Fishing for Washing Machines

Many thanks to my non-US visitors. There are a lot of countries represented, although I can't imagine this blog translating to anything or anywhere else.

Also thanks to US visitors for our second 4500+ visitor days.
Something in the counter for this blog is on acid, but I'm not complaining. I shouldn't have killed the ads.



The Goog is in trouble. Read the article for only minor horrors about how the Fair and Balanced search engine works, and how many fingers are on the results you see. Yet another reason to use Duckduckgo. You can tell goog is important because they've already lied to Congress.


So long as we're talking about my favorite megacorporations, Apple banned all 181 vaping-related apps from their store, over concern about the possible health impacts of vaping. Cigarettes, anyone?

Since the next story caused too much of a headache to research, I figured why not vaping? Why not vaping indeed. I don't understand this concept, specifically why one needs an app for it. You appear to stick something in your mouth and inhale - why does this require an app?  So I checked... the first few search results were from vaping organizations(!), so I looked. The reviews were for top 5 vaping apps. One was "basically a Faceyspaces for vapers". Another was a calculator (because vaping affects your ability to spell). It shows Stuff About Coils, voltage, and how many cancerous additives to use. E-liquid recipes? Wow, a cookbook for your lungs! There's even an app that allows you to wish for and select the type of cancer you might get!

The best was an app that calculates how many ciggies you have not smoked since you 'quit' and how much money you've saved. The review doesn't mention whether it adds the cost of vaping in there anywhere, since you didn't quit, so much as change the Nicotine Delivery System<tm>.

I checked with my in-house expert, who looked at me quizically, and said she had no idea why one would need an app. You just stick it in your mouth and breathe (until you can't breathe anymore).

But wait!!! A brand-specific app allows you connect the device via BlueTooth, so you can "explore new capabilities".  Try that with your generic old cancer stick.

The greatest thing about vaping can never be controlled.. it's Smug. Yes, Smug: the feeling you get when you quit smoking cigarettes. People 'quit', then walk around with these things in their mouth. Some walk around with these things in their mouth for the rest of their lives, and boast that they've quit cigarettes. Umm... it's supposed to be a step-down program, not an Alternate Delivery System.

The FDA, which is Very Concerned about this, has banned flavored vaping, so as not to appeal to children. Vaping manufacturers have taken Great Offense at the insinuation they're marketing to children, and insist that Lungy, the single-lunged camel, and the YooHoo, Coke, bubblegum, and chocolate flavors are just great sellers.

ThermionicEmissions is aware that nicotine is more addictive than crack and it's borderline impossible to quit.

• I've been thinking of redesigning the blog, or at very least, making ThermionicMalware less incredibly ugly.
• I could use some input, so let's do this: if you like the way this blog looks, do nothing. If you think it should be changed, do nothing.
• If you appreciate the amazing ugliness of the other blog, do nothing. If you desperately desire a redesign so the Geneva Convention doesn't prohibit looking at it, do nothing.
• I looked back at the beginning of the blog and noticed a semi-active comments section. Drag your friends here and start commenting!

Physicists capture first footage of quantum knots unraveling in superfluid.
Yes, Superfluid - the Liquid Crimefighter! Disguised as a puddle with a teeny tiny cape, it's Superfluid. Wetter than water! Stronger than Regularfluid! Able to leap tall glasses of chocolate milk in a single bound... it's Superfluid!*

*I love me some quantum physics, but this is so far down in the dust, I can't make sense of it. People who understand it will probably be ok with the article. The footage captured was of a quantum knot, decaying into a spin vortex. Got it?

A quantum knot is what happens when you pull your shoelace to untie it. It never unties smoothly and you wind up with a quantum knot: the kind it takes 10 minutes and a woman to remove.

Also included was a picture of the equipment used to generate quantum gas (read the damn article). Blogspot will not allow me to include a picture of what generates quantum gas where this blog is typed. Why am I still using Tiny Font?




Dear lefty

• Why aren't HD cameras working out in cars as crash cams?
• Because drivers turn them around and take selfies.

Ever have one of those days? Of course you did.
My situation strings together a lot of those days, after which I type them here for your entertainment. This morning I was jolted awake by the light being on. It was the light Mrs lefty turned on, as she pointed to the small lake in the middle of the bed. Logically speaking, one of us had put it there. Since it wasn't me, that left 2. Since Penny hasn't peed in the house since right after we got her, that left 1. And the 1 was Penny. She probably has a UTI, as she never fails to alert us, sometimes by walking on our sleeping heads, that she has to go outside.

