Joining the Hairy Krishnas

Sex enhances emotional bonds, boosts mood, and bolsters people's belief that life has meaning.  [The Post-Sex Blues, Sarah Hunter Murray, PHD]

Gimme more MEANING!
"But Honey... our life will have no meaning if we don't."

• It's the little things: when you get text spam, forward it to 7726 (SPAM), which reports it to the appropriate authorities, through your carrier. You even get a nifty 'thank you' for reporting.

Dear lefty:

• Does anybody actually read this shit?
• No. Why are you writing to a fictional character, Chief?

I joke that this is not an entertainment blog - it's the chronicle of a man's descent into madness. How many more times do I have to say it before the universe makes it so? Is it already so? 

• Florida Woman (but of course) Arrested After Pulling Gun on Person Who Asked Her to Stop Feeding Stray Cats.   Crazy cat lady? You decide.

Motel 6 will pay $12 million to settle a lawsuit that said several Washington state locations gave their guest lists to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the state attorney general's office.

The fallout will cost $12 million, but on the positive side, Motel 6 is now the official motel of government travel.  Motel 6 - for when you're not quite good enough to be Motel 7 or Motel 8.

• Why is there an expiration date on my sugar?

If you're feeling short of Douche Chills, a woman was found to have four bees living in her eye. Damn the specifics.  When asked by doctors if she wanted them removed, she said no - she needed the honey.

Are we done?
Not by a long shot.
A Florida (shocking!) man has been caught (again), sticking his stinger in a bee hive. He has a sexual thing for them. The love that hurts.



Dear lefty:

• What's the difference between bees in the eye and bees on the penis?
• try both and let us know.

I like seeing doctors after work so it doesn't interfere. The other day I got my exam, left the room, and beheld total darkness. Then I apparently tripped the motion sensor. Some overly-competent employee turned off the lights, closed the office, and set the alarm. Does this shit happen to you too?

All's Fair in Love and Nuclear Weapons

No one saw this coming: there's a flaw in the Google smart speaker that will allow it to be hacked. Also SQLite and Chromium-based browsers. 

While we're mentioning a few of my favorites, a Faceyspaces photo API bug exposed photos of 6.8 million users. Developers could have gotten access to the pictures you didn't post (yet), including the ones with the donkey. I lost count of how many FB f-ups there were in the last week.  By all means, keep posting. Enjoy!

Reminder to make backups of all your important information. It's great policy, plus if you get nailed with malware or ransomware, you can restore from your backups. Unlike most of the companies who got hit with it thus far.



This year's Worst Password list is out. 

1. 123456  (2nd year in a row!)
2. password
3. 123456789
4. 12345678
5. 12345
6. 111111
7. 1234567
8. sunshine  (wtf?)
9. qwerty
10. iloveyou
11. princess
12. admin
13. welcome
14. 666666
15. abc123
16. football
17. 123123
18. monkey
19. 654321
20. !@#$%^&*
21. charlie
22. aa123456
23. Donald
24. password1
25. I'm not typing all 50

When you're done picking out one of them, make sure you write it down on a yellow sticky and put it on your monitor, or under your keyboard. This is what we call sarcasm, based upon being in desktop services way too long. Not anymore!

misFortune 500

The largest companies in the world have an average of 500 servers and devices accessible from the Internet - and many leave thousands of systems open to attack. 

It's only a matter of time until the Fortune 500 and government have to buy their own docs on the dark web.

• A Playboy model has been thrown in jail after posing naked at the Vatican. I think this is Fake News. No one would notice a grown woman at the Vatican.

California Uber Faultus

You'd never believe this, but scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are developing a tool to identify "hate speech" on social media.

In other news, social media scientists are developing a tool to identify "hate speech" detectors.

Speaking of Berkeley, a delivery robot burst into flames at UC Berkeley. It was after hearing about the tool to identify "hate speech".  As if I could make up anything better, students held a candlelight vigil for it. Apparently there was nothing to be outraged about for those few minutes.

Don't go to Berkeley: it's way too silly.

• Man was not meant to write with a mouse. If you don't believe me, open any paint/graphics program and try to produce text with your mouse. No cheating, by which I mean no drinking.

Cruel and Unusual:

A poacher's sentence includes repeated viewings of Bambi.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit said it regrets that a priest at a teen's funeral questioned whether he would get to heaven after killing himself. 

Where do they get these people? At least they admitted it.

