We're Being Strangled by Wireless Cell Phones

Your love is like  eating some bullets

SIM Swapper Abducted, Beaten, Held for $200k Ransom

I think we have the way out of malware....

Today I identify as  an umlaut

 I was just hung up on in text chat! I didn't even know it was possible.

I have now been hung up on in every way possible. My life is complete.

A $6 charge appeared on my phone bill, out of nowhere. The page told me it was for making a plan adjustment. After waiting 20 minutes for somebody who was hopefully brighter than the chat bot, I was told it's a surcharge and was notified months ago. Yes, I'm being charged $6 extra for keeping my existing plan. But if I wanted to upgrade to their spiffy new 5G unlimited free Apple music Disney+ plan at a similar rate, everything would be ok and God himself would smile upon me. I'd become a rock star and actresses and models would throw themselves at my feet.

That's nice, but I don't want or need that plan. The amount I use my phone is laughable. I never even came up to the 1gig limit when I had a 1g plan. Then they forced me to take a 5g plan, of which I don't use 1g. I don't use half of 1g. But she keeps telling me I could upgrade. I keep looking around the room to see who is typing here, because I kept typing that I wanted a tiny plan with limited data. Between you and me, I think God was getting angry, and I don't blame Him. I was screaming and the dog was barking.

I decided to play their game and asked how much was 'a similar price.'  Are you ready? My already ridiculous plan was going to go up to $105. Or keep paying a $6 surcharge. So I figured we'd play my game and asked her would she pay $105 monthly for a phone she barely used. I had to ask her 5 times because she kept ignoring me and trying to sell me the 5g plan. Her training was excellent, and I told her so, but she wasn't listening to the customer. That's when she 'hung up' on me.

Did I forget to tell you who my carrier is?  It's the one that rhymes with Purrizon. I've stayed with them forever, for the coverage. Not anymore, apparently. To make matters more funner, my phone won't work on the carrier I'm looking at.

I'm not positive who regulates the cell phone industry, but we're going to have a chat about Purrizon, and the industry in general. If enough people complain....

Now, let's talk about a related matter.  If your phone plan is $60 monthly, you're paying $60 PLUS $30 in TAXES, state, and federal nonsense. Your monthly bill is now $90. And I'm pretty sure you're not paying for a $60 plan. This is obscene. It's not the fault of the carriers, unless they tack on other charges. This is from our state and federal legislators. You might want to look at your bill and have a chat with them.

And now, the final chapter of the leftys vs the Hospital 

"Hey, come get me - I'm being discharged," she told me.

Rushing to the hospital with glee (my pet attack cheetah), she said we're just waiting for some paperwork.

Hour 1.

Hour 2.

Hour 3. - I didn't want to interrupt lunch at 2:30

Hour 4  - wait... I think we see a doctor. Flag him down, with a flamethrower.

Hour 5 - "You're a free woman," said the nurse,

Doctors all suffer from some sort of temporal disorder. They have no sense of time, like the DMV. They'll get to it in an hour actually means any time between 5 hours and next month. The hospital process is completely broken in the first place, but the discharge process has jumped ship and took off for Uranus.

Food Delivery Robot Casually Drives Under Police Tape, Through Active Crime Scene

There is no better way to point out that self-driving vehicles are Not Ready for Prime Time than this. No one was mowed down, inside or outside the vehicle. The only thing that would make this better would be a 4 hour gun battle, with police shooting the robot full of lead. And the robot still delivering the food.

What actually happened was a nearby bomb hoax at a high school. While the hoaxers were waiting, they ordered pizzas. Sounds reasonable, no?

Bridgestone has put more than $100M into eco-tires made of shrubs

You must bring me.... a SHRUBBERY

Yes, eventually everything goes back to Monty Python.

Gates-Funded 'Green Revolution' in Africa Has Failed, Critics Say

When philanthropists spend vast sums of money on a project, jubilation and high expectations ensue. But money doesn't necessarily produce results.

A case study, according to critics, is the push for a "green revolution" in Africa, which has spent $1 billion to date, much of it from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

They write these headlines just for me. 

