Harvey Irma Jose

Feeling under the weather, I decided rest was indicated. Anyone with all but the most acute powers of observation will not be able to tell the difference between Rest Mode and Non-Rest Mode. My neighbor felt sorry for me and decided to begin a large, noisy, external home improvement project. The banging was quite accomplished, but the loud machinery really drove the point home. Somehow they even managed to produce a loud noise that sounded like they were hammering chains into my walls, for what seemed like weeks, but in reality was just every hour I was awake.

Next day was much better. They waited til I was awake to start (7am). At certain points I felt my house literally shake, as if they were performing surgery on my house instead of next door. One day I'm likely to look out the window and find out what they're doing.  I have cataloged many separate and delightful noises emanating from this project: the Mowing Noise, the Pick on Concrete Noise, the Sledge into Bricks Noise, the Entire House Shaking Noise, and the Repeated BOOM Noise, which only surfaced when I used the phone.

Just for fun, there's a lot of noise coming from the other next door.  Both of my neighbors are elderly: the one who Marshall trained to feed him treats, and the one Satan crosses the street to avoid.

• Once again, a hurricane brought out the best and worst of humanity. Irma hit Florida with a vengeance and long before it hit, the volunteers were out, manning the help lines and trying to get help from more volunteers in the field.
• While the flood of volunteers manned the lines, an army of trolls did their best to interrupt communications. I have never heard anything like this before- with every request for help was one of these young miscreants, yelling obscenities and racist comments. This was completely unlike Hurricane Harvey communications. Maybe the Troll Alarm was sounded, and all the poisonous examples of subhumanity left their caves.
• All through the communications, there were less toxic examples of humanity, who wanted information on the weather, gas, and store openings in their personal neighborhood. These people were genetically incapable of using a search engine to check the information for themselves.
• Comcast and another local provider opened up their wifi hotspots and brought in mobile hot spots, allowing everyone unlimited access.
• People were posing as the electric company and robbing houses.
• While the storm was in its early stages, the looting started. One must note the can-do American spirit of the looters, who got out there, without consideration for life and limb, in the wind and rain, to steal things from other people. To feed their hungry families by stealing sneakers. To protect large screen tv's by taking them home.

Wife comes down the steps, says, "You're going to think I'm crazy" and disappears into the bathroom.  Ok, I'll play...

• Billions of Bluetooth-enabled devices are vulnerable to attacks across all operating systems. Google and Microsoft have released patches. I got a linux patch already. iOS before 10 is affected. Samsung smart watches, Smart TVs, and refrigerators also... This is Serious Stuff<tm>, people. Best practice is to keep Bluetooth turned off except when you must have it. Antivirus systems are unlikely to catch it. The beauty of this is that it shows us how unprotected we are and how manufacturers are unprepared to patch all their devices. The only positive here is that Bluetooth has a limited range, so it's more difficult to exploit.  Bother your vendors for a patch now.

Over in Afghanistan, three people died as a result of a suicide bomb blast in a cricket stadium. I told you sports are dangerous.

• The entitled are out again, this time demanding statues of people they don't like be taken down. And localities are acquiescing.
• My Demands:
• Being left-handed, I demand all statues of right-handed people be taken down. And that we get proper desk chairs in schools.
• I am also entitled to have statues taken down because I never got a statue taken down and others have.
• I want the Rocky Statue taken down because it's stupid and it's Philly's idea of culture.

Whither Kaprinsky: Kaspersky Antivirus (Kaprinsky or Kasper Sky, according to the Great Minds at my former employer) is up against the wall these days. The government has been ordered to replace it within ninety days because of alleged connections between Kaspersky and the FSB (formerly KGB). While no definitive connection has been established, the fear is that the FSB can request/compel them to provide data on systems 'protected' by it. Kaspersky has been given the opportunity to address the issues.

My natural inclination is to hold the phone until a connection is proven, but in the interests of safety, maybe this is a wise decision. Antivirus has privileged access to your files and operating system, so it would be a good way to obtain (or leave) data or programs. On the other hand, hackers are no doubt already in government (and other) systems. Having worked with quite a number of antivirii on a corporate level, I can safely say the all suck, in terms of deployment and operation. Best Buy will not be carrying it either.

