Sparky Lowenstein Eats Ants

Your love is like a birthday cake on fire

• Police departments across the nation are experiencing retirements and great difficulty recruiting.  Why wouldn't recruits be standing in line? 

Dear lefty 

• Somebody suggested we go to a club and hear a dj set. What is that?
• the result of someone being too cheap to hire a band 

RIP Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her wish was that she not be replaced until the next administration. If Trump gets re-elected, she'll spin in her grave. Meanwhile, Trump says Ginsburg's wish was written by Schiff, Schumer, and Pelosi. Fire them all.

• I know you're wondering what's in wildfire smoke. Find out.
• Let's think really good Thermionic Thoughts for the people stuck there. Take a minute, please. Every thought counts. It's a mess out there.

Hey, if the Flying AIDS has hurt your financial prospects, re-invent yourself. This is the 20s - be creative - fill a need. The nation needs people to create Video Spaces. These are the clean, clear, well-lit spaces people need when they have video conferences with others. They make other people think they live in a clean, clear, well-lit space; while the truth is there's a crew from Hoarders on their way out. Think about it....

Fortunately I don't have to video conference. If my boss ever asks, I tell him the entire area is full of things people would find offensive, and I wouldn't want to offend anyone. He knows me well, so I don't have to video conference.

And speaking of the Flying AIDS, all the 'experts' have decided to get together to make this a happier, healthier, and more intelligent world. The World Health Organization/UN says the Flying AIDS could spread through airborne particles that can remain suspended in the air and travel beyond six feet. The CDC has previously said the virus mainly spreads from person to person through respiratory droplets when a sick person coughs, sneezes or talks. Except for a statement 'posted in error' that said ... something or other.... forgot about airborne transfer... virus spreads through air, travels beyond 6 feet.... Monday is a bad day to change things, especially if people are watching.

Got that?


We know I don't get out much, but when I do, I see everyone walking around with masks inside and it bothers me to the depths of my soul. Not that they're wearing masks-I am too. Just that we're where we are. Usually this kind of reaction means something...



Kinky

Tinder date chopped into 11 pieces after being stabbed to death during sex.



All passengers on Epstein's flight logs to be named 'sparking panic among rich pals'. The Attorney General for the US Virgin Islands is demanding them. Las Vegas oddsmakers expect the Attorney General to 'commit suicide' on the day of delivery.

In other news, China is making all sorts of claims, including an attack on a US base, showing clips from Hollywood action movies. Most countries agree it's bad form to bomb China, but we have a secret weapon: the Motion Picture Association of America. As soon as it finds out China is violating copyrights, it will immediately issue a stack of injunctions, then sue China into non-existence. Let the lawyers do what the stealth bombers can't.

Relationships have many stages, especially long-term relationships. I'm still trying to figure out which stage we're in. Last week she looks at me and says, "You look gray." Alrighty then... it's probably not my age, so...

Last night she looked at me and said, "It looks like somebody punched you in the eye." Show me the person who says romance is dead... and I'll beat them over the head with a baseball bat.

• It was so cold outside the other night, my nipples were chattering

DOJ Designates New York City as an “Anarchist Jurisdiction”
We're not quite at Peak Weird, but we're getting there.

• The grocery store has Chocolate Frosted Flakes again!
• The plastic inside is tougher (I ate through the box).

RANT

We have had occasion to rent cars over the past few years. Every one of them has sucked, especially the most recent, a Toyota Corolla, apparently considered midsize. It's small, plastic, and gives no confidence in its ability to continue being a car. Some of my rant comes from growing up with Real Cars<tm>, which normal people call Land Yachts. All of the sudden, cars got horribly small, because of gas prices. However, no one at all made a large car - large was still pretty damn small. The SUVs are large-ish, but carry less than the old station wagons. If these gas-hogging vehicles are so damn popular, why not a large car still? It's funny to note our ancient Hyundai, our first small car (which everyone still says is large) is far superior to any rental we've had. They keep getting smaller, using more plastic, and riding like crap. All we really want is a large car with great ride. Mrs lefty has all sorts of back problems, so comfort is important. The final word on the Toyota is 'it rides like shit' and 'even the steering wheel is too small.'