We bought this bed almost new, and have already caused more damage than it got since it was put together.  My father gave me his very worn but reliable car, which sprouted a dent the first week I drove it to work. Then it started overheating. The cherry on top was when the tree limb from hell fell on it, smashing the rear window and various body bits. Mind you, none of this was my fault, unless you call owning it my fault.

My grandparents gave us this wonderful old dining room set; waaaay older than me. Simply getting it to the house caused more damage than the 50 years they had it. This stuff just happens.

Since Dad had the unmitigated audacity to die and Mom doesn't drive, we're getting the car. I would strongly advise you not to come within several states of it.

• If you have Chrome or a Chrome-based browser, why is it almost impossible to get a cookie blocking extension? All the cookie managers let you play with the cookies. I don't want to play with cookies, I want to deny or accept cookies, on a per-site basis. I finally found a developer-related addon that does this. Idiots.

Today I identify as pudding.



There is something fascinating about Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs).
Not fascinating is they're very temperamental and frequently require maintenance. They carry a small train behind them to get all the dirt out from boring.



No thank you, I'd rather debate politics in front of the White House



Because I'm a musician (allegedly), you get stuck with weird stories and recommendations. Today it's Paul Williams. If you're under 30(?) you may not remember him. You might know some of his songs, though: We've Only Just Begun (Carpenters), "Rainy Days and Mondays" (Carpenters), "You and Me Against the World" (Helen Reddy), "An Old Fashioned Love Song" (3 Dog Night), "Let Me Be the One", and "The Rainbow Connection" (Muppets). Embarrassingly, theme from the Love Boat (hopefully you don't remember that either). He won Grammys, Golden Globes, and Academy awards. He was bloody huge around the 70s.  Later on, excess got to him, he got clean, and is a certified drug and alcohol counselor, in addition to a very gifted writer. It's unclear if he wrote the music too, as it seems to be credited to 2 or 3 people. He was also a huge tv star, with an uncountable amount of appearances on the Tonight Show (Johnny Carson, anyone?), movies, and other tv shows. He's a funny little dude (5'2"), with a huge personality.

Just watched a documentary, kinda, on Paul, called Paul Williams - Still Alive. It's both funny and sad, in many different ways. The fellow who made the movie approached it as a fan, wanting to make a movie, and also become buddies with its subject. If you look carefully, you can find it online.

I'm going to flash back... way back, to my mom's record collection. Before I started playing guitar, I would listen to her albums (round black things, with a tiny hole in the center, pre-CD, pre-MP3). I discovered Joe Cocker there, which started me off on the right foot, as well as Procol Harum. I gave her Little Feat and the Allman Brothers, so it was even.  Among the records was Paul Williams - A Little Bit of Love. For whatever reason, I fell in love with it. It's bizarre, as this is not my forte, by a long shot (Mom, ya done good). Many years later, I still remember the songs, or parts of them (my musical memory is beyond weird).

In the movie, a lot of people said they were drawn to his music by the words, which dealt with loss and being lost. I think I was drawn by the music, then the words, but I'm generally not a words guy.

I saw him, many years later, in the Minneapolis Airport. He kinda stared at me, and I could hear his thoughts: What the hell is THAT? I really should have chatted with him.

Give him a listen, as well as the people who sang his songs.

• Bose continues their innovation, this time in headphones. Their phones have 130 microscopic drivers (70 facing outward), alleging that you get the full fidelity from them, plus 4 racks of pre-processing.
• The above is hysterical if you remember their 901s.

Heroes of the Stupid


Apple fired an employee who went through a woman's pictures and forwarded one to himself. He was very sorry (for getting caught) and had no idea how it happened.   Apple apparently hires people from Geek Squad.

Apple allows you to install other browsers on the iDevice, but they can never be the default. Regardless of what you install, it's only a fancy wrapper, because all browsers are required to use Apple's rendering engine.

Denver is suing a business owner for refusing to pick up the feces of homeless people who defecate on his property.

Australia wants to use facial recognition for porn age verification.




SJW Output

Anyone should be allowed to 'identify' as black, regardless of skin color or background, according to university leaders in the UK. In unrelated news, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton had stereo heart attacks today.


There’s no one way to be a man.
Men who get their periods are men.
Men who get pregnant and give birth are men.
Trans and non-binary men belong.
#InternationalMensDay - courtesy of the ACLU, which is getting sillier with age


A studio exec has suggested Julia Roberts play Harriet Tubman.
This is every bit as stupid as demanding black and female actors play white male roles.


