Google Must Go

Not necessarily violently. I don't condone violence. If somebody pulled the plug on them without violence, that would be just fine, for me and everyone else affected by their products and services.

As we know, I live life with Unreasonable Expectations. I ask to go out and have fun now and then. Totally unreasonable. Normies can do it, just not me.  Today it was fruit. Just fruit. There's an apple orchard I've been going to since I was knee-high to a parent. Since there was a very interesting event, including homemade ice cream elsewhere, we went to look at fruit. Have I mentioned I'm allergic to apples? She wanted to go, so for the 2nd time in my life, I kept my mouth shut. You have no idea how difficult that is.

Unfortunately the orchard is in New Jersey. New Jersey is not a pleasant or happy place. You don't know this until you hit the turnpike, at which time you get demoted from Driver to Target. The rest of them drive in the left lane, 25 mph under the speed limit. If you think you can change lanes, you're more deluded than a president. To be honest, it's not an ugly place - it's just filled with ugly people. When they get out of their cars at the orchard, they exchange them for carts and drive the same way. I asked several if they were locals, after almost being run down. I try to be considerate when they let me out for the day. Sometimes it's difficult to even appear considerate. So I stepped away from displays and out of the way so inconsiderate assholes (and that's just the old ladies) would cease banging into me. Wife's legs are black and blue from this. 5 more minutes and I would start throwing carts. I was quite put out when I discovered they had 19 varieties of homemade pies, none of which were chocolate. Like I want a peach pie.

Now, a word about fruit: they had lots of it.

You could sample the apple cider. Wife went to sample it, got bumped, and emptied all of it on the floor. Perhaps a small-yield something or other, dropped from a plane. The kind that only hurts people - not buildings. Or fruit. They had the most amazing fruit and vegetables I have ever seen. While I didn't see him, I suspect they have someone come in and buff the produce: it shined. It must have been great, as I don't like vegetables or much fruit. 

Where's Google? With fscking Waldo.

I tend to write stuff down. Google managed to get us there, whole. Not on MY phone, of course. You know how hard it is to reverse directions ("we made a right into the lot, so we go right"). Google doesn't do so well at this. It's not like anyone typed REVERSE. The home address was put in, and off we went. Really far off.  About 10 miles down the road, it started to give out directions that didn't look right. By the time we figured out where we were, Google had us turn around THREE TIMES on the same Turnpike. The people at the tolls greeted us by name and asked how the dog was, each time.

I think it's personal.

While we were driving, Google had their Head Asshole busily plotting. He accessed the satellite personally, to make things difficult. "He hates Google? Watch how Google feels about him." Turns out this is also Microsoft's favorite little game. So we toured New Jersey. It's not that big a state, and feels really inferior, as if its little wee wee were tiny and it was overcompensating. So we went north. Then we went south. Then we went north again. Then we turned onto routes that didn't have numbers. I was terrified we had driven into Day of the Dead, but then Google sent us east. This seemed somewhat odd, as we are quite west of New Jersey. It's not like you can ask it a question or tell jokes about its mother. Eventually Google got bored of making life extremely difficult and frustrating, and let the satellite take us home. As we were now so far away, an hour trip took 2 hours. This from a satellite that can tell if you move ahead 1 foot (12 litres Canadian). If you sneeze, the satellite says you moved and 'bless you.' And this is the slightly accurate setting. If war broke out, they'd set it to Military Mode, where it can count your nose hairs. Then it tells you that your nose hair is a lot longer than last time and the hair on your head is growing more slowly than before. Yes, we drivers get Dumb Mode, where they can only tell how fast you're going and is accurate to only 3".

Remember I said we marry our parents? It is about this time that I became Wife's father. I was only asking a simple question... "Had you considered grabbing that ticket from the ticket machine at the Turnpike exit we went through?"  

"YOU MAKE ME NERVOUS."

And how, exactly, do I do that?

I don't know, you just do. I never have any problems until you're in the car. In spite of the words rolling around my mouth, at times stabbing me with toothpicks and torches, I somehow resisted the urge to say, "Gee, I have that same problem, only with the house."

