Your love is like shoving a Buick up my ass
The USPS tried to throw me a curve ball today, when notification of a long-missing package popped up. Like the last one, they inform me it's going to be late. They can't tell me how late, or even where the package is, but they sent me a notice, so now I apparently feel much better and won't write about it in my widely-read blog and get them in trouble.
The one package has spent literally a month wandering around New York, from where it was mailed. They keep assuring me it has hit Philly, but I'm suspicious, for some reason. Perhaps it will go back to New York for a while, because it prefers the weather. Or the accent. Strangely enough, the package from Michigan wandered around Michigan for 30 days, but they assure me it's out of Michigan now (and winging its way east to Panama).
You realize if these deliveries hit 40 days, I'll have to come up with something about Jews wandering around the desert, probably with USPS packages to deliver.
- I don't have any of their products, but I'm in awe of the FU-Tone name.
President elect Biden was advised to make a speech about the Washington riot. He was quite upset. Not about the riot...about being taken away from his Barbie Playhouse.
We have Barbies in the lefty Mansion. Too many. Of course, some would say 1 Barbie is too many. We have the Barbie Bus, Barbie Plane, and Barbie's Philly Crack House. It came with tiny replica needles and everything! There are Barbie clothes, which cost more than people clothes. There are Bob Mackie-designed outfits. We have a Barbie steering wheel cover, but I'm not mentioning it, lest someone try to install it. The internal kids think no moving vehicle is complete without a Barbie flag, especially construction equipment. When they get their earthmover, it will be Barbie pink, with a Barbie flag on the back. And then, as so many things go, the city will enact a no earthmover on the lawn law. I'll have to park mine on the street, with the rest of them.
Today I identify as marmite
Dear lefty
- I have a bandana hanging out of my right back pocket. My friends tell me that the right side is gay and the left side is straight. Have I committed a preferential faux pas? (I'm straight)
- take the bandana out of your pocket til high school ends and stay out of certain parts of the city if you don't
Mainstream or Pr0n?: Easy Vegetarian, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of My Basement
- Apple is working with Hyundai on an electric car for 2027.
- Phew. Good thing I got my Hyundai early - all my friends would point and laugh (in a different way than they already do).
Conservative-friendly social network Parler is in a world of trouble. After getting thrown out of Google and Apple stores, they discovered that if Google and Apple don't like you, not many others do. This includes Amazon, which runs their servers (The Cloud) They're looking for a way to get back online.
This points out the aforementioned agenda, but it starts to get hairy, because of some violent posts, like talking about killing the head of BLM. The thing Gab has over Parler is that Gab polices for illegal speech, although neither is in the Apple or Play stores.
And while we're at it, Stripe will no longer process payments for Trump's campaign site. No agenda here either.
Bright fellow Cory Doctorow says you must align yourself with a digital feudal warlord (Google, Amazon, FB, Apple, MS, etc) and if that warlord turns on you, heaven help you.
Amazon and Walmart are telling some customers to skip returns of unwanted items. Turns out it's too expensive to ship them back.
Hello, Walmart? I want to return this sweater. I only wore it once and It's quite ugly, really, like an Ugly Sweater Competition.
We share your sadness. Please keep the sweater - it's probably full of the Flying AIDS anyway, and we'll credit your account. Looking at your account, you seem to return a lot of stuff.
I'm very picky. That's why I shop Walmart. [sound of choking]
Hello, Amazon? I need to return this box of random Chinese sex toys.
Ma'am, the joke is on you, because you can't reach a human at Amazon. Think about this... do you want to rip the $1,000 bills from Jeff Bezos' hands as he wipes his bottom with them? Do you?
Hello Target? I want to return this dress. It's an 8 and it turns out I need a 22. Plus it has red bullseyes all over it.
Hello, CostCo? I want to return this Chevrolet truck. It's the wrong color.
Sorry about that. Just filling the tank is prohibitively expensive, so keep it and we'll send you a new one.
--> although the CostCo customers are batshit crazy, you can return anything for any reason, even without packaging.
--> I really like saying batshit crazy. Or just batshit. Repeat after me: batshit crazy.
Hello Sears? I want to return this house. Whoever built it from a Sears kit back in the 60s did an unbelievably bad job.
Sir, we are bankrupt. They can barely afford to pay me to answer this stupid phone.
But they told me the guy who bought it that it was returnable if not fully satisfied. Plus anybody who would buy KMart is morally bankrupt.
Ok, Sir, we'll credit your account.
I don't have an account. They went bankrupt.
I'll stop by with a large sack full of bills, ok?
Can't you send me a better house?
Sir, not only are we bankrupt, the houses haven't been produced since the 60s.
Oh, I see.. bait and switch. Bad faith. Pull the sweater right over my eyes, and other cliches.
