This Vacuum Sucks - or Maybe it Doesn't

 Your love is like  trying to suck up gloves with the vacuum

Los Angeles pitcher Ty Buttrey (whoo, that must've been a rough childhood) unexpectedly retired from baseball. He says it's become more of a business than a game.

Do baseball players get those Traumatic Brain Injuries, like football players?

Is Mr. Buttrick going to insist all of MLB take 1/10 of their salaries, including the owners? I smell an unfortunate car accident in his future. This is almost as dangerous as testifying against Hillary Clinton.

I'm dying here.... when did he realize major league sports was a business? Did he catch a lot of foul balls with his head? Did he come from one of those special leagues?

His coach said he wants to be of any help he can, and promises to find out who slipped the roofie in Ty's Gatorade.

• 8 states cannot do auto inspections because of malware
• yet no one has declared PANDEMIC or come up with a vaccine 

I mentioned, in the last post, our 25 year love/war with vacuums. This is part 2 - based entirely on what just happened...

I got enough dog hair off the rollers to build several new dogs. I emptied the old dirt,  in preparation for the new dirt. I found a place to plug it in, which is worse than finding a place to park. I beheld the New, Improved old vacuum. It was immediately apparent that I got the idle up to 6k, so it sounded bitchin. It picked stuff up - double bitchin! And it found new and exciting ways to move the hair around, while occasionally picking up other stuff. Desperately trying not to send it up to play with the Mars Explorer, I sat down to take it further apart. Why yes, it was clogged to the motor unit.

DOCTOR:  Screwdriver. Forceps. Chainsaw. Second vacuum to suck out the first.

NURSE: don't ask me - I'm out visiting for a few days.

The connecting beam is aluminum and very handy for teaching me how to twirl, like my old cheerleading days. I didn't actually have any old cheerleading days, but it never hurts to come up with something to make my criminally shy, boring childhood sound interesting. I couldn't twirl anything at all, having two left hands.

Fire it up, Boys!

The idle is back down to non-racing levels. Annnnnnd it won't pick up a speck of dust, although it did get about 95% of a glove. I made the mistake of not taking the entire blessed device apart. There were more spots of blockage. Now the funny thing here.. well, not exactly funny.. is that the clogs were all dog hair. What's the ($&@ing problem in picking it up? I located another clot at the top end. Normal people do not have to hold each hose up to the light to see if the hose is still blocked. And the Trouble light is green. This thing is messing with me.

Fire it up, Please!

Not only isn't it picking anything up, I think it's depositing dirt on the carpet, in addition to rearranging the existing dirt. I don't want to think about the fact there is no dirt in the vacuum to deposit on the carpet. When we bought the house, no one told us the place was haunted - or at least it haunted vacuums. This is now law - I'm not kidding - you must disclose haunting.

I would be swinging the M($&#rf*$&er around like Pete Townshend did with guitars, but I'm afraid of damaging something other than the vacuum. The doctors tell me this is progress. The vacuum is named after a sea-dwelling creature with a large amount of really sharp teeth, that sometimes goes out for a bite of human. Let's call it Shark. I've had Sharks before, including a great little one that picked up just about everything. The police cleared me in the case of that small child. Perhaps Shark should modify their advertising:

• Shark: it picks up everything
• *except dirt - don't ever try to pick up dirt with Shark
• Shark works on all surfaces
• *except carpet and floor
• Shark: with our new anti-clog feature
• *you will immediately learn how to take the entire thing apart
• Shark picks up dog hair
• *never try to pick up dog hair with Shark, especially cocker hair

I'm an honest guy - if I'm wrong, I'll be the first to admit it. And if that ever happens, you'll be the first to hear it.

Ok, I owe Mrs. lefty an apology. I said she was crazy for running around, picking stuff off the floor before I vacuumed. The truth is she's crazy already, and picking stuff up before vacuuming has nothing to do with it. After moving stuff around a bit, in preparation for vacuuming, I found a few small things that the vacuum wouldn't handle: plastic hangers, two automatic transmissions from an old Chevy, a missing guitar, a full sized Pac-Man arcade game, Steven Tyler, and some coins. The thing that baffles me is the coins. For the entire time in the house, I've picked up coins. Absolutely no one knows how they get there. Let me school you on something: even people with multiple personalities can not have penny fights on both sides at the same time. I suppose they could go from one side to the other, but that would be exhausting, plus it would lack that real time excitement. The universe is probably playing a joke on me... I asked for money, and it is giving me money: a few coins at a time, on the floor. This will work in reverse, because the first time the vacuum attempts to pick up a coin, it will break, costing me another vacuum.

Nothing good will come of this.

Mrs. lefty will tell me she'll have a look at the satanic device. Then she'll forget. Or she will have a go at it and it still won't work. The tricky part is that I'll get all smart and male and insist on 'taking a look', completely forgetting I spent four days on it before she checked it over. Then there will be another blog post - stay tuned.

• a New Jersey man who posed as a cop is charged with child pornography
• this guy ruins it for the rest of us posing as cops

A Philly chiropractor has been accused of indecent assault, with more victims coming out. Is there a decent assault? My chiropractor had a really hot female trainee, who I spent two years trying to get to indecently assault me. I failed completely, as if she were a vacuum I was trying to fix.

• 1 man killed, 1 hurt in a shooting at Walmart
• thinking out of the box: will the crime rate go down if we shut down all the Walmarts?

Speaking of which, the doctors tell me to react proportionally to the event. You know, like not driving up the sidewalk and running over the pedestrian who just flipped me off. Another person who needs to see a doctor was unhappy with the wait time in drive-thru at a Memphis Burger King. To prove her point, she got out of her car, walked to the window, and started firing on employees. Now all of us have endured wait times and incorrect orders at fast food places. Firing a gun at the employees is not usually the first thing to occur to us. Well.. maybe it is, but we keep that shit inside, and instead reach for the bow and arrow or the flamethrower. Sheesh.

• How to check if your info was in the Faceyspaces leak

Monday is not a great day if you work. It's not one of those overly-productive days, when you spring from the gate, ready to take on the world, at top speed. So it is with some confusion that I ask who decided on the Full Computer Virus Scan as soon as you turn on the computer? I am 100% about security and run my own scans on my own computers, but this particular activity will shut down any planned activity or new activity, or pretty much any activity at all. I don't program at all, but I wonder about the necessity to eat every single resource the computer has at once. Hey - let me open Notepad. Notepad is a very light, inoffensive program. Wait. Wait. Wait. Oh, it's Monday... it must be doing the Whole Complete Entire Computer Scan. So I drink my coffee. Then I go out and get a coffee. Then a little food shopping. The guitar stores don't open this early, so that's out. But hey - Notepad finally opened! I knew the next one would be bad, but I opened Outlook anyway. I figured the guitar stores would be open by the time it came up. And of course when it eventually came up, it came up full screen. Because Outlook is worth exactly what I paid for it. Mind you, I logged in early, because I'm that way, and the computer already has me way behind. So with an entire workforce of zombies on Monday, you have a program that is sucking every last resource out of their computers, making their already zombiefied state even worse. What do they call it - the Monday Work Penalty? Eventually, somebody Up Top is going to look at charts (if they can pull them up on Mondays) and notice Monday productivity is way worse than it was last year, which was already mind-bendingly slow. They'll say something is wrong here, because our staff could not possibly get less done than normal. These people will crumple up a piece of paper, throw it in the basket, and call it a productive day.