We've been together for a long time. You were never nervous before.

But I'm nervous now.

I see.

Stress, mostly at the hands of Google and Microsoft, tends to ratchet up all the hidden animosity we keep toward each other. Oh c'mon, like you don't secretly want to murder your spouse at times. Or all the time. So we start getting snippy. I tried pulling down the Cone of Silence, but had to put it back up because we'd never get home otherwise. It's not enough to drive defensively in Jersey. You have to drive like your life depends on it, because it does. It's the ones you can't see that are most likely to do damage. You never think to look UP when you're driving, but it's mandatory in New Jersey. They have signs at the toll booths: WARNING - FALLING CARS - LOOK UP.  Most of them aren't simply falling.. they're just driving like they normally do. They had the same sign by the shopping carts at the orchard.

Me? I just discovered a new Mexican place near us. They opened secretly. They did it so secretly that we thought they closed immediately. That the Flying AIDS got them when, as a restaurant, they weren't considered essential by Governor Stupid. We drive by that area often, and there is never a soul in or near the place. The other day we noticed a strange light in the window. There were still no people in or near the place, but the light said OPEN. You could have knocked us over with a guitar string, that snapped while you were playing, and it embedded itself in your eye or thumb, which actually happened to me onstage once. I said to myself 'no, that silver thing should probably not be embedded in your thumb' I said. It was only going to bleed, and when I start to bleed, my brain keeps me from getting upset and has me pass out. I love my brain for this.. it keeps me First in its mind. Nobody else does that for me. Not only was there an OPEN sign, we caught what looked like an actual person inside. It's hard to locate in the dark, but he appeared to be on the other side of the counter, making him either an employee or a thief. Or both. HEY - that place might still be in business.. although it's probably being used to launder money for criminals, as no one is ever there; employee or customer. Specifically including ME.

FCC sets new rules to curb scam texting

Promises they will be every bit as effective as the old rules

Google spies on 2.89 billion users through mobile devices

I, for one, am shocked. SHOCKED.

 

 

I need to find some things out. Since I don't know where to look, I'll phone the Ministry of Where to Look. There has to be a study on assholes. Ok, plenty of asshole studies... it's probably the 2nd largest branch of government (behind the Ministry of Cash Giveaways). I want to know why drivers and their driving have gone to hell. There have been assholes in cars since Henry Ford, but the sheer volume of assholes and the quality of their assholiness is astounding. As with most things, I have to know why. 

I know the Ministry of Where to Look will direct me to the Ministry for These Kinds of Things, where there will be a study on Quantity of Asshole Drivers Through the Years, with Emphasis on Transitions in Upward Assholiness Over Time.There are lots of formula(formuli? formulae? formulasses?) to predict or explain the explosion of ASD (Absolute Shit Drivers), also known as ABW (Assholes Behind the Wheel). Because people don't think of the larger problem, they only see ASD (Asshole Shit Drivers). People like me, who think they're pretty clever and blog about NIP (nothing in particular) for NIP (Nobody in particular) and have VFR (Very Few Readers), tend to think in LP (larger pictures). Cars haven't changed significantly since I was born (they shrunk like hell), so that won't explain the upward tilt in Assholitude. This also leaves out gasoline. Battery power is a different item, as people who started with the Toyota Priapus thought they were in a class of their own, like iDevice users. While these drivers have the Smug<tm>, it wouldn't cause them to go Instant Asshole. So it must be the people who are turning into rabid, snarling, gun-toting sociopaths, with terrible tempers and a complete disregard for anyone else or safety in general. When flying cars become a thing, it will be mere seconds before some of them die, expecting their car to fly, right off a cliff, like Wile E. Coyote (Super Genius). On the way down, they'll fly past all the other asshole who thought their car could fly, while not using turn signals and completely disregarding their own eventual demise. For good measure, they'll give everybody the finger on the way down. If there's sufficient height, they'll even get a few shots off at the other falling vehicles. They take off, burning rubber, and beat you to the SMASH at the bottom (or the red light) by a quarter of a second (and 5 gallons of gas).  

