look relevant, the TSA is going to start screening snacks. By the end of the year, look for intense shoelace scrutiny. Inside sources also point to underwear checks.

Canada is Pissed

I take a decent amount of crap online because of my pro Second Amendment views. Also my pro First Amendment views. This is largely on Twitter, as one would guess. It's just a matter of time until tweeters are not allowed to mention the Second Amendment. The most shocking, shrieking rebuke came from a Canadian. This particular Canuckian is a nice lady and we've been online acquaintances for a while. After the Florida shooting, I attempted to explain the Second Amendment and she yelled, as best one can yell in text, that I have the blood of children on my hands. Canadians generally live up to the stereotype of being nice people. Even the border guards are unfailingly polite.

In an email exchange with another Canuckian who is so level, you almost need to check for a pulse, she mentioned she doesn't like our president or our guns. I asked for some specifics and could feel the volume going up and the seething start. I guess I found the pulse.

I (used to) love hearing American jokes and what other countries thought of us. The main object of their laughter was that Americans only know one language. In a complete verification of the joke, Americans will not see the problem with that. 

Now all I hear is hatred for Trump and gun ownership. I really don't want to be lectured about my country and its Constitution by people not living under it (and roughly 50% of the people who do). They seem to think we're all armed to the teeth and the act of walking down the street puts one's life at risk. Please. They advocate gun control, in the form of not having them at all. They think this will stop the mass shootings. Oops - it seems the criminals are performing the majority of crimes, so gun confiscation will do nothing but harm law-abiding people. Here's another mini fact: all school shootings have occurred in gun-free zones.

I'm not sure outside folks are getting our culture or our Constitution. Ironically, they seem quite ok with the First Amendment.

Agoraphobic Mall Trips

Not frequently, but every now and then, a family member pisses me off. When my brother bought his first house, an older lady, whose thinking functions were fading, sold it to him. The house hadn't been redecorated in a while, resulting in what I referred to as 'The Trip Room'. The room came complete with silver mylar wallpaper, which was enough by itself, but also this unimaginable fuzzy green chair. I asked him to preserve just this one room, as some weird sort of tribute, perhaps to the seventies. He, or someone he happened to be married to, rejected the idea with great speed and efficiency.

Now, I hear the kitchen is being remodeled. The kitchen features some quiet but bizarre wallpaper, with tiny pineapples on it. It became a running joke, then I heard it was coming down. Again I asked one small favor... if you're not going to leave the wallpaper, at least leave a few square inches of it on a hidden space somewhere. Again I received an immediate answer in the negative.

My relatively new motto is "I ask for very little. And that's exactly what I get."  But I asked, because if you don't ask, you don't receive. And I'm feeling some kinda way about this. It's not like I asked for $50,000 or to live with them. Or for one of them to mow my lawn. Just a chair or a tiny piece of wallpaper. But nooooooooo.

If he had asked me to keep one small thing because it amused him, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Unless he asked me to clean... that's not going to happen.

• Life is funny. When I was a little boy, Mom would throw her munchkins in the car and take them to the mall. The other day I piled my parents in the car and took them to a mall and dinner.  It's the least I could do.

I'm still working diligently on my agoraphobic certificate. 

As you may remember, agoraphobes stay in their house and are afraid to leave. I can't get the full official certificate, as I still have to work. There are no exceptions. It also happens that whenever I do make it out of the house, I wish I had stayed home. So right now I shall retain my amateur status. Or maybe part-time agoraphobia.. I'll have to ask a professional.

That aside, as is bound to happen once every month or so, I left the house, not on a work mission. Remember mission, as this is another one of those Literary Devices I throw around now and again. I'm not a writer, but I know two or three terms, so I'm throwing them around.

We decided to take my reasonably near-sane parents out to a mall and dinner. They're always delighted to see us, possibly just because it means leaving the house, but I suspect they actually like us or something.

We went to a mall, so the ladies could look at Stuff. My wife has a favorite department store. My wife has many favorite stores, physical and virtual. This particular store is such a favorite that we frequently don't get out into the mall proper, because she's spent so much time there. We were determined, however.

After only two or three bags, weighing thirty pounds each, were purchased, I was unanimously elected to take them to the car or drag them through the mall. This is like choosing between chin-ups and running in the cold for (NOOOO) exercise. The car was pretty far away, so I dragged.