Rather than just moaning (and typing blog posts), I got hold of the people who set up the scans. I suggested perhaps there's a way to run the programs so they didn't take up 101% of all resources on the computer. I don't want to have to go out for lunch while waiting for programs to come up. They suggested there's something coming up that will fix this issue and to hang on a little longer. I was pleased as could be. Until I realized that this conversation happened last year. It's what they tell everyone smart enough to find out where they're hiding. 

When everything finally comes up and the scan is still running for a bit (the next 5-6 hours), there is a notice that updates were made and it has to be rebooted. I don't have male pattern baldness - I have Windows Pull Your Hair Out baldness.

Linux has a nice command, which can reduce the amount of resources a program is eating.

What's it called?

Nice.

Yes, what is the nice program called.

It's nice.

I'm sure it is, but what's it called?

Nice.

Look, I understand it's nice to have this program, but what program?

Nice.

Ok, you fire up the program to help you. What do you run?

Nice.

and so on....

Donald Trump Jr. just asked his dad, repeatedly, about Roswell in a Father’s Day 2020 interview. Red or blue, it is still semi-astonishing to hear the sitting President of the United States admit his awareness of Roswell, and say, “I won’t talk to you about what I know about it, but it’s very interesting.” If it was just a 73-year old mistaken weather balloon or even crash dummies story, it wouldn’t be all that interesting, would it? Those deceptions are now old news. But if Roswell was something authentic, well, that would be… interesting.      -medium.com

• his biography calls him The Father of Loud - Jim Marshall died this day 9 years ago. Everybody knows Marshall amps - the huge black cabinets with the white script logo in back of most bands

The world just moved closer to a working warp drive.

This is well over my head, but maybe you'll understand.

my favorite part: 

Creating a warp bubble for a 656-foot-wide spacecraft traveling at the speed of light requires roughly 100 times the energy contained in the mass of Jupiter,

• Things were different when I was a little boy.

Captivity - Day 26 Social Distancing from my family

Probably because the manufacturing is done cheaply, I tend to scratch the letters off keyboards. Last week it was M and N. Even though I don't look at the keyboard, I'm now mixing up N and M. It's like I've got eyes in my fingers. Or maybe I've been inside too long.....

Since the last vacuum fought and won, tonight is the really cheap vacuum. I'm saying this because maybe if I say it, I'll actually do it. Odds are strictly against it.

I got an email from my car: it misses me.

So does the vacuum.

The doctor called, checking on the new medicine. I told him to hold on, while I caught the purple giraffe in the kitchen. He said something about dosage adjustment and got off the phone quickly....

I have a harem at work. Working from home is making things very difficult.(especially the spankings)...

When your doctor does telemedicine and can't quite get the video working, should you find a different doctor? Good thing it's not the psychiatrist.

I would stand 3' from a random stranger, not wear a mask, go out for no particular purpose, drive 95 mph, not shelter-in-place, and sit inside a restaurant, all so I could go to a guitar show. I miss them, like Madonna misses facelifts.

Another side effect of the constant rain is that the grass grows like mad. As we know, I'd rather cut my own limbs off than mow. That said, the neighbors have taken up mowing. Working from home has lost its luster. The next door neighbors are now dueling with the electric tool neighbors for stereo cacophany supremacy. The next door neighbor doesn't have a lot of grass, so I think she's mowing the same patch over and over again, to annoy me. 8 hours later, still going. Perhaps they're replanting the grass, one blade at a time.

UPDATE: I vacuumed AND mowed. The ($&#ing mower took me for a header on the steps. Neighbors are already nervous - I can't shoot the thing.

Mrs lefty goes food shopping more now than before Idiot Governor ordered everyone confined to quarters. Shoe stores have not been declared essential (Idiot Governor has very few women on his staff). Perhaps I need to do a bag check. Some Targets will let you buy food but not clothes. "That?" That's been there for weeks. It's for my mom."

"That guitar? It's been there for weeks. It's for your mom."

===============================

This is where I put the good wishes, concern, and touchy-feely stuff.

Since I'm not doing that today, you can get f'd.

The World is My Oyster. I Don't Like Seafood.

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Ants in My Toilet, Skip to Loo Two

Many GPS trackers are shipped with the default password 123456. Many users don't change them.  In fact, many users change their other passwords to 123456.



Hurricane Dorian did untold damage to the Bahamas. It's even worse than anyone thought, with 200+mph winds. Although not a US territory, they asked for aid. Nassau is the staging ground. They need everything and are grateful for the aid. Nancy Pelosi hosted a gathering of Congress to see what they could do. Their solution was to officially blame Trump for the hurricane.

Fortunately, Dorian was downgraded to a Category One hurricane. Gavin Newsome, governor of California, introduced legislation to restore Dorian to Category Five, because he doesn't want Dorian's feelings to be hurt by the downgrade.

Speaking of the CIA, George H.W. Bush's Maine home was demolished by a hurricane in 1991. He had the hurricane shot and buried where no one would find it.

• AUSTRALIA: Around 2,000 people have planned a massive barbecue in Perth, outside the home of a vegan woman who took her neighbour to court because she could smell barbecued meat in her backyard.

A Beijing company has cloned their first cat, Garlic (great name).
They started with dogs, but things turned evil and now they clone cats. This is a metaphor for things to come.




Having had four dogs is an education in cleaning, mostly vacuuming. We have gone through untold amounts of vacuums, with all sorts of failures and excuses. I know in the past that people managed to have dogs without their houses looking like an assembly line to make stuffed animals. The first 3 dogs were black, which did a tremendous job of remaining hidden, unless you were wearing white. Penny is red, which is like golden with a red tinge. After a few trips in the car, it is now full of red hair (including the roof). Within an hour of getting out, people ask passengers if they have a dog. The bigger issue is the rug in the house. This rant will repeat each time I vacuum (yearly). Our cheap little vacuum, which surprised us by outperforming expensive ones, can pick up a Tesla. Unfortunately it can't pick up dog hair, preferring instead to equitably redistribute it across the room, like Socialism for Dog Hair.  It's like a huge red tint on the carpet. For Christmas we're deciding on whether to build a new dog, or somehow graft it to the places where it's missing on my head.



Every now and then I like a phrase or name that rolls off the tongue pleasantly. The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band is not one. This was a band featuring Neil Innes, who went on to write music for Monty Python and appear in their movies and shows.