• The new iDevice includes facial recognition, although I'm told it didn't work during the Big Announcement. While The Authorities may have trouble guessing your PIN, holding the phone up to your face is certainly convenient. Rest assured the law will be convoluted to make this work. It requires eyes to be open, so it will be more difficult to use on a dead body (make with that what you will). There is also a panic disable, which requires pressing a switch five times, that will disallow facial recognition unlock. There are other legal complexities around being compelled to give your fingerprint but not your PIN.
• This latest exercise in Apple Excess can be yours for the low low price of $1,000. Start lining up around the block, drooling, wide-eyed, wallet extended, to get yours now! We used to think $150 sneakers were ridiculously expensive.
• One of the latest flagship android phones is expected to hit $1,000 also, bringing up some questions... What the hell do you get for a grand that you didn't get for half that price (or less) on your current phone? 
• You'll certainly get a better camera, but I have not a qualm about my two year old phone's camera - the pictures are wonderful. One device has two cameras with different focuses.
• A faster processor: this would certainly be an incentive, although mine is pretty snappy.
• Better battery life: I hope. This is a huge one for most of us. Removable is a good feature too, so you can keep one charged as a spare. It's a shame you have to.
• Bigger and/or Prettier screen: some people aren't happy with the size of their screen (or much else)... larger or smaller. New layouts, for people who don't use their own launchers (Nova Launcher recommended-free).
• Facial recognition: if I didn't use eyeball tracking, imagine my thrill with facial recognition. Hint: it's probably in use on your driver's license.
• Sleek new case: please.
• Is it worth that price tag for the Latest and Greatest? I say no. In fact, if you wait a few months, there will be bigger and better, or you can purchase a gently used version at a considerable discount.

The most recent episode of South Park set off Google Home and Alexa devices. Go Matt and Trey!




As usual, I was minding my own business online, when things ground to a total halt. No amount of rebooting and troubleshooting turned up a cause. My cable modem indicated everything was fine. In situations like this, I love nothing more than interacting with Comcast (or most anyone else).

The automated service told me that my issue had nothing to do with any outages and actually sent me to a human, after a commercial for the NFL. Let's forget for a moment that I can't stand sports and concentrate on the obvious importance of an NFL commercial that you cannot bypass, while waiting to repair your internet service. The attempt to reset my modem had failed, then tried again and succeded. This was not particularly effective, as the modem did not indicate it was doing anything other than failing to go online, but they told me to wait ten minutes.

Ten minutes later, with no progress at all, I called again. This time the automated voice told me there was an outage in my area and expected restore time was four hours. So messing around with the modem earlier was a total waste of time.

Do you know the sheer hell visited upon you by being without internet for four hours? I'd rather go to the dentist than be sans internet for four hours. Fortunately my cell phone had lots of data, so I could tether my computer to it. Unfortunately, no matter what I tried, I could not get the computer hooked up to the phone. Connecting with a cable failed miserably, as did every single option I tried inside the phone. There is an actual button for wifi hotspot, that failed immediately, as did everything else.

Ever try using all your apps from a huge display on a cell phone? It worked, but not in a particularly useful way. Good thing I had many other things to do (that had absolutely nothing to do with porn).

Upon calling Comcast again, I was shocked beyond belief to speak to an Indian service representative (no I wasn't), but at least this lady spoke really good English and wasn't reading off a script. After re-rebooting the modem, it clearly showed there was an error. Mrs Service helpfully suggested that someone return the modem to Comcast and get a new one.

Because I'm that kind of guy, I had an upgraded modem, which seemed to surprise my rep, as she kept trying to get me to bring the defective modem back. After a bit of reiterating, I finally got her to accept my solution. I had to give her the new modem's MAC address.

At about this point, I discovered that I had a modem but not a manual, power supply, and whatever else came with the device. Mind you, I had the box it came in. This modem has been sitting around for a few weeks, migrating from this spot to the other, but always together. Not now, of course. Stuff just happens in my house. This was followed immediately by screaming. Unfortunately, screaming had to be modified, as I was doing it right into the phone.

One thing I note as I get older is that I cannot read small print. I used to be able to read things written on a grain of rice. Now I need Serious Magnification to read six point type. It's even more difficult after 12am, with very little light in the house.

Having solved the MAC issue, the rep told me to plug the device in, then started asking me questions about my router. Lady, if I had router issues, that would be my problem, not yours. If you get my modem set up and get signal to it, I'll handle any issues post-modem.

Apparently simply hooking a modem up and repeating a MAC address four times is not sufficient to restore internet service. There are things called hooks, put in somewhere to allow the original modem to work, and these need to be removed. Hooks.... somewhere at Comcast, there are a number of fish hanging on a line, each with a hook. They had to remove the fish and the hook so they could hang different kinds of fish, corresponding with my new modem. This is all because the old modem was brown and the new modem white.