By the time Ash Wednesday rolls around, Catholics will have a permanent red spot from hitting themselves in the head when this stuff happens. Much like America, you guys need better people up top.

Dear lefty

• Undercover Officer Fudge Reinhold asks if I'm circumcised.
• How were Phoebe Cates' boobs up close?

THAT explains a lot:

Frequent sex associated with greater enjoyment of life for men.

Oh yeah... but not women.

For women, frequent kissing, petting, fondling, and feeling emotionally close to their partner was associated with higher enjoyment of life.

If you think about it, what women enjoy can lead to what men enjoy: Win-Win!

• I'm no linguist, but the phrase you don't want to hear when you're driving your Tunnel Boring Machine underneath the streets of Dusseldorf, is "Das is not goot."

It's almost a race to see what's going to do us in.
The Department of Defense Inspector General found multiple flaws in missile defense system cybersecurity. There weren't enough 8" floppies to keep them in operation.

I suggest they ask the aliens (the ones in the ships, not the ones trying to enter the country illegally). Ok, maybe not the aliens... whatever flew the ships on 2 different occasions over missile bases and caused all sorts of havoc. Maybe they have something for us on the defensive side.




If I understand this correctly, the Russians messed with social media to elect Trump, specifically targeting African Americans. African Americans are rightfully pissed, and have organized a Log Out of Facebook day. I have requested a meeting with the head of African Americans, Hillary Clinton, to discuss logging out of Facebook permanently.  This would be the second group, after liberal educated whites, who think black people are stupid. I think anybody who votes based upon social media is stupid.

• Bohemian Rhapsody is the number one movie and song in the country.
• Queen continues to tour, with Adam Lambert singing. Somewhere in heaven, Freddie's looking down, seeing Adam, and saying, "Nah - too gay."

A Twitter bug let unauthorized apps get access to DMs (Direct Messages).

These are the private messages exchanged between two or more people. Twitter, like Faceyspaces, is stupid on top of cesspool.

Dear lefty

• Joe Officeworker, of Anybusiness, USA, asks what's wrong with 123456 as a password
• Dear Dummy: Go back to your desk and click on some random links.

Operation Dirty Navel

Philly denizens are in a bad place (besides Philly).
We're coming up on three days in a row without rain. This tends to confuse the hell out of the people, who run outside, sometimes frolicking, without jackets. To add to the confusion, it's 20 degrees outside, causing frostbite on unfortunate body parts and setting off a mass flu epidemic.

Pennsylvania: the state bird is a cloud

• Faceyspaces fined $11m in Italy for misleading users about how their data will be used. They're unhappy that the account defaults are set at the most invasive, and that features are opt-out, not opt-in.
• Heh heh heh, Faceyspaces. You know they're feeling that $11m hit. That's a lunch bill.

A second major bug in Google+ is hastening its demise.

Google: It's ok, we have your data.

• Bravo to the city of North Bend, OR. They managed to get infected with ransomware demanding $50k and did not pay because they had everything backed up and could restore it.

If you're unfortunate enough to use Twitter, you get promoted tweets. This is another phrase for advertisement. Why does a jeweler advertise to technical people (professional geeks)? This is all part of my Mess with the Metrics campaign.

Dear lefty

• Rita Aaaaaah of Lincoln, Lincolnshire, asks why is your heater so small?
• Dear Small: you should have your dreams analyzed. 

We are headed up to The Holidays, as one would expect in December.

A long time ago, I moved into my house. It was a time to make my own traditions, starting with decorations. I bought one of those Charley Brown Christmas trees, about 2' tall and fake as they came. It took a while and some interesting hook techniques, but I eventually had the only tree in the neighborhood, possibly the state, with floppy disks, CDs, and vacuum tubes hanging from it. Wish I had the pics. Now that I'm married we have either a large fake tree with dog ornaments or nothing, because we can't quite get it together to put one up. Aren't you lucky that I still get the blog updated?

• For some reason I don't even want to know, Wife watches Wendy. She says she can't believe Wendy has been on for ten years. I say I can't believe Wendy has been on for ten minutes.

College Hijinks

A small group of male students are attempting to remove porn from their colleges: this started in Notre Dame, and migrated to Georgetown, Harvard Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania.  When they say 'get rid of porn', they mean install a porn filter on the school's WIFI.  I think they should start urine testing.

The Great Porn Panic of 2018.

This is sick. 

Does it sound familiar? It should... 

The Great Alcohol Panic.

The Great Marijuana Panic.

The War on Drugs.