Well, what do you expect from the developer of a failed operating system?

We have been sending billions in aid to Africa, yet things never improve. Why is that?

I know that politicians had themselves exempted from spam laws. Yesterday I got a text from the NAACP, asking me to help get black people to the polls. The NAACP, as far as I know, isn't a politician, although this might tell me more than I wanted to know. I will tell the NAACP what I tell everybody: until there is a left handed history and appreciation month, I'm not helping anybody.

As far as I know, I'm also not black, if that's a requirement.

Of course it doesn't end there.... Google is launching a pilot program to keep political emails out of the junk pile. Not that having a gmail account is a good idea, but how about giving everybody a choice?

Don't want to get run over by a Ford car? There's a Bluetooth app for that

I keep banging the warning gong because self-driving software is just not ready yet, but is being foisted upon an unsuspected public, ready to mow down a few citizens. Ford has a Bluetooth app to keep you from getting run over by a Ford car. It's a great idea in a vacuum, til you realize you can still get run over by every other brand self-driving car. While an interesting idea, it's attacking symptoms instead of the problem. Have I mentioned the range of Bluetooth would require beyond-human reflexes and perhaps a small physics change to allow your safety?

Wanda Sykes used to work for the NSA. Uh-oh. Laugh at my jokes or I'll have you taken to a place where they will never find your bones. That aside, privacy and civil rights groups are putting on the pressure not to air Ring Nation, which will feature video taken from Ring doorbell cameras. They're normalizing surveillance. 

Footage from Ring cameras was used to track and monitor protesters who took to the streets, exercising their First Amendment rights, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. These are not isolated incidents. Racial profiling and racist policing are core components of Ring’s business model, which profits off fear.”

Remember: Ring operates independent of the Fourth Amendment. It has become a huge surveillance network that works without warrants or oversight.

After news that an AI-generated painting won a prize, creative-type people are really seeing red, claiming AI is killing art. Hollywood is working on a statement and we have the draft: How the hell are we supposed to make millions for a movie, so we can walk around and say things, as if we were important and our voice somehow counted for more than the Ugly Americans? We will all have to get real jobs. How can we ever walk on red rugs, get trophies, pat each other on the back, and bitch because we deserved that, if we have to get jobs? It's not like we have the skills to work at convenience stores or gas stations. Society sends us to Hollywood because we have no discernible talent (and some of us are waaay better looking than the rest of you). 

I would never bolster their case, but we said drum machines and rap were killing music. We weren't wrong. 

The Department of Homeland Security (the Motherland) has awarded nearly $700,000 to help keep gamers from becoming terrorists. Security Theater has gone completely off the rails. More of your money will be heading to other known radicalizing activities and trades, such as plumbing, jump rope, sweeping up after elephants at the circus, and working at the DHS. 

There Are Some Days, and This Is One

This is the kind of thing we read this blog for: a Michigan highway billboard was hacked to play porn for 15-20 minutes. This is positive hacking. They destroyed nothing, made some people happy, possibly caused some outrage and a car crash, and everybody gets a funny story. I'd avoid the rush, however, to move to Michigan, as police have a bit of video and are searching for the perps.

For those of you who are upset about their work computer being locked down, there's a fake browser update that will infect the entire network with banking trojans. If you're locked down and updates are automatically installed for you, this won't matter.

Anyone who has read at least one of these entries knows of my great love for Faceyspaces. Well, it hurts like hell, but I have to back Faceyspaces. No, really.  Attorney General Bill Barr, along with the UK and Australia, is about to ask Lord Zuck not to go ahead with his plans for end-to-end encryption across its messaging services until it can guarantee the added privacy does not reduce public safety.

When you're done producing filling for your barf bag, allow me to translate: We, the Five Eyes, are rather upset at your attempt to keep all of your information away from our five prying eyes. If you don't leave everything wide open or accept one of our Extremely Safe Backdoors, you are making it very difficult for us to steal scan your information for terroristic threats and to keep the world safe from democracy. Because everybody except lefty and two of his friends uses Faceyspaces, it is our largest source of information. If you do not allow us access, we will convince the founder of Faceyspaces, the NSA, to allow us access.

