Captivity - Day 93 Wanna See My 8 track Collection, Baby?

I like to shake things up by releasing these in odd numerical order. That's about all I've got these days.


Happy F Day, to whom it applies.
It's Sunday - why the F are people mowing at 11am?


I looked up my local mall to see if they were open. They seem to have forgotten to update their page. I know this because it said March 3rd. They were kind enough to let us know Sears was open just fine, and Kay Jewelers had curbside service. "Oh, K? I'd like an engagement ring. Could you bring one to the curb?"

Guitar Center emailed to say it's not too late to get Dad a gift card. I should probably forward this to Wife. I feel privileged: she has an email filter specifically for me. I asked if it brought all my emails to the top and she said close; it brings all  my emails to the trash. Perhaps if I print out the email and leave it on top of the shoe store sale flyer....


Mrs lefty said all men want a threesome.
I looked at her incredulously and said, "What - and disappoint 2 women at the same time?"


I always found myself drawn to technology. If I were doing a play, I'd wind up wanting to do sound instead. Nothing has changed... I want to be the guy who wires up the wireless mics to celebrities. "Ms Vergara? I have to snake this small black wire up your shirt and clamp it to your collar for your microphone. Oops."



Mrs lefty asked me to carry a whole lotta stuff out of the back room. I said, "Excuse me? I don't carry boxes - I am a knowledge worker."

So I carried everything.




Joe Rogan is undergoing SJW canceling (whine, never watch again, expect everyone else to not watch again, contact his boss, contact his advertisers) for making a joke about female comics not being allowed onstage until they orally satisfy him.

It's a joke, you socially correct fun-vacuums. They've been around forever.
I used to be a musical comic. At a college (of course), some SJW boy came up and said we were really bashing Jews. We explained to Cindy that many of the group were Jewish and we bashed everyone equally. Keep in mind that all we did  was song parodies. Then he said we were really hard on women.

I did my level best to remain calm and listen to what he had to say. Susie looked at me and told the group I looked like I was ready to kill him. I've never been good at hiding my emotions. This was over 20 years ago and still gets my snot boiling. It was a sign of things to come. We had to stop doing colleges ($$) because the SJWs were infiltrating campuses. And just the other day, students apologized for letting the police use their bathrooms at one of their informal riots.

Where was I?  Oh, jokes.
Back in the Olde Days<tm>, we'd  listen to a comedian and find him funny or not. If funny, we'd watch. If not funny, we wouldn't watch. I hated Pauly Shore, Carrot Top, Elaine Boosler, Jerry Seinfeld, and all the other whiny, neurotic alleged comedians. Did I call the venues, agents, sponsors, bus companies, parents, and keep it mentally stored in case there was ever social media? Apparently I had a life (or something) and this idea would take way too much time. In addition, I wasn't interested in taking away anybody else's enjoyment of the things I didn't like. Are you seeing any similarities to today?

Joe Rogan: after you read this, know that even though I don't watch or listen to you, I'm squarely behind you. In spirit. Because I can't do shit for you. And because you don't read this blog (although you should). And maybe if famous people read this blog, they'd steal my stuff. As if it were worth stealing. I know you're a psyop, but I promise not to tell anyone.


Make sure you read carefully, unlike me, who likes to look at the pitchers.
I saw something called a Cloud Microphone. Whenever I hear 'cloud,' I cringe. Now I'm wondering if the microphone goes to the cloud and comes back down. That would be a hell of a trick, not to mention the delay.


My BFF is a lesbian.
That makes two women I'm not sleeping with.


In fact, I know a lot of ladies, none of whom have expressed the slightest desire to sleep with me.

My wife is amused. And cruel.
One day at work, a very pretty lady walked up to me and kissed me on the cheek, in full view of a few people. She turned around and walked away. I told my wife, who said she probably lost a bet.  I told you she was cruel. Coincidentally, my BFF, the lesbian, was standing right there with me. We'd sit in the office and rate breasts going by.  Speaking of coincidences, Mrs lefty's BFF was a gay guy. THEY would sit there and rate asses. This dipshit had AIDS, pretty much cured, then took too much whatever, and died falling on his face. He was a great dude and we miss him.

Male Pattern Baldness - the Band

I always wanted to call my band Male Pattern Baldness. For some reason, everyone else in the band refused. It wasn't so much a refusal as the physical reaction guys get when you mention getting kicked in the nuts. I had other names too... those merely got ignored.

