Blue Strawberries

Your love is like  hitting your finger with a stapler

• WARNING: It's that time.. pumpkin spice is back. Keep your kids off the streets and ask Dr. Fauci if we need to be vaccinated against it. If you're still using last year's pumpkin spice tires, you must keep your car six feet from all other cars.

I think it's the house. Everything turns blue eventually.

The worst is bread. Given about a day, it turns blue. Everything has to be refrigerated, including the strawberries. The only thing that doesn't grow hair is the top of my head. If it were blue, it would go unnoticed these days. Blue macaroni and cheese is the worst.

Today in Olympic News:  Something not involving a ball came close to a record in something

Today I identify as  Ultraman

• Know what's interesting? Stats show that adding more lanes to highways doesn't help.

It was a gray, rainy Saturday. The forecast was Generally Ugly.

I was (more) unpleasant, having been awakened at noon.

We took Mom out on Saturday, so Wife had the unpleasant duty of waking me. Things were even worse than normal because the ten foot pole was in the shop for a tuneup, so she had to get within arm's reach of me to get me moving. She established, long ago, that it's best not to be near me when waking me. Or when living with me.

Time is weird when being dragged, painfully, from sleep. I feel my eyelids drifting closed and want to fully support them in their efforts, but realize I can't, just before they slam shut. This usually results in one eye open and one eye shut. It takes roughly 20 minutes to fight the Waking War and actually move a centimeter. Then, with my legs hanging off the bed, it's another few minutes for them to apply themselves to the floor. Socks take a while, though. I have to generate the energy to get one on, then rest for a bit, while I consider if I want two socks that morning. It occurs to me that I should have my coffee before I wake up, making dressing so much easier.

I woke up with a headache - it was my Saturday headache. The Saturday headache is drastically different from my other headaches. I think it's my body getting even with me for getting more than six hours of sleep. It's revolting. I've been told my body is revolting for years. Normally I feel the headache and combat it by going back to sleep.

But I had to soldier on. The problem here was that the headache had invited a few of its friends. They were taking up places in my head and causing clanging noises off and on. I've never had more than one headache, so I was a bit flummoxed. After a while, the headaches started arguing. When Mom asked what I wanted for breakfast, she too was flummoxed at the small motions and tics on my face. She was concerned, because she's never seen me short of words. I'm reasonably certain one of the headaches ordered pancakes when we got to the restaurant, cuz that's what was on the plate. I have to hand it to him - he has good taste - the pancakes were great.  [IHOP Tres Leches]

One thing that pissed off millions of people at the start of social media was the people who went out to eat, took pictures of their food, and described it in detail. They became Foodies. Foodies were only slightly more popular than Furries. The reason I mentio
n this is that this blog is kind of an anti-foodie service. One reads along and sees what I like. Then one strenuously avoids it due to sugar, calorie, or fat content. This is like a free public service. Ihop had a promotional hot chocolate last year that had something like maple syrup in it. I think they called it French toast hot chocolate. It was delicious. Unfortunately it's no longer here and the waitress had never heard of it.

It's not that coffee outside my house is bad, but I prepare large travel barrels to take on the way to the restaurant. The Coffee Police should come down on Ihop and Waffle House in a serious manner.

Temporarily almost caffeinated, I ate. This calmed the inter-headache sparring. Some of them even took the rest of the afternoon off, while some came and went. It was near 5:00 when I got home, without my first nap. Sometimes my first nap comes as I transition from the bed to the couch, so this was a glaring problem, as reinforced by the headaches. They stopped arguing and decided to work together for evil, teaming up to sing some current hits. I threatened them with "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" and they quieted down. Stuffed for the next seventeen hours, I did what was right for my body and started my first nap. When I got up, a few hours later, the headaches were gone. Let this be a lesson to me... if I take naps, the singing stops? Was this a cluster headache, because there were so fsking many of them? And to stop getting up before 1:00 on weekends.

• Yes, the food and culture are great, but why live in New Orleans? The entire city is without power due to Hurricane Ida. No matter what happens, New Orleans gets it. It's like the state flag says "Hey hurricane - come get me - nyah nyah!" 
• some areas won't have power for weeks

How are broken clouds different from scattered clouds? Or mostly cloudy? Or mostly sunny? I've obviously been checking the weather today, in a last ditch effort to avoid.....  mowing.  On the other hand, it's more difficult to mow wet grass and it grows faster due to too much rain. When I first visited the southwest, I noticed few lawns. It was a life-changing experience for me.  [notice I didn't say g*me ch*nger]

Every other house on the block has nice grass. I mow weeds, that grow while I'm cutting them. My grass is the kind that doesn't need sun - only rain. It's perfect for the climate. It's called Philly Raingrass.

• is it funny that I can't even get my own relatives and friends to read this blog? I feel really weird about sending out an email, asking them to check it out. Got any suggestions?

I just saw a listing for "Politics Nation with Rev Al Sharpton."

Remember: the two people who watch it vote and their vote counts as much as yours.

• President Taxes called on leaders to mandate vaccines
• #ImpeachBiden

I'm not suggesting you get your shots or not - that's your decision. I will not have mandates, especially the kind that come from government. The shutting down of businesses by state government was a disaster. Nanny State needs to be stopped. You're old enough to make your own decisions.

