Mixing Chocolate Cream Pie and Anvils

Your love is like  sleeping with tarantulas

Excuse me - I don't mean to be rude...

Yes you do 

My doctor wants me to sign up for their Patient Portal.

I asked if I could get a doctor's note to get out of signing up for their Patient Portal. This did not go over as well as I would have liked.

There are so many reasons not to bother with this.

1. if it's online, it WILL get hacked.
2. when it gets hacked, your private info will be all over the place (moreso).
3. Where does this database go after you put your info in?
4. Even if you refuse (I refused), your info will still be stolen: see #1.
5. Many people are too stupid to have social security numbers, and why should the rest of us pay the price?
6. Where... anywhere... any time.. is the benefit for the patients? Nowhere.

There are also (allegedly) many reasons to do it, like....  ummm.... errrr... you know...

1. the doctor will ignore your call just as quickly in the portal as via telephone
2. your meds won't be called in regardless
3. the amount of your bill will be shown clearly, without any interpretation needed
4. you will still have to wait from 30-120 minutes for an audience with the doctor

It just doesn't seem like there's any advantage in it.

Keep my information in an off-white patient file in a huge piece of office furniture with a few thousand other patient files. They are safe from the internet. None of my financial or medical info will get out via the internet. Instead it will get out via the insurance companies, but that's another battle entirely.

• If you're up for a little light reading, check out "Technological Slavery" by Theodore John Kaczynski. The publisher promises the book will not explode in your lap. These are already better odds than getting into a Tesla.

Fresh from the news of the latest postal system price increase....

The USPS Has 452 Wayward Cremated Bodies

Funeral Director: You can bury him, you can cremate him, you can scatter his ashes, or you can send him to the US Postal System. The USPS is your best option if you are low on space and don't really want to see him again.

We're in the midst(?) of 2 weeks of gray skies, unbelievable humidity, and thunderstorms. It's pretty disgusting. As we who live here say, Philadelphia: it's not a climate - it's a plague. Mother Nature has been a bit off since she discovered crack...

My dog has a very limited palette in terms of speech (how bout that segue?). We don't know a lot about her other than we adopted her at 5. So when the thunder started, she dug down deep into her responses and came up with the right response: she barked at it. Barking seems to be her go-to. She is a dog; a fact we have to remember after having a raft full of really different cockers. She couldn't see her way clear to jumping on my lap last night, so she... you guessed it.. barked. If the treats aren't coming fast enough... oddly she doesn't bark - she sits there, trying to behave. Life, as we see it, is a lot of sitting there, trying to behave. Fortunately I have a job where behavior is secondary to job performance. I feel for my poor boss, because there's another of me in the group and we have to be separated somehow, lest things get really out of hand. Maybe they'll put us on opposite sides of the video meetings - I don't know how that works with a virtual workspace.

So the dog barks at thunder, and most other things. The problem here is that she doesn't stop, especially when told to. She always has to get the last bark in. In other words, she fits right in, even if mine is supposed to be the final bark. She'll just stand there and bark, until... well.. we're not sure. Maybe until she's done barking. All barking seems to go on for longer than 5 seconds, but it's the same for thunder as a leaf flying by the front door or a dog being walked somewhere in the city. 

Speaking of weather, it just started raining. Again. This means thunder all over the place and flash flood warnings. Let me do some Mental Magic for you: The showers and thunder started at 5:01. How do I know? The trash needs to go out and I finish work at 5. Wife showed up to deliver a frozen drink, in the midst of 40 days of floods. There was 3" of whipped cream missing. I can tell you the dog was in the car. Smart dog too.. she won't touch the whipped cream on the frozen strawberry drink, but the whipped cream on the chocolate drink is OK - DIVE IN!!  (whipped cream only - no chocolate for dogs)

I just read an article that said this summer will be very hot, due to El Ninos and La Ninas and mamicitas causing a hot sauce pressure system over the US. Coke will sponsor the humidity.