• Today was a sign. An omen. The sun was out. As surprising as that was, it was forecast to be out. Something's up. Watch the skies.

Technology Time

Think about the march of technology. The things written in science fiction that are ordinary today. A wireless cell phone that replaces tons of physical utilities. This has created a mountain of useless things that kids born within the last 20 years have never seen, like:


a telephone booth, 45rpm adapter, library, a heavy mechanical phone doubling as a weapon, records, 8 track and cassette tapes, CDs, movies in grubby theaters or from a tape at home for $99, movie rentals, over the air tv with channel numbers, dialup internet, modems, leaded gas, land yacht cars, tuneups with spark plugs and wires, radios operated by a knob attached to a string, round clocks with hands, bigass computers with DOS, Windows 95/98/XP, printer ribbons, parallel cables, floppy discs, 286/386/486 computer chips, round  DIN computer plugs for accessories, adding port and other cards to computers, clean air, the US military in only a few countries, wireless phones, phone lines, busy signals, phones without Caller ID, large speakerphones that clipped off parts of words, answering machines, avocado green/harvest gold, huge wooden console stereos and tvs, black and white tvs with 6" screens, clothesline, washboard, wringer clothes washer, percolator coffeemaker, Lincoln Logs, board games, typewriters, paper notebook, newspapers, heating leftovers on the stove, wired or clicky remote controls, bra stores not carrying lingerie, computers plugged in to routers, written letters with postage stamps, pencils, sex without taking video, 16 year old virgins, verbal only gossip, walking anywhere, sitting quietly, having friends over and talking, smoking on airplanes, only charging things at home, C and D batteries, Radio Shack, only one type of condoms (that you shamefully asked for), cold medicine on open shelves, expensive heroin, soda in gallons, large tires with small wheels, floor-switched high beams, revving the engine to keep the car from stalling, stalling after running over a puddle, bench car seats, station wagons, metal in cars, starting your car with keys, protests against war, square computer monitors, $15 commercial-free cable, ice cube trays, porn magazines, door to door salesmen (non-religious), telling someone off without using the f- word, turn signals, generous employer paid pensions, no copays for anything, bicycles (without helmets), humongous analog reel to reel recording machines, community bulletin boards with 3x5 cards and push pins, Pong, hooking up vcrs and game boxes to the tv, tv antennas, amateur radio/CB, paying cash only for a doctor visit, milk trucks, malls with all kinds of stores and no food court, head shops, malts, drive in movies, handwriting, record stores, guitar solos, music without dancers, full albums played on the radio, radio stations doing whatever they wanted, giggling at gays and transsexuals, humor, walking up steps to get in a plane, liquids/pocketknives/scissors/guns and showing up right before the plane takes off, made in America, jobs for life, college degrees worth more than toilet paper, farms, tollbooth you throw change at, telethons, tv free of feminine products/pharmaceuticals/bladder leakage underwear that's actually pretty, dick jokes that didn't say dick, courtesy, really really stupid phones and tvs, bag and Beam Me Up Scotty phones, pay by minute long distance and cell, fixing electrical things yourself, Tab diet soda, whole milk, paying with cash, police showing up after you call, 2 prong outlets and plastic adapters with a little wire hanging out, Elmer's glue and paste, crayons, never hearing the word 'cunnilingus', waiting for the tv to warm up, unfinished basements, standalone stereos, mono records, head cleaning kits, record brush and fluid, record crates, posters, concert tickets, crystal scanners that could hear phones, soldering irons, neighborhood stores, guitar stores, weather that makes sense, baking cake from scratch, stereos over 1 watt, excitement of hearing the first time anyone said 'ass' on tv, beholding Sipowicz's ass, those little angular car windows in front of the main window, manual windows and door locks, real spare tires, AM/FM radios only, sneaking into Dad's special drawer, 8 or 16mm projectors, waking early on Saturday to watch cartoons, phones without hash or asterisk keys, the joy of sex (the book), record sleeves and foldouts with information, the brown acid, cleaning your pot on record jackets, products designed to last for more than a few months,



It's National Scrapple Day.
Scrapple is a Philly 'delicacy' which is essentially a meatlike substance made from (drum roll, please) scraps. Ponder that for a minute.