• Faceyspaces has trackers in 25% of its websites and 61% of the most popular apps
• I don't use Faceyspaces, but I'd advise using 'private browsing' windows for all browsing. When you close them, everything gets deleted.

Moderna Vaccine Shipment Crashes, Prompting Hazmat Cleanup and Shuttering of Airspace

Huh?

And we put this in our bodies?  

• Federal government to expand use of facial recognition despite growing concerns
• They don't care what you think, they don't care if it's illegal or unconstitutional - they're the government

 

With all that's wrong with Google and Gmail, I have to give their spam filter credit. The worst I've had is a few false positives.

• Ok, we all have musical guilty pleasures. Right now I'm listening to Slade. What's yours?

 

[Guitar Only]

I have no idea what possessed me, but I bought a Vox VBM1, the Brian May model. It's small, white, and looks like an AC30 put in a dryer and shrunk down to roughly 12" across.

It has just a few knobs, which is good for guitar players, who can't handle complex equipment. It has a switch too. Save the limited space in your brain and leave the switch depressed (or you'll be depressed).  The knobs are GAIN, TONE, and VOLUME. GAIN controls distortion, you should know the rest. The switch is a gain switch. There is a preamp output, as well as a few others.

How does it sound? Depends on how long you've been playing and what you're looking for out of an amp. The thing is much louder than it looks. The clean tone is... among the most recent clean tones I've ever heard. The fun here is with the GAIN switch depressed (not depressed is lower gain, which didn't sound at all good). You can control the GAIN by degrees with the GAIN knob. This is a real powerhouse of a gain box. It can take you over the top, where there's too much gain (did I say that?). 

Let's be real: this will not make you sound like Brian May. It was put together to emulate his Deacy amp, built by bandmate John Deacon, out of an old transistor radio. The Deacy was used on several older Queen songs (none of which I remember). As it is, it's a really fun toy. The hidden key is the preamp output. Brian uses a treble booster to overload his amps, so this is allegedly the same circuitry. You can plug the guitar into the Vox, run the preamp output to your real tube amp (Brian uses 9 Vox AC30s live) and punch the hell out of the front end of the amp(s). Hang in for a review using the amp this way. May isn't the only famous player to use a booster in front of his amp. Jimmy Page used a number of Tone Benders. If you look closely, Ritchie Blackmore used a reel to reel deck into his Marshalls. Tony Iommi used a sledgehammer.

OVERALL: it's another cute living room toy. The amp itself is cheaper than some of the current treble boosters, so consider that. It's a decent, cheap practice amp. I don't have a lot of use for it. Will probably sell or trade. It's between $250-$300 used. For May enthusiasts, there's also the Digitech pedal that gives you a bunch of his signature tones. That's going to cost you around $300+ used at this time. Unless you sing like Freddy Mercury, it's unlikely to get you laid.

kudos to me for reviewing something put out years and years ago.

I will not be reviewing the mini Marshall stack because someone bought it before I did.

Think of the money I saved.

• Oh poop - right-wing NRA hottie Dana Loesch is married

Taliban militants stormed a Kabul tv station to demand anchor praise the terror group

Over here, that's just network news (without the storming).

 

The Elephant in the Room is my Emotional Support Elephant

 Your love is like  painful hangnails

RIP Charlie Watts (80) Rolling Stones drummer. He had to drop out of this year's tour, on medical advice. He had recently rescued a greyhound.

Today in Olympic News: the Mexican Skiing Team was disqualified when they couldn't correctly  identify snow

• Today the FDA ruled that Chicago style pizza cannot be called pizza and must be referred to as Chicago Style or Chicago Style pizza-like substance

Today I identify as  escargot

• Facebook reveals most-seen posts are inane questions, not politics
• who saw that one coming?

Success Story

Afghanistan's Opium Business Boomed Under U.S. Occupation

Responsible for 82% of the world's opium supply

Amazon, out of the news for 48 hours, announced it will be opening department stores.

• cashiers have to pee in bottles
• Intravenous feeding tubes eliminate need for lunch breaks
• restockers are monitored per-item and don't get paid to talk to customers
• many items still come from China and customers must wait in the store 4 weeks to get them
• customers advised that checkout is quicker with the Amazon Chip in their foreheads
• UPS will not carry your purchases to your car

Famous naked picture and video site Onlyfans is now banning sexually explicit content because banks and payment services demand it. This is a site that allows people to make money by performing acts that people pay to watch. Not anymore, apparently. Visa/MC and banks have been tightening up on what they'll allow, as we saw recently with Pr0nhub. Nudity will be allowed, but there has been  no word on how far things can go.

Looks like Onlyfans is trying to flush itself down the loo. Adult content is what made Onlyfans.

Star feels betrayed

Also interesting is how many sites are affected by the payment/banking industry and why.

It's very sad to note that the government jumped in and stopped people from earning money during the Great Flying AIDS Business Shutdown. Now that some have turned online, that avenue is being shut down too. Why is this? As we know, the banks and credit cards' prohibition is arbitrary and not new. Also participating in the downfall are religious groups, who want pr0n off the internet. 

KEEP YOUR RELIGION OFF MY PRoN. And everything else.

• sit back and enjoy tonight's movie "A Funny Thing Happened to me on the Way to the Gangbang"

AT&T denies data breach after hacker auctions 70 million user database

Sir, I think we've been hacked!

Nope.

No, really, we've been hacked.