Baron von Frankenstein - pitchforks and torches

Society has an annoying tendency to cycle. This isn't seriously different from other panics, past or present. What they all have in common is one loud group attempting to control the behavior of others.  If you have a problem with porn, don't go to porn sites. Stop trying to tell everyone where they can and can't go. 

You're going to be shocked by this, but most of the people and groups pushing for a ban are religious. This is in spite of studies' inability to link porn with the bugaboos the religious claim.  These throwback zealots give religion a bad name. Perhaps their time would be better spent doing good in their communities.

This would be an incredible teaching moment for the schools. "We are not going to censor what you can access and here's why...." Of course if they did this, there would be SJW Rioting, the likes of which we haven't seen since conservative speakers attempted to speak on campus. Oh yeah, a loud group attempting to control what students have access to.

• But it IS Christmas, when the fancy of all young men turns to sex and guitars. 'Turns to' is a little misleading, as young men think about sex and guitars ALL the time. Or is it just me?
• Not that it matters - my toys are way too expensive.
• Although I found a great deal the other day: only $15,000 for a lefty 1958 Stratocaster. It's really cheap because someone refinished it. I told Wife I will gladly live with the refinish because this is such a great deal, and I saved her tens of thousands of dollars. Fortunately she learned a long time ago to humor me.

Emergency Update:

Three students at the University of Pennsylvania have attempted to get horseradish mustard banned from campus.

Are they allergic?

No, they just don't like it and think no one else should be able to eat it either.

Dear lefty

• Long time reader (2 weeks) Rita Ummmmm, of Bristol, PA, and Bristol, UK, asks why this blog is so ugly.
• Your opinion is very valuable to us: hold your breath while we fix the ugly.

Hollywood has stuck again: this time with the fourth version of A Star is Born. Add ten more and they'll be in competition with Rocky. They will.

The original featured Boris Karloff (because everything during those years featured Boris Karloff), and one of those black and white actresses. The second featured Barbara Streisand and Jimmy Stewart, as Rollo. The third featured Barbara Streisand and Kris 'Kris' Kristofferson, as Kris.

The latest fiasco features Barbara Streisand and Lady Gaga, as Steve. It has already won several "You're F-ing Kidding Me" awards, plus some other award with a statue.

Little known fact: The latest fiasco was supposed to be called A Star is Porn, but the University of Pennsylvania protested and mailed a white powdery substance to Harvey Weinstein (who wasn't involved with the picture). 

In other Hollywood non-news, Transformers is back for the 43rd time, rivaling Rocky. They have cleverly left 'Transformers' out of the name, hoping people won't think a huge yellow thing that turns into a small yellow Volkswagen has anything at all to do with Transformers. Harvey Weinstein's only question was were there any little boys in it.

• Definition: fireplace - a hole in the bricks that sucks all heat out of your house.

The always on the ball ticket agency wants to know if I'd like to become a member of the Slayer fan club.  Dammit... if I weren't busy chewing razorblades, I'd jump on that sweet deal.

• I saw some kid with a mullet the other day. It's just as funny now as it was ten years ago. Now, back to man buns.

While you're out gift shopping, make sure you pick up a pair of Purple brand headphones. They feature unlimited playback time, due to their battery-free design.

This is brilliant. This is also a real commercial.

• The new Chevy Econo features unlimited heat, due to its air conditioner-less design.
• Google's new Mega 3.57 phone features incredible savings on airtime, due to its tendency to completely fall apart in the user's hand.
• Not to be outdone, Samsung's S33.47q features almost unlimited battery time, due to the fact that you can't turn it on.

Say - what do the blog stats look like, lefty?
They look like a real f-ing nightmare in comparison with every other blog on the planet. This is actually a good thing.... Firefox is the biggest browser (62%), linux is the biggest operating system (67%), and there are 98 people who visit from somewhere that even Google can't identify. Oh yeah, I generate 34% of the traffic myself.

• It's holiday time and sadly, the singing Amazon boxes are back.  Mental health advocates worldwide are lodging complaints. The commercials cause two reactions: murder and medicine (raise the dosage).

At some point in the year we have National Mental Health Day.
Christmas has to be one of the saddest days of the year for people suffering from loss, loneliness, depression, and too many people trying to talk to them, rather than emailing. Please do a true good deed this season and check in on people who could use it.

Also make sure to shoot any of those bell-ringers outside stores. Do it for the children.