The reissue of the super sportsters, like the Camaro and Challenger, proves there's a market for large cars. They don't even have to make them muscle cars. Nostalgia is something on which to capitalize - the guitar market is full of it.

/END RANT

Births

Bobby Tench - Jeff Beck Group
Don Felder - Eagles
Faith Hill - [sigh]
Nuno Bettencourt - Extreme
Mama Cass Elliot - a Mama with the Papas (Ellen Naomi Cohen)
Lita Ford - 62!!! metal momma


Exits

Jaco Pastorius - Weather Report, simply the best
Boz Burrell - Bad Company
Leonard Skinner - high school gym teacher, inspiration for Lynyrd Skynyrd
Slim Dusty, Skeeter Davis - go ahead and guess what kind of music they played

SJW Sniveling

JK Rowling banned from bookshelves to create a ‘safe space for the trans community’  Book burnings! Harry Potter Dons Dior!

Church's woke advert featuring a bearded Jesus with women's breasts and make-up sparks outrage


Twitter investigates racial bias in image previews

  also font color and size 

Mayonnaise in Relation to Ferrets

So I'm on a conference, using video for the 2nd time, and I see myself in a tiny window up top. At the bottom of the tiny window, it says YOU. Good thing, too, in case I forget who I am.


Your love is like  a kick in the nuts.


Russian interference in the election appears to be heating up: Yuri asked Jesus to make the American elections fair.



Dear lefty

• What would you do if I sang out of tune?
• I would stand up and walk out on you  

• Is Lucifer Satan?
• How the hell should I know? Maybe it's one of those trinity things, with Lucifer, Satan, and Hillary. (It turned out to be Dick Cheney, because Hillary scared everyone too much.

You'll be shocked and sickened, but perhaps not surprised, to learn that Lyme Disease was a manufactured disease, caused by weaponized ticks. The ticks did not just appear by themselves. Once again, Fort Detrick was involved. I would not trust Fort Detrick to manage some spare cardboard, because they'd weaponize it, then it would go missing. This was part of a program your government used, right after the Bay of Pigs, to get even. It involved lice, ticks, and who knows what else. Lyme started in the state of Washington and Lyme, Connecticut at the same time. What a coincidence! Naturally there's all sorts of stonewalling, involving everybody's friends at the CDC and NIH. You know, the people who will be our saviors with the Flying AIDS. Yes, your government is trying to incapacitate you. As described, Lyme is pretty nasty, and that's after you get the diagnosis. Click the link and gain some knowledge. Take it with you to the polls in November.

Your government is trying to kill you. At least in Washington state, where a heat ray was requested against protesters in Lafayette Square. The police requested one from the National Guard, which doesn't use them. The weapon is essentially a microwave oven, to make skin feel like it's burning. Authorities say it causes no permanent damage (unless your fries aren't done and you have to put them back in the beam). Being a huge fan of the right to protest peacefully and the rule of law, police certainly need something for crowd control, when it gets violent (only) but between microwave projectors and LRADS, the weaponization of police via the army has gone too far.

• Harvey Weinstein was stripped of his honorary (British) CBE. They couldn't tell him because whenever you say 'Harvey Weinstein stripped,' he gets very excited.

In yet another vindication, the director of the FBI said it's a mistake to get election information on social media. It would be a lot faster and easier to just quote me.

• Occasionally I need recognition  -maybe a gold star. At no point today did I say that the First Lady had the first set of implants in the White House. I didn't even ask the president if it was true. Just put it on the fridge - this is my first one.

