As a result of Something or Other, perhaps the humidity, my touchpad and mouse got weird on me. Not
pleasant weird..
difficult weird. A lot of people despise touchpads because they're black, which is unconscionable. Another reason would be it's very difficult to maneuver the cursor with any degree of precision. Making a window smaller (grabbing and moving) can cause frustration so bad, people have been known to go out on workman's compensation after trying for a few hours.
As a result of Something or Other, it has become really easy to grab and move the outside border. Ridiculously easy. In fact, I can
only grab the border - when I try to grab the move the window by grabbing near the title, it's difficult.
Completely unrelated: I haven't been able to get to the eye doctor, so I have to make the text on my cell phone larger.
Completely unrelated.
- Confirmed: The Guardian story on the Faceyspaces' massive data breach has been removed as 'spam'.
- Any Minute Now: Faceyspaces will announce this was a minor error in their system and they regret it (getting caught).
- In a Faceyspaces followup call, the platform revealed that if your account was impacted, a hacker could have accessed any account you log into using Faceyspaces.
- Once again, Faceyspaces regrets the error (getting caught) and values your information and stores it all safely, at Grandma's house, in the basement, by the old wheelbarrow. Oops.
There's an app coming out for a style social network.
You know this is a disaster in the making.
Never mind the young, attractive people in the commercial start out completely naked, with their Naughty Bits blurred. As far as I know, not a single person has blurred Naughty Bits in real life (although I wonder if Japanese men really have pixelated penises).
The idea of this app is that you can look exactly like someone that influences you (probably named Kardashian). So the attractive naked people point their phones at random folks walking down the street and POOF - they get their exact 'look', meaning
exactly what they're wearing.
Most people over 12 have passed this stage.
Unless, of course, you have huge amounts of disposable cash, don't have to work, and you're afraid people will shoot (or shun) you if you're not up to (or in front of) current in fashion.
Their motto is "Staying stylish has never been so easy."
It should be, more accurately, "Staying stupid has never been so easy."
Or "Nobody ever made waves being cute and vapid."
Pardon me while I lose my lunch (plus dinner from the past week).
- You know somebody's got a problem when.....
- you buy your friend a pad that says "Honey Do List" as a joke. She laughs and asks where she can get more.
- She will make some lucky man's life perfectly miserable.
So, what's happening in the local concert scene, lefty?
Glad you asked....
Wild Card Country
The Ultimate Tribute Experience with tribute performances of Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, & a surprise wild card guest!
Unsatisfied, I called the venue. As I hoped, there will be a team of mental health support professionals and a few puppies, to help with any trauma or suicidal ideation produced by prolonged exposure to country music.
Especially country music done in tribute format.
If this sort of thing is allowed to go unchecked, it's only a matter of time til we're invited to see Biggie and Tupac tribute 'bands'.
As we're already on the topic, you're probably asking yourself what the ticket agencies recommend for us this week. You're in luck - it just arrived! The list, personalized just for me, includes such instrumental classic rock as New Kids on the Block, the Clintons, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Englebert Humperdinck, and everybody's favorite reason to welcome the apocalypse: Dancing with the Stars Live!
- No, really, the Clintons are touring. Although one would hope it's some sort of country group, it's the actual Bill and Hillary.
- Tempted as I am to make a snide comment, I won't.
- This is a very libertarian tour, if you think about it. They stole and spent your money for years; now you have the choice of whether you'd like to voluntarily give it to them.
What good would any post be without news of Faceyspaces?
Currently, the Evil Empire is testing a location feature on Instagram, that will allow them to build up a user’s location history from data collected on a user’s phone. Asked for comment, Faceyspaces' users yawned and rolled over.
I wonder if this is different from the Faceyspaces app, which sucks up every piece of data on your phone, to which you gave it permission.
- People who dress their pets for Halloween: remember, they know where you sleep.