Nope.

Sir, our IT department tells is there is a 70 million users database for sale.

No there isn't.

It's right here on the Dark Web.

I don't see it.

Look again.

Nope.

What do we tell the press? Sir, would you please take those dark glasses off?

Nothing happened.

The FCC is going to crucify us.

No they're not.

We could blame a contractor for not putting a password on a container.

Never happened.

The public is going to eat us alive.

Jenkins, we're AT& friggin T - would we ever lie to customers?

• Report: Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine may get full FDA approval Monday
• yes, that's right, it's had an emergency authorization
• so the billions of you who got a vaccine should know it's now approved

Man, it's great to have our car back.

And when I say have our car back, I mean I haven't actually been allowed to drive it and it's out of town, with the dog. Wife and Dog took off, visiting. Which means I'm at home, not visiting. Mind you, not visiting is its own reward. The problem is I'm starting to get bored AND I miss my dog. Since no babysitter was obtained, it might be time for Hijinks. Now would be the perfect time to get those nasty neighbors back for shoveling their private drive snow onto my car. They'd never see it coming. I'll probably use something other than snow. Or that 240v electrical prank.

Wife gets excited about going visiting, and starts 'getting ready' a few days in advance. Her process of getting ready is unlike anyone else's so it's naturally fair game for the blog. She starts with lists - several of them. Then decides what she's going to buy for the relatives. Then buys it, but shifts the date of her visit, having the expected effect on the bought items. On the Day of the Leaving, it gets a little loud. I ask why. It's because she doesn't know what she's taking. I suggest looking on one of the three lists she prepared. She can't find them. So she randomly starts putting stuff into bags and a few hangers. As I help carry the stuff to the car, I wonder aloud why she needs enough clothes for a month if it's a weekend stay. You're not gonna believe this, but she gets MAD at me when I ask. We purposely buy large cars and by the time the car is packed, there's no room for the dog.

Then there's Leaving. Leaving is also a drawn out process. Whenever she goes somewhere, she returns in five minutes because she forgot something. On larger trips she returns again for a pocketbook or phone. The third time was for a 5lb (2km UK) bag of peanuts. I didn't see the bag come in, which makes me wonder what else is hiding about the place.

Honey, can you get me the tiger?

Uh, the tiger?

Yes THE TIGER (as if it's the most natural thing on Earth)

Where would this tiger be located?

Behind the couch.

Dear, why is there an outdoor patio set in the bathroom?

Oh, that's a birthday present for Aunt Barbara.

We sure are getting generous.

Why is there a terrarium in the kitchen?

We're watching it for the niece.

Couldn't we watch it at her place?

The fish like to be near people.

The dog really likes to go. Anywhere, apparently.

She watched the packing, knowing Mommy was leaving.

When I picked up her leash, she went batshit.

I swear she hovered above the floor for a bit, then ran to the door and back, then made screaming dog noises, then tried to sit so I could put on the leash, then screamed and ran some more. We have to allow five minutes to put her leash on. I'm starting to wish I could get that excited about anything. My leash is in the bedroom, but that's a different matter entirely.

Flying AIDS Updates  

Those Anti-Covid Plastic Barriers Probably Don’t Help and May Make Things Worse

US COVID-19 data has never been good enough

Most face masks won’t stop COVID-19 indoors, study warns

Speaking of women earning money taking their clothes off, the woman interviewed above, Star, had a few safe pictures in the story. She is one of the top percentage of earners on Onlyfans, which is a significant amount of money (and good for her). Sometimes I think I'm in the tiny percentage in preferences. This woman looks large to me. Not fat at all. Just large. The posterior must be outta site. That seems to be a thing these days: a huge bum. And huge silicone boobs.

But that ain't me. I don't like tattoos, butt implants, or bolt-on boobs. We have managed to avoid them in our house. Marshall the cocker wanted buttocks, but we kept that on the back burner.

Butt implants. Seriously? I only recently heard of these things, when a local lady got arrested for doing implants with concrete. I'm thinking heavy cottage cheese. We've gone from 'is my ass too fat' to 'do I have enough booty?'

And who was the first person to come up with Butt Implants?

"All these women feel inferior because their boobs aren't big enough. So I give them breast implants. Now women are complaining their butts aren't huge and round enough. Hey, I know.. I'll invent Butt Implants!"

God: Man, the humans are at it again.

Moses: What is it this time - polluting the air, cutting down the forests, or anal?

God: Butt implants.

Moses: BUTT implants?

God: Yes. Why do people repeat everything I say as a question?

Moses: Oh, sorry, I'm starting to sound like a human.

God: First it was breast implants. They are perverting human nature.

Moses: Oh, that's not good. How?

God: They are wired to reproduce. The cheerleaders will go for the football players because they're large and can provide for the family. The cavemen didn't know this, but that's how it works. By the same token, men are entranced by boobies because they produce milk for his babies. But larger fake boobies do not provide any extra milk.

Moses: I get it.

God: You're slow, but nice. Now it's butt implants. Men look for child-bearing hips in women, not butts the size of a Chevrolet. The whole thing is messed up. Mother Nature's out back, getting rid of her breakfast into the bird fountain. The birds like it, but that's not the point. Everything's gone higgledy piggledy.

Moses: Is this why world reproduction rates are going down?

God: Yes. Well, that and RuPaul.