So what is it that turns people into violent sociopaths?  Reality shows? Judge Judy? The Masked Furry?  Other assholes in cars? Other assholes in your car? Traffic cameras and plate readers? The Phiily Parking Authority (as seen in the show Parking Wars or something like that)? The debt ceiling would be a great guess, but most people think the debt ceiling is the place you paint last, while wearing all sorts of protective gear and spending tremendous amounts on paint. Maybe it's the generally narcissistic bent of humanity. Perhaps the Ancient Asshole Theorists will be able to tell us if the theory of assholiness explains our particular assholes or any society over time. NASA has not released this information yet, but ancient Martians evolved 274 million years before they all got up and Went Elsewhere. Just imagine how overdeveloped their assholes were (and I'm not talking about anal probing). 

It will only be a short while before warring groups of Ancient Asshole Theorists start their inevitable and doomed arguments over their particular pet theories (all of them laughable). No one will take them seriously until there emerges a spokesperson of great intrigue, personal magnetism, and VTH (Very Tall Hair), like Giorgio Tsoukalos. Giorgio cannot be the person because he speaks for the Other Guys. Well, also because of his hair. Aside from being VTH, it just added Artificial Intelligence and has come alive. There's no telling what his hair is getting up to from day to day. Sometimes it all points to the left, sometimes only half of it sticks up, and sometimes it waves at fans, which tends to terrify children. So we'll need someone even more outspoken, with more or less static style hair (SSH). I was thinking of Linda Fiorentino or Emilia Clarke, but I'm always thinking about them and neither would look good in VTH. Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman would do, but but she had VLH (Very Large Hair - my favorite).  So it's settled: the spokesperson for Ancient Asshole Theorists will be Julia Roberts, Emilia Clarke, or Linda Fiorentino, either or all with VLH. It would be like Disneyland for me.

Remember: if there's a keyboard or windshield, there's an asshole behind it.

Captivity - Day 60 Tracking the Wolf-Moose

Derrell Sims ("The Alien Hunter") refers to aliens as Extraterrestrial Skinheads.
Take it however you want, but this is WINNING!

He ingratiated himself to the Japanese by doing a great (foul) impersonation and knowing Japanese, while they were talking about him in front his face.


Remember: friends don't let friends use Faceyspaces


SmileDirectClub Inc sued NBCUniversal for nearly $3 billion for defamatory reports about news their Teleledentistry. Teledentristy. Dental services over phone or video. A negative report on teledentistry. Who woulda thought?  Hey, Mrs Patient - can you pull C12 please? Don't worry - it won't hurt.


The Precision Multiple Stereo Mower Committee was out in full force.  I'm not positive, but I think they added a few mowers to the chorus. It's difficult to get the entire block synchronized, but they have those earpieces that the talking heads wear on the news. It must be something to see from above. At the very end of the show, they get into letters for the chopper, that say F- You (just for the children). It's better than watching band rehearsal at school. Of course the chopper must stay 11,001 feet from the mowers, due to social distancing.


Today we watched a number of public officials giving stats on the Flying AIDS, as if they had a single clue as to what's going on with it. We found out that New Jersey had 274 patients go into the hospital and 273 discharged from the hospital. The official, excited as can be, announced that it's because of the people of New Jersey. The sign language dude saw the stats and walked off the set. Even he knows the figures were bullshit. To their credit, the charts were nice and pretty, which is the job of chart-makers the world over.

What have we learned?
They still know nothing.
There is a business re-opening plan, based upon nothing.
You may not leave your house to go to the businesses, based upon nothing.
We have somehow flattened the curve, whatever that means, based upon nothing, and there have been some damn fine charts!



The crud on weekday tv is of a higher quality than the weekend crud. We have only seen 434 lawyer commercials - it was a needed break. Star Trek is on now. My only complaint is that they're all reruns. It says right in the guide - rerun. Anyway, perhaps there are some things you want to hear or may have heard....