The malicious former dictator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, died at age 95 in Singapore. The avowed socialist died in a different country, being attended to by private doctors, in a private hospital.  [Sky News]  Quick - somebody call Bernie!

Speaking of Comrade Bernie, he is under fire for intimating that we should use abortion for population growth, against climate change.

Buoyed by the interest in this position, Bernie released a couple more 'good ideas' he has:

• Nuking China to get rid of those horrible white masks
• Poisoning the water to eliminate North Korea's ridiculous hairdo
• Killing baby seals to protest Japan's whaling industry
• donating a few of his houses to fellow comrades who don't have one

No thank you, I'd rather tell the president he's wrong about something.



Dear lefty

• Things are just starting and I'm already tired of the 2020 elections. Who should I vote for?
• Sirhan Sirhan

Unfortunately, Sirhan was recently stabbed in jail. While recovering, the rest of the unit decided to show their support by giving him a nickname. Say hello to Sirhan 'Sirhan' Sirhan.

Heroes of the Stupid

Jussie Smollett lawyers: Even if actor faked attack, cops didn’t need to investigate it so vigorously.



SJW Sightings


Sacramento bar under fire for new dress code which critics call a modern-day 'WHITES ONLY' sign

When you tell women and girls to learn self-defense, or carry weapons against rapists, you're not reducing rape. You're just saying "let him rape someone more vulnerable."

Stop calling for dystopias. Start working to end patriarchy. Make a world BEYOND RAPE.  [Twitter]

I Watch LivePD - I'm Almost a Cop

I'm missing out on family outings because of my loose bladder.
I typed that as it just spewed from the tv. How many times have you heard that phrase?

• due to the order in which I put things together, this was written on February 30th.

What has the dog humped today?
Glad you asked. Her original boyfriend was a large sofa pillow. When her mommy made it CLEAR that he was no good for her, she switched her affections to a huge purple stuffed elephant. This is the same stolen elephant she tore holes in the first week she arrived. Now she can't figure out whether to shred it or hump it. I think we have an abuser in the house.

Hey - aren't male dogs supposed to do the humping?




Dear lefty

• Reader Stepphan Keys, of Cross Keys Avenue, in the Florida Keys, asks why men put stuff up their butts.
• Go fuck yourself, Stepphanie.

What's in a name?
Siobhan (shuh-VAWN) is an Irish name.  You can tell because the spelling has absolutely nothing to do with the pronunciation. Yet it is also spelled Shavaun, Chavon, Chevron, Shavonne, and Rhinoplasty, all pronounced the same way.

In related news,
James is Jim.
Margaret is Peggy.
Jeffrey is Geoffrey or Jeff (where did they come up with that?)
Richard is Dick. Most people named Richard had rough childhoods.
Sometimes John is Jack, except for when he's Julie.
We can never remember which Quade is the 'funny' one - Dennis or Randy.
By any standards of language, one cannot pronounce Phoebe, yet Phoenix makes sense. Sort of.
Karen is close to Kieran, yet not close enough for anyone to care.
Ian can be pronounced E-an or I-an, depending on what hand they throw with.
Not wanting to be left out, the Irish spelling is Ioin. I know one.
All children are Jesus Christ I Said Get Over Here.
My friend Michael is known to all as Michael. We have no idea where he came up with that.
Both Leslie and lefty are Leh.
Wife says the short form of lefty is Asshole. But it has the same number of syllables.  Oh...

• I'm ok playing fetch with the dog but after a while I get tired of fetching and the toys get soggy.

There is a great tale of the late Jackie Gleason, wherein he got picked up in a limousine driven by the late Richard Nixon (late president and part time sign post), who had escaped his protection detail. He drove Gleason to a military base and showed him some... people... who weren't from the region. Or hemisphere. Or globe. It is a tale without any factual backup. As far as we know.

• The key to making life interesting is never self-censor. If you've got something to say, say it! Speak the first thing that comes to mind. Blurt out stuff randomly, for no reason. Not only will this amuse you, you won't get invited to any of those annoying parties and social events.

I always suggest using a password manager/locker to hold all your passwords. The great majority of these use The Cloud. I recommend Keepass, which doesn't use The Cloud. Why? Because the moment you can't touch your data, it's no longer yours. The Blur password manager was just discovered to have a ridiculous amount of their data open to everyone. This is precisely what I warned about. This was a configuration error, discovered in December, with no idea when it started. Since it was a configuration error, one would think the problem started as soon as it went online. Regardless of which you use, your data is elsewhere; susceptible to hackers and config errors. You might as well put your password on a sticky note on your monitor. There's s reason I wear a tin foil hat, and it's not because I like being laughed at. Ok, a little.

• After an airplane crash, an autopsy is always done on the cockpit crew, to look for alcohol or drugs, whether they survived or not.

Iphone users: if you have any of the listed games, they're communicating and sending data to Bad Places. This is odd, as Apple prides itself on vetting its apps.

Commando Metal: Classic Contra
Super Pentron Adventure: Super Hard
Classic Tank vs Super Bomber
Super Adventure of Maritron
Roy Adventure Troll Game
Trap Dungeons: Super Adventure
Bounce Classic Legend
Block Game
Classic Bomber: Super Legend
Brain It On: Stickman Physics
Bomber Game: Classic Bomberman
Classic Brick – Retro Block
The Climber Brick
Chicken Shoot Galaxy Invaders

• If you're a linux user, aliases are great things. You can take a long command and shorten it to a few letters. This applies to the command line only. 

A lawsuit was filed against the Weather Channel because their app misled its users about how it would use their personal information. 

Tin foil advice: most, if not all apps, are excuses to mine your personal information. When you install (android) apps, they frequently ask for way more permissions than needed. I have a word find app that asked for mic, location, camera, and several others. We all know these are not needed. When they are, it's purely for your data. Pay attention to what the apps request. You can also take permissions back inside android or uninstall the app. As a rule, I don't install apps that replace logging into a website, for this very reason. Faceyspaces is the worst offender by far: demanding access to things like your contacts, so it can mine them for information. If you must use Faceyspaces, use a browser - not the app. This is good advice for all apps.

• I don't know about you, but I'm going to forget all my own advice against Internet of Things devices and buy this Kohler smart toilet, which promises an immersive experience. Although I thought the idea of a toilet was to avoid an immersive experience...

Dear lefty:

• A cornucopia of cunning linguists asks why there's so much information tech and security stuff here.
• You are what you eat.

Go Ahead - Ask the Fat Lady if She's Pregnant

A woman who has been in a vegetative state for ten years gave birth.
In a vegetative state, gestation doesn't take ten years, so....
The facility has rushed to completely fix the situation, by requiring anyone going into female patients' rooms to have a female with them. The CEO resigned the day after this hit the news.

STOP IT

• In today's hacking news, over 1,000 records of German citizens and government officials were stolen. Das is not goot.