It wasn't bad enough that we had Attack of the Stereo Lawnmowers. Now we have Attack of the Commercial Lawnmowers. Naturally I learned about this during a virtual meeting. The only thing missing was cutting down trees and feeding them into the Chopper Machine. A coworker wanted to feed her husband into a Chopping Machine, but it left too much evidence. Now that I think about it, she was probably right.

The only thing good about this changing weather is that the bleedin' grass will stop growing, so I can stop mowing. It's a gift from God, or whoever controls the weather.


Dear l33t haxors: be careful where you ransom. A German woman died because of ransomware, after she had to be transferred to a more distant hospital. Now you've gone from ransomware to murder. The hackers eventually provided the decryption key.

• Human footprints dating back 120,000 years found in Saudi Arabia
• don't they ever clean? 

In the meantime, right outside my window, is the Commercial Lawnmowers, with that backpack thingie, going VOOM VOOM. There is no mechanical reason for it to go VOOM VOOM, but the mowers really like it and it lets people know there are Professhionels around. If there were any way to make a noise like a 190 decibel plane taking off, they would. VOOM VOOM.



Here are the winners of the 2020 Ig Nobel Prizes to make you laugh, then think.

There's so much going on here, including a bunch of researchers proving that knives made of human feces do not work well.



We visited Ebay, 5 days ago, to order some Stuff. The stuff ordered from literally 5 miles away has not arrived yet. The vendor said this is because it was shipped from Houston, which, according to my memory of high school geometry, is more than 5 miles away from my house. No one knows why Ebay thinks Houston = Philly. I got notice that the next item will arrive early. Yes, the item from California will arrive in 6 days. Everything else will arrive from 9 days to a few months. I still have not received the vibrator female massage device from the last order. Perhaps Ebay does not ship cross-country, which would make sense.  Ebay ships the other way, cross-Russia, hence the delays. Have you ever looked at the delivery dates? It could take over a month to get a phone cover from Nevada. 6 weeks for some electronic parts from Ohio (the next state over). Perhaps this is all a ploy, so they can tell you the purchase is arriving 'early'. I used to avoid ordering from suppliers in China, but that stuff is now getting here faster than the continental US purchases.

My first real job was shipper/receiver, a looong time ago. I remember how long it took and how much it cost to send things all over the country. Let's say the shipping prices have risen exponentially, as has the time to ship things. Worse, some of the expedited shippers use the USPS for the final leg of the journey. So it will take 3 days to get across the country, then another month to get to the final destination. Across the country used to take 5 days, sometimes 4 if you were lucky.

• Every now and then I'm forced to look over the top singles list. I recognize fewer and fewer alleged artists on the lists, and none of the songs. 
• Yesterday someone referred to a Radiohead song as arguably the most important song of the 90s. Oops.... never heard it. And this guy was a guitar player, not a fanboi.
• Camila Cabello is very attractive: haven't heard her music. I'm guessing it's better that way.

This is going to be an historic election.
I'm not sure why, but just keep repeating the above.
Either loser will raise taxes and continue bombing other countries.
At least I'm voting for someone who represents my principles.

With that in mind, here are some voting tips, to make your voice heard

• Vote early, vote often.
• Don't bother - it won't count anyway
• You're American - we don't show up over 50% anyway
• There are a lot of advantages to mailing in your ballot, the least of which is not standing in a socially-distanced line, stretching all the way to the next polling place, and decorated with socially-distanced tape. And your nose sweating all the way. Then there's the USPS, which will always deliver your item, even if it takes 100 years, as recently proven. Start mailing now, folks.
• If you vote by mail, know that you must obtain a form to obtain a form to vote. Then somehow make it all the way to the mailbox, where it might will be picked up by one of the many federal workers assigned to the project.
• Speaking of Federal workers, if you like marijuana but don't partake because it's illegal, just hang around in back of a post office. Second hand smoke is a bitch. WARNING: unless you're a federal worker, take the rest of the day off work.
• If you're in Chicago, don't worry.. there are many dead people whose votes can take your place. If it matters, you may want to find out how they're voting.