Twenty minutes later, the helpful service rep sent what's technically known as The Magic Bullet to my modem, making the lights go all blinky and restoring service. Halleleujah! Only five hours to a solution.

Hermetically-Sealed Pet Behavior

My wife called me at work today.  This is not particularly abnormal, other than when she's calling every fifteen minutes and driving me nuts (further).  By about the third call, she asked if I wanted to know what my furry child had gotten into this time.

I said I'd bite.

To set the background properly, my mother has a thing about leftovers.  They go into their own hermetically-sealed container.  The next time, they get heated up and if there is still some left over, they get put into their own, slightly smaller hermetically-sealed container.

She apparently freezes long rolls.  She gave some to my wife the other night.  They were individually wrapped, then placed into their hermetically-sealed bag, for placement in the freezer.  My wife put them on the table.  My furry child ate them.  All.  After unwrapping each one.

I suppose we should consider ourselves fortunate that he left us the wrappers.  I had a friend with a pair of Samoyeds who were like goats: they had to be x-rayed after eating aluminum foil and pantyhose.

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In local news, a lady came home to discover her neighbor sitting on her couch.  Watching porn.  In her panties.  At least he had the decency to leave her panties there when she politely requested he leave.

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Remember When Deer Attack?  This is part two.  While a family was away on vacation, a deer crashed into their window.  This is worse than when the trees started killing skiiers!

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While his rivals attracted hundreds, 5,000 people showed up to see Ron Paul in Illinois.  They had to change the venue to hold the additional people.   Yet somehow, the votes don't seem to register at the polls.  Wonder why....

Ron Paul beat Obama in a Rasmussen poll the other day.  You probably didn't hear about it.

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It was only a matter of time until South Park took on the Toilet Security Agency....

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Santorum pledges to vigorously crack down on internet porn.  It turns out he is also against sex with his wife and pledges to eliminate handguns, black people and everything except vanilla ice cream.

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Jersey Shore could be wiped out by 2030.  Unfortunately they're talking about the shore, not the show. Get out your wallets, as we get ready to subsidize the rich people who bought shore property.  Again.

The Ill Wind That Blows

I come to you today on a mission.  A matter of great import.  Something that is not regularly talked about in polite society, therefore is a staple of this blog.

Of course I'm talking about pet farts.

The problem, as I see it, is all about reaction.  Never mind the fact that we fart in the first place - it's just our reaction to it.  Men, probably from birth, are fascinated by farts, not to mention highly amused.  This leads them to pop right up and claim ownership, displaying some sort of perverse pride in the simple act of anal exhalation.

Women are not so proud.  Should some feminine puff manage to escape their dainty sphincters (of which there are over fifty in the human body), they will not so much leap up to assert that this was, in fact, theirs as attain a couple shades of red and apologize for the natural bodily function.

Natural as this is in humans, it is the same in pets.  As you might remember, I have Marshall the cocker and Ren (aka Satan), the nineteen pound tabby.  Both are rather prodigious in the amount (and quality) of gas production.  Any real man would show pride in discovering that their pets are flatulent.  Rather a chip off the old block, no?

Now here's the real issue: dogs and cats have no taboos (or at least any of which they've spoken).  They are neither proud nor embarrassed by their own methane production.  This makes it virutally impossible to figure out, in the words of Charlie Waffles [Two and a Half Men], Who Cut the Cheese?

It is medical fact that any diet change will produce changes in digestion.  Stated another way, if you change Fluffy's food, Fluffy may fart.  Or, in my house, where the dog is powerless over his addiction to cat food, Stereo Flatulence.

The trouble here is figuring out which little beastie made with the methane.  It is especially difficult when they are near each other, on the floor or on the couch.  Of course when they're both on the couch, the matter of which one produced the gas becomes secondary to potential asphyxiation.

The cat has been rather needy lately.  No one knows why.  Neither is content to let the other get any attention, producing yet more issues.  Ren just jumped onto the couch, sat on my mouse, then prodeeded to make himself comfortable on my hand, which was unfortunately attached to said mouse.  Just as he was attaining Kitty Nirvana, the smell became nauseating.

Oh great - we have to change the cat food again, this time due to Noxious Feline Flatulence<tm>.  And I thought he was simply being cute.  Obviously it's all part of his Master Plan to gas out the inhabitants of the house and attain world domination.

Of course I kid: this little bastard refuses to open his own food.  He insists on being served.  He loves his food but will not jump on the counter to eat it.  He will, however, jump on the counter to eat my food.  Mind you, Marshall has figured out how to hit the cat food can the right way so as to cause it to plummet to the floor so he can take it under the table and eat it.  He has quite a collection of empties there.  As best I understand, there is no twelve step program for cat food addiction.  And yes, it makes Marshall toot the old anal horn too.