Moses: Ummm... God?

God: Yes, my son?

Moses: just between us, Mother Nature's weather has gone.... a bit bipolar.

God: Yeah, it's been that way since her vagina implants. Her lips look like they're talking to you.

I recently discovered I was neurotypical.

No, I didn't have to go to the doctor or take tests. I found out the new way: Twitter. 

I follow a person who's 'on the spectrum'. She refers to everyone else as neurotypical. 

Ok, I get it. But there's something funny about it to me. 

It's like I'm being assigned a diagnosis. Moreso, a diagnosis for things running as they're supposed to.

My gay buddies call me a Breeder.

I call everyone who's right handed 'backwards,' even though lefties are only 10% of the populace.

It's only a matter of time...

The person with one leg referring to people with two legs as duo-dexters?

The depressed person who calls people without depression 'Happys'

People with multiple personalities already refer to people without them as 'singletons'

the guy with rebar through his brain refers to the rest of us as 'rebar-less'

the guy missing a testicle says "go ask the Two Balls"

• Hey, if you're swimming around and are attacked by a sea snake, no worries - it's probably just horny
• Scientists recommend showing it a picture of Michael Moore 
• if you are attacked by a swimmer, kick them in the face, unless it's a particularly fetching face

Manufactured Mask Mandates Mask Mental Methane

 Your love is like  eating too much spicy Mexican food

Today is Friday the 13th!

Run around and do stuff. More importantly, harass your friends who refuse to go out on the 13th. Leave dead bats on their doorstep.

Flying AIDS News

The masks are back!

Wear them in your house!

The employers who demanded you come back are hearing you won't.

School mask battles rage on as more children fall ill, fill hospitals

Covid booster: US approves third jab for the immunocompromised (I can't wait for the 4th)

Reddit Quarantines AntiMask Antivax Subreddit  (keep that control absolute

In the first example of its kind, a virus has skipped from the IT press to humans.

It's the FUD virus. FUD is Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, initially referring to nonsense stirred up by an entity with something to gain in the IT field. It hopped from IT press to humans in 2020. It makes so much noise that people have no idea what the truth is, and blindly follow an alleged authority. They stop thinking and don't bother to do their homework. Symptoms include mask mandates, compulsory vaccines, social distancing, schooling at home, and repeating the word "science," even if you don't know what that word means.  Also may involve repeating phrases mindlessly, like "mask up." Can also involve vaccine passports.

Recently seen is the FUD-D virus, which has already morphed from the FUD virus, causing the entire symptomatology to return again, from the top.

Today in Olympic News: one country is arguing with another country about uniform colors, a one time final winner-take-all grudge match between the trans and (sadly) not-trans athletes. The winner will make up everybody's Olympic team from here on.

• didja ever get a snake up your nose?
• me either

Today I identify as  Napoleon

That's Our President, episode 43

• Conservative radio host and vaccine critic dies of covid-19 complications
• oopsie 

An Australian brewery has been banned from promoting one of its beers, after a minor mistook it for chocolate milk.

Not related: all parents in Australia have suddenly disappeared 

• Oregon Law Allows Students To Graduate Without Proving They Can Write Or Do Math
• Oregon parents ask "..and this is different how?" 
• Oregon's graduation rate is nearly the lowest in the country, so this is to raise the rates. 

Looking at my inbox at work, it's pretty damn clean from my coworkers. Unfortunately it's absolutely gummed up from the company. While my group may publish 10 emails per week, all relevant, my company will send 50, mostly irrelevant. And then when it's done sending them out, on Friday it sends out a recap of the week's messages. No one knows why. I wonder if they get a discount for using more space.

You know, highly relevant stuff, like Martian Astronaut History Month. We're also concerned, for no understandable reason, with what other groups in the company are up to. That custodial got a new riding mower should be kept on a Need to Know basis, and I have no Need to Know. If we're changing our phone system in another office, I worked really diligently but couldn't come up with any way it could possibly affect my group. Let's also consider that most of us work remotely, so any phone system news wouldn't be Need to Know. Likely anything about sexual harassment. Not only can't we harass anyone if we're not in the office, I already know all about sexual harassment. It has been mentioned that I should run the courses (but not as a HOW TO).

And there's still that one guy in my group. The guy who's quite a bit more experienced (smarter) than me, who still pronounces 'malware' as 'mallware.' I've never heard of mallware, but I'll bet my wife has.

After forcing my group to read this blog, plus a series of meetings where we point it out and laugh at people, we have the oral noises down to just teeth-sucking. This is a great improvement in meetings over grunting, coughing, whistling, teeth-sucking, pencil tapping on teeth, and belching.

But I like these people. Ok, going out for a beer after work would cost $16,372 in plane fare, but they're good people. Yes, some of them have questionable hobbies that involve livestock, but they're all really nice to each other. As you'd expect, the women are more gross than the men, but we take care of each other.

I just came out of a meeting. A meeting where I work is the sound of one man talking. No matter if it includes 5 or 50 people, only the moderator speaks. It's company culture. Unless there's a wiseass comment to be made, then 2 people will speak up. Today's meeting involved something we work with daily and how to streamline it, so you'd think we all have a vested interest in things working faster. Nope - not a peep. Except for me. I can't decide if my group hates the sound of my voice or is glad I ask questions so they don't have to disturb their vocal cords. If I can get an hour or two cut out of the week, that's kinda important. But no... nobody says a word. I am convinced that if my boss asked how many people want the rest of the week off, there would be silence. I told him the loneliest man in the company is the man leading a meeting. He agreed.

