Who Let lefty Out Again?

Go piss up a rope - I do get out sometimes.

After bringing death to a bunch of computers, laptops, and android devices, I had to buy Stuff to fix the lot of them. The quickest stop was Best Buy (uh-oh) - this was my first mistake. I researched everything I wanted online first, so I knew what I was getting. This was my second mistake.

Walk into most stores and it goes one of two ways: Can I help you with anything or IF I WAVE MONEY, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE CARE OF ME? I prefer the latter, which is what I got. This was my third mistake. I did enjoy floundering about, like Michael Moore in a candy store that doesn't really have lots of different kinds of candy in it, but it's still entrancing.  The Humongo Size TV setup, that comes with a couch and coordinated lamps, was playing Bohemian Rhapsody. The actor playing Freddie had huge, ugly pores.

But seriously, folks, I needed an SD card. And if I could remember which one I needed, I'd be in good shape. There were SDs, SDUHCs, SDFUs, and Spiderman Special SD-Xs. Plus they have grades or some other rating system, which covers how fast they fall when dropped into Niagara Falls. I went for the fastest faller because I'm that kinda guy.

The it was Mouse Time.
I would have done better going to The Mouse House in Florida, Home of Mickey, built by a rabid antisemitic called Roger Waters Walt.
We know I've been around a bit. When mice first hit the stores, they were ridiculously expensive and large. I liked them. Unfortunately you could not find a large mouse if your life depended on it. They're all varying degrees of tiny, like a convention of Small People. Then there are the portable ones, which are even smaller. Children benefit from this, but not adults (or large children with big hands, like me). I found one off-brand wired mouse. Little did I know I was only getting warmed up.

With fear and trepidation, I made it to the final department. I was brave, though; I didn't take the blindfold or the cigarette. I wanted a generic 24" monitor. This was the mistake that would be my previous mistake plus one (I think we're up to four now).  There were certainly a lot of monitors. They were certainly hooked up to a lot of computers. Few were for sale, just the ones that had prices that dwarfed the price we paid for our last few cars. The formula seems to be that a 24" monitor costs $150, but call it a 24" Gaming monitor and you can charge $599 for it.

I had no choice but to flag down a Helpful Sales Consultant.
Unfortunately they were all out of Helpful Sales Consultants. There weren't even any Generally Pissed Off or Grumpy Sales Consultants. I stood there, counting down until it was time to use the phrase, "IF I WAVE MONEY, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE CARE OF ME?" It was then that I discovered the secret to good service: be a woman. An attractive one. I noticed that the Helpful Sales Consultants, all male, were 'taking care of' attractive females, who had trouble telling left from right. Fortunately for them, they have two breasts, or all hell would break loose. Due to my inability to be a woman, good or bad looking, my temperature started going up. I thought of all sorts of interesting ways to either attract a Helpful Sales Consultant or put on a show so good, they'd talk about it for years (and I'd be banned from every Best Buy on the east coast).

Funny, there sure were lots of employees on and about the phones. Some were talking to the People Known as Customers, but most were doing what they do best: standing around, getting paid, and laughing with other employees about the sad state of the stock market these days and the poor suckers trying to get their attention.  Five of them were holding hands in a circle, dancing around a cash register, performing some sort of ritual, designed perhaps to attract more customers (that they wouldn't acknowledge). Another two were having oral under a counter. Or they might've been eating dinner... same thing.

FINALLY I located a Helpful Sales Consultant who looked like he knew what he was doing (he was over 17). He was with someone else, but promised to send another Helpful Sales Consultant over for me. Of course he lied, but everybody felt better for those five seconds. While waiting for this alleged help, two more employees came by, with two more attractive women. What I wouldn't do for a vagina at that point (I always say that). FINALLY someone else came over, strictly by accident. Had he heard someone needed help, he'd be over playing with the Barbies. Still.

I told him what I wanted and he looked at me like I was a blithering idiot and what specific specs did the items have? Oh, a monitor? All we have is over on that shelf - take a look and see if it's what you want.  Now I don't want the guy to hold my hand (or anything else) but you think there would be some effort there. 'Over there' turned out to be shelves with 8 monitors, including exactly no 24" monitors. Makes perfect sense, right? Helpful Sales Consultant indicated that was about it. I helpfully asked what about the ten 24" monitors I saw online and pulled one up. He asked why not have it delivered to my house. No problem - can you guarantee I'll get it tomorrow? He looked and pronounced it would be ready to ship in exactly two weeks, which, as you know, is a lot longer than tomorrow. He further let me know if I wanted a monitor tonight, I'd have to get one from the shelf or I'd be S.O.L. (Sarah's Other Licker or Shit Out of luck, depending). Anything he ordered would take 2 weeks.

