If There's a Bustle in Your Hedgerow, See a Doctor

Malware found in android app CamScanner, with 100+ million users.



Boris Johnson (R-Blighty) asked the Queen to make a speech and shut down Parliament for a while, to keep Brexit plans in-place. Johnson says this has nothing to do with Brexit; there is important legislation to work on - more laws to hold up, more fighting to do, and more pressure on Parliament to have ridiculous haircuts (and new, taller hats). Asked for comment, the Queen said, "Huh? Are you talking to us?"

Scotland's representative said this is the action of a despot. She said a few other things, but nobody could understand them.

Critics have said this is a Constitutional Outrage, Absolutely Wrong, We Cannot Have This Sort of Thing, and some of them went so fas as to be Highly Miffed. They said Trump Johnson should be thrown out, possibly even for the weekend.

Things are so similar between the UK and US, when a member of Parliament is sick, they call Nancy Pelosi to have her send over a congressman.



Life is sweet, you get cancer and die.

RIP Eddie Money (Eddie Mahoney- 70). Guy gets a horrid reality show, revives his career, then finds out he has stage 4 esophageal cancer. He passed peacefully. Condolences to his family.

• It's not that I've been married for a long time, but when I see an attractive lady, I say, "Boy, could I make her life miserable."

Dear lefty

• Why are you so crusty all the time?
• Why do you ask me questions all the time?

10 best sites to download free ebooks.

• Be prepared - September is National Preparedness Month.
• In the Old Days<tm>, schools had nuclear bomb drills, then fire drills. Now it's cybersecurity drills. During the exercise, they simulate Faceyspaces being down. That stopped after the first time, when students passed out and developed PTSD. Parents sued school districts for cruelty. Faceyspaces also sued, but you're not allowed to see the paperwork because they believe in privacy.

• Dairy Queen has confirmed that their burgers are not made with human meat.   That's outrageous - who goes to Dairy Queen for burgers?

I love my coworkers.

One just texted me.

Her: Hi.

Me: I'm not here today. Hi.

  --> 2 minutes of total silence

Her: really?

Me: I can't say. Need to know only.

  --> more silence

Her: haha. Anyway, I have an issue.

Me: see a specialist.

Her: ha ha, can you help me or do it for me?

Me: No.

Her: lol

2 hours later....

Her: now that you've done the work and emailed it to me, how do I save the file you emailed?

Me: Call Microsoft and ask to speak to an Outlook Specialist.

1 hour later

Her: can I show you my screen?

Me: why?

Her: well this is what I get.

Me: yes, I know. You told me and I sent you the file.

Her: but I need you to send me the file.

Me: I already sent you the file.

Her: Oh, I didn't see it.

Me: [remembering] They already warned me about killing coworkers.

I love my coworkers.

I suspect another one of them uses their 8 hours to work a second job.

• With the second weather-related state of emergency being declared in Puerto Rico, it occurs to me that Puerto Rico was a bad investment.

No thanks, I'd rather run over some nuns while drunk (me AND the nuns)

My father had a stroke or three.

I am typing this because you should know that people don't always hold up a sign saying I'M HAVING A STROKE. He just looked bad for a bit. We only noticed one side of his mouth droop and rushed him to the hospital. Fortunately he's a stubborn guy, like his son, and will eventually be ok. Tons of tests, watching for swallowing difficulties, and more tests. He walked into the emergency room, which says something. The other night, his advice for me was not to get sick. I will take him up on that immediately.

Watch carefully, ok? If someone looks bad, get them to their doctor quickly. If they look really bad, get them to the emergency room. The local hospital has a wonderful, kind staff; many of whom are very attractive. This is an important thing to watch for in hospitals.

The best thing I've seen so far: my mom waking my dad to ask if he's comfortable.

This is a 100% non-partisan post:
Why does every picture of AOC look like this?

She looks very unhappy. She is not an unattractive woman - if she smiles... does she smile?

Heroes of the Stupid

An Oklahoma woman forced kids to eat dog feces. She somehow avoided jail, perhaps because the judge enjoys some nice feces now and then.

A woman who stabbed her boyfriend 39 times during a sex game has been freed from prison. This must be what they call Rough Sex.

SJW Attacks

A Sydney, Australia, university will lower the engineering entry bar for females as a part of a plan to get more women into the field.  Do you want to live in a building designed by affirmative action engineers?

There Are Many People in the World. You Are Definitely One.

I'm a sucker for those airport security shows, where they track people coming in, looking for illegal this or that. They also check that people coming in have the proper visa. One guy, who was a little boisterous, claimed he was coming to visit, but the staff wanted to investigate further. Because the guy was waving at the cameras and joking with the staff, they called in a doctor to advise if the guy was sane. He passed his test.

What really bothers me is that they thought the guy was mentally questionable for acting like me. There is abundant evidence backing up my voluntary agoraphobia.

• September is National Preparedness Month. So don't do anything rash.

Today is Importance of Punctuation Day (I made that up). When sending email and typing, it is important to use proper punctuation. "Whoopi Goldberg & Jewel's Holiday Tour" was the email subject. Is this two separate shows or one? Depending on the answer, things could go from bad to worse.