I try not to hate stuff before I try it, but the smell of whatever it is cooking is enough to keep mosquitos off your arm in the summer. Wife loves it. This is convenient because she'll never have to worry about me eating hers. In fact, it can sit in the fridge for six years, untouched, with all sorts of new and interesting growths, some speaking languages we've never heard before. I'm kidding - it can sit there for years, undisturbed: you can't distinguish ''fresh' scrapple from six year old scrapple. Philly is better known for soft pretzels and cheesesteaks... you're much safer with either.

• The FBI issued an alert in September due to the increase of attacks via Remote Desktop Protocol.
• This should never happen in a professional environment because you don't leave the Remote Desktop Protocol port open. It's like leaving your back door unlocked: burglars have to look for it, but they can walk right in. It's ok inside your network but not toward the internet.
• Home users are dependent entirely on their cable modems and routers. If they're not set to block by default (they should be), it's up to the user to get in there and close (everything). Anybody recommending this port be used to get to your computer from the internet should be shot, then sent to rudimentary computer school. If you need to remotely operate another computer in your house, it's relatively safe, assuming it's blocked at the router.

Between A.D.D., blurry vision, drugs, and a hyperactive dog, we can never find anything. The running joke is 'staple it to your forehead' so you know where it is and will be reminded. This fails because even the best of us run out of forehead space. This causes a clutter problem, and we're right back where we started.

• In my house, there's a place for everything. Unfortunately it changes daily.

Hack the Air Force 3.0 is happening soon, wherein 191 countries are invited to hack. Among those countries aren't China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea.  Sure, keep out the guys who have proven they can do it.  When this contest is over, the AF will pay bug bounties. They will also spend 8 months cleaning up the damage from unforeseen hacks:

• latrine doors won't open
• planes will confuse Up with Down
• refrigerators will report directly to China
• flushing a toilet issues the command to bomb North Korea
• Mr and Mrs Bob Winglehocker, of Bumfukt, Arkansas, will be awakened by surprise, after the AF computer orders a 1,001 person AF banjo cookoff and crossdressing cabaret held at their house.

Speaking of crossdressers, we're post midterm elections and nothing has burned. Yet.

• Dear lefty: Phil Poos asks if there are Portuguese Jews.
• Yes.

Somebody, who shall remain nameless, spilled sugar on the carpet. Someone else, who shall also remain nameless, was asked to vacuum it up. This particular someone forgot. No problem, as Vacuum 2 was activated: the dog found it and cleaned it up beautifully. The only issue was that when she was done, her snout looked like she was a coke addict. No one got a picture and the dog got no more hyper or otherwise dangerous. We just have to be very careful around her with cookies.

• There are a ton of operating system and app updates available. Please install them immediately: Windows is full of holes and so is anything from Adobe.
• RELATED: a MS update breaks Calendar and Mail on Windows 10 phones. THERE ARE WINDOWS 10 PHONES? It's the end times.

Since the new way of eating, I've cut way down on my chocolate intake. I've gone from 24/7 to once a day. Not at all coincidentally, I've felt like Advanced Death since around the time I started. Always supportive, my wife bought one of those absolutely humongous bags of mixed candy. This will truly test my will. I will lose spectacularly.

• I am just like everyone else: I put my pants on three legs at a time.

Much to no one's surprise, Penny is the second dog who would rather nap with his mom than hang out with his dad. Last night his mom heated pizza and put it on the arm of the sofa. Penny promptly pulled a piece onto the floor and started to eat it. This displeased dad loudly.  I am certain that she will not do that again. At least until the next time there's pizza on the couch.

• Dear lefty: reader Phyllis Moostache asks if dogs have buttocks.
• Yes.

My coworkers would be disappointed if they didn't hear me say 'I hate Microsoft' at least once a day. They are rarely disappointed. If you're burdened with Office 2016, you know that every meeting invitation automatically gets added to your calendar. Since my company runs on meetings, I have a calendar full of useless meetings (yes, all meetings are useless). I asked Microsoft Help, which isn't. An internet search indicated that it was designed this way on purpose.  One can 'filter' it, which still adds the meeting, but makes it a lighter shade.  I hate Microsoft. MAKE IT OPTIONAL, children of HERR GATES. 

Or, as Ben Stern used to say to little Howard, "I told you not to be stupid, you moron."

