Do it Now, While the Sun Shines on the Snow

A man was convicted of breaking into a home and sucking on a sleeping woman's toes.
Ladies, tell us which you'd rather have: a guy giving your doorbell a serious tonguing, or a guy breaking in and giving you a toe job?

When sentenced, the man said, "This wouldn't be a problem if they'd stop calling the police on me."

• Recent So What news: the owner of the Patriots, some rich dude, was charged with soliciting a prostitute in Florida.
• Nice one, Stupid. With that much taxpayer money, you should be smart enough to call the right service or ask your other rich friends.
• Stop it with the prosecution/persecution. Does the government have the right to tell you what you can and can't do with your body?  Hint: the answer is No.

There are some pretty good deals to be had on solar systems for your house. I don't know all the details, but you get a nice tax break. It's apparently so nice that companies are putting them up free.

Except in Pennsylvania. All state and federal tax breaks for Pennsylvania have been stopped because there's not enough sun to make anything work. If you buy solar lighting, you'd be better off rolling a joint with a 50 dollar bill.

But it's not always so bad. Today's there's plenty of sun.

And enough wind to blow a tow truck off the road.

Dear lefty:

• How many bloggers does it take to change a light bulb?
• None. We get all the light we need from our screens.

R. Kelly (real name Rachel Kaplan), has reached a plea deal with the L.A. prosecutor. Before he rapes women, he will get proof they're 18 or over. If they're not, he'll go ahead.

• A Florida man (of course) shot himself in the arm and didn't realize it for three days, when he went to change his shirt.
• Where do I start?

Don't you love it when the poor people stuck in the jungle, waiting for rescue, see the helicopter, wave and scream? Because of course the helo will hear them, 1,000 feet up, over the engine noise.

• Why are there no cat assistants for the blind?
• People would be 'walking off buildings' in droves, like Faceyspaces users to the login prompt.

• Think I'm kidding about your phone (and other data) being tracked to a ridiculous degree? Take it from the LA Times.

Dear lefty:

• I'm a boy. Why do people always call me a girl?
• Because your parents decided to raise you 'genderless'. Kill them.

Heard on the radio:
The mayor and city council have put through legislation against businesses becoming 'no cash' (credit or electronic only). This is Sanctuary City Mayor and City 'just drop the cash here' Council.  Personally, I'm in favor of cash, but am not in favor of more stupid, burdensome regulation on businesses. Let the businesses do what they want and let the market decide what survives. Trust me - if a business stops accepting cash and sales go through the floor, they're going to accept cash again.

Since this is yet another case of Breakthrough Legislation, they needed a new buzzword. This time it's 'unbanked': the people who don't have or use bank accounts. So the lack of cash acceptance is unfair to the unbanked. Are you laughing yet?

The unbanked were classified as the poor, so the legislators could say they were doing something for the poor. Not to be outdone, a homeless advocate was interviewed, saying that although this might be somewhat helpful, it did nothing to correct income equality. This is the reason I don't listen to the radio.

I think we need some quick legislating to rectify these and other issues:

1. a law mandating people operating cash registers earn the same as CEOs. It's only fair.
2. a law allowing me to buy a limousine for the same price as a Hyundai, because it's not fair that I can't afford a limousine.
3. raising this or that tax because we haven't had a tax increase since Big Brother got one on 'sugary beverages', not to mention a 'temporary' sales tax increase and a per-drink tax.
4. guaranteed houses in rich areas, for diversity's sake. What white, liberal, rich person wouldn't welcome white (or black) trash into their neighborhood for the sake of diversity? They sure want them everywhere else.
5. And of course, preferential hiring and treatment for the left handed. If one is a left handed white trash, sugary beverage-drinking, Hyundai-driving, cash register operating person, they won't have to work for the rest of their life!

I suspect the mayor proposed this so the 'unbanked' illegal aliens can use cash.

• A failed 1970s Venus probe could crash to Earth this year.
• In other news, the Mars Rovers will be torn to pieces on the New Jersey Turnpike.
• Three Philly Duck Boats were rescued off the coast of Mexico. Only the boats, not the passengers, because none of them were illegal aliens.
• California's 405 Freeway woke up and found itself on Uranus. It felt right at home.

Don't Be An iHole

Yes, Virginia, there is a MacBook-scented candle. It smells like Smug, costs three times more than other candles, and you have to wait in a long line for it.

• the Open Observatory of Network Interference has release an app to let you test internet surveillance and network performance. It's available for android and the iThing and tells you if a site is blocked by a number of techniques. It will also measure the speed and performance of your network, testing for possible throttling. Peruse the article and install the app. I am.