SJW Smattering

Lady Gaga says "every American drinks the poison that is white supremacy."
  -Tastes like Yoo Hoo


If all 4 of the Beatles were somehow to reunite, there would be complaints that there were no women or people of color in the band. That they were a band held aloft by white privilege.

Son of Return of Hyundai Hell

So I've largely stopped trying to tear my face off; that's a good thing.  The Stupidbowl is over too.  My favorite moment was when my (traitor) wife went to bed - I got to turn the tv off.

It's been lightly snowing off and on every other day or so, which brought up something about the car: the ESC traction control (or whatever it is) is going off a lot earlier these days.  Let me put it this way: in over two years with the Hyundai, it has almost never kicked in.  Now it kicks in as soon as there's a coating of snow on the ground.  We have no idea why.

Perhaps motivated by the horrible noises the ESC makes, my wife took the car to have the brakes checked.  POOF - the brakes were band and had started eating into the rotors.  No warning, no squealing, no brake lights and the requisite four-hundred dollars to fix it.

Have I mentioned that one of the headlights is out too?  We looked up the process for changing a headlight and discovered it was way too ridiculously difficult and left it for the mechanic.  The last place we took it too said they were afraid of breaking it and told us to take it elsewhere.  Elsewhere charged us a frightening amount of money for a bulb.  In my many years of driving, I always changed my own bulbs.  At most it was a few bucks and some cursing.

So during the brake fiasco, the shop noted that all four tires needed replacing.  I thought the top of my head was going to explode, painting the ceiling a bright red, with spots that might look like cranium and other small bits that looked like cauliflower.

Stick with me for a Financial Moment<tm>:  a fiscally smart coworker stated that his decision to purchase a new(er) car was when the monthly cost of repairs exceeded the monthly cost of purchasing the car.  With two old land yachts, we were routinely spending over what one new car would cost so we went for it.

I was so proud of my almost new Hyundai.  It started every morning, which was largely what I was looking for in an automobile.  Until we discovered the tires.  PERFORMANCE TIRES on a Hyundai, at two-hundred plus dollars a piece.   The stock ones were crappy and needed to be replaced.

Back to the present, after replacing all four performance tires, they needed to be replaced again.  The shop showed us the wear and the statistics on when we purchased two of them.  They were only rated for thirty thousand miles.  The ones we purchased elsewhere were in even worse shape.

I have completely had it with Hyundai and the idiotic decision to put large rims and performance tires on an import family sedan.  This is an additional eight-hundred dollars plus that it will cost to make the car driveable/inspectable.  I used to love my car; now I can't stand to look at it.  In spite of a great used warranty, I suspect this car is trying to bankrupt me by failing in small, expensive pieces.  It's like the prison camp prisoner who had to have limbs amputated and the guards accused him of trying to escape in pieces.

The mechanic at the shop agreed with us on the tires and suggested we just get different rims and sensible tires for the car and be done with it.


Our tax refund this year was earmarked for a new couch.  The current couch is extremely old and is sagging to the point where it makes my butt hurt when I sit for too long.  This got scrapped when the car started draining our bodily fluids.  So this is over twelve-hundred dollars to start the year.

We're more than tired of this type of excrement storm.  It hits fairly regularly.  Others verify that if it weren't for bad luck, we'd have no luck at all.   Later this month, we celebrate our twentieth anniversary and my wife attempted to give me a present.  I can't accept it, knowing that it will only get sucked out an exhaust pipe or a pharmacy.

--------------------------------

In other news, work went to set up a videoconference this morning, only to find the large-screen monitor missing.  Again.  This makes the third set of large-screen monitors stolen from work.  It was literally ripped from the wall.

Management does not believe in Big Brotherism, hence no security cameras: the thief must have really needed the monitors.  At this point, I demand that work give me a large-screen television.  After all, I have an old CRT-based television so I really need a new one.  Since the thieves are allowed to steal because they need it, I deserve one too (ten years should entitle me to something).