Lonelier Than a Nun in a Room Full of Priests

I've been reading about cheap laptops. It never hurts to have a cheap second machine around, in case the first one goes tits up or only half the display displays.  There's a very interesting product called the Pinebook. It's a community-driven project to produce dirt cheap linux laptops. I can't find any reference to it working with Windows, sorry. At least I looked.

The first machine is the Pinebook. It comes with an 11" or 14" display and goes for the heavy price of $99. Before you do anything, read the review. There are some gotchas, but nothing showstopping. You have to decide. At this this price, it's worth it to have a laptop to learn linux. And when I say learn, it operates pretty much like Windows: you use the menu to choose a program and go. The program menus have everything you're used to: save, print, quit, etc. If you're clever, you can even make it look like Windows. There's not much of a learning curve - you hook it to your wireless and go. It runs all the same browsers except Internet Explorer [not a single snide comment from me].

BUT there's more!  Pine64 is taking preorders for the Pinebook Pro. At $199, it might just be a bargain. It has more power and other improvements. Keep in mind the above review is for the earlier $99 Pinebook, not the Pinebook Pro.

Here's one consideration: the laptops are designed to be bargains. They are not equipped with the latest and greatest processors. At this price for a brand new laptop, you have a bargain. It's absolutely fine for surfing, email, and other apps. I'm thinking about one. If you have any questions, ask.

I realize I don't have a ton of readers who use linux, but wanted to present it to everyone.  There are all sorts of linux laptops, from the specifically built power machines ($1,000 to $2,000 and up) to used Thinkpads ($cheap - you have to install linux, but it's known to work on these). It runs on most anything, but I'd avoid new laptops because there might not be drivers for everything yet. It has worked on the last 5 laptops I had, without issues.




As some of you know, my father died suddenly.
People who unaware of this ask me how he's doing. What do I say?

How is he?
He isn't.

I might need a better answer.



Remember the component engineer's classic definition of a connector:
it's a source of trouble that joins two other sources of trouble.



Dear lefty

• How many cocker spaniels does it take to change a lightbulb?
• One to distract Dad and one to eat Dad's dinner.

Today's Question: Why are there three, no, FOUR knots in Penny's leash?
The question here is not why there are knots. The question is what the response to the question should be. I beg your forgiveness? I have no idea? Is this an actual problem? Have you asked Penny? Is that the one we use for..... never mind.

• A Cape Cod study finds no easy way to stop shark attacks
• Don't sharks know there's a law against attacking us?

Today I identify as the First Lady's thong

• The pope warned against obesity.  Still no warning about being a young boy anywhere close to his minions....

No thank you, I'd rather take Cardio B to a hotel




The news is full of topics, mainly the fact that today is the first International Space Station spacewalk with two women.  A news story featured a professor of astronomy talking about this. I'm not sure how a studier of planets is qualified to speak about the ISS, but let's give her the benefit of doubt. She was all abuzz about showing that women can do it. "History is being made."

Ummm.... these are astronauts. They are incredibly highly qualified and trained. If they are not capable of a spacewalk, they wouldn't be there. NASA doesn't send astronauts to the ISS because of their plumbing. Will the news provide 24/7 coverage of the first two left handed astronauts doing a spacewalk? If you think about it, the people celebrating this are saying women have to prove themselves. That's sexist.

• The Postal Service is exploring the use of drones to deliver mail
• They're running into difficulty training them to be surly and late.

He started murdering women on South Florida, then became the worst serial killer in US history

• a 75 year old woman jumped to her death from the Costa Pacifica cruise ship's balcony.
• That was a very expensive suicide. Don't they have balconies at home?

I've ranted previously on unboxing videos, but one just annoyed me so you have to read an additional rant... Let's think about this a second. Someone got a videocam or phonecam and took video of someone literally opening a box and showing you the object. That's it. Even the people born without imagination find this ridiculous. If I want to watch a video of someone opening a box, I'll take some recreational pharmaceuticals and see it in my head. There was no voiceover in this video: just the sound of taking the object out of the box. It's like xmas, when you open a present.... riiiiiiippp. People watch this crap?






Heroes of the Stupid

A loyal reader was waiting for UPS to deliver a package. On the first day, it was 250 miles away, on its way. One the 2nd day, it had been misrouted. To Honolulu. That's approximately 5553 miles, with no driving directions available.