The Pizza Has Developed Ants

What's the best thing to say to a very mad, agitated person?
Calm down.
It's the best thing because it will piss the person off more, providing additional entertainment for you.

• Today's best police call: Car vs House
• Todays worst tv utterance: This olympic sprinter is taking it all in stride
• One can purchase vegan shampoo. Hopefully it's caffeine and gluten free
• When is life officially over? When you've been told you're no longer welcome at Walmart.

Perhaps it's better that Wife and I are not in the same room (or house) in the morning. So far I've been interrupted six times with Various Important Stories from whatever morning show is giving her ideas.

If you want to protect your kids from being tagged Nerd, you better get ready for Inside Out Pants. Yes, pants that look like they're inside out. Buy seven at only $1,100 per pair! Think of it as an investment in your kids' mental health and self-esteem.

The mascot for the Trenton Thunder, some sort of sports team, is a pork roll. Although that might be a plus for some locals, it proves we're beyond embarrassment. Why not the Trenton Scrapple? Probably because there's already a scrapple team in Philly.

The Good Neighbor, who Marshall trained to feed him on command, picked Tuesday to hose down the outside. Spritz. Spritz. Only she doesn't leave the hose on... no.... Spritz. Spritz. Spritz.

Hey, I should try to fix this.. Spritz. Spritz. Spritz.
Laptop..Spritz. Spritz. Spritz. Tonight..Spritz. Spritz. Spritz. Spritz.
You know what would be gr... Spritz. Spritz. Spritz. A malt! Spritz. Spritz.
She's a really nice neigh..Spritz. Spritz. Spritz.
Ever see a garden hose enema? Spritz. Spritz. Spriiiiiiitz. Spritz.

• Our good friends at PETA, because they haven't gotten much press lately, have demanded that Aretha Franklin's (RIP) family donate her furs to Charity. 
• I'm in Deep DooDoo because one of my readers is a member. As an animal lover, I agree with some of their platform, but they are a bit silly sometimes. I miss Act Up, the AIDS group, which would pull very silly public stunts, like carrying coffins and throwing condoms. Those people were creative.
• PETA got caught euthanizing dogs a while back, so their authority is somewhat questionable. Ultimately, my commitment to free speech overrules anything else.
• I am informed that the demanded furs are to make PETA's rescues comfortable. I love comfortable animals, but this strikes me as somewhat hypocritical.
• Perhaps ThermionicEmissions needs to start publicly demanding things... I demand Hollywood actors and actresses do unpaid internships at Second Amendment organizations. I demand the executives of major social media sites (FB, Twitter, Google) do unpaid internships at First Amendment organizations. I demand that the president take creative writing and when to shut up courses. I demand that Steven Segal donate his 1954 left-handed Stratocaster to ThermionicEmissions and $500,000 to left-handed charities. If he can't find any left-handed charities, start one.

Q.  How do you have the Best Sex Ever with Hollywood actresses?

1. get naked
2. get on top and start the fun
3. whisper in her ear, "I just made a donation in your name to the NRA."
4. hold on for dear life.

Really bad broadcast television is showing up all over the place. You know - the channels way up in the UHF band. They run all sorts of ancient shows, probably because copyright has expired or some other ridiculous reason. Today's treat was Adam 12, where you can hear phrases like "Don't give me that jive" and "what about the fuzz". I heard a familiar voice and looked up - Mickey Dolenz (The Monkees), as "Oiler", per the credits. After that, it's Emergency (KMG365 is their call sign). Some classic Bad TV. Who would have imagined that their large box radio used to call the hospital would turn into a small thing that everybody carries, with all the answers?

• Know what's telling and depressing? When watching COPS, I might find the police arresting a really cute female. Within seconds, I find out they're being arrested for meth or something. Yeah, I like them skinny. And drug-dependent, apparently.
• I also notice that most of the people pulled over have much nicer cars than me. They're not employed and I have a good job. I still love my Hyundai, and will buy another one when the time comes.

I just saw my second commercial for Born Like this. Still no idea why people watch it. The commercial was about two people in the show getting married. It is absolutely adorable when my dogs occasionally had their tongue hanging out the side of their mouth. After seeing the bride's face, I'd prefer my wife not do that. And that's all I have to say about that.

• Today I got email letting me know ukulele kits are 50% off. Of course they're 50% off - it's rude to play ukulele or speak French in public.

Google (Do Evil), due to a flaw in their Chrome browser, can associate your incognito data to your other identified data. Of course Google claims they don't do this, and they'd have no reason to lie (see FB).  This also includes android data from Chrome on your phone. All of this comes courtesy of one of their ad partners. I'm pretty sure the stock android browser is built on Chrome.