Remember when back doors were something fun?



Dear lefty

• How do you categorize people?
• There are only 2 classes of people: Munsters and Addams Family

Today I identify as a shrubbery



China recently celebrated 70 years of communism with parades and displays of weapons. And riots and a shooting of a protester. The people of the People's Republic also celebrate, but only when they're told to.

In unrelated news, The US celebrated their public education system by publishing these stunning results: first in spending of any country per student, 38th in results.

In yet still more actively unrelated news, Maria Bartiromo reports that... well... I don't really care - look at that face. She's a classic.

In related news, police are filing criminal charges against the person they shot during the riots.    I always say, "If you shoot them, they'll never do it again."  

The young man will be charged with rioting and assaulting a policeman.
Back in Tianamen Square, the lone protester was finally charged with assaulting a tank.

No thank you, I'd rather spend a few weeks with with Richard Nixon, in his  underground bunker.

• Every now and then, one must give thanks for even random positive events: today I'm thankful that the new project will no longer require Windows 10. I argued so politely and so strenuously, they redid the project just for me.
• Sometimes a good thing comes in the middle of tragedy. This is one.

Bernie Sanders, genial old Silly Person, noted communist, and inveterate alpaca plooker, said there should be no more billionaires*. What a funny old dude. He says random sentences with 'free' in them, generating cheers from his fanbase; like Bruce Springsteen, but much more expensive.

*Unrelated news: Billionaires said there should be no more Bernie Sanders.

• Today I want to share something of great import. I feel it will enrich your life and keep your kids happy too. Unfortunately I already forgot what it is. The mind is a terrible thing to... ummmm...

I am proud to let everyone know I like Orange Crush.
I am proud to raise my eyebrow upon seeing a bottle of Watermelon Crush.
I am proud to say eewwwwwwwwww upon tasting it. Yes, they got it right, but watermelon soda? Join my campaign for Kidney Stone Crush.





When a reporter for the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command interviewed Frank Zappa for the Command's news syndicate, the story was held by a superior who demanded that Zappa - who had been rather hard on the Army - answer one more question: just who does he think will defend the country without the Army?

Zappa's reply: "From what? The biggest threat to America today is its own federal government.... Will the Army protect anybody from the FBI? The CIA? The Republican party? The Democratic party? The biggest dangers we face today don't even need to sneak past our billion-dollar defense system... they issue the contracts for them."

The interview was not run.

We need Frank more than ever today....





Heroes of the Stupid

A federal judge ruled that Harvard University’s undergraduate admissions program is constitutional, rejecting a challenge accusing the school of discrimination against Asian American applicants.

In a decision released on Tuesday, US district judge Allison Burroughs in Boston said that while Harvard’s admissions program is not perfect, “the court will not dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster, solely because it could do better”.   Reached for comment, the KKK was outraged that their Harvard admissions will be capped at 20%.

Why is my cable bill so ridiculous? It couldn't be because of added fees, could it?



SJW Time

University and College Union apologises after failing to include Jews on list of groups of Holocaust victims (the Jewish Chronicle).

It described how the Nazis had persecuted groups such as “trade unions, including social democrats and Communists”, “Europe’s Roma and Sinti people”, “Black people”, “disabled people”, “freemasons”, “gay and lesbian people”, “Jehovah’s witnesses” and “'asocials’, which included beggars, alcoholics, drug addicts prostitutes and pacifists” were persecuted by the Nazi regime.

The international section in your supermarket is racist. The food is segregated.

sometimes you need to keep your soda cold

Burn It, Blow It Up and Dispose of It [Mowing]

Yes, it's that time of year again. Ok, it's toward the end of that time of year again. The time that I dread. The time that wakes me up at two in the morning, in a cold sweat, screaming NOOOOOO. It's Mower Time.
 I have written extensively on Mower Time but since it's this time of year and I have been doing battle again, I feel it necessary to get this off my chest (and arms and itchy legs).