We get the good ones:

Last week we lit some candles, mumbled some words, then took the drastic step of running the vacuum. The dog was not happy. Not only didn't she like the vacuum, she didn't like a push vacuum. Fortunately she didn't like them silently. 

Within 24 hours, the entire floor was again covered in white stuffing, from stolen stuffed animals.

Last night, completely without candles, I vacuumed again (it's a record). Never complacent, within ONE HOUR, the dog had eviscerated a large stuffed animal, making the entire floor look like it had snowed. Does this mean I don't have to vacuum anymore?



Dear lefty:

• Is it true that looks don't matter?

Pigs Fly department:

A federal grand jury will hear evidence that 9/11 was a controlled demolition.

This is huge, whether you believe the assertion or not. Because of the JFK Effect, I'm somewhat skeptical of the outcome, but movement is great. 

Both buildings came down in what looked like controlled demolition. One of the major news network reporters stated that it looked like controlled demolition, once. And never again. Then there was the rather inconvenient fact of Building 7, barely damaged, coming down in its own footprint too.

I guess this is the necessary first step to legally drill holes in the official story of what happened on 9/11. If it was controlled demolition, there's the question of who pushed the button, then who ordered the button pushed. Regardless of the ruling, one of the people involved has a name that rhymes with Rick Haney. 

• Another thing police shows taught me: attractive people don't commit crimes.

Ancient Astronaut Theorists, at least the interesting ones who appear on tv, believe there's an Area 52 and a formation on Mars that looks like Stonehenge. I believe that things got way more interesting after the SJWs demanded Ancient Astronaut Theorists start including women. This caused mass disruption, when the fat, pimply Ancient Astronaut Theorists discovered there were now Ancient Astronaut Theorists with breasts. This is why, as of 2008, there has been very little heard from Ancient Astronaut Theorists. Some Ancient Astronaut Theorists believe this was a government plot to disrupt Ancient Astronaut Theorists. Since there are more female Ancient Astronaut Theorists, tv shows have seen a great boost in ratings (and female Ancient Astronaut Theorists have learned to use the phrase, "Hey, I'm up HERE.")

Where was I going with this?

Oh..
Yeah, I was thinking that Ancient Astronaut Theorists can find enough stuff on this planet before heading to Mars for more material.

• Explain Rush Limbaugh.
• Why is 80% of my weather gray and rainy?
• How's that search for intelligent life coming?
• Faceyspaces - this could take centuries!
• the popularity of reality tv, RuPaul, and Miley Cyrus
• why women are obsessed with their eyebrows
• Male Pattern Baldness

In completely not-related news, the History Channel is running a series on Project Blue Book. Of course they are - you can find anything you want on the History Channel, provided it's not history. There have been a few official projects over the years to deal with UFOs. What this means is to explain away UFOs. This is acknowledged. Project Blue Book was run to explain as many UFO sightings as possible, in a very boring way (even if it was clearly made up). The program 'explained' well over 90% of sightings, to avoid panic and so people could point at ufo investigators and laugh.

Yes, UFOs have been investigated for over 100 years. No, the results aren't available to us, unless they can be easily explained away. Even Roswell has had three official explanations. Temperature inversion and the ever-popular swamp gas were some of the ridiculous explanations for sightings.

J. Allen Hynek was a scientist brought into Project Blue Book to help explain away as many sightings as possible. As he continued investigating, he realized the phenomenon was real and became a 'believer'.  He will pop up in the show and had a cameo in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Ask yourself why someone who has seen and studied UFOs is called a believer. And why there were official projects put together to discredit ufo sightings.

• A Scottish woman has suffered chemical burns after being given male erectile cream for a dry eye.  No, it will not keep you awake all night.

A Nebraska man, declared brain-dead by doctors, woke up after the family's decision to 'pull the plug.'  Turns out he suffered from a rare condition called posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome. That's gotta be slightly embarrassing to the family. Gee, sorry, Dad... we didn't mean to kill you.. really - they told us you were a vegetable. 

• You heard it here last: Sears is closing all its stores.
• People older than me remember the Sears Catalog. We remember shopping at a number of Sears stores and outlets. The only positive thing about this is that Craftsmen tools are now available at Lowes. RIP.

Why use TOR?

Because even though you have nothing to hide, you are still entitled to privacy. It's very difficult (but not impossible) to track people who use TOR. You can browse through it on your pc and phone (any operating system). You can check email through it. Consider it just like what you're doing now, except it may be a hair slower, but you're regaining your privacy. You can visit TOR or non-TOR sites.

• In a recent Dutch test, 42 of 100 android devices' facial recognition was fooled by a photo of the owner. Highly effective security.

Dear lefty:

• Top Topton, of Tottingham, asks how tall are you?
• Dear Bottom: ask your mother. Height is irrelevant in the horizontal plane.

As our 'leaders' (the children up top who steal and spend our money) are still stomping their widdle feets, government is still in a shutdown. You will notice that the entire country has not broken off from California and set sail to Europe. One reason is that the majority of government activity is already funded, so the strike doesn't affect the whole fetid enchilada. Yes, there are services missing, but let this serve as a small example of how overbloated this government is. You could easily cut it drastically, while not cutting services. You could cut it lots more to get rid of places (and countries) the government doesn't belong. 

• She said her hobby was playing banjo and her favorite band was Rammstein. If her hobby and band ever come together, the result would be like matter meeting antimatter.

Everybody loves a hot tub. Manufacturers love that everybody loves a hot tub. The new tubs have (wait for it....) Internet of Things connections! You can remotely set water temperature via your cell phone. The only problem is that so can anyone else near the tub... because who cares about security - it's all about features! It's so easy to get into (not the tub - the tub's alleged security) that it will almost immediately wind up on the huge site that lists open systems. Yes, Shodan has a list of open wifi, tubs, and even baby monitors that anyone can connect to. Until it's fixed (ha!), feel free to drive by your neighbor's house and set their hot tub to freezing.

• They say he found Christ in prison. 
• What was He in for?

Some interesting fellow spent three hours licking doorbells in one neighborhood. As of yet, this fetish has not been classified, so it's up to us:

• Lickomania
• Germophile
• Pranker
• Lickus Bellus
• Fetishist Dumbass
• Sick F-ing Bastard

Wearing a Backpack to Bed

Definitions:

do what? - huh?  - "Pardon me, I'm from the South"
fixin tuh, bout tuh  - "Pardon me, I'm also from the South"
difficult - asshole  (He is a real difficult person.)
wtf? - with the fudge  (Bring me a glass of milk with the fudge.)

• When you're watching COPS, and the policeman gives the driver a drunk test, do you wait for the driver to say, "I can't do that when I'm sober." After the policeman explained what the tests were for, I realize I'd fail them completely sober. On my way to jail, I'd ask for a blood test. I'd be the only person ever arrested for driving sober.
• Well, maybe not the only person... my wife has something called positive tilt. Long and short is that when she closes her eyes, she tilts to one side and will fall over if she doesn't open her eyes. A doctor once did a test for this and wondered why I sprinted across the exam room to catch her. We're a hell of a team.