• A woman in Sydney, Australia, is under investigation for pretending to be a doctor. For eight months. The only reason she was discovered is that her ratings were so good and she saw so many patients, that the real doctors were complaining.

SEVENTY THREE year old Stevie Nicks canceled her remaining performances to 'keep healthy'

Her original face was gorgeous, as is her second(?) one.

Limp Bizkit is also cancelling the remaining dates on their tour due to the Flying AIDS.

Music fans all over the world rejoice.

• The Senate approved an amendment proposed by Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio to provide free internet to Cuba
• WTF? 

As if this blog isn't random enough.....

If you are in a committed relationship, and we're not talking about your goldfish, have some sex.

It would seem a tremendous idea in general, wouldn't it?

What you might be missing (get ready for it) is that sex isn't just the best thing in the world. It's also a means of staying close to your significant other. It's communication. It's releasing all sorts of wonderful 1chemicals into your system, like oxytocin (the love stuff). Sex and touch are actually essential to every relationship: if you're not doing one or the other or both, you're probably drifting apart and not reconfirming your feelings for your significant other. Some people go through their lives not knowing this. It's a big hit with relationship counselors. You will look at your SO differently the next day.

Now RUN over to your SO and show this to them:

"HI HONEY... we're supposed to have sex. It says right here in this very silly blog, so it must be true. Get nekkid and let's non-verbally show our love for each other. Someone told me it means twice as much love if we do Butt Stuff...."

Fun Body Facts

• there are over 60 sphincters in the human body
• there are a ton of nerve cells in the butt - the better to feel you, My Pretty
• there are a ton of nerve cells in the kidney - so kidney stones can hurt so bad you want to die
• a man's penis can also be used for peeing    -monty python

My friend's dog is terrified of thunder and tries to hide.

My dog barks at it.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, my cable service is down. 

If the cable company can tell me it's down, when it went down, and when it's going to be up, it sounds less unforeseen than the English as a Second Language gentleman in customer service told me. I am not demeaning this person, but his accent sounded like a mixture of Indian and tv westerns.

Earlier, I had gone to their website to check on service. I went to Search and put in Outage Map. For the life of it, it couldn't locate Outage Map. Mind you, on the next page, it told me if I signed in, I could view the outage map. Mind you, if internet is broken, I can't check anyway. I have to use my phone. I don't think it should be a national secret that there is an outage in the area. On the phone, they wanted my phone number. I gave it to them and they told me there's no account with that phone number attached to it. Funny, I pay the bill monthly, so there must be a phone number attached to it. I can't exactly give them my account number, because it has 47 digits, 3 spaces, a couple of Q's, and something that looks like emojis, but this is a 100% emoji-free house.   They wanted to know if it was for a wifi password or email issue. IT'S FOR THE COMPLETE AND TOTAL LACK OF SERVICE, but there was apparently no option for that. Sometimes if you scream, curse, or hit zero, you can get to a human.

The gentleman politely informed me it would be operational by 2am, which is a shame, as it's 11pm and it would be a good idea to sleep at some point. While my team and boss have no way of telling if I'm asleep at the keyboard, I'd feel bad about it. I'd also feel bad about waking up with the imprint of a keyboard on my face. If I think about it, almost anything would be an improvement, or so my family and everyone I went to school with told me. The kind fellow offered to text me when it comes back up. I can tell the future sometimes, and I can tell that a text at 2am will not be welcome by Wife, me, or the dog, who will probably bark at it.

You realize what this means, right?

I am so far behind on my pr0n that there's no catching up.

No sleeping with my step-sister, various MILFs, clown pron, in a taxi, butt specials, or just my regular old hamster pr0n. If my boss notices I'm off tomorrow, how do I explain this? I think he's very religious, which I'm going to go ahead and assume means he's not big on pr0n. So it's down to pr0n or sleep, either of which will affect my ability to do my job tomorrow.

My workplace is so rough

HOW ROUGH IS IT?

Because of an alleged sexual assault, Alibaba is offering its 250,000 employees self-defense training.

Lemon Coffee?

 Your love is like  a groin pull

Today's Olympic News: somebody is disputing something

Mrs. lefty sometimes goes into the local convenience store. The wife, a very sweet Indian lady, stops to talk with Mrs. lefty and they compare jewelry. Her husband likes to chat too. Yesterday he asked if she wanted her cigarette packs soft or HARD. I suppose he sees himself as swave and de-boner. I foresee a drop in visits to that store.

Today I identify as  certainly not Judy Garland, I'll tell you that.

Everybody misses Alan Rickman. He was great in movies, but I really loved his voice.

I always wanted to hear him sing I Feel Pretty 

I feel pretty.

Oh so pretty.

I feel pretty.

And witty.

And gay.

C'mon, you hear it too....

Limbo

So the only limbo left is Collision Limbo.

The smashed up almost new car was to be ready on time, last week.

It is now ready on time, this week.

I think they ordered the wrong body, which had to be put together in Korea, in spite of the fact the car is actually made in the US. This is the extent to which this particular collision center goes for their customers. Or at least for me. Because I'm special. Or at least that's what my mom always told me.