Why was the car far away? Every time we go to this mall, we park right up front. That day everyone and their extended family was at this store, perhaps because it was sunny outside. Yes, they couldn't wait to leave their houses because it was nice outside, so they could go to the enclosed mall. Logic is not our strong suit.

Just as it was last time, the area was heavy with Brow Options. There was a store called Brow Bar. I'm not entirely sure what went on there, but no one was being serviced. It didn't appear they were selling brows and I didn't notice a Brow License anywhere, so we were stymied.

Mom and Wife went into Victoria's Secret. Most people don't bother to find out, but I know Victoria's Secret: it's how they get women to spend so much on so little. Even little girls have little (fully covering) clothes. Now teenagers feel the need to look pretty under their clothes. We're a weird planet.

The menfolk discovered seats in the mall area and took full advantage of them. Twenty minutes later, Dad starts to get a little itchy, as the womenfolk hadn't returned.  I didn't understand the commotion; they would find us when (if) they were done shopping. This could eventually be to my detriment because the more I'm not with her, the more time she has to shop, and by shop, I mean spend. Dad got more and more itchy and probably failed to understand my calm. He called both of them on their phones, neither of which could hear them ringing. This is unlike my wife's phone at home, in which buried people, dead for a hundred years, can hear clearly. So Dad paced while I checked for the one piece of email I get every day or so.

We eventually found them. They had snuck behind us, across the mall to a different store. A store that has the same clothes, shoes, and jewelry in ten sections, displayed by color. Women understand this. Men, as usual, don't have a clue or a chance. It's not like my wife is there a lot, but they greet her by name.

The mall used to be a small affair; two anchor stores with some other stores sandwiched between. At some point they decided to add more stores. Unlike other malls that run east to west or north to south, this one added a cluster of stores outside this exit and six restaurants out back, not connected to the mall. It looked like some sort of tree branch, after the nuclear holocaust. As a manly man and a damn-near considerate person, I offered to retrieve the car so no one (else) had to do more walking. I showed everyone the exit I'd meet them at and asked them to stand there.

Because of the hodgepodge layout, one simply does not drive around the mall, like some sort of Indianapolis speedway at two hundred miles per hour; one drives around a ninety degree side, then out and around a bank that mysteriously popped up out of the ground, obscuring mall traffic. Then past the first mall entrance (or the last mall entrance, depending on where you entered) and around what looked like some sort of truck receiving area, but what in fact was a place for some unnamed Italian outfit to store bodies before they go out for processing.  Attached to the crematorium was a huge parking garage. This is a mall, mind you. The parking garage obscured it. At this point the phone rang. The phone does not ring at home, nor while I'm out doing something; it only rings when I don't want to hear it or I'm doing something that precludes me from answering it. At this point I was in the middle of a U-turn, fortunately with no one else coming. I went to get the phone from its holder and, as always, was completely blocked by the seatbelt. I hate seatbelts. Their only use is to hold your dead body in the seat after the accident. They get in the way of the phone, the radio, the wallet, and any of my wife's parts I wish to touch while we're both in the car.

Wife informs me they're waiting by Jeans House, John's Snotty Upscale Market, Half Foods, and Chicosan's Boutique. These are all stores I never heard of nor visited in the mall, so this wasn't helping me. This was also not where I told them to meet me. I asked a simple question: why didn't you meet me where I asked? We couldn't. You couldn't exit at the mall exit? No, we couldn't get out the doors. I decided to let that pass because if I took any time at all to think about it, it would produce massive headaches and possibly homicidal behavior. She said it was a bit down and brown outside. Oh, the brown section! Down by the thing. Yes, those were directions alright... just not directions for anyone who wasn't standing next to her at that moment. I promised I'd look and guaranteed I'd see her by dinner tomorrow.

Eventually I found the Brown Section, with yet another clump of stores not attached to the mall, requiring circling the outside of the drive and yet another U-turn, fortunately sans ringing phone. Some fellow got out of his car right before I drove up the lane and proceeded to walk, verrrrrry slowly, in the general direction of the store clumpage. I do not drive an electric car, so it makes six cylinders of noise. Noise this fellow apparently did not recognize as a car, so he continued moseying on down the lane, as I prepared to turn onto the main road. He outsmarted me by also turning, ever so slightly as to slow down my turn too. Talk about homicidal urges... this behavior should be punishable by a fine not to exceed five thousand dollars, plus wearing a sign outside the store for a year that says "I'm a slow walking car blocker".