• Hey Spock- why do you have more makeup on than Uhura? Is a woodie logical?
• Scotty - don't you have anything to do? Get off the bridge. And take that alleged accent with you.
• Sulu: we got a message from a Dr. Crusher. She asks that you stop messaging Wesley.
• Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor - not a.. doc... never mind.
• Kirk - get that dead animal off your head. No, you cannot make the nurses' uniforms 3" shorter. You two - beam down and explore the planet. We will bury you in space.

.

You Can't Get There From Here, So Die

It's Saturday. I've been cooped up at work and home all week or two and it's time to get the hell out.

Mrs. leftystrat told me about this place called The Christmas Tree Store. Right off the bat, it sounded horrible. She said it's open year round, at which point I asked what was the point. Well, they don't just sell Christmas trees and stuff. With virtually no way to say no that would leave my genitals intact, I agreed. Being at least somewhat clever, I bundled it with a trip to the guitar store.

Since the wife was so familiar with the store, I had to look it up online, just to make sure it was in roughly the same state as the guitar store, which it was supposed to be. I got very simple directions from Google, which should have tipped me off immediately.

Once on the road, I figured I'd put the address into the Garmin GPS, in case Google's directions were faulty. HA! The joke, however, was on me, as it usually is with the Garmin. Remember the movie Poltergeist, where the station wagon hated Craig T Nelson's character but purred for the Indian? That's what my relationship with the Garmin is. Except for the fact that the Garmin really does piss everybody off and causes marital strife. First, I typed in the city. The Garmin, ready for me, assured me there was no city with that name in New Jersey. This will come as quite a shock to 71,045 people who live there (per 2010 census). Not to be outwitted, I put in the street address. The clever auto-complete finished the street name for me and suggested four addresses, none of which was the address I put in.

Now here is where the marital strife bit comes in. When I start to curse loudly (as opposed to normal everyday cursing), Mrs lefty provides some helpful tips. And when I say helpful tips, I mean THINGS THAT MAKE ME WANT TO STRANGLE HER. These consist largely of the steps I have already taken and produce largely the same results. This is in addition to one of the main difficulties of Garmin; the fact that any kind of entry is near impossible due to some sort of anti-input coated membrane keyboard. Never mind the technical aspects, what this means is that you can't actually enter most of what you want to type into the bloody thing. It may take every other letter or refuse to take anything. Wife uses a stylus, which makes things slightly less painful. Slightly.

Having gotten absolutely nowhere (with the backup system, mind you),  Wife 'suggests' that she give it a try. She rips it out of my hand and does the same thing I just did, with the same results. Then she tries it a different way, producing the same results. Only then can we 'just screw the stupid thing.' The inevitable followup is "I dunno, it always works for me when I'm alone."

NOTE: this is not good, as it brings up a part of my life I thought I had left behind. The part where my mere proximity to things made them go awry. If I went to a store, no one would wait on me. If I went to a restaurant, my order would get messed up or go missing entirely. The grocery store's automatic door wouldn't open for me. I am not making any of this up. Burning dead chicken parts and eating the feathers, combined with Good Clean Livin made it all go normal for me.

Both of us having given up, I put in a nearby address and off we went.  The Google directions were completely foobed. There are cute little phrases like 'take a small right and you'll be on the same road,' which means Go Straight, Stupid. Well past where we thought the place might be, we turned on the Garmin. The fact that it did not cackle at me left us with a slight positive feeling. After pondering for a mere few seconds, it told us exactly where to go, not at all like when I tell IT exactly where to go.

DOES IT MEAN HERE?
DOES IT MEAN HERE?
Yes, Dear, where the sign says Exit.

One thing my presence does still affect is my wife's driving.  This woman can get anywhere in any car, including in states in which she has never been. Put me in the passenger seat and she regresses to a twelve year old, who can't decide if take the next exit means pull over to the side or take the next exit. It's painful to see a well-educated, bright woman go all blonde on me. Total airhead. It's not like I have this effect on other women.... and I stopped giving her the pills ten years ago.