• If you missed it, there was a 'small glitch' in the internet, causing Google traffic to be routed through Russia, China, and Nigeria. I'm not the only one amused by this, but it was attributed to a 'misconfiguration' by a Nigerian internet provider.  Sure... blame the black guys.
• Does it bother anybody else that a single internet provider in China Nigeria can hijack traffic through a misconfiguration? Let's do Faceyspaces traffic next! But seriously, folks... this is the way it was designed, back when the most hostile people on the net were college students.

While having a blast at Faceyspaces' expense, their employees are surveyed twice a year about their sentiment and happiness. Last month showed 52% were optimistic about Faceyspaces' future, down a hair (32%) from 84% the prior year.  Unrelated: according to the Wall Street Journal, the leading Barbie Doll enthusiast magazine, the stock price was headed in this direction too.

Is this supposed to be a funny story? I'm laughing hysterically.

• a US panel warned against government purchase of Chinese technology. Gee, really?  How long has ThermionicEmissions been saying this? It's just common sense (which explains why it hasn't been followed).
• Wild guess: in WWII, the Allies didn't buy German technology.

The happy news is that "The fear and uncertainty generated by surveillance inhibit activity more than any action by the police." No, wait, did I say happy? It's a good read.

One of the hallmarks of good customer service (who cares) is not simply saying no - it's providing a workable alternative. I already have - you're just not reading. How's that for customer service? 

No, wait.. it means you really need to consider doing things as safely as possible. Use duckduckgo for searches, because it doesn't track you. Get rid of anything Google, Yahoo, Faceyspaces, Instagram, etc, including email. Set up at least 2 email accounts: one for important stuff and one for junk. Use a decent, encrypted email service like Protonmail (free for basic). Use https for every web connection (or use an extension like HTTP Everywhere, which will do it automatically for you). This will sound weird, but use cash for all transactions. Not only will it protect privacy, your card won't get skimmed or stolen. In the name of all that's holy, don't use free wifi without a VPN. Or don't use it at all. 

Turn your cell phone's wifi off when you leave your house. If you can't remember, a program called Macrodroid can be set to do it for you.

• Several Australian universities have BANNED sarcasm because it's a "form of violence." I'd be thrown in jail for several lifetimes.
• Professor - he hit me with sarcasm and I need a safe room, with puppies.
• The stupid continues, and it's overwhelming.

Speaking of good customer service, a Cryptopay user was denied a password change, so he did the only thing a responsible adult could: mailed them a bomb. Fortunately no one was hurt. The package sat around for five months before someone got around to almost opening it. The sender had a bit of a criminal history, including sending a bit of the old white powder to lawmakers. It turned out to be coke and the lawmakers dropped all charges. Just because I made that up doesn't mean it didn't happen.

• You're going to be shocked.... One Million Kids Tracker Watches were deemed unsafe because any old hacker can access them, allowing them access to your child's location and pictures. Not that you don't post that on Faceyspaces anyway....
• Imagine something called a Tracker Watch becoming a tracker....

So how about the personalized concert lineup the ticket people sent this week?
Jon Bellion's coming! Who the hell is Jon Bellion? Iron Maiden, which is at least close to my wheelhouse. Pink. Pink? I'm starting to think this personalized lineup thing is a lie.  Jeff Lynne's ELO - dammit - they finally got one!  While I know who Lindsey Buckingham is, there's also DAWES. Is this what people from Boston use to get into a house? Seinfeld!!!! God, I hate Seinfeld, although I know who he is. Who are these comedians...  who aren't funny? Kris Kristofferson. The man's multitalented. Trailer Park Boys? I don't know who they are, but I read they're now on the FBI terror list. They must have said something nasty to someone at some time. As a Ron Paul voter, I was on the list too. Let's not leave Sebastian Maniscalco off the list. Remember: you can get free innoculations against Sebastian Maniscalco at your local pharmacy for no copay. It's pretty damn serious, which is why the FBI is encouraging you take the shot. St. Paul and the Broken Bones are also coming. It sounds almost like my previous musical comedy act: we were so bereft of rhythm and grace, that there were inevitably broken bones. Galactic ft. Erica Falls will also grace our area. It would be more efficient to call themselves Galactic Falls, but either way, I'd have no idea who they are and no desire to spend my hard-earned money.  Mumford and Sons. Hmmm.. we know all about them. Banjos. Interbreeding. I can't even type the name without breaking out in laughter. 98 Degrees... sounds like a really HOT act (I apologize profusely for that). Last but perhaps least, The Noise Presents Nothing More. I have no idea, but the idea of Nothing More in the way of Noise sounds wonderful. When I get famous, people will be taking shots at me too.