Ladies, you are warned not to use toothpaste to tighten your vagina. Among other things, it burns. This is on the heels of men using toothpaste to last longer in bed.  In other news, toothpaste sales are through the roof, as are emergency room visits.

The UK installed a knife surrender bin to curb knife crime. Criminals stole all the knives.   Hey Beto - how about a gun surrender bin?

A Dutch father and six adult children have been discovered living inside the cellar of a farmhouse, where they were waiting 9 years for the 'end of days.'




SJW Attack

Trump policies, racism may cause some black women's weight problems, professor says.

Fists, Rocks, Chains, Knives, and Guns

UK Knife Crime Protection Orders would impose sanctions - including bans on using social media - on anyone aged 12 or over suspected of being involved in knife crime, even if they have not been caught with a blade....

While Americans snort and fall down laughing, this brings up several points:
First, the UK is very silly.
Second, the UK is a staging ground for what's coming.
Third, nothing changes.

Let's face it - we can pretty much replace knife with gun. This makes the panic more interesting and enlightening. You know the criminals are saying, "We can't stab him - we'll be locked out of Faceyspaces!" I'm sure we can agree that threats of punishment are useless, just as they are for most crime. You can get the death penalty for murder - does that stop anybody? I will admit that no one has ever proposed a social media ban for murder (or even shooting). How a social media ban would work is yet another interesting topic. Don't forget, the UK has made it 'illegal' to say Bad Things about people online... the police will visit. This also trips up the American concept of due process - you're punished before you're proven innocent or guilty... somewhat draconian, wouldn't you say?

This brings home that people will find a way to assault others, whether verbally or with implements. Banning any of them won't help - people will just use others. The problem goes deeper, a concept we won't bother discussing at the moment. Eventually people will be assaulting others with phasers, tasers, lasers, masers, ray guns, and invisibility beams. We'll see the same impotent responses too.

• Apparently there was a sale on candy.... three very large party packs of caramel M&Ms just appeared. The first one is almost done, because it's like crack to me. I'd think she wanted to kill me with chocolate, but we don't have enough life insurance to make it worthwhile for her (on purpose). 

Dear lefty:

• Is there anything good about Philly?
• Yes, leaving it to get to the surrounding suburbs.

Washington state declared a state of emergency over an outbreak of measles.

Not to be outdone, Alabama declared a state of emergency over expected bad weather.

California is about to declare a state of emergency over a shortage of cosmetic plastic.

Florida (God's waiting room) has been hit hard with a shortage of waitresses for the 3-4pm dinner shift.

A homeless Georgia man is accused of breaking into a funeral home and raping a woman's corpse.

When asked why, he said that raping a man's corpse would be gay.

• for some reason I really want to be here right now. To play and to feel....

It was a new day. A new week. There was sun outside. The temps were above single digits.
The children, recently frozen to the ground, were being collected and taken inside.
The snow lost its battle with temperature, I lost my battle with the printer, and a lot of people continued to hate the president. The marital conversation with the baseball bats had taken a temporary break, and I got invited to perform at an album release party. I accepted before they told me how they wanted me to perform.

• To the families of passengers on Flight 234: When we say we'll have you on the runway in 5 minutes, we're not kidding. We will let you know when we find the rest of the plane.

A 4 year old boy in Washington state found a handgun and shot his 8 months pregnant mother in the face. Fortunately her condition has improved, and the child, much to his disappointment, will not remain an only child.

• A Texas man was killed when his vape pen exploded. RIP.
• Nobody listens to me when I say smoking kills.

Dear lefty:

• Sonny Smellenbad, of Selma, San Francisco, asks why he has so much trouble smelling salts
• Because when you were born, your mother didn't know if you were hers or not.

President Trump gave his 2nd State of the Union speech recently. 

Opposition boycotted the speech, saying Trump lied. Asked what he lied about, they said it didn't matter - whatever it is, they're against it.

• I hate to say this, but the 4th season of Monty Python suffered greatly from the absence of John Cleese. Reached for comment, Mr. Cleese said, "The season is dead. It's a stiff. It's bleedin demised."

Hey, it's been at least 5 minutes since my last rant, so here's another. We call this Let's Ship with UPS:

Some work equipment developed an attitude so they sent me replacements. They came with a UPS return label, which was their first mistake. I sealed the box up and went online to schedule a pickup. That was my first mistake. Like most of us, avoiding human contact is a bonus.  Got through all the forms online with no grief, then it asked me for payment. It's a prepaid label, complete with tracking number. Naturally there is no way to indicate this, although I certainly tried.