• Note to Self: You really miss big hair and tube tops

Congress doubles down on explosive claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

Those of us with blogs, who like to think we know better and are always the smartest person in the room, now have smug grins. It's very interesting that these unnamed sources are speaking up. We know the whole thing continues to happen, but why all of the sudden? Who benefits? Can Congress really cut that part of the black budget? Can they cut the budget retroactive to 1947? It's all very interesting and very silly to watch. I guess the Great Unwashed will get quite a shock, if they can pull themselves away from Judge Judy Sam Justice Legal Americans Idle lawyer drug commercials.

Best headline:

Threads is All The Worst Parts of Twitter And Instagram in One Very Bad App

Work is giving me a hard time. This is unusual.

First I get put on a team to make an entirely new system work. Then I get put on a team to demo the new system for everyone. We explain that since the new system isn't installed yet, perhaps it would be a better idea to demo it at some point after it's installed. That worked for about a week, until we were back demoing it for everyone again.

We started putting everything together with PowerPoint, because the entire business world runs on PowerPoint. Slides are most effective with blinky lights, but nobody knows how to do this because we actually DO something other than produce slides. Since literally no one has used this system, all we had were online manuals. Now we all know it's immoral to just cut and paste from the internet, so we kept that in mind as we were cutting and pasting from the internet. We reduced our collective guilt by only copying and pasting from the software manuals. Just after that, we learned we had to talk over the slides.

YOU MEAN NOT ONLY DO WE HAVE TO CUT AND PASTE FROM THE INTERNET, WE HAVE TO know how to use and explain it?  Bastards.

Have I mentioned that the software is still not installed and our training consisted of copying and pasting from the internet? 

New York Train Tunnels Get Partial $7 Billion Funding From Feds, Enough For the Whole Project in A Sane Country

President Giveaway comes through again!! 

If the estimate of work in New York is $7 billion, it will easily cost $21 billion, due to graft, underestimation, graft, weather, incompetence, and graft.

Take THAT, DeSantis

What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me VERY Angry

Your love is like  overcooked popcorn smell in the microwave (and your entire house)

most popcorn experiments in my youth turned out rather badly. For some reason, the stove popcorn tended to blow up and catch on fire, like a Tesla.

Today I identify as   Millard Fillmore, late president and inspiration for the Fillmore East and Fillmore West concert venues. Guess which half of that I made up.

I'm looking at a food wrapper with the words "Italian Style Meats" on it.

Is this the same as calling Olive Garden "Real Imitation Italian-Style food?"

American cheese is "Pasteurized Processed American Cheese food product"

Pizza Hut is "pizza indistinguishable in taste from its box".

I guess it's some sort of Truth in Labeling law.

It's a shame other things don't have labels....

• Hyundai/Kia: $250 tires and kids can hack into it
• Tesla: Do Not Enter - On Fire or will be soon
• Labradoodle: Invent-A-Breed!
• Crocs: When you need people to know you're an idiot
• belly shirts: Hey fat chicks - don't let the haters get you down - huge bellies are HOT!

I just got RAPED.

Well, not physically, but my butt hurts.

In reference to above, Hyundai/Kia are made in the same factory. Recently a video showed up on TikTok on how to hack the cars. Strangely I never received a call from the dealer. Last night the key fob was either abducted by aliens or decided to follow all my dark wash into some other dimension. This made it extremely difficult to drive the car. Or get into the car. Since I don't have a TikTok account (the Chinese keep trying to steal my data. And my house.) I can't even hack into it.

The gentleman who showed up to help told us this was going to be expensive, if he could even pull it off. It seems Hyundai/Kia has taken advantage of the hack to raise prices through the fscking roof, and there are very few to be had. Thank you, Hyundai/Kia; may you experience this in your own cars. Without getting too specific, the fscking fob was $400. The little fscking key insert was $200. I tabled my plans for a backup set, just like I tabled plans for more guitars. It almost seems to be a race to spend MY money: everything else, or me. I am generally the last to cross the finish line. If you watch closely, you can see me beating myself about the head and shoulders with the baton.

I need to emphasize this never happened when we had manual locks, manual start, but fortunately not manual windows. And THE CLOUD [religious fanfare]. I foresee ten years into the future, where you will have to fingerprint scan, face scan, iris scan, and voice your Social Security number to unlock the car. You don't want to know what it will take to start the car.