I hate mowing. Nothing new there.  But I have an absolutely irrational hatred of mowing. It's definitely not Mowphobia... phobia implies fear.  I have no fear of mowing - I actively HATE it. I'd sooner saw off a random limb by myself than mow the lawn (and I pass out at the thought of blood).

We started with a push mower. I have no idea why. Then a gas mower, which died in short order. The two anemic electric mowers, which did, at no time, run over their electrical cords. They're probably still in the Mower Graveyard (the shed). They probably still work, or whatever it is they did, in a very meek, underpowered way. The next gas mower failed for what looked like fuel reasons. I figured that since I knew the tiniest bit about engines, I'd give it a shot. After having removed the air filter and what looked vaguely like a carburetor (or carburettor, for our British reader and Queen fan), I wound up with a no movement solution. Since it was already broken, it remained broken, due to my lack of true understanding of engines. I strongly suspect that what I thought was a carburetor was actually a Quantum Space Drive and I somehow managed to extract the Quantumness from it, rendering it a pot-metal version of a non-working carburetor. Again, since it was not working before my experiment in quantum physics, I don't count this as my fault, much like my wife 'saving' us money by buying shoes on sale.

Finally we invested in a serious mower. I know it was serious because it was more expensive than what had to be less serious mowers. And it had a Big and Strategic engine, which was the engine of choice for Indy race cars and underpowered golf carts. It also had a lot of metal on it, which was damn impressive (and harder to push). Because it was a serious mower, the throttle cable broke after a season or two.  Doing my best impression of a Manly Man, I purchased a generic replacement throttle cable assembly, since I couldn't remember the model of my mower. As it turned out, I didn't need to know this, because the only product sold is the generic one.  Of course, as usual in these rants, the joke was on me: after doing my best to route the cable and performing the unthinkable task of zip-tying the cable to the handle, the cable flatly refused to control the throttle in any way, shape or form. It just flatly refused. The reason this is a joke is that this cable NEVER works. Like most other things, it's just Performance Art. You purchase it, you install it, then you curse at it because it flatly refuses to work, like a government employee or a Kardashian.

Cursing, as we know, is a required activity for repairing computers and cars (and by extension, lawnmowers). The neighbors are actually frightened of me, which is a condition that occurs normally without a mower in-hand. Parents pull their children off the street when they hear me pulling the cover off the evil device. The Department of Defense goes to DEFCON 5.

So, as an Imitation Manly Man, I work up a jury-rigged solution with chicken wire, several push pins and a hair tie we like to call Ralph. This alleged solution requires more cursing than simply trying to mow. I tie up the throttle, at which point the mower still steadfastly refuses to start. Checking the gas, I notice it's almost empty. This thing uses more gas than the old land yachts I used to drive (the ones with eight cylinder engines the size of small aircraft carriers). After having topped off, I hit the prime it button four times (because the instructions say two times - I'm just like that) and it still won't budge. This is because Ralph has slipped, turning off the throttle.  Cursing for good measure, I re-tie the wire and Ralph, which finally allows the engine to roar to life, frightening the dog. The mower immediately chokes on the grass, which is only waist high (don't ask me).  I found out later that, as it turns out, if you tie the throttle up a little further, the mower won't stall all that much, even if the grass is wet, as it is wont to be in Extremely West London, US.  So I mow. And I curse. And it takes the regulation forty minutes.

After I'm done, I race inside, sneezing from the aroma of freshly cut grass. As I struggle to the fridge, producing a two foot puddle of sweat under me, I down a cold can of grapefruit soda (you think I'm kidding? Go to the store and purchase some Sanpellegrino grapefruit, which, unfortunately, I do not get paid for talking about or drinking).