"I'd rather the police investigate a crime of misogyny than a burglary."

- English journalist Suzanne Moore

"Unless my house was being burgled."

- also English journalist Suzanne Moore

This would be an hysterical gag in a book or comedy routine if it weren't true.
How did we get here? How many Founding Fathers of all countries are spinning in their graves? Founding mothers - sorry.

It is rumored that Cindy Lauper's mother used to tell little 5 year old Cindy that she sang like an angel. Cindy grew up, thinking she could sing and inflicted her voice upon the public.  Perhaps Suzanne Moore's mother told her it was so cute, the way she went on about girls being better than boys, so she went into journalism. She actually believes this stuff. Maybe the publics got used to this by breaking us in to the Stupid, event by event. It seems to start in colleges, where the professors are so liberal, they make Michael Moore look like the alt right. The kids, whose parents pay over $50k per year to send their little impressionable snowflakes for a college education they'll need to get a job at McDonalds. They will get fired for organizing a strike because the staff is primarily male and black, so she's fighting the Patriarchy, which is racist and misogynist.

Twenty years down the pike, when society tires of being run by people who make stuff up that you can't debate without being called a name, it will be interesting to see where these people land.  Suzanne Moore was forcibly retired because the college couldn't afford the security bills of most people trying to stuff things in her mouth. She identified as black and was allowed to retire with pay after declaring the college racist. The legal case was reversed when the jury couldn't say the verdict without cracking up til they couldn't breathe.

Suicides will go through the roof, as middle-aged snowflakes realize calling people names no longer works for them and jobs hire on ability instead of gender and fear of being called a name. In the end, no one cares and half the country is out drinking. By the end of the night, they will have no idea what they're celebrating.

• There is a new system to monitor blood sugar. The commercial features a guy with a guitar plugged into a huge amp (logo blacked out). Anybody who plays guitar knows this is absolutely stupid. The amp is Marshall sized, which are the huge amps used by everybody from Hendrix to present day stars. If you put an acoustic guitar through this amp, the feedback alone would deafen you. This might be a plus if you sound like what we hear on the radio these days.
• A different commercial is about the things necessary to purchase a house. It involves the tasks necessary, like getting a raise and lowering expenses. One expense was 'buying stupid things', at which point they show the male holding up a Les Paul guitar and the wife shaking her head no. I'm going to write a complaint to the company, demanding they stop this rabid musician-ism. Some of us spend all of our disposable income (after pizza and ice cream) on guitars and related accessories. 
• As for the blood sugar monitor, this absolutely creeps me out. You might have seen it, with a bicyclist plus a mother with baby, holding the device up to a white sensor on their arm. WHAT is the sensor? Why is there a plastic disc attached to their arm? HOW is it attached? Is it wired right into the nervous system so Big Pharma can get you to buy more? Are you now chipped? Will I ever get the medicine I need?

We can all agree that Leah Remini has done a great job on her expose of Scientology. We can also agree that Leah Remini is a beautiful woman. Unfortunately in Hollywood, women must be forever young, so Leah had a facelift and/or botox. You'll see her face as a little different, especially compared to earlier pictures. If you look closely, you'll see her bottom lip not moving much when she speaks. This is especially visible in Cher, who has had so many surgeries, she no longer looks like the first few Chers the public got to know. Sonny, if he suddenly achieved life, wouldn't recognize her.

A lonnnnng time ago, Leah was on a sitcom, and I decided I needed a picture. I wrote to her (in actual writing, requiring paper and an envelope), and told her I wasn't a stalker, but would love an 8x10. She sent me one immediately and autographed it. What a sweetheart [sigh].

• Before the last election, those Hate Does Not Live Here signs started popping up. Across the street, a sign appears, stating Love Lives Here: Love of family, country, and God. I'll leave it to you which house voted how.
• I felt peer pressure and put up my own sign: Leave Me the F- Alone ( a libertarian mantra).

My tv app sprouted something called Sports Devil. Those of you keeping track, including those of you not keeping track, know how I feel about sports: I'd rather spend time with the devil than watch sports. As for golf, I'd rather go to the dentist, but we're not sure golf is actually a sport.

• Best line this week: I was totally asleep until I woke up....

I started losing my hair in my late teens. I blame my mother.
A girlfriend, who knew a lot about hair, gave me some special shampoo and a brush to use in the shower. This never worked out because my mother refused to let my girlfriend shower with me. I resent her to this day.

This particular girlfriend was interesting. Yes, they were all interesting, but this one was interesting. She was very proud of her body. This worked out well because I was too. She was..... gifted.... up top. I found out she was so proud that she had nude pictures done up professionally (this was waaaaay before selfies). I found this out later, when my brother told me she had a very nice upper half. She showed him the portrait.

Another girlfriend, who didn't take naked pictures of herself, invited me to sleep over one night. Her mom came in the room the next morning and I experienced Panic Shutdown. I stood there, on the bed, trying to be invisible, or disappear behind the door, with only pants. She said hi and asked if I wanted anything for breakfast. It took four days before I could eat. I'd get up in the morning for work and the girlfriend would start a huge fight. I called later and asked her what that was about. "We didn't fight this morning.. what are you talking about?"  Uh-oh. This happened fairly frequently. Only in hindsight did I realize there was something up with her. Why do all my girlfriends have..... issues...?? The last girlfriend before I met Mrs lefty was intense. We were inseparable. I found out she was abused as a child. I know the doctors will have all sorts of theories on this: girlfriends and rescue dogs.

• I have learned Stuff today, so it's now a productive day. I'm feeling good about that, so it's back to pr0n.
• There are over 100 kinds of bacteria on the human hand
• The London subway system is older than me. Quite a lot. It's even older Hillary Clinton's most recent body (this is number 4)
• According to my weather app inside my tv app, it's 126 degrees. That makes me feel really stupid for turning the heat up this morning.
• The country went to Daylight Ruining Time recently, so set your clocks in a random direction, 37 minutes back. I wasn't aware of this until Wife told me. All my life I've relied upon women to tell me. First it was Mom, who called years after I moved out. The good news is all my devices automatically moved the correct 37 minutes. The bad news is that one appliance didn't: my alarm clock.
• If you like to tinker with Stuff in your cell phone, don't turn off the service that says [name of carrier] services. Trust me. Right after thoroughly intimidating the phone, I noticed a program crawling slowly on the computer. I suspect they talk to each other. Do yours? Or is it only mine that are against me? They say the new medicines are much better.