It would all be much easier if at least one of them would toot his own horn after, well, tooting his own horn.  Can you teach an animal to be proud of his own farts?  There was a South Park episode where the denizens were fond of the smell of their own farts.  Perhaps we need to show it to the pets over and over.


Pets: be proud of your own noxious emissions.

Is This A Good Time to be Italian? [the Goomba Dance]

As part of my extended Labor Day weekend, I had the pleasure of spending an evening with my parents, who I do not see enough.  We went over for the purpose of hanging out, eating (of course), and setting up their new laptop.

I'm not sure how this came about but my parents were given a brand new laptop - a stunning Dell with a seventeen inch monitor.  The thing was so heavy my mother couldn't lift it.  I believe this was considered a desktop replacement.  I love large monitors so I didn't have any trouble with it.

Well, that's not entirely true....  when I turned the thing on, to my horror, the setup routine started.... for Windows Vista [cue suspenseful music].  Anyone who has read more than two entries here knows that I'm not exactly a Microsoft enthusiast (kinda like Steve Ballmer isn't a Mac enthusiast).  I haven't spent more than ten minutes cumulatively with Vista, which suited me just fine.  The time I did spend with Vista was painful: let's just leave it there.

After an evening of good food, great company, and setting up a laptop, my total Vista exposure is now up to four and a half hours or so.  Yes, it took four and a half hours to set up Vista on a laptop and download/apply the updates.

The machine had a core duo processor and four gigs of RAM so I was hesitant to blame the performance (or lack of thereof) on hardware.  Therefore I blame it on the pig of an operating system called Vista.

I manage to tolerate Windows 7 (a pig with lipstick) relatively well, especially as I have to use it for work.  Vista, on the other hand, is enough to make me pull the remaining hair out of my scalp, set it on fire, and run around Redmond, demanding their acknowledgement that I am indeed a chicken.

I'm hoping my parents won't complain about the slowdown they experience, going from an old laptop with XP to a relatively new one with Vista.  They're currently thrilled to have email again, so we shall all remain hopeful.  The bootup sequence alone on this porcine excuse for an operating system in positively leaden.  Small wonder they sold four copies of it.

GOOMBAS?

During the interminable wait for Vista to load, my wife took advantage of my parents' cable connection to watch Real Housewives of New Jersey.

I am f-ing stunned.  There's simply no other way to put it.

Back at the homestead, we got rid of pay television due to finances and the utter wasteland comprising it.  We do not watch reality tv (or at least I don't) as a rule.  From the bits I've heard, it consists largely of people talking, ad nauseum, about themselves, as if everyone in the entire universe gave a rat's patootie.

Well, I don't like the way they keep house.  But enough about them, let's talk about me.

I had to think long and hard about a description for this debacle.  I'm a creative type, so I hate to let the opportunity get the best of me.   Try this on for size:

Real Housewives of New Jersey: It's like the Sopranos without all the witty dialog and attractive women.

I'm still stunned.

Yes, Virginia, those accents are real.   The breasts, however, are not.

I will admit to never having watched three seconds of Jersey Shore, for once letting my better judgment win the day.  But I have to say that if I were Italian, I would be quite upset at the portrayals in these shows.

Yes, there are people like this.  Hopefully they are in the minority.  I know tons of Italians, none of whom look, sound, or act like this.  In fact, I often tell people I'm Italian to confuse them.

If I didn't have a laptop with a pig of an operating system on which to operate, I would have gouged out my own eardrums.  I kept asking nicely if perhaps my wife was finished watching yet.  Then I brought out the sarcasm.  Unfortunately they sat there for hours and watched the twisted proceedings.  They kept describing it as a train wreck, from which you cannot turn away.

I don't know about you but I don't have any trouble not standing around, waiting for a train to crash.  I don't even listen to Amy Winehouse, fer chrissake.  I don't slow down to gawk at car accidents (or blinky police lights on the side of the road).  Yes, I'm one of a kind (thank your deities).

There were commercials interspersed between the tragedies.  Some of them were for Real Housewives of Different Neighborhoods.  Same idiots, different accent.

Yes, stereotypes are often hysterical.  I can laugh at almost anything.  But this isn't funny.

Bread and circuses.

Everyone will have fifteen minutes of fame.

The only funny outcome was the South Park episode we watched shortly thereafter.  Matt and Trey absolutely nailed them, throwing Snooky in for good measure.

It's a Jersey thing - you wouldn't understand.