Existence is Futile [Borg updated]

Hey, how bout those Teslas..  The Teslas that every owner just got locked out of, with an "Unknown Error."  Customer Service lines are melting. Nobody knows. Unless you have the key card and fob, you're fsckd.

YouTube will be fined up to $200 million over COPPA investigation.
Staff in an uproar - that's the weekly toilet paper budget for the Executive 
Lavatory.

In a race with the government and Google for most evil, Faceyspaces now has facial recognition for all users. Fuck yourself with a molten ingot.

Headline: Yahoo email users logged in to discover email was broken.
Real Headline: People use Yahoo email.

Google's spellcheck for bloggers is broken. Please excuse any errors (I read the first word or two of every other paragraph, so I'm not much help).


A mid 1800s (People's Republic of) California law criminalized able-bodied people not helping the police when requested. The governor struck down the law.  This goes nicely with the other governor who governed that no one should assist ICE in their sanctuary city. I'm trying to get our governor to decriminalize bank robbing and online bank hacking. And those really interesting adult businesses on the edge of town....

A different governor noted that hurricanes and fires are getting worse, but he's happy with what his party's doing (D - DisneyWorld).  The next presidential debate will note this climate change and officially blame Trump.

• Hurricane Dorian hit Florida. Both were moving at 8mph.

Dear lefty

• What's today's gripe?
• Those guys I hired apparently didn't 'modify' your brake cable

Lefty guitarists, this is your once in a lifetime chance!
For only $399, you can buy a PRS Private Stock.... case.  I love ebay.

• The brave protesters in Hong Kong have won: the extradition bill has been withdrawn. They fought for freedom, using American inspiration and slogans. We fight for more kitty picture on Faceyspaces.

Major automakers have agreed to equip nearly all US vehicles with systems to remind motorists of passengers in the back seat, in an effort to avoid deaths of young children left behind in hot cars.  Congress never met a topic they couldn't 'fix' with legislation. How long til it alerts the authorities?

• Joe Biden had a press op at a Dairy Queen. He ordered a Whopper.

• Seth Ator, the man accused of killing 7 people in Texas, was already barred from purchasing firearms due to mental disability.
• He had also been calling police and the FBI for years, leaving incoherent messages. It's almost as if they weren't doing anything on purpose....

No thank you, I'd rather pull bugs out of my cereal

• Best Tweet: If you think an AR-15 is too dangerous, you should check out the MK-Ultra.  @beinlibertarian

I think one of my credit cards is having a good time at my expense.
They send me ridiculous emails every day, with some magic offers, none of which are relevant, and none I want to receive. To make matters worse, they put stupid little graphics on the subject line. That alone merits punishment. Nobody puts emojis or whatever the hell they are in my email program.

So I showed them. Last week I went to their site and opted out from all their ridiculous emails. Then they showed me, by emailing garbage, as if I hadn't opted out. This morning, furious at the invasion of my mailbox (yes, before I took my meds), I went BACK to the site and again opted out of everything. HA!

When I got back from that, there was another email in my inbox. With an emoji. They have one week to fix this, before I have them strung up for spamming their customers. I will also have their pets adopted out to other families, and replaced with ostriches. Their blenders will all fail, and they'll have nothing but hand mixers. And their internet will all be G-rated. Do not mess with me.

• 20 members of Boris Johnson's Conservative party have voted against him to prevent the UK from leaving the EU without a plan in place. They want a swimming pool.
• Boris' plan to suspend UK Parliament ahead of Brexit is lawful, a judge in Scotland ruled.  Emboldened by the news, Boris will be firing all of his opponents.

Coworker Follies

ME: can you find the Bob List?
HIM: what's a Bob list?
ME: a list with 'Bob' in it. I'm assured it exists.
(5 minutes later)
HIM: found it. Would you like a screenshot or should I share my screen?
ME: (starting to shake head violently) Just tell me where it is, please.
HIM: it's in the Jimmy Box - go here, ask it for everything, and there you go.
ME: How does asking for everything give you the Bob List?
HIM: Ummm.. it just does.
ME: (looks, yells, removes paint from walls) Ok, send me the screenshot.
HIM: Here you go.
ME: Thank you. Now where on this screenshot is the word 'Bob'.
HIM: No, there's no Bob on that list.
ME: THEN WHEN DID I SPEND THE LAST 10 MINUTES OF MY LIFE WITH YOU 'finding' SOMETHING that doesn't show WHAT I ASKED FOR?