ME: You told me Thursday 

COLLISION: I didn't say which Thursday

• My work pc is annoyingly slow. I tracked it back to McAfee.
• Do you think it's because he's dead?

My mom makes this Chocolate Cake of Death. The cake is deep, rich, and heavy.

The icing is even heavier. It has some coffee in it.

At any family event, the cake is requested.

Mrs. lefty has spent over 20 years trying to get the recipe. Mom keeps saying she'll give her the recipe.

Now Mom has dementia and we can't get the recipe out of her.

How is this right? 

• Did Plato and Aristotle have last names?
• if my name were Plato Schwartz, I'd call myself Plato too 

Google was sued over the Google+ data leak

The case website with full details is at googleplusdatalitigation.com. The case was settled in June 2020, with Google agreeing to pay out $7.5 million. After losing about half of that money to legal and administrative fees, and with 1,720,029 people filling out the right forms by the October 2020 deadline, the payout for each person is a whopping $2.15.

Half of $7.5 million in legal fees. Half.

Fish with 'human' teeth caught in North Carolina

his health insurance doesn't cover dental 

Infrastructure Bill Could Enable Government to Track Drivers’ Travel Data

So they can charge a per-mile TAX.

I didn't vote for him.

• Have you died lately? I know I haven't. Check out this BBC documentary about near-death experiences. Lots of interesting stuff on this site.

Just when you think Big Brother has finally put another tetanus-covered nail in your coffin, Uber comes along and asked employees to allow cameras in their homes and bedrooms.

Now I'm surprisingly in favor of cameras in the bedroom (but only if I have control of them).

My employer? I'm not enough of an exhibitionist to make this work.

You'd think Uber would only be concerned about having a camera in the car.

Aside from updating your resume, what would you do?

• move the camera to the bathroom, focus entirely on the bowl, display your success each time
• frequently dance around the bedroom, sometimes as a family, singing Hava Nagila, and other Swedish folk songs
• set up your computer to send racy novels through the keylogger
• make bored sex noises before bed
• point the camera at someone else, who is actually working. There will be entire websites you can pay to capture someone working. It will become more popular than those naked cam sites!
• point the camera at Chaturbate or Grindr

My employer would be ok with any video, including adult, except one that in any way demeans minorities. My supervisor wouldn't care... I can't even get him to read my emails.

Along those lines, Apple promises it will reject government demands to use new child abuse image detection system for surveillance.  No, really, we swear.

Apple already checks iCloud files and images sent over email against known child abuse imagery, as do tech giants like Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Facebook, and Dropbox, who employ similar image hashing methods to look for and flag potential abuse material,

Read it again: the other services also 'scan' for child abuse material

Although we don't have any, what else is scanned?

Best assumption is everything. Proceed accordingly.

Ever get anything from a humongous worldwide shipper that rhymes with RedEx?

Of course you have - we all have.

Ever try to ship anything with them?

That was a trick question. The answer is you can't.

In my younger days, you'd call a number and they'd send a truck, post haste.

Those days have gone. They are so far in the rear window that it is easier to see Abraham Lincoln at his desk (with a slave or two underneath).

I got a next day envelope. I went to ship it back, prepaid.

This is when I discovered you can't ship anything with RedEx.

RedEx is cutting their costs by 'allowing' you to drop off your next day prepaid envelope at 'drop off points'. Sorry - it's prepaid, guys. You're coming to my house, even though it might kill at least one of us. And it will.

I went looking for a phone number and POOF, got their web page, which is full of color pictures and all sorts of irrelevant information, but no phone numbers. Eventually I found the contact page, but it was in Spanish. That makes perfect sense. Falling back on my 6 years of high school Spanish, I gave it a try. I got the phone numbers. Unfortunately they were for Spain.

These RedEx guys have it down.

On Fridays, they all get drunk and watch people attempt to use the website.

There's a chat box. But there are no representatives available, because they don't work on days ending in -y. There's an automated help box, where I ask it for a phone number. It silently mocks me. I ask it to just send a motherfscking truck to pick up a tiny prepaid envelope. It suggests I go to Shipping.

Shipping is the page I've been to over and over. It wants me to set up an account. I don't need an account, I need a colorful truck to show up sometime in the next 24 hours. This is not an option.

Finally I discover another option to schedule a pickup (YAY!).

I fill everything in, hit SUBMIT, then it stares at me, subtly giggling. Eventually it tells me not to resubmit and check with Scheduling. There IS no Scheduling.

When I finally hit OK, it tells me the shipping number is wrong. Of course the shipping number is wrong - I copied it directly from the envelope, where it was typed in LARGE BLACK LETTERS. I did not mistype.

Sneaky bunch, these RedEx guys.

I saw a RedEx truck coming up the street. Quickly, I built a roadblock, put out some stop sticks, and stood there, holding my AR-13. The driver said he sympathized with my plight, but he couldn't pick up anything without it being scheduled. I was tempted to have his gas tank schedule itself to drop off the truck, but stupid karma would just catch up with me. Again.

RedEx's business plan counts on people getting frustrated and giving up trying to ship.

If I ever DO get in touch with RedEx, I'm going to ask them why they caused me more aggravation than the last 2 elections. They'll tell me they just want to make sure I'm serious about sending the envelope.

It's a good thing the envelope I'm sending isn't for antidepressants. I'd have shot myself.