I don't want to point out an issue without offering a solution. 
The obvious: Don't have anything to do with Google. This includes Google the search engine (use duckduckgo.com). You can de-Google your android phone, but it's beyond the scope of this missive (take your email address off the phone and use an alternate store like apkmirror.com or aptoide.com). Don't use gmail because it's read and because it's Google. Install a good ad blocker, which will go quite a bit toward keeping your information private. If you can root your phone, you'll get the best protection (do a search on rooting unless your carrier is Verizon, which won't be rooted). Don't use Chrome browser or the stock android browser. Use Firefox, Waterfox, and others, on your desktop too. Also make sure the browser isn't based on Chrome.

You'll get a lot of information by doing a search. You can also ask here.

The Mailbox

I was ahead of the curve when I was very little. Tools were acquired and I liked to play with stuff. I took vacuums apart and somehow managed to get them back together. This is extremely odd and ironic, as I want nothing to do with them today. 

Now that I'm a homeowner, these skills come in handy.

Actually these skills would come in handy.

But they don't actually come in handy.

I don't know what the hell happened, but I have gone Stupid. I still have my tools, some of which are actually in my toolbox, except for philips screwdrivers, which are like socks, disappearing into the Matrix. I just don't use them.

When I can, I prefer to pay or barter for fixing things.

A few years back, a brother-in-law, who could build a barn out of a piece of wood and two matchsticks, came by and showed me how to install a mailbox. Turned out to be pretty easy, but I had no way of knowing.  Unfortunately the brother-in-law, as well as the mailbox, are gone. Well, almost gone. The mailbox is leaning precariously. Poor mailman.

After way too long of beating me about the head, my wife 'convinced' me to install the new one. I was worried, as it had been here long enough to rot, like the old one. It actually looked relatively easy (cue ominous music). The first thing was to ignore any sort of concrete and literally put a screw into the ground. When I say screw, I mean a thing slightly larger than a baseball bat, with threads. They gave us a piece of 3/4" thick rebar to twist it into the ground. I got this, I said to myself, which, unfortunately, I said out loud. I began screwing (shut up) and discovered it was failing to screw, even putting all my considerable weight into it. Ok, maybe I hit concrete. I moved left and screwed again, with exactly the same result. IS MY ENTIRE HOUSE BUILT ON IRON or slabs of concrete? I sat down on the steps, with water dripping off me. I couldn't tell if it was sweat or tears. Probably both. I went into the Wayback Machine, when my tools and I could actually complete a task successfully.

One foot over proved to be the key and it screwed in fairly easily, by which I mean halfway.

It was the nastiest part of summer. Ninety degrees with close to ninety percent humidity. Walking down the front steps provided enough sweat to require a shower, no less screwing something into stubborn grass and dirt. Sweat was dripping all over me. Don't forget, I'm a network security guy. The most exercise I get is walking to my computer (and scouring the house for a philips screwdriver). I was a mess. After getting the screw to its estimated height, it was time to attach the baseball bat sized 4x4. This attached with very long screws, for stability. The whole thing was well engineered and very simple for those who aren't simple and can assemble things. I really missed my brother-in-law, moreso. The screws required a socket wrench or box wrench to install, as they were three inches long. I ran to get my handy sockets, which were, for some reason, all together in my toolbox.  I noticed I didn't have a box wrench in that size anyway, so it was the socket set. I was so proud to have the right tool at the right time. I got to screwing and quickly noticed that the wrench itself had a stripped gear, barely catching for long enough to turn the socket. Oops.. in the deepest recesses of my failed memory, there was a wrench that I was going to take to Sears and exchange, because of the lifetime Craftsman warranty. A long time ago. Really long.

I got two screws in far enough for the 4x4 to stand damn near vertically. Since most of the house (and its occupants) stand damn near vertically, it didn't look out of place. All I needed was to finish screwing (shut up, still) and the thing would be done. Since it was wobbly, we put the mailbox part on the step for the time being. Poor mailman. And it was off to Sears for the replacement ratchet. When I say off to Sears, I mean it went on The List. Weeks later, we still haven't made it to Sears, the post continues to lean precariously, and the mailbox has taken up near permanent residence on the step. And Wife keeps telling me we need to finish the mailbox. Like most bosses, 'we' means 'you'.  To be fair, 'we' have had Very Important Issues, preventing us from getting out. I believe her when she tells me this, although I have no real idea what the Very Important Issues are. Since I'm married, I'm happy to take her word for it. Happy Wife, Happy Life.