At least he's consistent... he consistently aggravates me by consistently answering questions incorrectly.

One hour later....

HIM: Hey - I found the Bob List! It's here. I can get to it.
ME: do you plan on sharing it with me or did you just want me to know you found it?
HIM: It's easy.
ME: I remain in a waiting state. (eyeballs banging into each other)
HIM: hit the arrow button on the top left, next to the logo.
ME: pretty neat - let me give it a shot
ME: (searches around, cannot find an arrow) Ummm sorry, I don't have an arrow
HIM: I'm 5 steps ahead of you. I sent you a screenshot. (nothing if not disorganized).
ME: the arrow up top
HIM: yes!
ME: on the screenshot, you circled the arrow button up top... the BACK button on the browser.
HIM: Yup - it worked.
ME: You're telling me to hit the BACK button to make the Bob List come up.
HIM: Yes!
ME: We used to get vaccines so we didn't have people like you.
(5 minutes later)
HIM: I can't repeat this reliably.


Work is fun... we have these surveys... we are encouraged to fill them out. I enjoy filling out surveys, in the way I enjoy getting getting checked for.. whatever it is they're checking for when the doc puts his finger up your butt. This is made easier by the surveys being voluntary and anonymous. Yup, 100% voluntary. Right up til they notice I haven't filled it in and they contact my boss. Please do not deluge me with requests for job applications.

• The dog has been quiet all morning, in her yard. This is odd. If she barks, she comes inside, so as not to annoy the neighbors.
• Hours later, I go to the bathroom and have a seat.
• BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK

Heroes of the Stupid

My behavior in bed is atrocious. Stop - this is G-rated.
According to a reliable source, who isn't the dog, I am quite entertaining. I start with Mattress Dancing, where I twitch, jump, and roll. When the warmup is done, I get to the main show: laughing, cursing, crying, and punching. I am horrified that I punched my wife.  When I wake up, I'm given a review of my performance: "I'll give it two fists, Bob."

No matter when or how I call my wife on the phone, I don't get through. If I text, she texts back, forgetting that it takes from an hour to 3 days for it to reach me. When I mention this, she says "Ida know..."  Reflecting on this, maybe the phone and the punching are subconscious.



SJW Stunts


Kansas university faculty wants Chik-fil-A banned from campus for fears of 'safety' and 'mental well being'. They believe the chain violates "safety and inclusion"  When do these people have time to teach?  Oh.

Council member says cleaning feces off Seattle streets with a power washer is racist.  It's getting worse when these headlines go under SJW and Stupid.

Porsche is making a leather-free version of its new Taycan electric sports car in the latest attempt by a German automaker to play up green credentials as environmental activists lobby for a boycott of the industry.  Then all the SJWs will buy a Porsche!

Well, mine is...

It's Not a Rat - it's a Siberian Hamster!

It is claimed that by 2050, human-on-robot sex will be more common than human-on-human sex. You people had better start being nice to each other or it's going to be a long, cold life.

• Remember when I told you that your cable box spies on you? It's so the cable company can serve personalized ads to you, among other things.
• While we're talking about creepy, invasive tracking, Google's next. It (via Gmail) partners with businesses to send you ads when you're surfing. [1. do not give out your address 2. turn off cookies]

So this man filled up bottles of his own fluid(s) and deposited the contents on women in Maryland. When caught, he was given three years of probation. SUSPENSE! .. He's back at it again, in Virginia. He was arrested for taking upskirt photos and for depositing bodily fluids on a woman, but not from a bottle. C'mon, man, have you not heard of the internet? There are all sorts of... specialty dating sites... 

• Edward Snowden joined Twitter. His first follow was the NSA. Yeah, right, like they didn't know before he joined.

Justin Bieber "wants to live like Jesus."  --Got any nails?

• Microsoft 'responds' to concerns that Windows 10 is spying by saying nothing and not answering any questions.

I don't know why, but if you're considering voting for Carly Fiorina, she just bragged that HP's servers are used by the NSA for mass surveillance and that she rushed them out for this purpose.

• Still kicking, albeit a little long in the tooth, is Groucho Marx (125). Read Time's piece on him and simply laugh at a comedy genius.