Stay tuned for more of The lefty Show, when all the windows in the house spontaneously decide they like it outside better and spring out of their frames, to the ground. When the 25lb dog goes up against the 150lb Lab and 100lb Pit, causing thousands of dollars of vet bills. At least the Lab and Pit will run away when they see her again. When the car's computer decides it doesn't like the new key and refuses to speak to it anymore. When said computer tries to run Windows and turns into a brick, turning the car into a brick. A nice-looking brick. When the fence pulls an AUNTIE EM AUNTIE EM and flies away into the sky, taking our garage with it. When we think for a moment and realize we don't have a garage.  When old lefty gives up and just laughs insanely until they bury him. Possibly after.

Space dust that regularly hits Earth could contain proof of alien life

I have the key to life, the universe, and everything, all over my house!

Meanwhile at home.....

ACHOO

Bless you.

Thank you.

Maybe you're allergic to dust.

If I were allergic to dust, I'd have been dead a long time ago.

 You know how there's always one guy who doesn't get the joke?

FBI: Rent-a-Hitman site nabbed Air National Guardsman who was “excited” to kill

Yes, this gag site snared a not-too-bright fellow, who wanted to be a hitman. Someone should have explained to him that his particular talent was only to be reserved for his country, not for rent. Or go to the dark web. Unfortunately he couldn't find the dark web with detailed crayon drawings.

He probably got caught when he tried to pick up some FBI chicks at a bar. He bragged to them he was a hitman, on the Hitman 'R' Us social network. Or the FBI sent him a snail mail invitation to the Be A Hitman in 90 days website. It must've been a slow week.

NOTE to laptop manufacturers: put the mic and headphone jacks toward the rear of the unit. The cables always get in the way.

• If you're having a particularly hard time with your birthday, remember this: the next day you'll be the same age, but your problems will all still be there, plus you can face the horror of new and better problems!

Pentagon Says Reaper Drone Spotted 'Metallic Orb' UFO in Middle East

• UFO Theater is back!! For a limited time only!! 
• Still no info on the last shootdowns - so much for transparency.

New Zealand, known mainly for an accent sounding like Australia's, was minding its own business, getting ready for the cat-killing competition for children, when there was 'a bit of an objection.'

I have questions.

1. What enlightened soul thought this would be a good idea?
2. What enlightened soul thought this would be a good idea for children?
3. What enlightened soul's boss approved this?
4. Have these people never heard of the internet?

The boss' boss got involved after the small objection.

The good thing was that there was not going to be a cat shooting.

The bad thing was that he gave it back to the same 2 nincompoops to fix.

They came up with new ideas.

• cat owner shooting
• shooting the children 
• tripping and falling over terminal hospital patients
• pushing pregnant women down steps

New Zealand cabinet reaches gender equality for the first time

This explains the cat shooting. Because it's not the product, it's the gender equality of the producers. Somebody's taking President Giveaway too seriously.

Hey... Do You Still Have That Ointment? I Itch.

 

Your love is like  a date with Niki Manaj

Scientists identify rare lead compounds in Rembrandt’s The Night Watch

So don't let your kids eat it.

Today I identify as   certainly not Lisa Marie Presley, that's for sure.

Afghanistan: Freezing weather kills at least 124 people

Aid is hampered because of the Taliban edict banning women from working in aid agencies.

Brilliant! Way to cut off that nose to spite your face. 

Brendan Fraser: We need to stop bias against those with obesity

We need to stop the abuse against the majority of  people, who must listen to an unending glut of demands to stop the abuse against whatever group it is today. Seriously?

Pretty soon we won't be able to pick on anybody. Comedy clubs, already in danger, will shutter their doors. All speech will be monitored. Wrongthink will not be tolerated.  We have completely turned things upside down, from the concept of free speech, to having to look around to see who's listening or monitoring for speech infractions. Don't believe me? In the UK, you can be fined for saying something 'nasty or hurtful 'online. The police aren't too happy with you saying certain words in person either,

Do we want to be that kind of world? Once again, the 2% are pushing around the 98%. The squeaky wheel needs hydrocloric acid to be ignored-they have a right to free speech too. Let me clue Mr. Fraser in: it's human nature to point out differences and go from there. Is it nice? Hell no. Is it funny in comedy clubs and satire? Hell yes-that's where we make fun of society.  