You Had a WHAT?

Many have given thought to aging and technology. Today's kids will never know

• the joys of trying to get the little yellow plastic thingie into the 45 so it will play on your record player
• pay phones
• 8 track tapes and sometimes cassettes
• a bigass home stereo system with huge speakers and Serious Wattage
• dial phones
• home phones
• watches
• alarm clocks
• cars without seatbelts
• leaded gas
• vacuum tube appliances that had to warm up before coming on
• non-flat screen televisions
• purchasing porn, music, and movies
• (relative) privacy

Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.  - Ben Franklin

• Veterans Memorial Park, in Belle Plaine, Minnesota has a controversial monument with a cross. The Freedom from Religion Foundation is at the head of a movement to have it removed, as it goes counter to the First Amendment. City officials voted to keep it in the park (because apparently cities can vote to approve unconstitutional things).
• You know what happened next, right? The satanists submitted a proposal for their own display. In almost every case, this is enough to get the original item removed, but Belle Plain is apparently special.  The priest started Panic Mode<tm>, about how this will encourage children to try satanism and will bring the end of morality to the world.
• The satanic display will go up as scheduled. 
• Quite frankly, I'd be more scared of the priest and his buddies. A lot of their shenanigans have come to light lately....

GAB, the right-leaning, zero-censorship Twitter replacement cannot get a mobile app going on iOS. The developers have worked tirelessly but Apple will not approve the app for their store. Excuses aside, take one guess why... I mentioned to the GAB folks that it would be a badge of pride not having an iOS app, but for some unknown reason, they didn't share my enthusiasm.

• The election in England is over. Many hands are wringing. There are new and old office holders. And I understand absolutely none of it. The one bright side is that Monty Python prepared me for the election by introducing the Silly Party and the Very Silly Party. They are actual candidates, one with a bucket on his head. Yes, this is part of their elections, and a welcome part, as far as we're concerned.
• I would like our friends in the UK to note that absolutely no one in the US protested, burned flags, burned people, or rioted over their elections, unlike their mad, unruly protests over our election. This point would be much better made if I had any UK readers.

One of the most controversial tweets in the history of Twitter.

• Gender Studies is basically an exercise in observing a penis only once, and blaming it for everything bad.

In case you were bored, we just sent up a spy satellite to spy on spy satellites. Funny as this is, we really don't want to know what that cost. And we won't.

• It got somewhat less boring over the weekend. Started with a new medicine that made the wife nuts. Then a 2am trip to the emergency vet because Marshall was whining constantly. Nothing was found. Then a crack in the windshield most of the way across. Today we get to watch that service that comes to your house and installs the glass. Fortunately we have so much money that this won't be an issue.

Mrs lefty says to me she saw it raining. Well, not raining, but leaking from the telephone pole.  Leaking?  Yeah, the pickle bucket at the top of the pole.

Uh-oh.

I called the electrical utility's "You better check this out" hotline and they assured me they'd get their best people on this soonest.

You see, the pickle bucket is a transformer. Surrounding the transformer is vegetable oil (you think I'm being silly, but this one time I'm not). The oil was leaking from the transformer case, which really isn't a good thing. There's really a frightening amount of voltage and current up there and we only need a small fraction down here.

Within hours, the utility rushed some of their best people to the area to swiftly knock out the power to the entire block. An hour later, we were back in business. Yay repair guys!

A utility person we know told us this has been a problem forever and they never fixed it. Apparently the load from everybody using their air conditioners in the 95 degree high-humidity heat set it over the edge.

This, of course, brings up very important side effects of power loss: OMG - THE INTERNET! Even on a laptop or phone, if your router/wireless doesn't have battery backup, you're screwed. The phone can use 3G/4G/4.796G, the computer is black, and the laptop will last as long as its battery.  Remember this. Some providers install a backup battery for the modem/router.  Never mind air conditioning or breathing - we need internet!

I formally apologize for that.