Millennials say workplace 'Secret Santa' gift exchange causes anxiety.
Know what else causes anxiety? Getting fired.

Vegan Shampoo: Gluten Free, Meat Free

In my latest Florida IT Disaster rant, an unnamed IT person was fired for clicking on a phishing link, 'forcing' that city to pay ransom.

You will notice that no action was taken against the designers and maintainers of the network that wasn't patched and didn't have backups. This is a tactic worthy of a political debate.

As for the IT person, they should be required to take a remedial phishing safety class, then teach safety/employee education classes at work. In lieu of being a sacrificial lamb.



I've mentioned this, but Ancient TV escapes me. A local-ish station pops up out of nowhere, playing absolutely ancient shows. I believe the shows are royalty free, so there is little cost to run the station. So now everyone can be treated to the absolute BEST shows of the 70s. And when I say absolute best, I mean shows that weren't all that good in the 70s.  Then there are the networks with 50s shows. You can now watch ridiculously formulaic, black and white shows that your parents and grandparents watched. You know, wholesome comedy.  The absolute worst is Buzzer, the game show network. One would think that a network featuring various game shows would be entertaining. However, they play the original shows. You are now watching Match Game 73, meaning the show aired in 1973. Everybody on the show, including the contestants, is dead (except Betty White, of course). There is one fun part, though: the prizes. The cars you could win are hysterical to see. The furnishings are even funnier. And you could get the absolute latest in audio - an all-in-one stereo system, featuring a turntable and an 8 track player!

I couldn't figure out why I sit next to Mrs lefty and watched some of this nonsense. It's because I like to see manly cars. Huge cars. 8 cylinder cars. With trunks you could fit a family in. Where you can have separate arguments in the front and back seats, without disturbing the other. Cars where you could ride around the block and watch the gas gauge go down. With bench seats - favorite seat of spaniels and all other dogs. They hate having to climb over the hump, with nowhere to sit in these stupid bucket seats. When tires were large and the wheel wasn't. When you could run over smaller cars and not notice it.

Sigh.
The good old days.
Can't buy a real car anymore.

On the bright side, our Hyundai is magnificent; with a mileage figure that old cars didn't match, ok fuel consumption, and absolutely no tuneups or getting dirty. The most maintenance required was putting in washer fluid and taking it in for regular oil changes. Highly recommended.



Dear lefty

• Please answer - I haven't gotten any personal abuse lately and I miss it.
• Answer what, you twat?

RyanAir has performed a little Marketing Magic. The 737 Max has been grounded for its propensity to fall out of the sky. In their marketing wisdom, Ryan has repainted the 737 Max logo to read 737-8200. Yes, this is another name for the plane, but....

In unrelated news, the Twin Towers have been renamed 737 Max.

Smoking and Drinking

Boris Johnson, (R-UK), came out against sin taxes, like taxes added to unhealthy foods. As the mayor did in Philly on 'unhealthy beverages.'  Boris (R-Missing), says obesity is the NHS' worst problem, costing a ton of money. He said that taxes are not the way to go, preferring a science-based solution.

A pleasant surprise is politician and newscaster referral to the Nanny State.
Hey - that's MY phrase!   This would never happen in the US, as government creep gets larger and larger, and we never met a single thing we didn't want to legislate; screw the Constitution.  For a ridiculous example, see tobacco in the US. There is an obscene amount of taxes levied on tobacco. Most don't complain because they don't smoke. Even when the "Don't Smoke - You're Going to DIE' warning appeared on ciggies, it did nothing. Obviously taxing doesn't work, nor does dictating. Taxes were found to affect the low income segment disproportionally, especially on sugary beverages.


Speaking of Blighty, this is apparently a big time for the national pastime of cricket. Although we have some idea of football/soccer, we're flummoxed on cricket. Any who wouldn't be? Reports are that 57% of Brits don't understand it either.

There is a batsman that bowls the ball, which looks like it would cause an amazing amount of damage, should it come in contact with your person. It is referred to as bowling because the ball is made of the same thing bowling pins are made of, only there's no machine that returns them. No, the sport is so old that it relies on actual humans to move the ball. There is no sign of 3 finger holes on the ball, although rumor has it there are in the ladies' cricket league.

The field looks a lot like baseball, only with higher salaries and greater television ratings. This is carefully balanced by having to pay a tv license (they can't spell either) to actually watch stuff on tv. In spite of paying for tv, they also have an obscene amount of commercials. Embarrassed, the viewers claim American tv has more, but this is just projection, meant to make them feel ok with paying so much to watch men run around and get hit in the family jewels by balls with the tensile strength of SCUD missiles.