Eventually, after the leaking, sneezing and panting subside, I realize that it wasn't that soul-snatching an exercise (who am I kidding?). I make note of this for next time, so I won't have such difficulty with this most cursed of activities.  This matters not, as it takes two complete weeks of my wife dropping gentle hints (THE CRAZY LADY IS GOING TO CALL THE TOWNSHIP AGAIN, THE GRASS POLICE WILL ARRIVE SOON, I CAN'T FIND THE DOG) to get me off the couch and in the vicinity of the blasted device. After this, I can rely on failing to start the thing once or twice. Two nights ago it was too dark to mow. Then my near-fatal hangnail prevented all motion. After the grass has successfully hidden the actual mower, I have no choice but to walk past the thing a few times. Finally I prepare myself with tools, wire and a flamethrower and approach my nemesis.

Last night was beyond anything I've ever experienced. I go outside, in a perfectly positive mood, vowing to remain calm. The first time I try to tie up Ralph and fail, the cursing explosion starts, as if I've been trying this all day and it's just mocking me. This time I was ready, with solid steel wire and industrial tools. Knowing that there was no way I could even expect to tie the cable successfully, I had a pair of locking pliers with me. I tested the pliers, which clamped firmly onto the wire and would not budge or even release itself from the wire, knowing in my heart this was the solution.  I yanked on the cable, digging into the skin on my hand, and applied the pliers, locking them on the cable. Or NOT locking them, as it occurred.  The pliers, which worked perfectly in the midair test, completely failed to hold onto the cable in practice. It's like advanced math or windshield washing fluid - it simply doesn't work, leaving large white spots of bird shit on the glass (and I'm talking about the math here).

After a time or thirty of cursing at the locking pliers and applying a little pursuasion via the flamethrower, the machine roared to life, like Rosie Perez perceiving an insult. Aside from several branches placed in my way by a chuckling tree stopping the mower, I got done.  Yes, the mower had won, again, but I was experiencing the Mowing High people only whisper about, after getting their illegal performance-enhancing shots in Mowing Circles. Fortunately nobody from the township was around to urine-test me.

I ran into the house, crying and cursing, almost mowing down my wife (get it? - mowing). I demanded that the grass be burned down so I'd never have to perform the horrid activity anymore. My wife, used to a certain amount of entertainment post-mowing, did what she normally does and ignored me. I'd do much better arguing with the cat, only the cat occasionally appears happy to see me. As it turns out, the township forbids use of a flamethrower for mowing (or gas station tidying up), so I was pretty much out of luck.

A friend recommended hiring someone. This was a tremendous idea - one way too simple and brilliant for me to form. The wife got right on it, and by right on it, I mean she ignored it like I ignore anything with a lower case 'i' in front if it. She keeps trying to motivate me by saying 'this should be the last time you mow this year'. Unfortunately this fails the merit test in April and May.  You just try to hire someone to mow your lawn - go ahead - I dare you. All you get is services that want to come out weekly, mow and play with your shrubbery. I don't know about you but the last time I had my shrubbery played with was in my teens - a practice I vowed to avoid and have been thus far successful at. What about some neighbor kid who wants to earn a few bucks? No deal.. what used to be young entrepreneurs has morphed into selfie-taking, game playing kids who only leave the house to look at new phone cases (and get their tans from the refrigerator light). Plan B is that using the grass as a Doggy Bathroom would murder the grass once and for all.  Not so much, even considering the amount of liquids he consumes and his little chlorine-cleaned pool.

With only minor lacerations and thirty seven extremely itchy bug bites, I re-remind myself not to mow in shorts (or longs).  Meanwhile, I can hear the grass growing behind my back... inch by inch... it's openly laughing at me. Now I hear we've got a gopher or some such garden rodent (didn't anybody tell him we don't have a garden?) living in the shed with the old lawnmowers. The last time my wife checked, it had the unmitigated audacity to be swimming in the dog's pool! We might have to send the cat out after it - he's a born killa. He could drag the carcass in the house and onto the couch, which is still wet from the dog's last dip in the pool at two in the morning.

I f-ing HATE mowing.


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Led Zeppelin fan?

Jimmy Page just finished the remixes of the entire Zep catalog. I have only heard two songs but they're frighteningly good sounding. Worth a listen.