Shit - human contact.

Well, maybe not. The phone sent me to a voice response system, to which I gave all my information again. I had no idea blood type was so important to shipping. Sure enough, it wanted payment too. So far this is two automated systems that wanted money. I need one of these, so whoever calls me has to pay, with no option not to pay before talking to me. I picked out random words to say to the system, including some rather interesting ones, and finally got shipped to an operator. I could understand most words she spoke, which worried me.  At the end, she told me that since I scheduled a pickup, there would be a $20.17 charge for a pickup.

No there wouldn't.

Bill it to my employer. They sent me the bloody label. It's their friggin equipment. Believe me, they want it back in the region of NOW. They will pay the charge. They're a rather large organization. In fact, they're a really large organization. Bill them.

Nope. She kept with the script.

I wondered how far her training went and did they cover Master-level sarcasm.

She kept with the script, only worded differently.

She was good.

Even after I explained my company's budget, the fact they sent me the label to return it ($437 next day shipping), and read her home address to her, she asked me how I wanted to pay.

I didn't.

She suggested I could get the receiver to call her and tell her how they were going to pay. They wouldn't schedule the pickup until they heard from the company. You worked some jobs at some places - I know this. You had shipper/receivers. Nobody on the planet ever called your shipper/receivers to ask how they were going to pay for a package's pick up charge. Even if they had, the employees weren't about to give out their personal credit cards. Or blood type. 

I shook my head in defeat, as I pulled out my card. That package was going nowhere until *I* paid the charge to have a truck come pick it up. By now those drones were starting to sound attractive, especially versus talking to UPS. The shipping instructions said PREPAID. They didn't say PREPAID except you have to go to a UPS location to drop it off. They also didn't say "you have to take off during work hours to go drop the package off." I was perfectly willing to give them my firstborn, but no....

Next time I have to call UPS, I'll save the trouble and call City Hall instead. Twice the pain in half the time, and no one will pick my package up anyway.

BUT WAIT!!!!

My company was not amused by this and rang UPS immediately. I got a phone number to get a refund immediately. The system gave me 3 choices, one of which it couldn't understand. Repeatedly. Eventually I continued in the system, reaching a Refund Person. Refund person took the details, said, Ohhhh" and had to send me somewhere else.  Of course she did - I needed a refund and went to the refund department - how stupid could I be? Off to Billing, where I got to hear the same jaunty two chords for about 10 minutes, while they hoped beyond hope that I got fed up and hung up. The mean time for holding is 8 minutes, per a study on this kind of thing, so they wait at least 10 before answering.

Another nice lady answered and asked for my tracking number: a 34 digit imaginary code, including the day of the week, week of the year, the employee's employee number and nostril size. This number should have transferred with my call, but industry studies say pretending it didn't got people to hang up faster, avoiding any refund and buffing up the bottom line. Oh dear... the tracking number isn't in the system yet.

Not in the system.
No.
You delivered it this morning.
Yes.
You picked it up yesterday.
Yes.
And charged me for the privilege.
Yes. Think of it as an Uber.
It was prepaid.
Well, you don't prepay Uber. It's the original shipper's responsibility to tell us to pick up the package. You get a preprinted label.
I got a prepaid label. It said prepaid.
I see.
No you don't. These people have shipped a few parcels - they know what they're doing.
You will have to wait until it's 'in the system' for a refund.
You didn't have any trouble charging me when it wasn't in the system.
A refund can't be processed until it's billed, which only happens on a full moon in Decemburary, weekly. You can then request a refund. Or do it online, where you can't hear us laughing at you directly.

Passed Over

I'd like to wish my Jewish friends a Happy Passover.
But I can't, because it was a little while ago.
So I'll wish them a happy end of Passover.
The end of Passover, as I understand it, is the happiest part of Passover.

What is Passover?
Way back in the times when Charlton Heston parted Bea Arthur's hair and men rode on armed Chevrolet platforms pulled by octopi; Jesus had, through no fault of his own, become dead. This was later featured in Monty Python's Life of Brian. The Romans, a cheerful group that occasionally nailed people to wood, nailed Jesus to wood. Then they did what every forward-thinking civilization does - they put him in a cave with a huge rock in front of it, so his dead body couldn't escape. Well, Jesus showed them.... he came out of his cave in February and saw his shadow, indicating that everyone was in for four more weeks of pretending a rabbit is going to bring you candy.