It was all I had left not to zoom past the lot of them and take myself home, where Marshall was impatiently waiting, but in some countries it is considered rude to leave your elderly parents standing outside a mall for a few days (not your wife, though). No matter, I thought, at least we were off to our favorite barbecue place for our favorite barbecue. They even have a vanilla ice cream machine with tiny little cones for dessert and you get to pull the lever yourself. It's the little things....

We drove there, parked the car, got out, walked two steps, and discovered our favorite barbecue place had closed permanently. Not a sound from four people. We stared, mute. BUT OUR FAVORITE BARBECUE PLACE!!! It's not there. It's closed. We cannot purchase barbecue here anymore. No loaded potatoes, fried oprah, pulled this and that.. and no ice cream.  If we were but a few years younger, we would have stood there, crying, and proceeding to have an absolute FIT in the parking lot. No one was around, but I wouldn't let that stop me if I were going to throw a Serious Tantrum. I threw a Medium Tantrum when my wife dropped a candle and smashed five pounds of glass in her store. That day she was having a very serious problem with gravity. Sometimes it works much more heavily on her than the rest of us. So many things dropped and lept out of the cart that I took to calling her My Little Disaster Area. Romantic, no?

So there we stood, on the verge of Serious Tantrum, when my wife came up with  what she thought was the perfect solution: going next door and shopping at the strangely upscale second hand store, where one can purchase pocketbooks no man has heard of at obscenely low prices. What is truly obscene is what the pieces of imitation ugly leather cost when they were new. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars for an exceedingly ugly thing to carry around their shoulders. And I'm not talking fuzzy green ugly, I'm talking brown and brown with strange symbols ugly. It's like some huge joke on the part of the pocketbook industry: hey, let's design some absolutely hideous THING, charge $800 for it, then give a few away to a Kardashian. No matter how ugly or expensive, they will fly off the shelves. And sure enough, the internal plumbing crowd of the world stepped right up and snapped them up wherever they could find them. Some of these bags have individual serial numbers. I have guitars that don't have individual serial numbers. They were less expensive than these pocketbooks too.

Needless to say, at least two of us, probably the ones with external plumbing, were less than thrilled. As there was no Manly Section of the store, we assumed Manly Position, which is standing, arms crossed, heavily frowning, eyes front and staring out into a universe that included sitting and eating barbecue. Finally the ladies released us from torment and we struggled out to the car. It's amazing what not getting out much followed by carrying sixty pounds of purchased goodies around a mall will do to you. The back part of my feet hurt. I've never had a pain there in all my life. There is obviously some serious blame to be laid on this topic.

In a rather ironic moment, I drove down the street to our second favorite barbecue place, Mission BBQ (see, I got mission in there, like an almost professional writer). Mission is a chain that has just entered the area, founded upon respect for all armed forces and police. Vets eat free or reduced price. The food is good and the people are so nice, they had to import them from the South, or wherever else people are nice. Certainly not my area. The sad part of all this, aside from our favorite place closing, is that my friends from Texas laugh hysterically when I tell them we had bbq from a chain restaurant. Apparently every corner down there has a different bbq place, each better than the other one. Note to self: bad form to salivate on keyboard. Well, it's all we've got up north, so we have to call it good. Piss off, you hat-wearin', hornswagglin', sweet tea drinkin', hurricane tornado havin' rodeo state. And gitcher dang old horses offa the main streets before they leap on a twelve cylinder convertible Caddilac with steer horns on the front and a horn that plays Dixie.

You can't pay for vitriolic area-specific insults like that, but I put them before you, out of the goodness of my heart, because I like attention and because we're up to ten readers now. If we all work together, I know we can hit fifteen by Christmas (2020).

My Dog Has Fleas

He doesn't, really.
He has diarrhea. Ask me how I found this out.
No, wait, don't ask.

Twenty eight gigabytes of sensitive intelligence agency files were left on a public Amazon server by one of the nation's top intelligence contractors without a password, according to a new report.

Twenty eight gigabytes (60,000 documents - rather a large amount) were left, exposed to anyone, on a public cloud server. With no password. Including a passwords to a government system containing sensitive information and the security credentials of a senior employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the country's top defense contractors. This means no hacking was required-you could have Top Secret Department of Defense access, for the taking.

The list of what is wrong with this is endless, even for first-year computer security students (and possibly their dogs).  This doesn't look good for Booz Allen, the same firm where Edward Snowden worked.

