Captivity - Day 81 Motorcycling Hamsters

The sun's out again. I'm still watching carefully.
My personal fan's already running, making work conferences that much more interesting.
There are no mowers or construction today, which also makes me nervous. Perhaps as a result, Mrs lefty is spreading Stuff on the weeds grass.
We have differing opinions on grass. While we both are ok with it, the maintenance is the dividing line. As you know, I'd rather drive backwards, drinking bleach, while blindfolded, than mow. I prefer the use of fire for grass. As it appears she doesn't, we're looking at other methods. Whatever she wants, it comes with a mind-boggling set of instructions that are performed over 4 days, if the weather is ok. If not, it can take the entire summer, with rain, clouds, and her husband's downright refusal to mow.

If you follow the first set of instructions, you mow on the first day, wait 2 days, then put the de-Weeder down; unless you are using the Feeder, in which case you have to make sure it doesn't rain for 3.5 days. If there are any ants about, you have to count them. If there are less than 14,954, you wait for a few more days. If there are more, go on vacation to a rainy place, then come home and ignore the )$#$ing grass. Backing up, you can't mow if it has rained in 2 days, or the mower starts to laugh very quietly, which sets off the trees. In 5 minutes, the entire yard is laughing to you, or at least that's what you're hearing. At this point you can get out of the entire project by telling police or a convenient hospital that you're hearing voices. When you get there, and they ask your spouse what the voices are saying, they can say "I don't know - I can't hear them."

And that's how you keep your grass well-fed, green, and free of weeds.



As bad as things are in the world, the optimists (and pessimists) tell you it could always be worse.

They're right.

According to a Bernstein analyst, Apple should purchase DuckDuckGo.
Sorry, Bernstein, but this just won't work for me.
Yes, it would create a problem for Google, as you say. But it would put my favorite search engine with my less favorite computer ecosystem.

So, nice try and all.....

Discussion used to have at least 2 sides, and nothing was locked out.
The thick black line wasn't there. Have you noticed the line has suddenly appeared, and is moving to the right?  Several stories have come to light that show this. You can discuss anything on the right. However, left of the line is verboten. You can no longer speak of certain things, rendering your discussion worthless. One of the top guys at the Philadelphia Inquirer stepped down after an editorial titled "Buildings Matter Too". He went to the left of that line. Political Correctness has gone off the charts, and seems to be moving in the wrong direction. Think about it....


New in the discussion of The Flying AIDS is research into when it started in China.  You're saying to yourself, how can anyone know when it started in China?  Satellite imagery shows when traffic to hospitals was up.


Tinder is in trouble, in these days of The Flying AIDS. You can't hook up if you can't leave your place (or your selection doesn't work in an essential business). While we're locked down, Tinder has rebranded as SexTinder. You flip through the candidates and select the one(s) you want to sext. You have to do the in-person work yourself.

A Witty Title

Today's network breach is Sonic, the alleged restaurant. Payment card information was stolen - rather a lot of it. If you go to Sonic and pay with a card, you should examine account activity immediately. I think this is revenge for some of the worst television commercials in the known universe.

Second on the hit parade is Amazon's Whole Foods, which is investigating their Point of Sale systems, which were hacked. Pay cash.

• What does that huge online corporation know about you? The author asked Tinder for her information. She got 800 pages back, which surprised her. I know we don't use Tinder (snicker) but replace Tinder with Faceyspaces, Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. and think about what you may find.

Today's Fast Fact: even Bill Gates does not use a Windows phone.

• Guitar fans: check out the Rig Rundown of Metallica's current tour

A GOP senate nominee believes that homosexuality should be illegal. This is obviously another constitutional scholar. We remain thankful he's not a nominee for judge.

• This week's best headline (so far): Homeowner found naked burglar dangling from ceiling. He was surprised by police while hiding in the attic. No reason for his lack of clothing but can you imagine laying on insulation naked? The emergency room would spend six hours removing the fibers from your genitals alone.

The Maryland Zoo's polar bear could be the first to give birth by artificial insemination...

Hey Bob - what do you do?

I work at a for-profit that works inside a governmental non-profit putting together knock knacks to sell to people who stop by during the week.

John - what do you do?

Inseminate bears.

• A woman was pulled off a Southwest plane after claiming her serious allergies required removal of a helper dog and one other on the plane. The woman was unable to provide proof of her allergy. When told to get off, she refused. Staff and the police tried politely to reason with her. Failing that, she was forcibly removed. As the plane wasn't going to leave until this was settled, she's lucky the other passengers didn't throw her off.
• Entitlement lessons - $100 per session. Why so much? Because I'm entitled to it.

RIP Hugh Hefner. We all own the man a debt of gratitude. And a couple cases of tissues. He will be buried in a large, stiff sock.

• A wanted subject from the Dark Web was just apprehended. On the way to a beard contest. Sorry, this is funny in so many ways.

A woman pulled over for erratic driving was found to be drunk, with three syringes and $20 in her vagina. Potentially a very prickly situation, although I wonder why she needed to hide currency there. Unless she normally does, which would be cumbersome in checkout lines.

• If you were in an airport Thursday, odds are the entire computer system was down. Gatwick, Washington DC, Paris Charles De Gaulle, Frankfurt, Sydney, DC, South Africa, and Lufthansa were among the affected. Gatwick said there had been "no delays." A spokesman for Lufthansa said the Amadeus Altea software - used by multiple airlines - was affected. 
• The cause of the problem was unclear.
• What in the universe is wrong with airline software/hardware these days? Are they connected by bag phones? Rest assured planes are safe and the backup systems have backup systems. The systems on the ground seem to be where it's hit or miss.
• If this kind of thing happened at my job repeatedly, I wouldn't have a job. You either.

Latest news in the Injured Rock Star Department: Aerosmith's Steven Tyler collapsed after a show in South America. According to a source close to the band, it was a seizure. Still up in the air is Deep Purple's Glenn Hughes, with no cause for his collapse. Take care, guys, we've lost more than enough lately.

• Watch your emails carefully. More carefully. Some of the dangerous emails have gotten more dangerous. Emails from UPS, Fedex, and sometimes even your own coworkers! My friend received a message from her coworker in accounting and almost clicked on the link. It looked perfectly legit, until she hovered over the link and realized it didn't go where it said it did. This is how the Bad Guys<tm> get into your network to steal data or virus the system. If you have any doubt at all, please ask someone. You don't want to be that person.

The king of Saudi Arabia has ruled, moving them 3 days out of the stone age, that women may drive. But only if a man says so, or else she'll have to be dragged out, stoned, then beheaded. Saudi women are celebrating, very quietly, lest they be dragged out, stoned, then beheaded. Somebody had to alert the king that you have to hang them before you behead them. Meanwhile, in the United States, women (and their men, who do what they're told) are celebrating this great step for Saudi Arabia. Still no word on being dragged out, stoned, then beheaded.

MARSHALL UPDATE: After the first chemptherapy treatment, we were told that side effects, if any, would show up two to three days after. He slept the next day and has been fine! My mom shows up every day and does energy work with him. She says he is really strong and getting stronger. For his part, he loves the attention.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not everybody obeys and this is where the fun starts.

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

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

Imagine - he blinked his lights at me.

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

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

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

I won.


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