I was hoping to get out today, provided there were no Very Important Issues preventing us from going. After all, it's the weekend and I was up at the crack of noon. I stumbled down the stairs drunkenly, which was a shame because I don't drink.

I promise to keep everyone updated, should the mailbox become completed, perhaps because the brother-in-law resurrected long enough to complete it. Poor mailman.

Off We Go Into the Wild 2017

So how does some of our internet traffic get overseas? Via undersea cables, silly. Here is a brief article on the risks of using them.

• Twitter had a bit of fun the other night, as a fake BBC account broadcast that the Queen was dead.  People went insane, blowing up Twitter and generally going out of their minds. The most upset was probably Queen Elizabeth herself, who was most assuredly not exactly dead at that very moment. The Queen did miss her Christmas service for the first time in thirty years. Buckingham Palace said she was recovering from a heavy cold.  I sincerely hope that 'heavy cold' is not code for anything else.
• Poor Buckingham Palace... it's like the White House, always saying this and reporting that but with no real voice of its own. Ever think of what the White House would say if it could actually talk? "STOP BLAMING ME FOR SHIT," probably.

If you're going to steal money from an ATM, this is one of the most original ways to accomplish it. I say let them keep it.

• Sex and gender are interesting topics. Just in case you thought you had a clue, along comes androgen insensitivity syndrome to throw a small explosive into the mix... she looks like a goddess but she's genetically male...

As if anything here really surprised you, I wanted to bring the Real Shocker. The thing that's gonna f- up your new year. It's going to make you question your life up til now. Rearrange your priorities. Change your universe. You've been pooping wrong.

• the Big Story<tm> of 2017 is Russian Hacking. Don't spread this too widely, but I'm investigating a potential breach in my house. I think they hacked my bathroom. It started with the sink and I believe it has spread to the bathtub. No digital space is safe!

Some crank(s) in the UK are saying that "Office Cake Culture", where people bring in sugary treats after holidays and as a celebration, should be traded for hugs because the effects of all this sugar are toxic. You go, boys... drop them all off at my desk.

• I don't want to say I'm right all the time, but capsaicin, the substance that makes peppers hot, have been shown to kill cancer cells, so in effect, I'm right all the time. Next up: vegetables cause cancer.

Over in North Ireland, their First Minister got caught in a financial scandal. Calls were made for her to step down, which she dismissed as 'misogynistic'. Uh-oh, she played the Vagina Card.

• So, those electrical Smart Meters that I've been going on about for years... they're quite vulnerable to hackers, among other things. Who would've thought? Hackers can cut power to a home and cause the meter to explode. In 2009 there was a mass hacking in Puerto Rico. It's funny... these devices can benefit many interests, except ours...

Live in Utah? Wanna make a few bucks? Legislation has been introduced that will allow you to sue XXX sites if you watch too much porn.  Personal responsibility has packed up and run off with the high speed internet.  I'm wondering if I lived in Utah, could I sue Fender because I play too much guitar? Not mentioned in the article is the fact that Utah is the largest porn watcher in the US, per recent study.

• I signed up for a technical presentation at work. It suggested that perhaps I'd like to network with like-minded attendees, such as some dude named leftystrat. These guys are sharp as a bowling ball, they are.

it's like they KNOW...

He Reminds Me of a Penguin

In a move that has rocked the entire northern hemisphere (and parts of New Jersey), President Obama has 'extended the Afghan military presence.'  Support our troops - bring them home.

• The US State Department suggests that Israel might be using excessive force to confront a wave of Palestinian stabbings. Israel is not amused. Meanwhile, US state program to put police in armored personnel carriers with automatic weapons to shoot pet dogs and random others is on track for the year.

Technology scares the hell out of people, survey finds. Survey also reveals that it's cold in the winter and Rosie Perez's voice can peel the paint off cars.

• PUMPKINS? What in the universe is up with pumpkin? Yes, we're approaching that season, but this is excessive. Pumpkin coffee (my wife's favorite at Dunkin Donuts), pumpkin bread, pumpkin beer, other pumpkin baking products, pumpkin alcohols and pumpkin sex toys. I see it all over the place - my wife assures me it's been going on all along. Yet more proof that I either don't care or don't get out much (both, most likely).