Mayor Jim Kenney, of the Great Hole of Philadelphia, home of the Sanctuary City, is delighting in Trump's court battle over immigration, saying that he isn't above the courts. This is the same mayor who refuses to change the city's status of Sanctuary City, thus flouting the law. I wonder if the good mayor would defend residents if they didn't pay taxes.. would they have sanctuary?

• It appears that the White House's Chief Information Security Officer, an Obama appointee, no longer has that position. No further information is available. In a completely unbiased article, Gizmodo said "It's also unclear if President Trump knows what that job title means."

In a rare good move, Google has given the apps in their store til March to post a privacy policy or be pushed toward the bottom of the listings or purged entirely. It doesn't have to be a good privacy policy but it has to be a privacy policy.

• My mother (see the Dementia section above) is having trouble with her words sometimes, which is referred to as speech aphasia. For a few years, we've noticed that the objects of our own sentences have started to disappear. Maybe it's age...I don't know... I've never been this age before.
• I'll think of Hendrix, then start to say something about him.. "Yeah, I really like.... umm...." and in that second, Hendrix has completely left my mind and it will take a while to bring him back or I'll give up completely. I'm not saying it's a clinical diagnosis, but it's frustrating as hell and my brothers do it too.
• I just found out my mom hates rosemary. Now I know where I got it from.

Know what I hate?
Everything.
Today the thing that really bothers me is that it's still getting dark too early, in addition to the omnipresent gray. This is my day of rest, I've only been awake for a few hours, and the sun is going down. The natural conclusion would be to stop sleeping til noon, then walking downstairs and realizing I need a nap. It's weird, but some people have told me it's not normal to get going by 3pm on weekends.

• Hey, remember how those CDs you purchased starting in the 80s, that would last forever? Guess what - they don't. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we now have a new term to bandy about: Disc Rot. Some of this was discovered in batches. There was a hotline for one bad batch that was open for years. In essence, you're screwed. Look for obvious 'rotlike' discolorations, white spots, or bronzing. This also applies to software. One fella opened unplayed manufacturer game discs to find them rotting. In some cases, it won't affect the material, but regardless, I'd get them copied off to something else NOW. Recordables are more susceptible. 

A new app has become popular in Washington, DC: it's called Confide. Like Signal (which we should all be using for encrypted text and voice) in its encryption, Confide only shows a line when you 'wipe across' and deletes the message when you tell it or after ten minutes.  Neat app, right? Aside from my Security Spider Sense, which tells me someone will discover the messages aren't exactly deleted securely (or at all), we have politicians communicating secretly. Stop and think about that.

• Everybody's favorite Real Imitation Roast Beef fast food joint, Arby's, suffered a payment card breach, affecting up to 1,100 locations. Up to 355,000 cards were affected. Arby's has declined to state whether is has notified customers but said customers should look for unauthorized activity on their payment cards. Sweet of them, don't you think?

A lot of websites are powered by WordPress software. Fortunately this blog isn't because I wouldn't wish WordPress on an enemy. The patches flow frequently, and this is because the software has more holes than Internet Explorer. Well, almost. While updates can be automatic, some folks don't use this option. Because of this, over one million WordPress sites were defaced.

• Here's a short page on why privacy is important - even though you have nothing to hide.

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I make no secret of the fact that I don't like sports, but always forget that there is one sport I enjoy the hell out of: Los Angeles Police Chases. Police chases are weeks away from being designated the Official Sport of California. This is not at all strange, coming from a state that gives drivers licenses to illegal aliens. There's a station out of Phoenix that usually carries the races live, complete with helicopters vying for the best angle. Part of the fun is watching the spectators vying for the best camera angle and waving madly. Even getting hit by the suspect's car would be a golden opportunity for them, death aside.  Today's adventure was made even more amusing by the suspect messing with the police. He'd stop in the middle of the street, when police in four cars jumped out, guns pointed, squatting behind their car doors. Thirty seconds later, he'd take off. It was amusing each of the four times he did it.

I think, with a few small improvements, California could have a World Class Sport and eventually be admitted to the Olympics. Perhaps they could define a route and put up barriers, so bystanders don't get hurt (or perhaps bystanders getting hurt would add to the merriment). Extra points would be awarded for creative routing outside of the course. Cameras could be installed for better angles as well as views into the car itself. If people are anticipating leading a car chase, they can install a car camera so everyone in the audience can watch their expressions as they try to evade the police (which no one ever does, even in California).

In these days of ridiculous spending causing ridiculous deficits, this can be another source of revenue. Proceeds could go to the LAPD Children's Fund. There's absolutely no downside to this brilliant idea of mine. I will only take a small fee, per chase, for the idea.

note: updates to the Dementia page have been made