Oh.

Why did the website tell me to pick the monitor up at my local store?

Because you can pick it up at the store after your order it.

What kind of Joe Biden operation are they running? You can have whatever you want, at whatever price you want, provided you wait a few weeks. If I wanted a monitor, I could have gone to a number of places, but I stupidly went to the one with all the inventory listed on their page. It's like the blindfolded throwing darts in the dark, or Kevin Spacey with a hot chick.

Mind you, I got everything else without ordering it (or being accosted by different Helpful Sales Consultants). I couldn't decide whether I was Superman or Arthur, The Moth.



BUT WAIT... it gets better:

Once home, I unpacked my booty (boy was my wife surprised). After playing Hot Potato with a micro SDQQQ card, I finally got it in the slot and my tablet recognized it. This is what the religious community refers to as a Minor Miracle. Don't tell anybody, but I think I saw Pontius inside the tablet. Since it was a much bigger card than the stock memory, I moved all my hamster pr0n over to it, with plenty of space for more. Let's just say I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

Emboldened by Minor Miracles, I put together my 23" (NOT 24") monitor for which I overpaid. It's the first monitor I ever saw with a power block, as opposed to plugging in the regular old power cord. The joy of working with something new overcame me and, within twenty minutes of walking in my own door, I lost the power brick. HOW DO YOU LOSE A POWER SUPPLY in a tiny room with a 5' radius in which to work? How did those 3 humongous bags of Peanut Butter M&Ms disappear? I dunno.

I get a gold star for not crying, especially after watching my dog having trouble getting around. Dejected, I went to bed, planning to ask my lovely wife to help me look the next day. Of course she failed too.  As soon as it disappeared, it came back, like Rosie O'Donnell to the buffet. Of course you know by now that I forgot what the adapter looked like and it was right in front of me the whole time. I'm thinking of getting a brain tuneup but Wife suggests I go with a new, upgraded unit. She says even an average one will be a step up.  If I had any brains, I'd be insulted.

Home Alone - Call the Authorities

I am alone for the weekend.
My first thought was 'I really don't feel like getting up.'
My second thought was 'I really don't feel like going to the bathroom.'
Thirty two minutes later, I was up.
I was greeted by the tranquil sound of heavy machinery doing something to someone's house. For a quiet neighborhood, there's sure a lot of noise.

There is something about getting dressed that makes you aware of the problems of the world. I can skip out of bed but the moment I put on socks, everything stops dead. The worst kind of force imaginable comes right after the first sock. There is absolutely no momentum from the first sock, so I sit there, trying desperately to get the necessary oomph for said second sock. While trying, I review every bad and embarrassing thing that happened since first grade. One day last year it was dark by the time I got the second sock on. Taking them off takes no time whatsoever. Modern Science is studying this time warp, as is Modern Psychology, which has a much greater chance of a solution.

I look down at his spot and notice that Marshall continues to fail to be there. Something must be done about this.

Opening the curtains, I note that I don't like opening the curtains. This is something that will be automated in the future.

I stumbled to the coffee machine, still bleary-eyed, and made a cup of my favorite French roast. This will energize the hell out of me, probably sometime after my second nap. The Art of the Weekend is defined by being able to get downstairs before the first nap begins.

Know what's disheartening? Picking up your coffee cup to drink the second half and noting that sometimes the grinds get through. After I removed the grinds, I noticed they were moving. There are two ants in my coffee. No line of ants getting ready to hit the diving board, just these two. Quite frankly, I'm amazed that anything from the animal kingdom could survive my coffee. Most people can't.  Besides, how did this happen? I don't think there were ants in the cup. I hope there weren't freeze dried ants in the coffee pod. There's no food around to attract them. To make thing absolutely perfect, I just took a mouthful of coffee. They're probably going to reproduce in my GI tract, making my next colonoscopy a real treat for the doctor.

Two windows are open on either side of the house, giving me a stereo field of sound for the construction going on outside. For a quiet neighborhood, there's sure a lot of noise. There is a brief halt to the noise, which sounds like a giant vacuum; not of the Hoover variety... just silence. I don't like silence, because that's when the demons come out to play. Not the Ghost Hunter demons - the ones inside, which are much more scary.