If you're not paranoid about your privacy, you're crazy. Don't rely on my rantings - read this article and see for yourself. Read this sitting down.

• I said gum, stupid!  A Kyle, Texas, student caused mass panic when he asked someone for some gum and another student heard gun. A letter had to go home to all parents, explaining the situation.  PANIC!!!

The male brain is programmed to seek out sex over food. ....and to whom is this news? Our Central Processing Unit is centrally located.

• A man dressed as a priest stripped down and performed 'a sexual act' on the altar stage. Police and the church are looking for the man (he forgot to fill out his job application).

A Minnesota man killed his 84 year old grandmother for blowing her nose at the dinner table. Manners - use them or die.

• PLANE JUSTICE: Things got interesting on an Aer Lingus (that sounds dirty) flight, when a man bit another passenger then died. Not to be outdone, a Southwest traveler choked another passenger for reclining a seat. Any of us who have flown will agree that choking is too good for people who do this, as well as parents with screaming babies.

CIA Director John Brennan had a secret AOL account. SURPRISE - it got hacked. Now let's get serious here - in the first place, no one with any clearance at all should have an AOL account. Second, the guy is a CIA Director. Where do we get these people? But wait - there's more! Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson's Comcast account was also hacked by the same miscreant. These poeple are 'protecting' us. Do ya feel protected today, punk - DO YA? You will notice that the hacker got in trouble, not the people who are supposed to know better. So there's Hillary, John, and Jeh - it sounds like a really bad 60's folk group.

• MATH TIME: 

• The federal penalty for not having health insurance will rise in 2016 to $695 or 2% of income.
• For the subsidized, taxpayer subsidies pay roughly 70% of monthly premiums 
• The subsidized pay roughly $100 per month
• I pay over $100 per week (with a $5,500 deductible) 
• If I just pay the $695 penalty, it would pay for itself in under two months and I'd still wind up paying for my own visits, just as if I had a $5,500 deductible.
• These blithering Keystone Kops were supposed to fix health insurance. It is broken beyond measure.

NATIONAL HISPANIC MONTH: So it's National Hispanic month, as you can tell from the bold letters that started this. Take it from me, ok?  I work in an interesting place, which shares but a few oddities from the last VERY interesting place, one being Happenings. Both places have public-ish spots where they host events. Events at the old place included dances, fashion shows, and beauty pageants. The newer place seems to have its share of events but I haven't gotten a feel for what they are. Until yesterday. I was walking down the hall, minding my own business, when it became impossible to continue minding my own business, due to the insistent, LOUD, semi-rhythmic pounding on a drum. I was half aghast and half amused. My coworker just shook his head and said, "National Hispanic Month." Due to the flyers strewn about, I agreed. Then I saw the drummer and the featured entertainment: a scantily-clad guy with a cardboard Indian headdress. He was chanting HUH HUH HUH HUH, the way you'd chant it to an insistent, LOUD drum. I turned to my coworker and told him I just knew someone was going to be offended by this. The problem, at this point, was figuring out who.

Meanwhile, I still can't get National Guitar Month, National Left-Handers Month, or National Left-Handed Guitarist Month flyers or events or corporate-wide emails.

• Federal tax collected set a new record this year, at $3,248,723,000,000. That's $21,833 per working person. Yet we have a $438,900,000,000 deficit. This is what happens when you vote republican or democrat. This is why they're two sides of the same coin. Go ahead and argue R vs D - you're gonna get screwed either way (except the dems will insist you get free lube, then raise taxes to pay for it and the reps will require lube, benefitting their lube donor corporations). See where your tax dollars are going.

The Vatican is denying that the pope has a small tumor. Gee, I wonder who could have started that rumor...

• TODAY's QUOTE: “One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all. And kill the Jews.”
  Wernher von Braun

TECH

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TUNES

Today's special is on another wunderkind: Jonny Lang. He started very young, in the Stevie Ray Vaughan mold and the hits kept coming. Jonny was a part of Experience Hendrix, which we attended last year.

The first time I heard Lie to Me, I wondered if it was a Joe Cocker song I had somehow missed. This little dude has a voice like an old, whiskey-soaked veteran. A buddy said the veins on the side of his neck looked like they were going to pop when he sang. And he can play! The little bastard has his own Fender signature guitar.

Breakin' Me is a nice mid-tempo song. Here's a live version.

Still Rainin' is another groove-filled romp, complete with cool female background vocals.

What did you expect to find on Mars?

Why Do You Think It's Called a Strip Mall?