The Garmin gave good, solid directions, complete with mileage figures that made us feel all secure inside. And then we hit Camden, New Jersey - armpit of the US. The bridge to Philly was coming up on us and the Garmin said to go straight five miles.

Dear Garmin: ahead five miles would put us in the Atlantic Ocean and I'm reasonably sure the store is not located under water, especially on the PA side of the water. So we pulled off at the Last Exit Before Bridge and looked for a place to launch the Garmin and try a cell phone. Wife throws her phone at me and tells me to look it up while she exits the car and works on putting the disgusting smoke of burnt leaves into her lungs. The problem here is that I've never played with her phone and she has it set up in a way that even she can barely operate it. I can't use mine because it's so locked down that by the time I can enable GPS, we could have walked the 120 hours home. One 'Christmas Tree Store' input later, we got a list of ten locations. Each one was in a different state, none of which were the current state. I do not run a retail business but I'm going to guess that no retail business has any interest in hiding and not being found. Putting the actual address into the phone produced a route. Halleleujah!

We went a few miles in this direction then that direction and finally found ourselves..... in Camden, exiting at the Last Exit Before Bridge. Why do two separate GPS devices want to send us through Camden and into the water? Does Camden pay off the GPS manufacturers to route all traffic through there? If I were going from New York to Rhode Island, would it take me through Camden?

Wife insists we use the Garmin. If the Garmin tried to get us wet, cold, and dead last time, what could we reasonably expect it to do when we asked it a second time? But we were wrong - it provided a path that did not involve water, bridges, and death (we hoped). Or Camden. This proves that if you're going west, Garmin will give you the wrong directions but if you're going east, it will get you where you want to go. Remember this.

One left at the light later, we were at the Christmas Tree Store. The (internal) children were as excited as they could be. I was assured that I would love it too. There were these huge glass-ish globes called Wishing Globes. Apparently she bought me a blue one last year. Hmmm... never saw it. I was extremely curious as to why I needed one. Well, you like blue. Yes I do, but what about a glass-ish 10" ball was supposed to be interesting or useful to me? She got distracted immediately by some other shiny object but I managed to keep steering the topic back to the value I was somehow getting from this ball I never received. I think I finally nailed it when I asked if it was like me buying her a guitar for Christmas.

The part about me liking the store was strictly to make her not feel too guilty about dragging me into a warehouse-size store with 90 tons of Christmas Crap. They had stuff we'd never seen before, which is almost as much fun as going to a dump and finding trash you've never seen before. Stupid swirly Santas, three thousand nutcrackers, hideously gaudy this and that, and even some furniture and tables. I try to be reasonably nice (to my wife only) so I kept my tongue largely in my mouth and didn't utter a single "Dear God, please get me out of here or at least lock me in a random trunk until she's done."

I pointed out the Clearance section, which she loves. She asked where. I suggested it might be under that HUGE RED SIGN that said CLEARANCE.  You know she would have found it immediately if I weren't there. It was over there, past the sixty-year-old lady with purple hair and a nose stud. Go ahead - I'll wait while you read that again. In spite of the proximity to Halloween, this was not a costume.

There was a bathroom stop. There is always a bathroom stop. While it is a fact that women's bladders are smaller than men's, hers seems to be the size of an average pea, and needs to be emptied at a frequency that is inversely proportinal to the location of a bathroom. And I, of course, had to watch the pocketbook and cart. And you guessed it - I got the cart with the square wheel. Again. I really thought this was behind me, and here it is, popping up again. Perhaps ALL the carts are developmentally disabled. Or perhaps the stores need a pit crew, like NASCAR, where they change the wheels in under ten seconds, so the driver can get back in the race with minimal lost shopping time.

They did have food at this store. It was closeout food, most so bad you didn't know it existed in the first place. I did see chocolate Frosted Flakes, which looked Greeeeat, but the box was in Spanish. We also found some garlic fig spread, amazed as we were that we never saw it when it was really popular. Once we passed the Maple Bacon Pop-Tarts, we knew it was time to go.