The quiet is immediately shattered by the air conditioner. Wife loves the air conditioner. We just bought a new one, which will keep food cold in case the freezer breaks. She uses a fan in the bedroom in addition to the air because she likes fresh air moving. The she wraps herself up in my blanket so she doesn't get cold. Meanwhile it's snowing and I'm without a blanket

I'm pretty fair with the wife. I told her while she's away, I need either a dog or a vice wife/babysitter. I don't think that's unreasonable. She does. Further, she has the car. So after a week of slaving over a hot computer, I'm locked in the house. This is a bad thing, because when I get bored or unwilling, I get up to Stuff. It's not a good idea to get locked inside a house with a bored lefty, unless you like to watch the world burn.

Only I'm so.... tired.
Definitely time for my first nap. They say that people who plan their next meal while they're eating have a food problem. If I plan my next nap while napping, do I have a sleep problem? If I have a bowl of cereal, what type of fauna will likely accompany it? And what is that horrible noise coming from the back yard? Probably bits of tree falling and small planes crashing, as usual. For a quiet neighborhood, there's sure a lot of noise.

• If you've got an HP Officejet printer with fax, you've got a problem. Discovered at DEF CON 2018 (Disneyland for hackers), was a way to get into printers with a specially constructed fax. This means if you don't have a fax or have a printer that's not an inkjet, you're ok. HP released patches for this earlier. Don't forget to check for patches for everything you own, including your wireless system.

I love Google (Do No Evil): they're so perfectly evil...  apparently when you turn off the Let Google See Your Location History, it compiles your location history. Google says this isn't true - they tell you all this and there might be another setting to turn this off, but they're not going to tell you what it is. This was a study by the AP, using unaffiliated assistance. Google flat out lied. And just when the iDevice users are starting to smirk, let them know that the same thing happens on their phone. I believe if you TURN OFF LOCATION, you should be ok. Of course there are about 3 people on the planet who do.

• If the iDevice people want to feel smug, they can check out this story, which goes over the unimaginable number of android phones that are open to hacking because of the unholy bloatware installed by the carriers.

Lastly, for the acrophobics and planephobics, is a story wherein a researcher found hundreds of planes exposed to remote attacks. A fellow passively (using signals in the air, not probing or hacking) checked out a plane's satcomm system and discovered rather a lot of open services anyone could access without a password. Plus the fact that certain planes can be hacked from the ground through satellite communications systems.

Once again I tell you that we WILL NOT learn.

Let me start by saying that airplanes are very safe. VERY safe. Everything that can be redundant is redundant. Twice or three times. You're much safer in a plane than a car. Have you ever heard of Pilot Rage? Whenever there is an airplane tragedy, something is learned to make the planes safer. I trust the method because no one has any interest in planes pointing themselves at the ground and meeting it nose-down or in an otherwise unfortunate manner.

Computers, entertainment systems, and satellites?

No f-ing way.

Again, we have had personal computers for a long time. Before that it was mainframes. We have learned countless lessons on problems, failures, and security. Yet each new generation of devices fails to take any history into account. It's right there, available to everyone, plus fairly obvious to anyone watching over the years. Yet we have insecure entertainment and satellite communications systems on planes. Internet of Things devices that are hackable right out of the box.

Happy Security Day to you!

• 18 months after pacemaker vulnerabilities were reported, they're still vulnerable. Just to make things more interesting, the flaws also affect an insulin pump. If specially timed electrical packets are sent to the general vicinity of a person with either of these devices, they can be forced to do the chicken dance. Aside from health and morality issues, the UN qualifies this as torture for the wearer and the viewer of the spectacle.

Overheard on tv: the cockpit voice recorder was powered by the left engine, and stopped working when it fell off.





Mice. Of the computer variety.
Having excavated my home office, I decided it might be a good time to upgrade things a bit. It's not that I haven't been in there for a while, but one of the mice had a ball in it. Another was just plain weird. A bunch of mice from the Mouse Pile were even more strange, in ways a mouse just shouldn't be. As the computer mice were not modified by real mice, it was confusing. Not enough to investigate, though,

So the smart thing to do is Amazon. This is a fantastic solution to most things, in keeping with my policy of late adoption. I would be even later if I hadn't seen Wife using it. She makes great use of it. This makes me nervous because she also watches tv channels solely dedicated to selling things. Those will not be adopted, unless I take a fancy to dressing like a middle-aged female. Never say never, but this is really close to absolutely never.

Since I go back before the mouse, I have some perspective.
No, really, there was a time before the mouse. There was an operating system called DOS (and other complex ones before that) and it was all character-based. No windows, no clicky clicky, and porn was scarce, if not impossible.