Two relative strangers met and hooked up in California.  While this no doubt happens all the time, it rarely happens in front of a strip mall.  Hey, when you gotta hump, you gotta hump, right?

Now the NSA is really in your computer.  Our good friends near DC have been caught sneaking malware into the firmware of hard drives, as discovered by Kaspersky.  This also brings up the fact that the drive manufacturers allowed this. These are some evil folks, folks.  Lady Gaga or Beyonce had better do something fast...

A Tinder app is said to enable flings at Carnival in Rio.  And let's face it... if you've gotta go down... {ahem}, Rio isn't such a bad place to do it.

Mystery Mars haze baffles scientists. Well, it's not so much haze as the Martians steam-cleaning the rovers for us.

STUDY: Dogs are smarter than people think.  Not watching tv helps.

Show-winning dog semen sells for $2,000.  Further proof that I'm in the wrong business.

Rowdy women attack man at 50 Shades.  So I'm thinking to myself that this is my golden opportunity: stand outside the theater and clean up!  Right up until we discover that the man in question asked the ladies to lower the volume a bit and got the wrong kind of head.

Woman pulls gun on man after being denied sex. Wow, I didn't know we could DO that!

======================================

It's Snow Time in the old neighborhood. Again. This time the forecasters called for three to six inches. Within hours, it was one to three.  In an extreme slip-up, we got three to six.  What are the odds that a weather forecaster will be correct?

As a result, I worked from the couch, where I am generally headquartered.  I was treated to the somewhat altered-state neighbor shoveling early.  I strongly suspect he has some sort of noise-enhancing attachment built into his shovel. Still, this is better than last year, with the snow blower. Snow blowers, while a great concept, bother me almost as much as lawn mowers.  Let's face it - they require so much care and maintenance that they're unlikely at best to be there for you when you need them (as one could argue about a wife).

After work, I shoveled. It wasn't bad at all (especially as I didn't have to start a snow blower). Then I heard this loud noise, incredibly similar to the neighbor's amplified shovel.  This is largely because it was the neighbor's shovel, this time being powered by the 437 year old being from hell who owns the place.  In the autumn, she has some sort of laser-powered Leaf Alarm to tell her when our leaves hit the ground.  I'll bet you she also has a laser-powered Snow Detector too. As soon as it starts snowing, she forces the tenant into Snow Bondage.  Apparently his snow job was not sufficient, as she was out there again, probably cataloging and cleaning individual flakes from the tarmac.

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I thoroughly ruined someone's day today, or at least I hope I did.  

I don't get out much and I don't have anywhere near enough fun, so I have to get it where I can (kinda like sex).

There's a street on the way to work that has a 25mph speed limit and they're not kidding. I suspect half of the town's revenue comes from speeding tickets. I was warned early to obey and obey I do.

Not everybody obeys and this is where the fun starts.

Sometimes people don't want to do the speed limit, so they pass you in great haste. The only problem here is that it's only a two-lane road, so they cross into the wrong lane to pass you. While I have yet to see anyone ticketed (or beaten) for this, hope springs eternal.  When I drive a higher performance car, I speed up while they're trying to pass: it amuses me.

Today's idiot was a special breed.  He got right up my tailpipe from the start. When this happens, I naturally make sure I'm doing exactly 25mph, if not 24.  This did not impress Sparky, who stayed in close formation. Trick Number Two: brush the brake pedal so the brake lights come on. Sparky backed off a bit but in short order, he was trying to climb into my trunk.  Firing up the brake lights again only pissed Sparky off and he blinked his lights at me.

Imagine - he blinked his lights at me.

A brief glance at the speedometer told me I was doing 1mph over the limit, so I slowed down. Sparky backed off.  Not for long, of course, despite passing several 25mph signs.  By this point, Sparky's face was no doubt starting to turn red and veins were popping out of his head.  In fact, he got more aggressive and would not back up, even with the Brake Light Treatment.  

Finally some sense must have seeped in and he backed off. I suspect he might have seen some speed limit signs.  Oh no, he was back again, this time weaving all over his lane, as if he were going to somehow rocket past me.  I smiled and continued to do the speed limit in a nearly offensive manner.

At this point, Sparky probably had to give the steering wheel to his passenger, as he was having a Coronary Event (formerly heart attack).  He finally got around me because he had to get into the turning lane. He shot me a look.  I smiled.

I won.


And as I close this episode, I have but one wish: that both the cat and the dog stop farting.  I'm going to asphyxiate here.