Sir, how about if I bring a huge bag of cash and personally build you a house?
How do I know you'll do any better than the last builder? It's a valid question.
Sir, do you live in Northeast Philadelphia or did you forget to take your meds today?
Both.
We'll credit your imaginary account. You have a nice day now.
- My incredibly heavy vacuum tube shortwave receiver isn't making a sound. I think I blew a tube. And boy did that hurt.
Don't forget - per the Flying AIDS relief bill, the president gave the intelligence agencies 180 days to produce an unclassified report on UFOs. This is almost a dream come true for researchers, and more than 60 years overdue for America and the world. The only question remaining is how the agencies are going to worm out of this. They have a long, storied history of lying, so that's a start. I predict one of the following:
- Lie and say they don't deal with UFOs, like they always have
- Produce a very light paper, short on facts
- Claim it's a national security matter and remain clammed up
It's not that I don't trust the intel agencies, but I don't trust the intel agencies, and those above them. I guess we'll see soon.
Ain't The Cloud great?
Whenever anyone says The Cloud, you are required to repeat it and genuflect. Or at least your CEOs and that level guys.
What happens is you have your Corporate Buzzwords, which must be spoken frequently, or the Corporate folks aren't doing their jobs. So a while back, the buzzword was The Cloud. Because of this, businesses began adopting things that were in The Cloud. They got rid of their mail servers and used horrible services like Microsoft 365, which was, you guessed it, in The Cloud.
Let's get to brass tacks. I don't know why brass tacks... they sound painful, like some sort of World War II torture. Let's get to the truth. In reality, The Cloud just means Someone Else's Computer.
So your mail is processed and hosted on Somebody Else's Computer; in this case, Microsoft's. Microsoft now has responsibility (sort of) for and control of your mail, and unfortunately, possession of it. Their service claims some ridiculous amount of uptime, like 99% or more, but you've read about the outages. Your mail is not under your control, so you can't make any changes. You've taken a security risk by letting it out of the building. Lastly, you've introduced a delay in receiving the mail. This is not the way for a company to operate their email services, but it's the way companies are going. After all it's The Cloud, and they save money by farming out their email. And their IT services. And whatever else they can send. If the staff is particularly unattractive, their work goes out too. Your security goes into The Cloud sometimes, even if you have security devices in-house.
So down the line, when there's an outage, all you'll have is your work laptop or desktop, with no email, Faceyspaces, service, or security, because they're all in The Cloud.
Newer Corporate Buzzwords are Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). If you haven't heard them, you will. Artificial Intelligence is when some software will be put in place to do something humans can't or can't easily. It will perform functions like facial recognition, where it has trouble with black people. The Internet of Things is a very slow motion train wreck, wherein you wire up your house with 'smart' devices that fail when your internet connection is down, because they have to check in with their server before they work. This is a bit inconvenient when it's an oven or fridge. Security is bad or non-existent, so it will be a matter of time til your entire house is hacked, like people did with baby monitors. Do ya really want people from all over the world monitoring your baby, and telling it stuff you'd rather they didn't hear yet? Or ever? Do you want your car doing whatever the hacker wants it to do, while you're in the driver's seat?
There is a right way and a wrong way to do these things. Guess which way they're done currently?
- Ugandans have been warned not to eat dead fish that wash ashore.
- also warned not to drink bleach, stab themselves in the eyes with forks, and piss off people larger and stronger.
An app developer in Milton Keynes, England, used a delivery robot to deliver an engagement ring to his girlfriend, also a technology enthusiast (geek). After they wed, they will have virtual sex, with and without the robot. They will also have virtual fights and will ultimately get a virtual divorce. Presumably the robot will pick up the ring.
The US Space Force joined the US Intelligence Community, to defend the national security of the US.
From what?
We have satellites to spy on every area of the planet. WTF is going on in space that we need defending from? Are they hip to Ziblat and his pals, performing all the mischief to confuse us? Putting up Roadrunner cutouts in front of the Mars Explorer? Taking it for the occasional joyride? Knocking on the Space Station doors? They're not harmful. Is it the others they're worried about? Are we able to do anything about them other than HEY FRANK - INCOMING!
Some of the literature describes one alien race as 6' tall and beautiful.
SHIT. Can you imagine if models were aliens?
"This cosmetic is infused with hyaluronic acid and micellar water. They both mess with your DNA to produce beings better suited for our home planet."
Do you want to live on a world where people are beautiful but dumb as a box of rocks? Cindy Crawford has an engineering degree, but who knows about the rest of them. Master class in lip pursing? Books about how to do stuff to keep you in the papers? Winking at the non-gay guy on TMZ? Disavowing any relationship with the Kardashians?
But let me try for the positive in all this: maybe they need to reproduce frequently.
The line forms to the left, guys.