Cut it out already.

My daily weather post: It's almost redundant to say it's gray. The other night, Mother Nature, who should be heading to celebrity rehab for more than a passing familiarity with crack, mixed things up and it sleeted instead of raining. Today we have 5 minutes of snow. I'm holding out for raining toads or small foreign cars. 

Speaking of doctors, I have a new doctor.

Things have not gone well since before my first visit, but it has nothing to do with the doctor - it's the staff and electronic portals. They want me to log in to their patient portal. I don't want to. Logging into anything becomes a huge rectal pain about 99.5% of the time. Plus I trust the security like I trust Congress.  I explained during my first visit and they were kind enough to give me a huge stack of papers to fill out. The joke was on them - my handwriting is only somewhat worse than a 90 year old man with Parkinsons. I type all the time - why write? Then they wanted a copy of my license. No. Why on Earth would they need that? It's obvious who I am. I wonder if I should ask for a copy of the doctor's drivers license and license to practice. And his ATM card.

On the day of my 2nd appointment, I got an email reminding me I had a virtual appointment. Ummmm.. no. I like sitting across from the doctor, looking around the office and getting distracted. Virtual appointments don't work well for me. I don't like them and the software always causes problems. I called the office and they told me the doc only does virtual appointments on Wednesdays. I'm thinking "Gee, wouldn't it be nice if he had told me this?"   They also demanded I set up the user portal. While speaking, I'm told my phone is low in volume and full of static. Of course it is - the wireless is literally 3 feet from the phone. But we all have to be patient with cell phones. It's only been a bit over 25 years - there are a few things to be worked out and we don't want to rush the phone companies. 

You know, of course, that this did not go well. And to say it didn't go well means that it took hours and an incredible amount of screaming and launching things. New patients log into the portal and are immediately told to change their password. Unless, of course, it's me. So I asked for the FORGOT Password option. It asked me for things like my name. Then it told me I was wrong. As far as I can remember, I've always had the same name and birthdate. Even after the FBI offered to put me into Witness Protection, I refused to change it. So... forgot password doesn't work, nor does the original. I'm already cursing, because I know this is going to continue ad nauseam. On the 11th try it agreed to let me in, but it was going to send me an email with a one time password. This is a more secure login, but mostly it's designed to piss customers off and make them wait longer. Only then does it allow me a new password. I love this because the requirements are usually weird, plus most only allow 8 or 12 characters and mine are long. I tried 4 browsers to get in and it errored on each one. I think I confused it. 

Then I made the mistake of reading the entire privacy policy. This shitty software wants to market to patients! If I have to use this crap, I don't have to be marketed to. Plus they can use all my information to buy a house in Cancun. If I put anything neat in the chat board, they own it. What kind of rinky dink software do we have here?

As if this weren't enough fun, the portal URGENTLY advised me that I had 2 forms to URGENTLY fill in. Strange - these were forms I already filled out in the office, in a slightly less URGENT manner. You know we're not even near done, right? They want all the same info I filled out manually so I just wrote SAME. I'm actually a decent, personable guy when I go to offices. I just seem like a real asshole because I care about safety and privacy. I know it's only a matter of time until the portal gets hacked. It's only as safe as the company hosting it, their friends, their friends' pets, and any other parts of someone else's software they used. 

But wait - there's more! After the Great Portal Nightmare of 2023, I get an email stating we're meeting over Zoom. Zoom is a piece of excrement, originally put together by a marketing company, trying to be a chat company. Customers were treated like information to be stolen, like in Windows. They got caught lying and being insecure a number of times. No one should use Zoom; not even your friends' pets. 'Wire" is at least encrypted. Signal can do a few people at once, and it's an encrypted text program for your phone.  I let the good doctor know about all of this via Portal Email (the single helpful feature). I'm waiting to hear that either we're going to just use phones or they recommend I see the doctor down the street. I'm going to ask the doctor for something for my nerves. It would seem the practice is generating its own patients.