My prediction is that this will disappear quietly, if it even gets out of the gate. If it were to ever surface again, there will be an announcement that the federal government is very unhappy with Booz Allen, and have given them a stiffly-worded letter saying so and urging them to never do it again. Plus a several-million dollar fine, which will be of no consequence against their next humongous government contract.

• EMERGENCY warning, ladies, from England's Daily Star: Don't put wasp nests up your vagina. That is all.

A motorcycle gang stole Jeeps by accessing the secret database of replacement key codes. They stole them out of parking lots or wherever they could find them, started them via the stolen codes, then drove them to Mexico. Never underestimate the power of Motas, Chi Chi, Guero, Guerito, and Edwin, among others. On your way out, don't forget to make fun of me for having an older car that won't remote-start.

• Kmart is dealing with its second credit card breach in less than three years. They could have planned this at a more convenient time, with Sears closing both stores.
• It is my observation that hacking Kmart didn't have to be such a laborious project. They could just hack it from the inside. One or two guys with t-shirts that say HACKER, in bright yellow letters, just walk up to a register and install the malware. Kmart is such an unholy, understaffed mess (at least mine are), that no one would notice.
• When asked for comment, Kmart said to wait in one of two lines with ten people in front of you and two cashiers running all over the store for unpriced items.

Piper Harron, a professor at the University of Hawaii has said that white men should be banned from teaching. She wrote an article saying 'If you are a white cis man, you almost certainly should resign from your position of power. Thats right, please quit. Too difficult? Well, as a first step, at least get off your hiring committee, your curriculum committee, and make sure you're replaced by a woman of color or trans person.'  It's good to know that in 2017, it's perfectly ok to come out and make this statement. It's a very good thing that it was not made by a caucasian, or the shitstorm would be monumental.

• One of Jerry Garcia's guitars (named Wolf for its wolf inlay) just sold for $1.9 million at auction. Next month, his body will be auctioned. It is expected to fetch between $900k and $3billion.

Earlier I told you about Evergreen State College, where leftist students demanded all white people take a day off. The college was evacuated and closed today due to a "direct threat to campus safety". I'm sure they will launch an immediate investigation (into how to make the lives of the threateners more comfortable and listen intently to their demands).

The world continues to get weirder by the day, just when you think it can't get any more weird. What's worse, you couldn't possibly make this stuff up in the wildest of literary satire.

• One of those nice Muslim men claimed to have explosives with him, as he tried to enter the cockpit of a Malaysia Airlines flight. He was tackled by eleven passengers and did not make it to the cockpit. The industry could save a lot of money on air marshals because travelers are FED UP with this and will use it as an excuse to act out. I predict hijackings will stop as the hijackers realize they're more likely to get the stuffing beat out of them than hijack the plane.

Muppet Paws Strikes Again

An Ikea museum has opened in Sweden, celebrating the firm's history. Next month, K-Mart is opening a similar museum. In a restroom somewhere in Detroit.

• Been thinking of a new pet for Marshall. The idea of a sloth is interesting. Even if you go to sleep for the night, he'll only get ten feet total from the bed.

During a planned active shooter drill at Andrews Joint Base, an real life active shooter alert was called. The base reported it. The press reported it. The Secretary of Defense reported it. And hour later, the alert was called off, stating it was a planned active shooter drill. Because the base, the press and the Secretary of Defense don't know and can't tell the difference. Nothing to see here - move along.

• According to a Baltimore professor, white people need to give all their money to black people. You can't even write parody as good as real life anymore.

Although we know that Faceyspaces is inherently evil, statistics dictate that some of the people here use it. I won't call you out by name (because I don't know it) but I'd like to share with you this guide to FB security settings.

• Over 100 women posed naked against Trump in front of the Republican National Convention. This is a short-term goal for me that's close to my heart.
• Speaking of the RNC, as we'd expect, it started with a prayer. Yeah, separation at its finest. Also, one of the featured speakers is from Duck Dynasty. That's putting your best foot forward, guys.

Did you know that your plane cannot take off until they're sure the coffee maker works?
I suspect they fear armed insurrection if it doesn't.

• I was told a long time ago that guitar players got all the girls. And I hear that women love a sense of humor. I should be doing better than Leo DiCaprio at this point...

A man shot at two teens playing Pokemon, mistaking them for intruders. I say he didn't mistake them, which makes it a service to the neighborhood.