This morning I woke up to my dog being very happy to see me. I like this. The excitement level went through the roof and I realized the Doggie Alarm Clock had gone off. I looked over and she had her harness in her mouth. She looked like she had gagged herself. I went searching for another reason.. although we're pretty weird here, we are not Doggie Bondage weird. She was chewing her harness. Shaking my head, I removed the harness. Not to be outdone, I watched her grab her mommy's covers and removing them. Damn impressive. Was she nesting? No, she was chewing on them. She was a stray - maybe she picked up some odd habits. Currently she's guarding us, looking outside, making sure we're protected. Yesterday she protected us from someone closing their car door. For five minutes, she barked. You can't stop her either. You can get right in her face, pick her up, throw toys, but she will not falter in her protecting. She protects us from people knocking at the door and yesterday she protected us from dogs barking on tv.

Being an English cocker, I tried to get some Bonding Time by watching British television. Nothing. I'm starting to wonder if English cockers are just American cockers with longer noses...

• I need to rant again (still?) about the Experience, vs the Working. I downloaded a file manager for my phone. When I started it up, it tried to get to the internet 24 times. Whatever it was must've been urgent. Then it told me all the great stuff it did, like categorizing my files, waxing the car, watching the dog, analyzing and cleaning space. I don't WANT my files analyzed. If anything, I need analysis before the files do. On the front screen, there are options to select music, downloads, videos, archives, and dog hair. DAMMIT - I HATE THIS. I don't want a file managing experience... I want to manage my files! So I went for the Look At Your Files button, but there was none. I am not making this up.... you can NOT simply browse the file tree, like even Microsoft Explorer can. Have these people sprung a leak?
• The next file manager also grouped files, but there was a teeny tiny button to actually browse files. It was so full of ads, you couldn't tell where you were browsing, like driving through Camden at night.
• The third file manager was called Astro (that's Rastro for Scooby Doo fans). This one seriously impressed me. Not by allowing me to browse, but for getting stuck at the logo as it came up. There were only 9 attempts to access the internet. Ten minutes later the program came up, with the first screen being notification that they collect every piece of information you have, up to and including nose hair samples. Not with my firewall blocking internet access, they don't. Assuming it doesn't take 10 minutes to come up, this one's almost useful.
• I'm downloading a file manager because Android can't decide if the one I have is installed or not. Is this some sort of trans thing? I went looking for the included file manager, but it's not there. NOT THERE. The stock android file manager is not there. The Download app is not there. Halleleujah. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I put on a dress and let these programs phone home. Why a dress? HEY - I didn't type that....I swear....

I found this strange new thing for the house. My wife (forcefully) introduced it to me. It's called vacuuming (did I spell that right?).  Darndest thing... the floor gets Stuff all over it. Dog hair, people hair, large sheets of nuclear plans for this and that, coffee the dog didn't want because it was cold... you know. So you run this vacuum thing over the mess and it disappears, like Janet Jackson's nose*. Say what you want about tv shows and Janet Jackson's nose, but the problem is that they stay disappeared. Not so much the floor dirt. In fact, it seems to come back at twice the rate, like grass.  Let us review: if you make the bed, it will get unmade every single night. If you wash the car, it will rain or mud. If you mow the lawn, it will only grow and mock you. Why Bother? So I gave up on vacuuming.

It's a shame, though, as we are well-equipped. We have three. Why? How the f- should I know - I was just turned onto them.  We have a midline, which is ok, but clogs up; we have a really cheap one that will suck up large bolts and couches, and a famous, really well made, guaranteed for life unit that can lift a bowling ball (but not the fat kid from Stand by Me). I mention this not because it works, but because the moment we turned it on, it sucked up some pantyhose from one floor up and stopped working immediately. The shop just called.. our free lifetime warranty just expired.

• Quick concert update: remember the Long Island Medium - Theresa Caputo? The lady with the ridiculous accent and a virtual hair helmet? She's on tour. Imagine my consternation, trying to decide between a Led Zeppelin reunion and Hair Helmet. To Theresa's credit, Robert Plant is unlikely to tell me what my dead relatives are saying about me.

We just finished paying off one of Marshall's medical loans. He's laughing at us, somewhere. Penny must crack him up too. Speaking of medical loans, I was working in my office and kept reminding myself not to move the chair because I'd hit the dog. The dog was out visiting with her mommy, so I was the only one home. I continued to not move the chair because, dammit, there was a dog there. It wasn't any particular dog, just a dog, and not one I could see. The feeling was downright eerie because it was so strong.



*Janet Jackson's Nose: She's a big girl and can do whatever she likes, but it saddens me to see her going down Michael Road. It's dark there.. few lights.. a lot of turns you can't see.. and money.... lots and lots of money.  But I digress (always). None of the Jackson children were going to grow up normally, even if some got famous while they were young. The father caused damage, possibly physical. Add that to being Michael Jackson, with more money than nose sense, and you have the recipe for disaster. One of the best known and loved musicians in the world probably had few or no people to talk to. Thus there was nobody to call him on getting all Michael Jackson-y. Thus his mad desire to be a caucasian, despite the obvious issues. The man barely had a nose left, or so Howard Stern says. He built a playground in his back yard. While this is the dream of all children, that ship sailed 40 years before. A pet chimp. Tiny friends. A wife? Some more children that don't stand a chance.  So Janet - just show us your boobies (sorry - wardrobe malfunctions), not what you can do with regular rounds of recreational rhinoplasty.

rhinoplasty is a plastic surgical operation during which a horn is grafted to the forehead.
why is my female dog humping a sofa pillow? because my leg kept rejecting her?

Golf Balls do NOT Talk

The Marshall Follies

Because having cancer becomes boring after a while, Marshall found a Thing growing on his leg. Multiple doctors said it was completely benign.

Until yesterday, when we noticed it had grown to almost the size of a golf ball and started talking to him.

We took him and his benign Thing to the vet. While the Thing was still technically benign, it could rupture, causing him to leak Important Red Fluid. Of course that will require an operation. I wonder, if operations were $25, would he require so many of them. Marshall is unfazed and requested another malt.

ONE DAY after typing the above, Marshall passed me in the hall. There were bloody pawprints all over the carpet, steps, and through the house. He's now bandaged and his operation is in the morning. Nobody really cares about the blood - Marshall just has to be ok. And he will.

ONE DAY later, he had his operation and was just fine. The entire vet office came out to see him. The owner ran out to see my wife and congratulated her on the cocker with 10 lives.

Unfortunately he's wearing the Cone of Shame. It only took a few hours, after knocking half the house down, to figure out you have to get the cone over the bowl to eat or drink. Now he sits next to us, panting and whining. He has his own fan, to which he is always oriented.

TWO DAYS later, the cone came off. It confuses and unnerves us when he behaves like a dog. Well, he behaved like a neurotic dog, and within a few minutes, had licked his wound open. Suffice it to say he now needs daily antibiotics and daily bandage changes. The vet office has been wonderful to us since this started.

Since the vet office isn't open on Sundays, it was our day to change the dressing. To day it didn't go well could be the understatement of this entire multi-year experience in blogging. I don't ever want to do that again, nor does he. He went to the emergency vet to have it done and is now sporting a glowing green bandage, which goes really well with his black fur.