Mice, when they appeared, were pretty clunky. The mouse balls got really dirty really quickly, requiring minor surgery to clean. This was magical to people when I started doing desktop support. In fact, most things were magical to users when I started doing desktop support. I had to misfortune to support a warehouse full of voluntary idiots, who felt no need to learn a thing and entitled enough to have all of their issues solved by desktop technicians. Most of their issues were PEBKAC (problem exists between keyboard and chair) or I.D.10.T (idiot).

So... mouse balls... so many years of really horrible jokes.
The next great step forward was the laser mouse. In reality, it was an LED mouse, but truth is rarely rarely allowed to get in the way of advertising.  No more mouse balls! Now if the mouse started behaving strangely, the magic of pulling a small hair out from in front of the LED was standard practice.

IIRC, mice were hideously expensive at first. On the order of $80.
Almost as if by magic, they fell to $15 and less. They appeared to be the same mice. Would economics of scale explain the decrease? How the hell should I know - it's not like I know crap about economics.

Scouring Amazon, I came up with 15 pages of mice. An embarrassment of riches. Removing the lovely wireless mice and the travel mice that a small child would find small, there were about 40 mice left. All I wanted was a generic full size mouse (paralleling my desire for a generic land yacht to drive). I even limited the search to (gasp!) Microsoft. Years ago I was tempted to call Microsoft support and ask if their mice worked on linux, but decided it wouldn't provide enough entertainment for sustained hilarity. There were about 10 mice from which to choose. Two that looked alike cost $11 and $89. Why bother asking? The rest had prices that varied between $9 and $15, in very strange denominations and names. The Microsoft Mouse was $9.35. The Microsoft Office Mouse was $13.43.  The Microsoft Office Mouse black was $12.33.

They also failed to describe a single feature of said mice. I looked at my existing mice to trace lines and figure out which one I wanted from Amazon's pictures. Of course the mice keyword also brought up women's shirts and a few sex toys, per the prophecy of Ancient Astronaut Theorists. Do you have this much trouble buying a mouse? Two days later they arrived, wildly different from the picture, and not at all as large as I wanted. I ordered 2 different Microsoft mice on purpose, to prove there was no difference in hardware for different pricing. And there was no difference. The Basic Black mouse was exactly the same as the Office Mouse in black, with special laser hair removal and a long purple cord.

Ok, so I once again managed to turn a small need into many ridiculous paragraphs. I also proved that although Amazon is an absolute boon to voluntary agoraphobes, there are some things better done in person (if one can find a computer store in which to do it). Sex is also better in person, but not always logistically possible; in which case you do it in snail mail.


Next issue will contain a related home office story about LCD displays that are square instead of the standard landscape orientation (335x42.5 wide, aka 16x42.5 asperger ratio). Another interesting fact is that computers do NOT like mixing the two types at one time. This causes a display that will blind anyone looking at it, in addition to rendering them sterile.

birds do it, bees do it, the court of common pleas do it...

I Love the Smell of Peanut Butter in the Morning

One of the symptoms of ADD/ADHD is when there is too much input at one time, one gets cranky, in an explosive kind of way.

While I'm doing some VIBW (Very Important Blog Work), my parents call. I know this because their ringtone is Zappa's Jewish Princess. It is their ringtone because they're neither Jewish nor princess. Suffice it to say that I can not discuss whose ringtone is Fat Bottom Girls, for my well being.

Since this is during working hours, nobody is supposed to call me, unless something is on fire. My sixth and seventh senses tell me nothing's on fire and my Special Training on Shitty New Software sold by the Boss' Daughter is about  to begin, I don't answer.

So I'm home from work, working. I'm talking to my workmate about something that was supposed to be clarified last week that is due tomorrow. My boss, bless him, is the nicest person I know. He does fourteen jobs at once. He asks for something, like a few slides on working environment, and we deliver. Before we deliver, we always have to nail him to his chair for five minutes to clarify that 'a few slides on working environment' means 'two full color PowerPoint slides for a presentation to a number of groups, on the topic of workflow in our specific little group.' He's truly the nicest person I know. Takes his kids to church three times a week. To synagogue twice a week. Every other week to a mosque.

My boss is not answering my workmate's pleas to clarify the last project, which has been going on for months, so we're less than optimistic about the project for tomorrow. We discuss this on our call, after working hours (which, as we know, may become illegal in New York). While we're talking, Marshall barks. He can always tell when there's work involved and it goes right to his bladder. So he barks and I start to growl.