This all feeds into my abject failure in all things electronic commerce. I wonder who I killed in a past life to cause this... Whenever I attempt to purchase something on the web, Wife has to take Dog and go on a Three Hour Tour, because she knows there will be screaming, pounding, and pleading (this is just typing in the url).  For a high tech guy, I feel like an abject failure every time. Concert tickets are the worst. And after I fail to get them online, I have to go to the box office, where there's a $25 surcharge for handing money to a human. So that's $325 plus tissues for nosebleed seats. 

I'm ok with Amazon, but that might just be a magic spell Jeff Bezos has put on the planet.

This might point to excrementally bad web design, in addition to my karma for having blown up several small, possibly inhabited planets in a past life. All of this is on large screens - heaven forbid this is tried from a phone! Everyone and their dog is a 'web designer' but, like everyone making music, not everyone should. C'mon - people with telescopes can't read that font size.

I'm good with Ebay too, but I think it's because I used to give them 15% of my income for guitar toys. Disposable income became indisposed. Must be my karma again... you see, I set a couple of nuns on fire... just a few... well I had to... they kept telling me I had sin and it was early in the morning, before sinning hours. If you think about it, the only people guilty of sin in advance are husbands.

• Some call me a contrarian.  I think not.

Olympic Couch Wrangling

 Your love is like  things that rhyme with werpees.

• Olympic news: today is the 14th day of the Olympics

The CDC needs to stop confusing the public

• Bill Gates admits meetings with Epstein were a 'huge mistake'
• also apologizes for meetings with Mussolini, Steve Jobs, Henry Kissinger, and Hitler

Massena, a small New York town, has banned new bitcoin mines because they're 'unsightly'

all those damn hard hats, shovels, pickaxes, and explosives  

• freeze-dried mouse sperm on a postcard

If you need to point out on someone's birthday that they're old, there are a number of ways....

• coffin
• walker
• coke bottle glasses
• nose hair trimmer

I have a nose hair trimmer, but it spontaneously disappeared. So all that's left is to braid it.

Today I identify as  Greta Thunberg

If more of us identified as Greta Thunberg....

There would be a lot of Greta Thunbergs

Apple is going to start scanning your iPictures for child exploitation images.

They never asked you, did they?

Everybody is against child exploitation (except for the exploiters), right?

This is frequently the reason used to start accessing something someone shouldn't be accessing. It's for the children.

But if they can access your pictures, what else can they scan for? Why is this even an issue? Should they have the right to scan your pictures at all, say, for naked, perfectly legal pictures? And your documents. 

The short (and long) answer is NO. 

The government isn't allowed to do this because of the 4th Amendment (search and seizure). 

Apple, being a commercial entity, can do what it wants, and fervently believes it leads the pack and knows what's best for you. 

This is one of the reasons I don't use Apple devices personally: you don't own your music or data or operating system. While android has more eyes on your device than you think, it's not scanning and not clouding everything.

Think about it.... none of us have these images on our phones, but we have freedom from anybody spying on us. 

The Universal Panacea

I'm talkin about coffee. Go juice. Brown liquid. Instant humanizer. Get movinger. That magic elixir.

You gotta wonder how someone figured out coffee... hmmm... beans.... I'll bet if I crushed them up and poured hot water over them, they'd produce a good-tasting way to get myself going in the morning (and the rest of the day). I also wonder about tobacco... hey, if I picked it, dried it out, put all sorts of chemicals in it, rolled it up and lit it, it would be pleasing (and addictive). Where do these ideas come from? Probably demented minds, one or two short steps from the Happy Place<tm>. The booby hatch. Rubber room. Laughing academy.

I had a friend without benefits once.

So early ways to make coffee involved those huge canisters, with the green plastic valves on them, that served small conventions. Then the one your parents used: the drip. This also described one or two of your friends. Their personalities were such that no one wanted to be around them. They sucked all the air out of the room, like someone with Borderline Personality Disorder. The drip coffee makers are still around, but you have to show proof that you're over 65 to use one. The drip method sometimes evolved to the drop method, depending on how wet your hands were, or your General Klutziness Coefficient. 

Starting in the 70s (or 80s - too lazy to look it up), everybody got a Mr. Coffee. Mr. Coffee? As if some guy, probably dressed as a butler, came to your house and made you coffee - up to 12 cups at a time. And we saw that it was good. Plus 12 cups was almost as much as needed to get through the day. The only problem was that you had to keep it heated all this time, and by the end of the day it turned into some sort of brown sludge that never came off the pot and was only slightly suitable for human consumption. Due to Science, there was always coffee left over, no matter how many pots you made or how many people drank it. Worse was its use at work. No matter how many people drank it, and this includes the ones that didn't pay into the Coffee Fund, NOBODY ever cleaned it out. This either resulted in one person always washing it, or just sludge on top of sluge, until there was no more room for the actual coffee, it had a nice blue fuzzy sheen on the top, and coworkers would regularly vomit upon sight of it. The sheer genius of Mr. Coffee's manufacturer was that they used filters, at one per pot. So you'd have to replace them often (hopefully every pot). 

Variations of Mr. Coffee also appeared, mostly the single and two cup varieties. These were for people who didn't require 12 cups. Single people. Sad little humans, who stopped using them when they discovered they would always have to clean it, regardless of anyone else. The ones that kept it clean you had to strenuously avoid because of grave personality defects and weird genitalia. 