I'm listening to an old Art Bell rerun and trying to figure out who he's interviewing. The man's a psychic, and they're discussing death. The fellow says death is pre-programmed, and you can check out at one of five times. I'm just listening in case something makes sense. Turns out that was a mistake... the gentleman being interviewed was Sylvia Browne.
Sorry, Sylvia. If the dead have an Earth Feed, this may be my last post.
- Google admits abandonment of free speech for safety and civility. But relax - Google would never censor anything.
What happens when you're a humongous British airport, which allows employees to use any old USB stick for work, including personal ones, and doesn't require passwords or encryption? When I say 'allows,' I mean 'has no enforceable policy on the use of.' The stick winds up on the ground in some suburb. Because it isn't encrypted, there are 1,000 files, ready for the taking, with information on security systems and procedures.
OMG - Terrorism!
Heathrow Airport is still reeling from the 120,000 pound fine ($1.95 American).
That's like having a small insect dropped on your auxiliary runway!
The only person with a any quantity of common sense is the guy who found the USB stick. Never, EVER, plug a found USB stick into your computer. NEVER. You have no idea what's on it. It might even have been put there for this purpose, perhaps at work. This smart gentleman went to his public library and plugged it into THEIR computer. This way if there was a virus, it would only infect the entire public library system. This was brilliant because the entire system is about to close anyone, as no one can read those book things anyway... that's why we have an internet. Books don't even scroll for you.
- OOF. An article about the short-term dystopian future, where no one owns a car and all transportation is done via autonomous electric cars.
- Yeah.
- Americans have had a Car Culture since at least the 1950s. We're fiercely independent. Some of us have cars that are actually set up to produce Maximum Noise via the tailpipes. Some via the stereo system, which their car was built around.
- Much as driving isn't my favorite sport, I'd drive for hours before sitting in an autonomous vehicle, sync'd with all the other autonomous vehicles, in a huge information network rivaling Faceyspaces'. One in which the governing software still has a few 'minor bugs.'
- I don't think anyone has a problem with the concept of substituting a clean engine for the internal combustion engine's output, but what's involved in building the engines and, more importantly, powering them? Batteries are not clean technology. I'm certainly no expert: do the math.
The great thing about weather apps is that you can now bring home the gross inaccuracy of forecasts you only saw on tv.
Everyone has their favorite tv show... some (ashamedly) like reality tv. Some (mental patients) watch Kardashians. I hear people watch sports! What's my poison? British police shows and any show with security people in airports. What do you mean that's not normal? My wife watches shows with panels of yentas, babbling on about absolutely nothing and getting paid a LOT of money. And game shows from the 70s, where all the contestants are obviously currently dead.
One particularly funny show takes place at JFK Airport, where tons of foreigners enter the country. Main characters include some guy who looks and sounds like Joe Pesci, making it very difficult to take him seriously. When he questions people, they always tell him he was great in the Lethal Weapon movies. Then there's Rosie Perez. I'm kidding - she's an absolutely stereotypical New York Puerto Rican lady who sounds like Rosie Perez. When she speaks, the foreigners keep asking her to repeat the automatic weapon-like phrases she comes out with. There's a very serious supervisor who looks like Mr T, minus ten pounds of jewelry and a colorful mohawk. If/when this gentleman laughs, you're not likely to recognize it.
When a plane arrives from a country with medium black folks, they get all serious and inconspicuously line up, like a human fence, to informally question everybody getting off the plane. As if they'd miss anything, there's a cute dog, sniffing everyone and their bags for drugs. The agents speak (New York) English, and trot out a few words in a foreign language, comprised of
line up, and
thank you for lining up. You haven't experienced travel until you've heard New York guards speak a foreign language with a New York accent. Gracias and sil vous plate are test phrases. If the passenger breaks out into spasms of laughter, they're strip searched, in front of the rest of the passengers, as a warning.