• In the oasis of Afghanistan, a pregnant fourteen year old girl was burned to death in an 'honor killing'.  What other religion has these advantages... you can impregnate an underage girl then kill her for having sex and being pregnant?

Exercise, they said...the doc told me it would be a good idea. So I bought a stepper, assembled it with a lot of screaming, and proceeded to go against everything I stood for. It was horrible.

Back at the doctor's, he asked how it was coming. I told him exactly how it was going: I got on the stepper and watched every second go by, calculating how long it would take til I could stop. The doctor, bless his soul, said that if exercise caused me this kind of grief, I shouldn't do it.

I now have Doctor's Advice not to exercise. My life is complete.

Go outside, they said.. feeling brave, I took the dog out back. Smelling the air, post heatwave, I looked around at my back yard (that I hate because I have to mow it). There sure were a lot of trees that I didn't know existed. They provided needed shade. I began to think that maybe I could spend a few minutes out there, maybe with a laptop (there's no helping me). 

Feeling positive, we went back inside, to the air conditioning... where I noticed the itching, where several bugs bit my legs. Up and down. 

Now I need a doctor's note to keep me inside, on my glorious couch.  

What's Black and Scrubs Your Back?

Martin Loofa.
[timely, no?]


So I have a new job.  More on that later.

The real excitement is depression.  Let me rephrase that... two solid months of depression.  Let me embellish. My dear wife has gone through two solid months of depression. Folks with bipolar disorder tend to swing from manic to depressed (Manic Depression - Jimi Hendrix). Two months of depression is really rather a lot. For anyone. In fact, it's unprecedented here.  After a brief conversation with the psychiatrist, it was time to take a trip to....

THE HAPPY PLACE

Yes, the Happy Place<tm>. Otherwise known as The Booby Hatch. Funny Farm. Loony Bin. Madhouse. Laughing Academy. Etc.  I'm kinda shocked at all the synonyms for this. I'm kinda unhappy too, as I like to refer to our house as The Madhouse.

It's not what you think it is.  Or maybe it is, depending on what you think.  Over the years, there have been a few trips there, little with any real comedy potential.  Generally, things are pretty calm. This time we hit the jackpot.

There are many units there, for people with different disorders and capabilities. This one seemed fairly nice.  I was allowed two one-hour visitations per day (this would have worked better when I was unemployed, not that I'm nostalgic or anything). When I got there, I was introduced to Nina, a very nice girl. Ten minutes later, Nina handed us a note. It said we were a great couple and that Jesus loved us. We should play the lottery precisely because Jesus loves us.

Uh-oh.

Then there was Sara, an eighty year old lady with one of those diseases that makes you shake. She would get so angry at her hands for shaking that she'd yell horrible things at them. Anatomically impossible things. As a result, she scared the poop out of most people (except for my wife, of course). There was also Julio, the Manic Hispanic. Julio is a great kid but apparently under-medicated. They were watching DVDs and Julio was reciting the lines along with the characters. Loudly.  Mania and noise have a negative effect on me so we moved to the next room.

In the next room, we were serenaded by Vicky the Snorer.  We'd get a word or two out and then [SNORE] and a few more words [SNORE]. A nurse interrupted her slumber to let her know that this was not good behavior. She agreed and quickly resumed snoring.

Nina came back and asked if we had read the letter.  Apparently Nina had written a letter to everybody, including the staff and visitors, about Jesus.  I think most of them knew already, so it got to be annoying.  I told my wife that they had better explain that this was not acceptable before someone with less understanding than me (really?) popped her in the nose.

Today's visit started with Nina asking if she could sit with me until my wife returned. With all of the goodness I could muster, I said yes.  She actually got an entire sentence out before she mentioned Jesus. If we weren't at the Happy Place<tm>, I would have brought out my inner Satan. She was good enough to leave when my wife came back.

Shortly before I arrived, Nina flipped out on her group, which upset everyone. I suspect they finally decided to send her to the Jesus Ward.  A further person debated me on how great a president Obama is. I had to keep reminding myself to behave. Of course she was arguing this point - the lady was in the mental ward.

If you're still following this, you probably have one question: how did they allow me to leave?
No, the other question: how is my wife.

Thanks for asking - she's pretty good, all things considered.

FALLOUT

You're probably asking yourself what's been going on at the house while Mom's in the hospital.
Glad you asked.