You're still asking yourself "Why doesn't he like filling out stuff online?"

ExxonMobil: Oil giant predicted climate change in 1970s - scientists

We had no idea that smoking causes cancer

ThermionicEmissions warns you about Bad Stuff 

• Hey, if you have one of those guaranteed, impenetrable Lifelock accounts, you may be one of 925,000 whose information was accessed. In theory, you'll receive notification. If not, get in touch with them.
• US authorities release asylum seekers after leaking their data online Where were the democrats that day?
• But wait!! Also accessed was the No-Fly list! It was left on an unprotected server.  Feel safe now? Do ya? 
• Samsung Galaxy store app found vulnerable to sneaky app installs and fraud
• Gonorrhea is becoming unstoppable; highly resistant cases found in US.  WARNING: Married people should avoid getting this. Spouses have a notoriously bad sense of humor

Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Office installs

They will send you an update to check, whether you like it or not. They'll probably try to sell you Office 365. Don't do it.  Remember the good old days, when we owned our operating systems and they didn't monitor us, sell to us, or forward our info to the NSA?  Use linux.

Microsoft is also phasing out Windows 10 and stopping the sale of it at the end of the month. I was all excited when I heard Win 10 was going down, but then I heard you had to downgrade to Windows 11.  Use linux.

The partisan politics game is just rolling along, stampeding all common sense and your rights. In Wyoming, republicans want to ban electric cars. Now this would be ok if they're doing it because the planet of California is mandating them, but no.... they want production ramped down because of its gas and oil industry. Wyoming also has a state senator called Brian Boner. That must have been a rough childhood.

speaking of stupid....

Former Republican candidate held over shootings targeting Democrats' homes

School prepared me for very little, but I know for a fact that shooting up the 'opposition' was never mentioned. The republican fellow lost an election then took shots at the dems' houses. No matter what your political views, you are not allowed to shoot your opponents.

On the other hand, we might have the beginnings of Honesty Through Fear. It's worth studying. In fact, President Giveaway has forwarded $25 billion to the University of California, Uranus, for said study. UC Berkeley commented that they will let the study go forward so long as none of the politicians are Jewish.

There's a lot of noise about Section 230, and the government holding social media responsible. 

People are carrying pitchforks and torches, demanding the heads of social media. 

Before you light that torch for a day out, consider this: you're grocery shopping and on the bulletin board is a note for lawn mowing. You call Bob's lawn mowing and they come out. Hours later you notice Bob cut your grass strangely, with weird patches. Later, as you're flying over your house in your private jet, you notice that your lawn now reads "Welcome to Detroit - turn around!"  Bob won't answer your calls so you blame the store for having a bulletin board.

Huh?

That's Section 230. Social Media companies would be responsible for what their posters say.  Sorry - this is just silly. You can't hold the store or social media responsible. Anybody who has been on the cesspool that is social media knows how toxic it is. That's the fault of the radioactive sludge that posts there. It is not sane to expect the Word Police in social media or at the store. There may be more to 230, but this is the biggie. "But it's for the children" 

As I'm almost waking up, getting ready for the day, Wife is looking at me and laughing. This is not a strange event.  I just stand there, mutely, waiting for today's bomb to drop. 

"You should have seen it last night. In bed, the dog pops up out of nowhere, and starts to lick your forehead."

Nothing new about that. She does that before we go to sleep. I have to literally pry her off me.

"She did it 3 times. Blah..ack...ooh... disgusting."

You're just jealous your forehead isn't good enough to lick.

"It got better."

Uh-oh.

"We were downstairs by the fridge and a piece of salami fell. She swooped in, faster than a Stealth jet, and ran off with it. I followed her."

Uh-oh.

"She jumped right on the bed and sat on you, proceeding to eat her salami while you slept. You are now a table too."

I have a very active life while I sleep. It's a shame waking hours are so boring.

Alec Baldwin is being charged for the shooting on the set of his recent movie.