If the batter/bowler/truss-wearer manages to hit the ball, something definitely happens. This varies with the day of the week. Regardless, the sports reporters develop brain aneurysms commenting on hits, like hockey commentators in the US. Color commentary is slightly different too.

"Up now is Billy Hetherington-Smyth-Smith. Billy was conservative party ball washer, in addition to personally wetting his uniform in last year's finals."

"This score was quite the effort. It reminded me of two games ago, when they also scored."

"The team are playing wonderfully this season, allowing them to all work together on one player scoring."

In reality, nobody really knows how the game works, least of all the players. These athletes (ATH-uh-leets in the US) are not among society's best and brightest, referring to their jobs as somehow hitting the bowling ball and closely monitoring their bank accounts for copious rises in the balance. Some find this exercise too much and hire people to look at their bank accounts for them. Some make so much money they hire people to play for them, citing the risk of damage, should they have to run or something.

The bat is like a baseball bat, but flat, and more likely to cause damage on the other team's faces. The American practice of using aluminum bats has not caught on, even though it would cause more damage to faces (and groins). One reason for this is that the British pronounce it 'al you MIN e um', and the extra syllable costs more to air, due to the complex tax system, which reaches 90% of income.

Finally, the winner, although nobody knows how that is decided, takes the ashes. Nobody has ever questioned where the ashes came from, and why smoking is encouraged in this sport. Teams are considering changing ashes to rocks, as the sin tax on ashes is getting out of hand. Of course if they use rocks, they will also develop sin taxes.

Small wonder America gets a bad reputation for not understanding or following the sport... even the Brits don't understand it. This doesn't stop them from turning out in the hundreds of thousands to watch. Since the cricket watchers are of a higher socio-economic class, the sport lacks the excitement of soccer hooligan riots, the second most popular sport in the world; except America, where there are courts and jails in the stadiums.

Commenting on the upcoming acid test, Captain Ken Kesey said he was practicing all day, every day.

Lastly, no one has any idea why the founding batters chose to call it cricket. The name is slated to change, as the Society for the Protection of Insects, Brown Division, strongly objects to cruelty to crickets. Even if there are no crickets whatsoever in the game.

The preceding paragraphs are 100% fact free.

• 7-11 came up with an app!
• The next day, half a million dollars were stolen from customers because there was no security with password reset (anyone could change anyone else's password).

Are you tired of Security Theater? Being groped by the TSA in airports? Going through the body scanner? Wear sequins. They drive the body scanners crazy, so you'll go through the metal detector instead. And probably upset TSA agents.

• The family of a woman killed in the Las Vegas shooting is filing a lawsuit against gun makers.  Because them damn guns leaped into the air and shot her.
• There will obviously be lawsuits against alcohol manufacturers, car manufacturers, lake and ocean manufacturers, and anyone else who needs to be sued due to lack of personal responsibility.

After a recent typhoid fever scare, the LAPD recently announced the deployment of a germ-killing robot at Central Division on Skid Row.

The robot emits 5 minute pulses of UV light that the manufacturer says kills 80% to 90% of germs in the air & on open surfaces. I keep waiting for the punchline. If you tried this, you'd be jailed for practicing medicine without a license. This won't survive a lawsuit, good intentions aside. 

This is also a template for what's to come, should there be serious health issues.

• Coca-Cola says you can party like it's 1985 again, because they're re-releasing New Coke!
• This is what we call not learning from your unbelievably huge mistakes. New Coke was a major flop and was quickly discontinued. Probably because it tasted like Pepsi.
• In totally unrelated news, the Gremlin, the Ford Pinto, and the Nova are being re-released. Now you can get your Ugly, Exploding, Doesn't Go on.
• Other throwbacks planning a reissue include polyester pantsuits, bowties, Radio Shack computers, and gonorrhea.

SJW Antics

A SUNY professor penned an article titled 'Seeing poor white people makes me happy'.   If you want more entertainment, click the link. Even other racists will hate this guy.


Liberal Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has noted that Ocasio-Cortez's comments make her a "Holocaust denier," which is a form of anti-Semitism.

Tonight's epic battle: the R Card vs the J Card.
Who will win this momentous social justice battle? Stay tuned!

Any group with more than one person in it will eventually eat itself.


Activists demand tampon dispensers in male bathrooms for "menstrual equality"
As with most things, Monty Python was years ahead of its time.

"Classical music is inherently racist." - an article in NewMusicBox.