The real loony bin is the house.  The pets have taken full advantage of the situation. Marshall has taken to waking me at obscene hours of the morning to go outside. Mind you, this only happens when Mommy goes away. So far he's gotten me up at 5, 3 and 7 on alternating days. Here I am, all set to sleep late (job starts at 8am) and the little monster decides to play Fun with Daddy.

I thought I got away with ignoring him the first time but he showed me: he got into something and had diarrhea. The other times were just for fun.  Ever have to keep watch on a dog at 3am, so he doesn't run around the side of the house and bark? In the freezing cold? Naked?

As I mentioned a while back, the cat is diabetic, so he needs insulin shots. Unfortunately his daddy doesn't do needles, so a brave family member stops by to Dart the Cat. Unfortunately the brave family member lost my keys, so the cat missed a day or two. As a result, he's been rewarding me by peeing all over the house. Naturally I found this out the hard way. We actually have puppy pee pads two feet from his litter box because he likes going there for some reason. This is by his Southern Litter Box. The Northern Litter Box is near the kitchen. He avoids that one by peeing on the rug near the sink, which is how I discovered there was a problem. Ever do dishes and wonder if you spilled water, only to discover that it wasn't water? Yeah, that.

Marshall won't eat his food when nobody's home, although he will dive right for cat food, so I know he's not sick. He also goes Fishing for Treasure in the Cat Box, a game nobody wants to watch. To change things up, he 'helped' me clean the rug yesterday. I had to clean the rug because every time I clean the rug, he magically makes tissues appear, then shreds them all over the rug.  So he helped me clean by continually sticking his nose in the bag I used for picking up the detritus from the last time he shredded. He really seemed to enjoy that bag. After I got home later that evening, he had gotten into my work bag and consumed three fruit bars, shredding the silver wrappers all over the rug. Mind you, there was not a single crumb of fruit bar - only wrapper.

KMART

On the way to the Happy Place<tm>, I was ordered to stop at KMart and pick up a few games and puzzles for the folks.  Happy to contribute, I unhappily stopped at KMart. Unhappily because KMart is a hell hole. Every time I go there, there are unbelievable lines at the cashier. Apparently putting more than one or two cashiers at registers physically hurts management, so they make sure there aren't enough cashiers at any single time.

The parking lot had so few cars in it, I wondered if they were even open. After locating everything I was ordered to procure (coloring books are with office supplies and puzzles are with toys), I made my way to pay for them, with just enough time to get to the hospital.

Heh heh heh.
I had forgotten where I was.

There were exactly two lanes open, one of which had customers bailing out. The register must have started spitting out lungs or bullets or whatever KMart registers spit out (anything but register tape or change). People were fleeing the aisle with arms full of boxes and bags.

I was in the other lane, which had inexplicably ground to a halt, for no apparent reason.  Ah, I thought to myself.. I'm at KMart. This is precisely why I don't go there, not even with my wife.  Several millenia later, there was only one person in front of me. By this point, I had given up on seeing my wife on time.  The lady in front of me had one tiny little box (of fiber bars, don't ask), so this was a slam dunk.

Not so fast, Coloring Book Boy.

The register had stopped spitting out register tape, so the guy allegedly operating the register called a halt to operations (how could one tell?) and threaded the paper into the machine.  Or rather, he tried to thread the tape through the machine. He seemed to be a fairly competent cashier, which should have made me suspicious in the first place, so I figured I was in the right line for once. However, the simple act of putting new paper in the register was obviously beyond his meager capabilities. He kept jamming it in, folding it, ripping it and completely failing to get the paper through the slot.  I suggested if perhaps he hit it, REALLY HARD, that might help.  After a few more failed tries, I told him that I was going to hit it REALLY HARD. I even reached out to help him.

A small cheer went through the line as the cashier finally succeeded in putting more paper in the blasted machine. Fiber Lady paid with some sort of loyalty card and, as a result, somehow wound up getting fourteen receipts (I was terrified the paper would run out again) AND a whole lot of change that required meticulous counting out.

Sweaty and nervous, I stepped up to the plate (my only sports metaphor for the year). Register D00d got me checked out in record time, although he bagged stuff up and never exactly told me how much I owed. Having eventually gotten that out of the way, I ran to the car and took off.

When I got to the hospital, I noticed something was missing. Yes, Register D00d had somehow managed to keep one of the coloring books for himself and I somehow managed to not notice it til an hour later. WHY DID I EVER GO TO KMART?


So yeah, I have a new job.
I'll tell you about it next time.