Back on the phone, Workmate continues to talk, oblivious to the fact that I put the phone down 2 minutes ago. I get a few words in, when I hear silverware rattling. As I'm the only human home and Marshall can't open the door by himself, this is not good news. This is a rodent.

I'm horrified to admit this. But it's not my friggin fault. We're clean, don't leave food out, and wash dishes frequently. In the winter, they arrive all over the neighborhood, even in the antiseptic conditions of the (non-crazy) neighbor's house. If there's no food, what the hell attracts the little fuckers bastards? Warmth, probably. Apparently they like wires too. Aside from iron, I'm not sure why. We spent time over the winter mouse-proofing the house. Finally we found a hole and patched it. No more mice. Until today.

My growl is growing in volume and is starting to concern my workmate, who mentions it in an offhand way. I become aware of my overload just as I'm reaching through the phone to strangle him. No, I tell myself, that will have to wait til after the presentation tomorrow.

Back to our discussion, we're coming up with ideas and someone is knocking on the door. The schizophrenic with the guns knocks in morse code, so 'they' won't know he's here. This was a more defined, whimsical knock. It's a shame that the door doesn't have individual ringtones. Because of the whimsy, it could only be the wife. Last I heard, she had house keys, although the way things have been going lately, they're with everything else she lost. I say to myself CANT I GET A SIMPLE PHONE CALL DONE WITHOUT A FLYING TRAPEZE ACT SUDDENLY MATERIALIZING in the living room?

My wife does not simply walk into a room. Fran Drescher (more likely Joan Rivers') autobiography is called Enter Laughing. My wife's is called Enter Talking, Loudly. She does precisely this and it takes all sorts of hand signals and screaming to let her know I'm on a WORK CALL. Oh, sorry.

Back to my call. Three words in, Wife stands in front of me with a bag, like there's a tremendous surprise in it. She tries to hand it to me while I'm still taking. For some reason, I get REALLY MAD and try to convey, in hand signals, that I'M WORKING. STILL. NOTHING HAS CHANGED SINCE TWO MINUTES AGO, WHEN YOU WALKED THROUGH THE DOOR that I had to open because your keys fell into some sort of multi-dimensional vortex. Or you just think it's cute that I'll open the door for you.

There are all sorts of mouse traps. Glue (inhumane), regular old (not effective), variation on regular old, with a fake cheese-like step, and these White Things. The White Things are ferocious-looking beasts, with huge, pointy teeth, but all plastic. I have no idea how a mouse could get bait out of this thing, because it closes on my finger whenever I try to bait it. It's hair bloody triggered. Wife will not go within a ten foot radius of it when it's armed.

After my call, I go into the kitchen, where there is no mouse. This worked out well, as I don't like mice. I checked the trap. I'll give you one guess what I saw. Yes, the little #*@&er ate the peanut butter.  HA, I thought. I am going to win this war. I put fresh peanut butter in the trap, feeling like MacArthur. I love the smell of peanut butter in the morning.

On the way out of the kitchen, Wife wants to know where she put that bag, because she lost it.  It's now been fifteen minutes since she entered the house, and in that time, she has already misplaced the bag she carried in. Maybe it's in the car.... no, Dear, it's not in the car. I know this because you tried to give it to me repeatedly while I was on the phone. Oh. Did I?  I'm already through for the day and have given up rage, work, and looking for Stuff.

Apparently I had not given up grief, though.
My parents make a phone call and if no one answers, go right into Panic Mode<tm>. Because I didn't answer, they called Wife. Why hasn't she called in weeks? Does she no longer love them? [insert Charlie Brown teacher noises - wah wha wah wah.] When the first person fails to answer, they call the spouse, the kids, the landline, then the hospitals and police.

While she is regaling me with Tales of the Parents, I listen to their voicemail to me. "We were wondering what happened to Wife. She hasn't called in WEEKS and we thought something was wrong."

It's a good thing I didn't answer the phone.
'Weeks' actually means 'a few days'.
None of Wife's behavior, or for that matter, mine, is new.  So why is it a surprise every time? The parents are not 90 years old and they have their wits about them, or at least keep them in the trunk at all times.

Wife goes upstairs, probably to look for the previous item she lost, and I immediately find the bag she just lost. Friend texts from vacation, in Bangkok. I don't care how old you are, Bangkok is FUNNY. Try it with me: BANGKOK. BANGKOK. heh heh... he said Bangkok. I advised him that if he goes on any dates, he should check the plumbing first.

It is unnaturally quiet as I type this. I brace for imminent arrival of a train, in the living room, next to the Flying Trapeze Act, which is still packing up before going home.