• This week's stats are in and the winner was Spain, with either 130 or 7 page views.  I'm sure this is not Google's fault, because I always mix up 7 and 130.
• The positive takeaways are that linux is the most popular operating system and Internet Explorer is the least used browser.
• The most popular visitor name is Juan. Google knows all.
• I made that up. The Juan thing. Google still knows all.

Coworker Follies
I write about him largely because we have the most amazing communication breakdown in history. We can't get out a sentence without the other not understanding.

ME: You got stuck with Windows 10? That's horrible.
HIM: We'll see how you feel when you get it.
ME: Fortunately my machine won't ever break or need replacement.
HIM: Your home laptop?

we're talking about work machines. Where did my home machine come into this?

He sends me a text about an issue that's really cumbersome and will add a long time to tasks. We go back and forth, trading ideas. I send a final suggestion. He says he's ok with it as it is.

Then why did you bother telling me about it? Did you want to argue with yourself by proxy? Do you have so little to do that you have to needle your coworkers and make sure they're not doing anything either? Do you have some sort of really weird fetish that involves wasting your coworkers' time? Was it good for you too?

One Day Later....
ME: Oh man, I just took that technical training. HR stated that the PTSD incurred is worse than a day at the DMV.
HIM: Oh... wow... so you are exempt from taking it?


Meanwhile, we have to take a Workplace Harassment class.
I figure by next year, I'll be teaching the class. As a how-to.

• I've been living in the same house for a long time. I love my neighborhood. It's nice, safe, and quiet, as I tell everyone. Apparently I lied. It was quiet, until the machines took over. It started with the House That Took Over the Neighborhood. It started as a small starter home and now, in a 4 year process, is three times as large on the outside, and has seven floors down, the last one being 3,004 feet underground. Perhaps they're preppers. Maybe this is a Neighborhood Military thing to surprise the enemy (when we find out who the enemy is). Then the Loud Family, which has some form of construction every day of the week, including rain days. It usually involves a loud circular saw biting into something metal.
• Today it's BEEP-BEEP-BEEP, like a backup beeper from an 18 wheeler. The BEEP-BEEP-BEEP is coming at ten second intervals, as if the 18 wheeler is backing up, moving forward three inches, then backing up again. Perhaps one of our neighbors has opened one of those schools that you see on tv, where you learn to drive a truck in only four weeks.
• My wife, who keeps track of everything that happens in the hood, told me the neighbor was digging up her yard. Looking out the window, the 18 wheeler turned out to be one of those cute, tiny little Caterpillars that you rent to dig up yards when your shovel breaks. It digs one foot of dirt, then backs up. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. All day. Probably all night too. I just want to know why a piece of 'construction equipment' half the size of a VW Beetle, requires a backup beeper. Is it to protect little children riding by on their little trikes with their little helmets?

Unlike mowing, I do not have a pathological hatred of vacuuming.

It's a household thing, as even Marshall doesn't care about the nemesis of all dogs. He barked a bit when he was younger, now he figures screw it.

Tell me if you hear any of this while vacuuming... [I'm in italics]

You can't just vacuum. You've got to pick stuff up first.

Doesn't the vacuum pick stuff up?

No - that stuff will clog it up.

Let me give you the rug rake.

Why do I have to rake the rug?

To get up all the pet and people hair.

Doesn't the vacuum pick it up?

No - that stuff will clog it up.

I need to get at that dirt.

What dirt?

The dirt under the weed whacker. In front of the tv.

What is that huge black stain from?

You should try vacuuming under the chair too.

Why is there a three foot long screw by the couch?

That's not the dog - it's a dust cocker.

Are your guitars migrating to the living room?

No.

How many do you have out?

One - next to the couch. That's not a lot.

What are those?

Oh. Four total. That's not a lot.

Could you move that one - your parents are coming over.

Which one?

I can kill you from here, you know.

Please do something with that whip before your parents get here.

Does this vacuum pick up [THUMP - screech]. Apparently not.

• Wanna impress your snotty cybersecurity friends at parties? The answer is hell yeah, until you realize that cybersecurity people aren't at parties, so they stopped being invited years ago.
• Try this: a RAT is a Remote Access Trojan. It is placed on a system to create a backdoor for future access. A bank in India discovered its ATM wasn't working, despite being full of money. It was then they discovered the RAT. When they opened the machine, 17,500 rupees were shredded, by the dead rodent they found. Sometimes this stuff becomes literal.
• If you're a customer of the southern US PDQ food chain, hope you didn't use your cards to purchase anything. From May 19, 2017 – April 20, 2018 the system was hacked. PDQ had no idea, hence the ridiculous amount of time it lasted. The announcement said it might have happened via a vendor's remote access. They have no idea, but figure if you were a customer during that time, your card information was accessed. I'm sure they are very sorry, but forgot to say that in the announcement.
• Comcast shut down an interface on its site after it was discovered to reveal home addresses, account numbers and additional customer data without permission to others sharing the same network as the customer or using an app on the network. Comcast naturally apologizes and says they don't believe any data was accessed because you need to be logged into the network already.

• “Overlooking basic API authentication illustrates a shameful degree of negligence at Comcast,” Ben Johnson, CTO and co-founder at Obsidian Security

The good news: WPA3, the security successor to your wireless network's aging and already cracked WPA2, has been announced.
The also good news: WPA2 will continue to be strengthened.
The less than good news: it could be a few years before you see WPA3.
The OMG they did it again news: Easy Connect is a feature that makes it easier to connect Smart Home and Internet of Things devices to their networks. What could possibly go wrong?

• You know I hate social news stories, but my wife brought up that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have never texted. Kidman said it forces them to talk to each other. Wife said that they stole this from us.. we rarely text. Why, you ask? Because her phone is so brain damaged that it might refuse to ring or claim the call is email. If she tries to text me, it takes up to three days to arrive. Before you tell me this is on purpose, it takes the same amount of time for everybody else.
• Just to make things more interesting, it developed alzheimers and randomly mixes up information. When her mom calls, the first name displayed is the vet, the last name from my family, and a random picture. If she didn't know the phone number, she'd have no idea who was calling. I've spoken to phone experts who have never seen this before.

A New York school district wants to introduce facial recognition, to make its children safer. Ooh - new, invasive technology! But the privacy nuts won't like it. No problem, we'll say what we always say: It's for the children.

Ooh, wait.. it's not an accurate, proven technology. It isn't good at recognizing people of color. It also isn't good at detecting guns, although that's what the school board wanted to do.

The ACLU formally protested. The school board, in a closed session, rolled around the floor laughing. One actually peed in his pants.

• A hot new internet trend is posting pictures of the cat in your house that somehow appeared but isn't yours. So if your children ask where cats come from, tell them cats are a quantum lifeform that both exist and doesn't exist at the same time. When you are not observing them, they pop into existence and POOF - you have a cat. It's really that simple.