I think Alec Baldwin is a complete asshole, but he shouldn't be charged. The person in charge of props should have handed him a gun that was safe to use. Another question is why the sets would need live ammunition. Unless Standard Operating Procedure requires the actors to examine the props, I can't see why it's his fault. The irony is that Alec is an anti-gunner. I can't see why they should expect actors to know what live ammo looks like and how to check for it. Maybe before the actors get the part, they should prove their ability to disassemble a gun, clean it, and put it back together. 

That said, if Baldwin is found guilty, he should be shot.

70% of drugs advertised on TV are of “low therapeutic value,” study finds

Oh, that's an easy one. After a number of years (7?), the patents expire. When patents expire, any company at all can produce a generic version. The original patent holder will have none of this, so they move a single molecule around and rename the drug, guaranteeing income for another 7 years, protected by patent (and endless agonizing commercials). While we're exercising our skepticism, note that after the patent expires, the original patent holder also makes a generic version of its own drug. The difference in price between patent version and generic version can be staggering, hence some insurers' preference for generic.

And if you're not careful. you might learn something.

-Bill Cosby, back before his dates got fun, 20 minutes after the roofies 

 

 

Just Quit While You're Behind

Your love is like   juggling scalpels

Nancy Pelosi reportedly summons priests to exorcise home of evil spirits

Then where will she live?

Today I identify as  both sexes - now I can finally go fsck myself

Priest says he went to Hell, wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy

He had a Near Death Experience. But instead of seeing deceased family, he went to hell. What does that tell you?

  Maybe there IS a place for priests in the afterlife.  

When Students Change Gender Identity, and Parents Don’t Know

We have seen a lot of abdication of responsibility on the part of parents, to 'teach their children well.' They prefer to give it over to the Nanny State.  It seems to have backfired, after 15 year old Roseann started calling herself Johnny (names have been changed for no reason at all). The school ate it up, the teachers all called her Johnny, and Roseann/Johnny get to use the boys' room. The only small problem was that Johnny 'forgot' to tell his parents. 

Those must be some parents. Perhaps they didn't notice the huge bulge in her pants (her vibrator is there so she gets used to having a penis), and the breasts that weren't as bouncy or evident as last year. They didn't even notice the cursing at them, the expanded use of the middle finger, and the new phrase "Blow me." The one item of relief is that due to her looking longingly at women, they now know she isn't a lesbian. This is a double positive: in Southern California (where else?) it's much more fashionable to have a transgendered child than a lesbian. Lesbian children are so 2010s.

\

Conversations with my dog 

Me: when you go outside, why do you bark at other dogs?

Her: to protect you.

Me: from what? Them barking at me? They're not going to attack me.

Her: how do you know? 

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

Me: why do you keep barking at them after they stop?

Her: I have to have the last bark.

If you are a Twitter user and you prefer non-Twitter programs to get access, you're already screwed, or you will be soon. I don't know where the order came from (guess) but it was claimed that 3rd party apps were violating terms of service (the terms of service were so secret. they wouldn't say what they were). Finally the developer agreement was released, which said you cannot connect if your software is intended to reproduce something like Twitter.  So all 3rd party software is NFG. If yours hasn't died yet, it will soon. This is all part of Elon Musk's clever plan to drive everybody away from Twitter.

Bringing cakes into the office is killing your colleagues, says UK food watchdog boss

Our wacky friends in UK government are at it again, this time making it safe to work. Did you know you're killing your coworkers? Can you live with the guilt? How long have you wanted to kill them? Did you think you could do it with a simple cake?

Professor Susan Jebb believes that people cannot rely on their personal willpower alone when society is constantly bombarding us with junk food.

So we, the government, need to step in to protect them from this fatal form of coworker kindness. It would do us no good to tell the potentially dead to keep their fat friggin' hands off the cake, no way. 

Surely you can't be serious: Airbus close to landing fully automated passenger jets

Getting on back of a motorcycle has one small advantage: you'll never see the vehicle that is going to kill you.