We got directions to the guitar store from the Nicest Cashier Ever, who even recommended restaurants in the area. We bravely followed the directions, not even bothering to turn on the Garmin, which would have told us there were no guitar stores in New Jersey anyway.

The Sam Ash chain store even had a few lefty guitars. They were all cheap, thereby encouraging beginners. I looked around for other stuff, none of which caught my eye. They had all of two acoustic lefties, so we lefty.

The Guitar Center chain store had roughly the same amount of lefty electrics, largely cheapies. Ok, good for the lefties that need them. My wife slyly started asking me questions about stuff. I slyly denied knowledge or told her I was not interested, as she was trying to get something out of me about a possible Christmas present. I tried diligently to find something to purchase but again failed. Well, there was an $1800 amplifier that I heard great things about, but I didn't think I was going to like it $1800 worth. As I was checking out some effects, I walked past a female employee in army greens and a military hard hat. Maybe it's because I'm getting older or I just don't care anymore, but I declined to ask.

Walking to the car, we passed one of those buffet places. Worse - a Chinese buffet place. These places, like Golden Corral, frighten me to death. Everything comes out of a can, like industrial food.  Vegetables from a can, mashed potatoes from a can, whole chicken from a can. Ice cream that has no ice or cream in it. Still she wanted to go, however she wisely suspected that I may not like it. There were people eating that stuff with chopsticks. Although I consider eating an Olympic sport, I will not (and cannot) perform the digital gymnastics involved in operating those infernal wooden things.

So we went home to Pennsylvania, where the food is tastier and we can get there without any forms of GPS assistance.

In fact, if you listen closely on a cold autumn night, you can hear the sound of traffic being routed underwater and Garmins being thrown off bridges.

Alyson Stupidland

It's been days since we've heard from the TSA, therefore it's time.  The TSA has finally come out on top.  Yes, the TSA always gets their man... errr... woman.... errrr... toddler.  Ever watchful, the TSA detected the 18 month old's name on the no-fly list and promptly removed the baby and her family from the plane.

Yup, you really gotta watch out for those foreign toddlers, especially the quiet ones.

-----------------------

You know, with all the idiots, perverts and child molesters running for president, it's good to know that Mexico still has a few tricks up its sleeve to show the gringos.  Let's make elections fun, if not downright interesting and thought-provoking.

It is sad, however, that politics still raises its ugly head, as topless does not actually mean topless.

Mitt Romney has been shown to have led the bullying of another student in college.  While bullying is bad, he will no doubt hold this up as an indicator of his ability to lead.

Speaking of leading, a jailed inmate in West Virginia won forty percent of the vote in the primary, over President Obama.

Yes, the ObamaChrist proclaimed his support for gay marriage, but no, the White House will not fight the Defense of Marriage Act.   Would you call me cynical for saying this was a press op?

------------------------

Stimpy, the wealth of your ignorance amazes me.

--> They don't call me Stupid for nothing!

-------------------------

Fort Lee, New Jersey (of course, New Jersey) is starting to crack down on dangerous walking.  In civilized states (and Pennsylvania) we call that handing out tickets for texting and walking.

Fortunately I have a teflon alibi: I don't go to New Jersey and I can't walk and breathe at the same time.

The President Bit my Cat

I awoke with a familiar lump on the pillow next to me.  Unfortunately it was the incorrect end of the dog. I suppose I should expect that from an animal that can sleep uphill.

My wife and I are going to do one of those scholarly papers on insomnia and how you can get it from your spouse.  She gave up sleep for lent about forty years ago and has never looked back.  I caught some bizarre form of insomnia that makes me tired at 10pm then wakes me up around 3:30am.  This has been going on for a week and no one knows why.