The daughter (16) of Fast and Furious' Paul Walker is suing Porsche for 'wrongful death'. She claims Porsche took safety shortcuts. Allow me to suggest that the best safety shortcut was around the pole.

• Oxymorons: Congressional Ethics. Windows Security.

I snore, much to my wife's dismay (as does the dog - sometimes we jam). Looking at Amazon's solutions, people who bought them also bought selfie sticks. I don't know if this is personal, but it sure feels that way.

• What have the Great Unwashed been up to? Signing a petition to ban talking about politics and religion in public. The guy who produces these is an inadvertent comic hero.

A male staffer in a Capitol Hill office has complained his female boss has slapped his ass, talked about her vibrator, and asked him sexual questions. BRAVO for women's equality!

• Baboons in Zambabwe took a radio show off the air by eating the station's transmission cables. We don't have this problem in the US, because we keep our baboons in front of the camera.

The Bad News: Friends actor David Schwimmer is coming back to tv. The Good News: in England, so there's less chance of seeing him in the US.

• Just when you think it couldn't get any weirder, there's BIID. Body Integrity Identity Disorder causes able-bodied people to belive they should be disabled. As a result, this lady somehow convinced a psychologist to blind her with drain cleaner. Next week the good doctor will be slicing off the ear of a neurotic and removing the stomach of a man with major depression.

A British prison inmate cut off his penis and tried to flush it. Oddly enough, he's not the first inmate to do this. Link has timeline of penis cutting-off activities. Apparently it's not just a British thing, although one wonders.

• This week's best sentence: "Ever since Parliament’s funk savior Starchild brandished his bop gun to bring about intergalactic Funkentelechy.."

Bernie Sanders thinks illegals should benefit from Obamacare. Meanwhile my deductible is still $5,500. Socialist Bernie, meet socialist Barack.

• Greatest invention ever: Exercise in a pill!

AI theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky coined Moore's Law of Mad Science: "Every eighteen months, the minimum IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point."

The Week in Music - A Triumph of Excellence

The Yardbirds are touring this year. For those who do not recognize the name, they were a band in the sixties that gave us three of the top guitarists of our time: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Jeff Beck (my personal favorite) and Eric Clapton (Cream, Blind Faith, Eric Clapton). A quick check on the band's latest membership role shows us that the band is touring with the original drummer only. This beats Foghat, which is touring with the original drum roadie.

Long ago.. very long ago by most standards, I played with a band at this stereotypical dump in New Jersey (not to be confused with the stereotypical state of New Jersey). Up on the wall was a television - an old-style television, with a CRT. Imagine a time when televisions and radios had to warm up, if you can. On the telly was this brand new cable network called MTV. Anyone even vaguely familiar with MTV might still be shocked to learn that it featured actual rock and roll music, as opposed to what passes for content this week. Cable wasn't available in my neighborhood yet, so this was doubly fascinating. Triply fascinating was looking up and seeing a non-mainstream band performing. This was Triumph.

Triumph is a band of three hosers (Canadians). My area of concentration is Rik Emmett, the guitarist, singer and cowriter. Let's dive right in:

Midsummer's Daydream is a solo classical acoustic piece performed by Emmett. I tried to play this once (only once).  This is recorded live in Halifax (a suburb of Canada, located generally north of the US). He does a lot with one acoustic guitar. You can also hear the studio version on the Thunder Seven album. The live version contains a lot of... ummm.. spunk? Verve? Derring Do?  Enjoy the showmanship and sense of humor (and lycra pants).

Little Boy Blues (not to be confused by anything coming from the Vatican) is one of my favorite songs. By this I mean it has a lot of really interesting guitar work and, surprisingly enough, no vocals. It begins with some really low-key tasty blues, backed by a drum machine and other instruments that would completely prevent this song from being performed live by a three-piece band. This builds nicely to what I'd call a chorus, where the playing starts to get really spunky. At the end of the chorus, the real drums enter and the real rollercoaster ride takes off. This segues into a redo of the first part, a hyped-up chorus, and a surprisingly gentle end. Rik plays very dynamically and lyrically, even when he's performing digital acrobatic riffs.

There exists the possibility that Lay It On the Line is the video I saw on MTV first. It's one of their biggest hits (you olde phartes will remember it) and features a doubleneck guitar that you've never seen before, unlike Jimmy Page's.