Jesus was in no mood for this sort of thing and passed over everyone's houses, guaranteeing that Air Traffic Control would have to lie again and tell everyone there was no unidentified flying lord on their radar that day. And to this day, the holiday is celebrated by the Jews with matzoh, because they couldn't eat bread during the time Jesus passed over their house, because the village baker was on vacation that week. The baker's apprentice was on a bender, having been to see the Dead the night before. This was before Jerry grew a beard.

Now, allow me to share another tradition that is not taught in your comparative religion class...  For reasons unknown, Jews tend to buy too much matzoh and 'kosher for Passover' food for Passover. Considering that matzoh tastes worse than the cardboard box it comes in, overestimating the quantity borders on the insane. So at the end of Passover, there's all sorts of kosher food left. What is kosher food? In high school, my Jewish girlfriend said it was food that a rabbi spit on. That was good enough for me. If I didn't agree, I was going home by myself, so she was always right.

There is also something called guh-fil-ta fish. Don't bother asking me how it's spelled - it's spelled the way I spell it. The girlfriend showed it to me once. Your traditional fish, they come from water. You fish for them, they bite the hook, then you take them home to a woman, who guts them, throws them out, and cooks frozen fish she has on hand for just such emergencies. Guh-fil-ta fish does not come from water; it comes from a bottle. No, really. Ok, there is some water in the bottle, but it's mostly this very strange clear jelly, which doesn't show up on the periodic table. The 'fish' doesn't have a tail. Or eyes. Or any other characteristics that would identify it as a fish. Or even something that was alive at one time. It looks like...ummm... a sort of almost colorless almost gray.. ummm.. turd. There's really no way to describe it... run down to your supermarket this minute and look for a jar. It's craggy, like the surface of the moon, from where it's thought to originate. It is virtually flavorless.. more of a texture, like a fast food burger or something you make out of a cat. As if this weren't enough, they dip it in this Purple Stuff. Being the good boyfriend, I did. OHMYFRIGGINGOD WHYDIDN'TTHEYTELLMETHISSHITIS HORSERADISH? It is the most potent form of horseradish known to man, disguised as Purple Stuff. It was my girlfriend's family tradition to burn someone's nasal tract to hell every year on Passover. To this day, I cannot deal with purple food and never grew back my sinuses.

Mrs leftystrat's buddy celebrates Passover, and thus winds up with lots of leftover matzoh. Every year she asks Mrs leftystrat if she'd like some. Every year, Mrs leftystrat gets excited and says she loves matzoh and would be happy to take some. Every year I ask why anyone would voluntarily eat that stuff and besides, she never eats it anyway. Every year she lists the things she can make with it, number one being fried matzoh. I saw fried matzoh once. Only once. I shall attempt to describe it thusly: take a dry, flat, moistureless cracker, and fry it. In essence, you have Deep Fried Cardboard, with extra grease. Each piece weighs ten pounds and everyone claims to love it, although you never see anyone actually eating it.

Within two days, a five pound box of matzoh shows up, unopened. I told you there's overbuying.  Five pounds of matzoh is enough to feed an entire village in the time of Yul Brynner's shiny, bald head. And he died of cancer... draw your own conclusions. The matzoh sits out in a very conspicuous place for a few days, then goes to the pantry. Where it sits until at least the next Passover, by which time it hasn't expired. In fact, matzoh never expires - it's just a conspiracy by the Matzoh Lobby to sell more.

And that, folks, is the Secret Passover Tradition.



Say, it's around the middle of April, isn't it....?
That means it's Tax Time!
Tax Time: when you have to pay more of your money, or you get some of your money back, without interest, because the feds aren't interested in you.

Cheech and Chong, a married couple (their names were changed to protect the IRS) waited til the last minute, as they did every year, to file their taxes. They purchased an expensive tax program because their situation was weird. And who wouldn't have a weird situation if they had names like Cheech and Chong?

They fired up their tax program and for no particular reason, Chong turned ugly because she couldn't find her tax paperwork. She had only made three million dollars last year, which was a significant loss from the previous year's marijuana growing operation profits. Cheech asker her when she would like to start, as they were kinda due on this very day and Chong replied by suggesting something anatomically impossible, followed by telling him if he was so eager to start, perhaps he should start.