In the 90s (plus or minus 20 years), the Foo Foo stuff started to appear, like the French Press. The Bench Press. The Double Triangle, that used more filters than your car's engine. The Upside Down Triple Press, which was responsible for more burns in a single year than hot water and working on radiators combined. 

These all had one thing in common: they brewed shitty coffee. No matter how you changed around the variables, it wasn't drinkable, except for certain salesmen at work, usually involving used cars and men with checkered suits. 

Round about this time, Dunkin Donuts was going strong, for the people who went out because making coffee was beyond their abilities. They started carrying beans, at which time you discovered that no matter how you played with them, you couldn't make it taste like it did from Dunkin itself, like pizza and cheesesteaks. Then appeared [holy music] Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks: home of the bitter, overroasted, overcharged beans. You could even buy a pastry, for 4 times what Dunkin charged. These stores popped up all over the place, like a Flying AIDS epidemic, only without the masks. They were even in supermarkets and places that did car repairs, as well as fine clothing shops and eyebrow boutiques. They eventually realized they might've overdone it, so they closed the stores that were inside Dunkin Donuts. They had really good ice and cream drinks, but the rule was Don't Drink the Coffee (unless you were a pretentious prick, like some of the people behind that counter who referred to themselves as Baristas). You were not a Hollywood star unless you had a Starbucks cup in your hand whenever you were seen. This was eventually replaced with water bottles filled with vodka.

Then came one of the greatest inventions known to modern man: the Keurig.

For a ridiculously inflated price, you could buy a coffee maker. You'd stick these little plastic pods in them and hit GO. Even if the coffee was shit, YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO CLEAN IT. And believe me, most of the coffee is shit. But the ease of use is through the roof, unless you're still too confused and have to go to Dunkinbucks. You can't make more than a cup at a time, but it will go on forever. By the time your party is over, you'll still be making coffee. I'd still do it - as an introvert, I'm much happier pushing a button to make coffee than talking to people. I have the coffee pods trucked in weekly... it's my only indulgence (unlike SHOES, Dear). Apparently the used coffee grounds are good for plants. Either that or we've been the victim of a cruel and hysterical joke. Because we have the used pods all over the house, including bathrooms, so Wife can pull them apart and put the grounds in plants. She also puts bits of plastic, Drano, and handfuls of dust into plants; not because she heard it was a good thing.. but because she likes to.

This has also created a larger market for creamers, especially the flavored ones. There's coconut, Almond Joy, salted (naturally) caramel, broccoli, and 5W40 motor oil. In fact, the only creamer you have to order specially is the regular old cream.  Don't get me started on pumpkin spice....

I have a cup a day, at least until my face touches the work computer, at which point a second cup is required. The only problem with the pods is that they won't make 2 cups at once. If I could do this, my work would improve greatly, avoiding the time needed to make the second cup.  Maybe a dual-headed Keurig, which would look like some sort of sex toy used by people in Washington, DC, and New Old Swaziland (now called Iraq), where all forms of sex have been prohibited. If I make 2 cups one after the other, my mug has to be the size of a Volkswagen and even then it comes to the top. If I adjust the size of the Keurig's output, I can get two cups down to the size of the couch. This may or may not be sufficient to get my work done, assuming there are no cushions on the couch or loose change inside.

• If you have to ask "Are you awake?" -they're not.

I have Reverse Body Dysmorphia: I think I have defined arms, a flat stomach, and beautiful hair that doesn't fall out

Renterprise Strikes Again

Just when we thought we were mostly free of the rental debacle, we got notice of a toll fee of $25, which was a toll of $16 and a service fee of $9. In order to come up with a toll of $16, we'd have to do a day's driving to the boondocks of PA. As for a service fee, are you kidding me? I should get a service fee for renting one of their cars. Out of all the slimy stuff they pulled....

Used car salesmen running a car rental agency.

• Andrew Cuomo's top aide will resign amid sexual harassment scandal
• Cuomo says "It was her. Now will you all leave me alone?" 

Truly UPSIDE DOWN WORLD

US stock exchange sets diversity rules for listed companies

A lot of times, it's just downright goofy. This is the Stock Exchange, fer chrissake.

Firms on the Nasdaq, which include tech giants such as Apple and Tesla, will have to have at least two diverse directors, or explain why they do not.

The directors should include one person who identifies as female and another as an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+.

Still no left handed history month.

• We know that Disney World (the Mouse House) sucks up money like Microsoft sucks up data, so it will not surprise you that at the new Star Wars-themed hotel, a weekend for two costs $4,800.
• bj from Wookie extra 

Woman sues McDonald's for $14 after its ad for food forced her to break Russian Orthodox Lent.

• Car crashes into building.
• Gun kills eight.
• Pen stabs moron in neck

Check to see if you have one of these routers 

If you do, contact your provider. There's a really serious bug that's being exploited now and things could get ugly.

One of the widely acknowledged Windows pioneers is pissed because while using Microsoft Edge, it spontaneously gave him a popup, advising him of an alternative.

In other words, his browser provided him with an ad

His browser - not a site, gave him an ad.

I wonder why a Windows pioneer is using a Windows browser. Use Firefox.

Remember: neither your operating system nor your browser should provide you with ads. An ad blocker will take care of ads from sites.