• Perhaps there is hope after all... according to a poll, 44% of Americans 18-27 have deleted the Faceyspaces app this year.
• If you must use Faceyspaces, do it from a browser. The phone app has access to all your data, location, and sexual preference.

It's a bad day to be Trend Micro (or a user of their products)... their Mac OS X apps were removed from the Apple store after they were discovered sending out private information.  If I owned a Trend product on any platform, I'd get rid of it immediately and demand a refund.

• And while we're talking about Macs, the number one paid utility in the Mac App Store steals browser history and sends it to a Chinese server. The server is currently offline, but that means little. People who use apps shouldn't be expected to perform packet captures to determine if the app is safe.

Ever use Skype? They inject white noise, on purpose, into both sides of each call, so callers know they're still connected.  Skype's owner, Microsoft, injects backdoors in Windows, to let people know they're still using Windows, and remind them that backups can be retrieved from the NSA.

• The current spam bomb utilizes "Unsubscribe" as a subject and concept. Your mailbox and spam folder will be full of this nonsense. Delete every message and don't reply. If you are unsure, follow my mantra: Just Say No. You can also hover over the underlined link, where you'll notice the address is different than claimed. Also, the FROM name and possibly SUBJECT will be missing information or incorrect.
• A small piece of information FYI: if you don't use HTML email, the entire message will be in text, and the fake address link will be right there in front of you. You can try checking the source, from a menu, or switching to plain text. Thunderbird has a plugin that will let you switch reading modes. Most have the option in one of the menus.

As usual, I'm minding my own business at work, when I get a request for a short job at another location. I enjoy going to other locations about as much as I enjoy stitching up large gashes in my own skin, but it is technically my job. And when I say technically, I mean a trained goldfish can complete the job from inside its watery abode. Why, you ask, does a company deploy an expensive asset for a job that anybody in the facility can perform? They have whole teams that do nothing but work on this equipment.

Ahhhh... now I get it. It's only been a few years and I catch on very slowly.

The part to install had arrived the day before, addressed to Stanley. Stanley's away, due to Mrs. Stanley, which we won't discuss, except to say it had nothing to do with the hand mixer or the zebra. The main office spent hours trying to locate the part. Why? Because it was addressed to Stanley and not anyone who could do anything about it. After several hours of contacting Spock and the Away Team, they had finally secured the part. So they emailed the teams that do this work. I discovered there's a subtle art of job-shifting... they did not respond to the emails. Since they did not respond, it became my job. When I see these people, they tell me it's stupid for me to come all this way and why not let them do it. Very clever, but I'm onto your game! 

They sent me explicit step-by-step directions on how to replace the broken part. It was about 25 pages long. Nothing I haven't done before, just not on this model. After skimming the 25 pages, I translated them from "The lawyers said to word it this way" to "pull the bad part out and plug the good one in". No problem - this I can handle.  

Oops... did I mention my key card?

I got it a few months back and it wouldn't open anything. I let the nice people in the Key Department know and they said they'd get their Best People on it. So naturally it continued to not work. Yes, it's funny in a stereotypical way, but it's somewhat less funny when you have to stand near a door and wait for someone with a working key card to come by. Ironically, the trip to the Key Department was delayed as I waited five minutes for somebody with a functioning key card to come by. The gentleman I talked to is the same gentleman who was going to 'get right on it' and absolutely did not 'get right on it.' He sent an email and told me it would take a while. Dear Sir... I am here for an important job. If I can't get to my own department, your network may fail. Fortunately I knew where his request was sent, so off I went, only stalled by trying to get through two doors my key card wouldn't open. The Main Key Card Guy took one look and said it was deactivated. Well, as far as I know, I'm not deactivated. Still getting paychecks. Hmmmm... he clicks one box and everything works. See how hard that was?

Speaking of working, I hunted down the errant piece of equipment and took the bad part out, plugging the good part in. It fit perfectly, except the front plate, which wasn't even in the ballpark. I took a picture and sent it to the people who operate the equipment, who where thrilled at my ingenuity, and told me this was in no way the right part. I'll say it wasn't the right part: the damn manual had a picture of the box that was wrong. They thanked me profusely and said they'd ship out the correct part for the next day.

Halleleujah! I could ride out to the remote office again to install a Goldfish Part. I cannot describe the thrill that went through my body.

We got a tracking number and everything!

First thing in the morning they're emailing me that the part's in and how quickly can I install it. Oops again - the part is in my state, but not at the facility. Gee, let's say we wait before I make the drive, ok? Within two minutes I got an email from UPS, saying expected delivery date was tomorrow. How is it the people who shipped the part don't know how they shipped the part? Oh yeah, they need it to be working for a Serious Meeting in the afternoon. I pointed the delivery day out and all of their incessant email chatter stopped. Hey, I like this. I get some of my best work done at my own desk.

The return authorization person specified the wrong carrier and complained when our zip code had more than five digits. What country are we in again?

If this were any more twisted, I'd check to see if I was working for the government.