Speaking of insomnia, my wife got a sausage and pepper sandwich that she raved about and brought home half.  When she went to finish it, the sausage was missing.  Why?  Because the cat ate it.  Of course the cat ate it - what did you expect?   This is the same cat who won't leap up on the counter to get his own food but has no trouble eating mine.  He has progressed to showing affection in a vain attempt to get me to feed him.  When I come home from work, the dog is incredibly happy to see me.  The cat now apes the dog, in hopes I will get up and feed him.  He doesn't really care for me more than he did last week.

We recently realized that our entire house runs on the Cat Food Principle.  I am permitted to work because I can afford cat food.  My wife is permitted to leave the house because she brings home the cat food.  The cat get his bowl filled, eats most of it, then the dog hoovers up the rest, spending minutes licking out every last morsel of his favorite substance.  He will stand at the kitchen door, waiting for it to open and let him at the precious cat food.

New Jersey

I freely admit I was born in New Jersey.  We migrated closer to civilization when I was a few months old, or so I'm told.  I retain nothing of the silly accent, poor driving habits, or driving in circles.  Oddly enough, I found two items of Jersey interest in the news today.  See if you get the theme.....

A Lakewood, NJ girl died after falling into a septic tank.

It would seem that Trenton is out of toilet paper.

I'm not making this stuff up - just reporting it.

Other News

Here's a guy who liked the smell of meth and napalm in the morning.

Iowa senator Chuck Grassley is mad as hell at the History Channel.  Why?  Because they don't show enough history.  Who says your tax dollars are wasted?

A Los Angeles little league team will play this season, thanks to the generous donation of $1200 from the Jet Strip Gentleman's Club.   Go team!

Rick Santorum told a man attending his event that if he wanted limited government, he should vote for Ron Paul [video at link].   There you go - even a broken clock is right twice a day.

President Giveaway promised that Obamacare would cost $900 billion over ten years.  The Congressional Budget Office states $1.76 trillion over ten years.  It's not that he lied - he just repeatedly misstated the truth.  Hey, let's get the government involved in healthcare.  Nothing could possibly go wrong.  Right?  [Medicare.  Social Security.  Medicaid.   The Banks.   Government Motors.]

Reflections on a Three Day Weekend (and Nineteen Years)

I took Monday off to celebrate Valentine's Day, which some people might find odd, as today is Valentine's Day.  I prefer less fuss and the roses are cheaper.  Wife agrees, so be it.

But V-Day also happens to be our anniversary.  You see, we were married by Blue Cross of Pennsylvania, after I learned that my work plan would cover her.  We sent email to the families, mentioning that we were married.  It took almost five years before some of the relatives began to suspect we weren't making this up.

So this year makes nineteen.  The woman deserves a medal for putting up with me that long.

Saturday my band practiced for the last time before this weekend's show.  They pleasantly surprised me by learning to play certain songs correctly.  It's the little things with me.

Sunday we went to visit a friend.  Since it was positively frigid here in the frozen tundra of PA, we got some hot drinks for the ride.   There's a Starbucks in a supermarket: beggars can't be choosers.  I ordered a carmel macchiato and a white chocolate mocha.  My wife and I each tasted both and we were unable to tell which was carmel and which was white chocolate.  Kinda speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Monday found us at Barnes&Noble, dodging Kindle displays.  I didn't want anything to drink but that particular Starbucks advertised smoothies made with a banana.  I opted for chocolate.  My wife came back with a chocolate frappucino.  Why?  Because they were out of bananas.  Seems silly to advertise the drink on every flat surface (that doesn't already have a Kindle display) when you cannot produce it.  Maybe it's just me.  I've kinda had it with Starbucks.

Our main fun activity was a trip to the Camden Aquarium.  Camden is a study in extremes.  One one hand you have the waterfront area, with its stadium and aquarium.  On the other hand, you have the city with the most murders in the country, as well as the smallest amount of police.

New Jersey came up with some interesting ideas lately.  For instance, all bridges between PA and NJ are free going to NJ but you have to pay coming back.  I firmly believe that this is because after you've seen New Jersey, you'd pay anything to get back to PA and not bitch about the cost.  Very shrewd.