One qualifying question they ask is how much money you're coming in with. The rule is that no matter how much you bring, you must declare it. Why? Passengers are not sure, but they're told they can bring in as much as they like, but they must declare it. It's true, they can bring in however much they like, but if they bring in more than $10,000, they'll be detained and anal probed like the aliens do, because they're obviously carrying drugs or laundering money. Why anyone wants to put money in the washer is not self-evident. This is absolutely in step with the "Know Your Neighbor" Act, mandating that any deposit you make to your bank over $5,000 must be reported. I don't know how much my neighbor deposits and don't care.
If you're suspected of carrying drugs, via your bags being x-rayed or having a South Philly accent, you get patted down. This is not as fun as it sounds, as the person doing the patting is the same gender as you. If they find nothing, as they always do, it's time for an x-ray. If this provides no evidence, they're obviously going to go to the hospital with the police until they pass the drugs they swallowed. Why don't they just send everyone to the hospital? Because they don't want to be invasive. If they get no information, they bring in the rest of the tough sounding New York Airport Police (who recently graduated from Movie Theater Police). They stand around shaking their heads, while one questions the passenger, saying things like, "Look.. I know you're carrying and you know you're carrying. Now is the time for honesty. If you're honest, we can help you." After a few hours of this, some innocent people tell them they have drugs, just to get out of the room with these official protectors. Occasionally there
are drug smugglers. These are the people with a huge package between their legs (please don't), who refuse to let the police take a look. They also don't know where they're going when they leave the airport, and are carrying $25 for a 3 week stay. They're staying with their brother, but don't know his phone number. The only thing I don't understand about this show is why everyone from every country is wearing a shirt with an American brand emblazoned on it. The other thing I don't understand is why the couriers cause suspicion when they're walking around with powder on their nostrils.
PRO TIP: keep your
FUCK THE POLICE shirt in your bag, not on your chest.
If your bags turn up any 'abnormalities' through the x-ray, they're gently probed, which means some guy with a pneumatic road hammer gently opens it and rips off fabric, looking for powder or oregano, which they call cannabis (because nobody can pronounce
pot).
For my money, the most entertaining are the folks on the US/Canada border. Everybody knows Canadians are nice, and this includes the serious guys with the guns. Canada is really serious about border safety, but mostly that if you enter the country, you don't intend to stay there, you don't intend to work, and you don't intend to be sick and become a load on their healthcare system. If only America...
There is a
long list of things you can't bring into Canada. Unfortunately, there is nowhere to see this list, and it tends to surprise and shock the people coming into the country. You can't bring guns in, even if you're moving to Alaska and the only route is through Canada. You can't bring brass knuckles (but you can bring rubber knuckles - seriously). If you do, the handcuffs go on and you're escorted to a private cell. If they search your car and find bullets, you're strip searched for automatic weapons. Because you're obviously carrying an AK47 up your butt.
They examine a lot of cars, from top to bottom, but they're very nice about it. They smile while they gently probe the car (plunge a screwdriver through your upholstery) and remove all your seats because the drug dog saw your car pull into a parking spot. The signage on US highways must be very interesting, as people frequently wind up hitting the Canadian border instead of the Taco Bell border. Unfortunately this happens a lot. Unfortunately they become subject to a complete search, which always turns up the pot they 'forgot about' in the console, eh? It's just as bad if you're Canadian, coming back from vacation. They question you as if you had an I DIG DRUGS t-shirt on. In fact, they won't let their own citizens cross from Canada to the US if they violate any of the unknowable rules. The US, on the other hand, welcomes any malcontents, lowlifes, drunks, and terrorists, with open arms. Remember the guy with the chainsaws? He got past Canada's Best and was caught driving around with a pair of chainsaws, one bloody. To their credit, chainsaws are not illegal in Canada or the US (even with blood stains and the driver wearing a hockey mask).
Like most borders, your past is very important. If you went to jail for drunk and disorderly 30 years ago, you might not be of sufficient character to enter Canada.
Because Moose Head has less alcohol in it, I guess.
You might be surprised that I really don't watch much tv.