Just to let you know what kind of job police have in England, a woman attempted to rob a convenience store. The clerk locked her in and hit the Police button. She had a knife. Since she got nowhere with the knife, she picked up a bottle. The clerk wasn't impressed with the bottle, and she started threatening the people on the outside of the locked door. The police, understanding that the woman, on the other side of the locked door with the bottle, might use it on them. The cops went into Full Panic Mode and responded with riot gear and pepper spray.

Other countries should have this kind of trouble.

Suck it Up

You'll notice all the commercials for vacuums. There's all sorts of new technology to suck stuff up. One of them is battery power, because plugging your vacuum into an outlet is so inconvenient.  You have to admit these ads are quite compelling, showing young, attractive people using the device, in an apparent attempt to clean.  Let's face it - their 'dirty' furniture is cleaner than our clean furniture. There's even a dog. Yeah, right. They don't show the dog defecating on the floor (or the couch).  This is supposed to make you feel all kinds of positive about vacuuming. They have smiles on their faces, while explaining all the new Sucking Features and Methods of the device.

So you buy one of these, at approximately three times what you paid for your current vacuum, that you don't use. Because nobody likes to vacuum, except those OCD people, who will do it at 3am if necessary, and it's always necessary. The manufacturer has sold another unit and you've done your part to help capitalism. You're still not going to vacuum.


Which brings me to Dyson. Dyson is a name that was made up after months of focus groups; the kind that bother you in malls. It sounds all scientific and miraculous. Dyson makes devices that bend the laws of physics as we know them (and we generally don't know them). Everything they make is in the form of a stand or handle, with a loop at the end. The loop is where it all happens. Their handheld Loop Device will cool an entire house (and dog-sit). As if the miracle of air conditioning weren't enough, it purifies the air. It's an ingenious little device, which came from back-engineering a thingie on the ship that crashed at Roswell. Yes, this is alien technology. When turned on, the device causes the house to time travel to a colder season, thereby making it feel cooler. Consult your doctor to see if Dyson is right for you. May cause kidney failure, death, or embarrassment. Whatever you do, do NOT send out your bills or make vacation plans while the device is working. Do not, under any circumstances, operate the device when you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. Or just want to have sex.


in a variety of sizes

• I need to hurry up before all the Engelbert Humperdinck tickets sell out

• Because you're DYING to know, his real name is Arnold George Dorsey. He changed his name to Englebert for the German composer of 19th century operas (because the reference is so much more hip to American audiences)

The absolute best question in 5 years of being on Reddit is "Why is it easier to insert a cucumber into my vagina than a carrot?"  This is not a typical question, but an award-winning one.

• Gaming Disorder is officially recognized by the World Health Organization. Repetitive Stress? In that case, I already have it, but not from games.
• And in a manic spurt of activity, the World Health Organization no longer classifies being transgender as a mental disorder. Twitter's right wing will be very upset.

One looks back every now and then.... and realizes one never really ran afoul of upskirting laws. It's too late now.

• No matter who you are, there will be someone who sees angels and fairy dust when they say The Cloud. When they speak of this with great reverence, make sure to mention that a scan by research firm Lacework turned up 22,000 systems unprotected or publicly available.

Recently there was an anti-knife protest in England.

Anti. Knife.

Because knives are a gateway to spoons.

• Thank goodness this is a light week, because researchers only found seven vulnerabilities in 400 models of IP Cameras (security cameras). 

In feminism news, the self-victimization continues: Mindy Kaling claims that white male critics are being 'unfair' to 'Oceans 8'.  Or maybe it just sucks, I don't know. The single commercial I saw reeks of 'we needed to make this movie with women in all the important roles.'

A feminist bookstore closes from lack of sales, white men blamed.

If there was a meeting of white men, strictly for the purposes of closing feminist bookstores and being unfair to female-led movies, I never got the invitation and I'm feeling some kind of way about this. In fact, I never got the invitation for any meeting of white males, for any reason (including nerding, the presidency, or heavy metal bands).

• A California judge has ruled that Twitter’s policy of banning users “at any time, for any reason or for no reason” may constitute an “unconscionable contract”, and that a lawsuit against the company brought by self-described “white advocate” Jared Taylor may proceed on that basis.
• Wow. 
• We know I'm not a legal scholar, but unconscionable contract seems to be a way to get out of one way contracts. If true, there are so many contracts as to be unconscionable. They might include any social media, credit cards, mortgages, etc etc etc. This is an observation, not a complaint.
• Many people are upset at Twitter for throwing people off randomly, generally the right-leaning. The victim this time is a white supremacist, claiming Twitter's policy of free speech is a lie. He's correct, no matter how disgusting the speech. This mirrors the First Amendment, however, the Social Justice Warriors believe they can censor anyone that doesn't agree with them (because words hurt). 
• IF Twitter can be held to their Free Speech claim, this would be good news for many. Something about this smells odd, though. Should a private corporate entity have to be burdened with government regulation (no matter how much I'd like to see Twitter suffer)?

Speaking of women, I just saw a commercial where the big question was "How do I want to be seen as a woman?"  Strong, assured, etc. Works for me. While these qualities are being listed, a flawless model is lithely walking around in a small bathing suit, then standing in a pool. Is this what they call mixed messages?

• Speaking of commercials, I saw one for Period Poverty. It's from a pad company that is donating one pad to schools per box sold. 
• Did you know about Period Poverty? I didn't.
• If anyone reading experiences this, please contact me.

Get ready: the very smart, enterprising people at Google have announced a spying device for hotels. It's called Sleep Spy (no it isn't, but it should be). Google promises not keep any data (and Google wouldn't lie, would they?).

Alexa, have the front desk bring me 97 lubed condoms, black
Alexa, where do I get a leather mask at this hour?
Alexa, I need a companion: flat rate, not hourly. any mix of genitalia, likes pudding.
Alexa, send a death threat to Google headquarters. Sign it from you.

• A journalist decided to spend ten days off Faceyspaces. He was harassed to death by the very same Faceyspaces. Good reading.

State police are looking for a Pennsylvania man, Shawn Christy, of McAdoo, after he posted a message on social media, threatening to put a bullet in Trump's head. The message has since been erased. Christy is to be presumed armed and dangerous, so if you see him, yell, "Hey pussy - Trump made your mother his love slave."

The Secret Service's response was, "You want to shoot the president? Stand in line, idiot."

Many people accuse the president of many negative things. If you think critically, you'll notice he's been great for the economy: the Secret Service is nine times as busy handling threats, gun sales are good (but not as good as under Obama), lawyers are having a boom year, and social media has gone through the roof with people bitching about every thing he does/wears/says. Even porn stars are in the news. Mental health counselors and heart doctors can't keep up with the demand, as well as forensic cleaning crews, for when his detractors' heads explode.