In fear for his life, Cheech put in his information and his earnings. Then it was again time for Chong, so he asked her for her paperwork. I CAN'T FIND IT but I can get a copy online. Cheech observed that she couldn't find the floor, then decided to keep that thought to himself; he had grown rather attached to his genitalia.

After establishing that the paperwork had mysteriously been eaten by either the house or the invisible goat, Chong decided to get the information online. And by get the information, I mean have Cheech go online. Whenever Chong tried to go online, she broke out in a cold sweat and the computer always wound up stapled to the front of the house, in a small bag of dark metal shavings, next to what remained of the monitor. Cheech went online, to the federal site, to get her information.

Oh no... you can't get your information on the site unless you set up an account. CHONG - what's your account name?

I don't have an account.

Ok, let me set up one for you.  Hey, it says there's already an account with your name. Did you set one up last year?

No.

Let me do a recovery for people who can't remember their names. Ok, your account is CHONG1234.

NO, MY PASSWORD IS CHONG1234.

You can argue with me if you like, but the site itself said your account is CHONG1234.  What's your password?

GODAMMIT, HOW SHOULD I KNOW?

The cat knew what was coming and retreated to the tornado shelter.

Let me see... ok, there's a password recovery. Ok, I.. oh wait... they are going to send you the password. In the mail. In 5-10 days.

THAT'S NOT GOING TO HELP ME. YOU NEED TO FILE FOR AN EXTENSION.

Oh, look... here are your security questions: what's your mother's middle name?

My mother doesn't have a middle name.

Ok then, just wait for that mail to arrive. Perhaps you should call and ask.

SURE - I'LL SIT THERE FOR HOURS, WAITING FOR THEM TO PICK UP THE PHONE AND TELL ME THEY CAN'T DO IT.

Play stupid - people will help.

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK I WAS GOING TO DO?

Cheech had a few suggestions as to what she could do, but decided it might not be a good idea to use his outside voice.

An hour later the problem was solved. The customer service person was unfailingly polite. She could not provide the password, but freely gave out the info Chong needed. Don't bother thinking about this - it will only cause serious headaches, resulting in your inability to understand Survivor.


Meanwhile in PA:

After, through some sort of miracle, we managed to file our tax return, we had to file the state return. Since the stupid tax software only runs on Windows, I had to bring up Windows. This is distasteful to me. I shudder involuntarily.

One of the good things about Windows is how it identifies hardware that you plug in. Since I needed to print the return, I plugged the printer in, waited too long, then got an error message that it couldn't install the hardware.  Funny, linux installed it in a blink of the eye.

Off I went to get the Windows driver.
Wife breaks out in a cold sweat when she has to do taxes. I break out in a cold sweat when going online to get something specific or ordering tickets or most transactions. This was no exception. After several clicks, I closed my eyes and clicked a few more times, eventually winding up at the drivers page. It correctly identified my operating system and helpfully told me it could not pull up the list of drivers - maybe I could reset the operating system and hit the update button. Only there was no update button, just a change button. So I updated and changed and it refused to let me. When I reloaded the page, it again correctly guessed my operating system again, and couldn't find the list of drivers again.

I can't download drivers from an official website for a huge printer company. Huge. Do you see why I break out in a cold sweat? Every time I need something. I tried two browsers, including [heaven help me] Internet Explorer.

So I rebooted into linux, the One True Operating System, and printed the file.
Windows: it's not an operating system, it's a virus.

• Seven students at an elementary school in Maryland cut their wrists at school using blades from pencil sharpeners.
• Well, I guess we're going to need pencil sharpener control.
• Oops, a ban on pencil sharpeners was announced.
• Things are going to look really weird when the district finishes banning everything the students can use to harm themselves or others. The kids will have to remove shoelaces and belts before they hit the metal detectors, which, instead of guns, will check for pencil sharpeners. Shirts and pants can be used to hang themselves, so they will have to go. Since children are cruel little bastards, they will pick on underwear, so that will also be forfeited. Then some parent will accuse first graders of raping each other so genitals will be banned...

You probably heard about the Southwest plane that was forced to land at Philly International after an engine blew and threw shrapnel through a window, which almost succeeded in sucking a passenger out a window. She was pulled back in by passengers and given CPR. Unfortunately she died. A tremendous job was done by the pilot and passengers. The passenger was the first death in an accident involving a US airline since 2009. This is some safety record. Condolences to family and friends.

• We mourn the passing of Barbara Bush (92). She seemed like a really good person. Her choice in men was questionable...

Starbucks is closing over 8,000 stores for racial-bias education day.