Along those lines, the signage coming off the bridges is pretty good.  It's when you're trying to get back that things get interesting.  Tiny little signs say TO THE BRIDGE and usually point in the wrong direction.  You're not going to get out of your car to ask directions either.  To their credit, the radically understaffed Camden Police Department maintains high visibility on what passes for roads in New Jersey.  They're probably there to ticket you after you attempt to follow their street signs.

My wife was most complimentary about Camden.  She stated that, for an armpit, the place was really clean.  It showed pride in the neighborhood(s).  Oddly enough, this is not the first time my wife made this observation.  We were on vacation in Los Angeles and took an unfortunate turn.  The map indicated we were in Compton.  She commented on how nice Compton looked.  The people there really took care of their homes and surrounding areas.  [Take note, Philthydelphia]

After locating the aquarium, we were less than enthused at having to pay ten dollars to park our car.  Institutionalized robbery, in its finest form.  The admission had gone up from seventeen to twenty five dollars - also less than impressive.  A review today at work prompted coworkers to tell their favorite aquarium stories.  Tales of being accosted for change in the parking lot, while trying to get children out of the car.

Speaking of robbery, the sodas were two-fifty.

But nothing prepared me for the three buses full of ill-behaved, screaming children that unloaded just as we were walking to the gate.  This used to be a running joke with us.  When we went to a restaurant, I always requested the no screaming children section.  On planes too.  A friend recently told me of her trip to a bookstore with a section of screaming children, officially referred to as the leftystrat section of the store.

The first attraction was a small pool with a rather ragged-looking shark of some sort that you could touch.  My heart went out to the poor lady talking over the p.a. about the shark and telling people to only touch with two fingers, as the shark was sensitive.  The conglomeration of little bastards and bastardettes, all seemingly without parental supervision of any kind, were doing everything but leaping in with the poor shark (whose length barely exceeded a foot).  This might be the first time anyone has ever felt sorry for a shark, but that's the kind of people we are.  I made an off-mic suggestion to the employee (valium lollypops), who seemed to approve vigorously.

No trip to New Jersey would be complete without genuine stereotypes; in this case, Housewives of New Jersey.  They probably weren't the actual housewives but perhaps their good friends.  You could tell as their casual outfits cost more than my car.  Ever see a BMW stroller?  I think I did.

We saw Mike the alligator.  He was the largest alligator we have ever seen.  The employees at the aquarium are extremely helpful and friendly.  When I asked if Mike tasted like chicken, she indicated that he probably did, as that was all he ate.  She proceeded to tell us about when she ate alligator.  Ten points for sense of humor.

We like penguins.  I like them because of Tux, the Linux Penguin.  My wife just thinks they're cute.  These penguins, however, seemed rather lethargic.  They were way more interested in the door backstage than in their exhibit, which I found oddly amusing.

We saw a pair of hippos.  I can't see a hippo without thinking of my cousin Betty, the rude, obnoxious slug of a woman with the social grace of Genghis Kahn.  After she discovers your name, she asks you what you do and how much you make.  My wife thought we were kidding when we prepped her for the inquisition but had to admit we prepped her well.  When my wife asked why the water was brown, I told her because this was Philly/New Jersey, where all water is brown.  Most people won't drink it.  Smart people won't even put their boats into it.  The locals refer to is a Schuylkyll Punch (SKOO-kill).

There's a really cool tube-shaped section that makes it appear as though you're walking through water.  The wildlife is swimming all around you.  We saw some sharks plus what can only be described as a Hedge-Trimmer Shark.  Just don't plug him in while he's in the water, ok?

A cynic like yours truly can't help noticing that the all exits lead through the gift shop.  More clever Jersey marketing, no doubt.

All that aside, we really like the aquarium.  It could be bigger but there's still a decent amount to see.  It is very easy to navigate, even for people with some physical handicaps.  If they can let us know when there will be no busloads of children, we might go back.  More than likely we'll take the drive to Baltimore, where I hear incredible things about their aquarium.  And it's twenty bucks to park.