What about gender bias?

Unconscious transgender bias?

Secret Antisemitism?

Latent Latino bias?

within a few years, they're going to have to recover from Cracker Bias.

• A panhandler stabbed a man with a steak knife in New York City when the man refused to give him money.
• SHIT. Prepare for knife control.

A transgender woman is claiming discrimination because she was booked into the male section of the Sacramento County Jail. The jail promised to send her some money when it gets a job.

The person identifies as a transgender woman. I identify as a surface to air missile. What section will the drop ME into? First you have to check to see if I have the correct surface to air missile parts.

"My humanity was stripped."  Sorry, you can't say huMANity. It's sexist.

She feared for her safety in the male population. "I have female body parts; I just felt dehumanized." I think part of the problem here is that she also has male body parts.

I am not lacking in compassion. I feel compassion for the poor jail staff, who weren't sure what to do with this lady. Seriously.. if she has any more than the required male or female parts, or they're intermixed, what are they supposed to do? The woman was moved to the female population in short order. A spokesman said transgenders are always booked separately. Furthermore, the woman was put into a cell by herself, which happened to be on the male side.

Naturally, transgender advocates are up in arms, demanding transgender equality behind bars. Naturally, I have a solution: if transgender and other people spent more time IN bars, they wouldn't spend much time BEHIND them. My other suggestion is, heaven forbid, not to do the kind of stuff which would land you behind bars.

• The phalanx of lawyers hired by Bill Cosby to defend him against rape charges put their heads (or some other body parts) together and came up with a bulletproof defense: Bill doesn't like intercourse.
• In addition, they claim each one of the fifty women made it up.
• Who, aside from married women, doesn't like intercourse?

Because it's been quiet at Starbucks(?), a camera has been discovered in the rest room of an Atlanta suburb's store.  An alert customer removed the camera and took it to the manager. The manager immediately called Corporate, which asked if it took any video of People of Color using the bathroom. The camera will also go for bias training when the chain closes its 8,000 stores.

• The Jacksons are very concerned for Paris, daughter of Michael 'No Nose' Jackson, noted racist who tried to become white. Suicide attempts, self-harm, and substance use have plagued her life. 
• Grandmother Jackson became distraught when she learned Paris was dating a model/actress. Grandma is 'not a champion of same sex relationships' and 'believes she may have failed as a guardian'.
• Paris' godfather is Macaulay Culkin. Her relationships with men have been rocky.
• In what possible universe could a child of Michael Jackson turn out to have trouble?

Speaking of unrelated matters, Michael's other child, Blanket, is still suffering PTSD from being called Blanket. Matriarch Katherine put together a documentary only available to paying fans. Joe Jackson, Michael's father, said Blanket is bound for greatness, because he was told so by a fortune teller. Is Michael starting to make sense to you now?

Prince Jackson, Michael's son, has been very quiet since his teenage years. He is rumored to be in a special clinic in the Azores, for children of celebrities to learn how to misbehave and start a life of crisis and gender confusion. Prince had his first nose job at five.

I think the courts should have stepped in and taken Michael, for his own good. Perhaps then he and his poor kids would have had a chance. Prince, Paris, and Blanket: it's time to find a good influence and listen carefully.

• In Chicago, an elderly woman was found pushing a shopping cart which contained the body of a black woman. Police released no other details.
• You mean you're not supposed to push carts with dead bodies in them in Chicago? That's not what I heard.
• The elderly woman was sent to Starbucks for bias training.

Revenge porn, the practice of putting pictures or video online featuring your ex to shame them, is a hot topic on the internet. One popular site was taken down already. A Texas appeals court just ruled that revenge porn is protected by the First Amendment, noting that it usually prohibits "content based" restrictions.

As a First Amendment proponent, this is a very interesting case, which could wind up at the Supreme Court. I haven't seen the law, which covers a small portion of Texas, and is supposedly vague.

• I joke and snicker about Knife Control, as we all should. Today brings the news that a Texas mother who lost her son in a knife attack is calling for knife control, stating that the perp “should have not been allowed to have an illegal knife on him and use it to murder somebody.”
• Should we set up knife checkpoints all over Texas? If this was, as she said, an illegal knife, this proves that any sort of control will fail. And what's an illegal knife?
• It's bad enough that we have a country desperately trying to be a Nanny State, but useful idiots like this are making it worse.

RIP Coal: one of the good ones.

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).