Getting in a fully-automated car would be sheer terror, the first 137 times. Especially if you like to drive from the passenger or back seat, using your mouth. "I'd turn on Market Street if I were you." [Silence. No turn].  SLOW DOWN!  [Silence. Not slowing.]   Ok, so it would be fun for the other passengers. But I couldn't just sit there with nothing sitting at the wheel (if there were a wheel at all). It requires more trust than I have in my body. And the bodies of my extended family. And all the illegal aliens.

All you have to do is read the headlines (or this blog) lately for news of how well fully automated cars are doing (good, if you like crashes and death) and how safe they are (very much so, as long as you're not IN the car).  Now.... let's think about PLANES.

Much like cars, you have to take a serious leap of faith, and I'm not so good with faith. You also want to avoid taking a leap from 20,000 feet  (3 grams Canadian). Call me old fashioned, but I really really require a minimum of two people in the cockpit at all times. Any fewer tends to lower my confidence in the integrity of the flight. It would still be safe if there were only 1 in the cockpit. I watched all 21 seasons of Air Crash Investigation and I can fly planes, as well as tell you why they crashed. But I'd rather stay in my tiny little airplane seat and let the professionals take care of the flying. And when I say professionals, I mean male and female meat machines of the human variety. We The People have had waaay too many problems with computers to trust them to fly a plane. I alone have had so many computer issues that my mere presence on the plane would cripple it. Heaven forbid if the plane were run by Windows; you'd have to reboot in mid-air! Or it would insist you're getting an update, so don't use the computer for anything else.

It might be funny, though, to record a tv show around people coming into the cockpit to talk with the captain...

[passenger, sloshed]  Hey.... hey.... you... are you cap... cap..hic... captain? Oh, you don't don't wannnna tawk to me? You too goofer me? Well SHCREW YOU. And YOU. And You.

[little Billy] Hey Captain, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?

[crazy shrieking lady] HEY - THERE'S NOBODY FLYING THE PLANE...HEY.... ARE THEY ALL MISSING? ARE WE GOING TO DIE WHEN THE PLANE HITS THE GROUND? DON'T PANIC!

[air marshall] I heard we are being hijacked. THERE you are! [shoots] [over p.a.] Uhh, is there anybody here who knows how to fly a plane? I just shot the auto-pilot.

It pains me to inject reality into my postings, but planes can already pretty much fly themselves and land. But the pilots tell the computer when it's allowed to. Kinda like being married.

Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot grows a set of hands, attempts construction work

Fails when it refuses to whistle or harass women walking by.

 The US has given Ukraine billions and billions of dollars in financial and military aid. Recently their president visited the US to ask for more. NATO is now sending aid, meaning Ukraine will get even more US military aid. After NATO's announcement, their president came back to America and asked Congress to please stop. While they appreciate the money, the military aid is getting out of hand. There are now 2.5 Abrams tanks per citizen. Aside from training, the largest problem is having nowhere to park them. The citizens are complaining that they don't fit in a standard parking space. After building a wall of tanks, the military isn't sure what to do with them. They have appealed to Putin for space to park them.

On the bright side, the tanks have 'inadvertently'mowed down all the parking meters in the city, ending the reign of the Ukraine Parking Authority (if you think Putin is evil....).  The tanks have created jobs, because they tear up the streets and somebody has to rebuild them. Independent contractors see a boom in business, widening parking spaces. The Corps of Engineers have been tasked with rebuilding multi-level parking garages, to allow the extra weight of tanks. You haven't lived til you've been crushed by a falling tank. Auto customization is taking off, putting comfortable seats and 5.2 stereo sound in the tanks, as well as custom paint jobs. The army thought it was going to do well, removing the .50 caliber machine guns, rocket launchers, and ICBMs, but Ukranians are keeping them.  The effect on global warming will be swift and severe, with all tanks using diesel fuel. The people are thrilled with their new tanks, and replied "Fsck the climate - we have tanks!" The joke will be on them when they discover the Abrams tanks only get 1.7 mpg.  Then they'll riot in the streets, burning American flags.

I complain about the weather. Often. If you lived here, you would too (unless you were a vampire or a toad).  My weather app wasn't kidding when it told me it would be 3 weeks til we saw sun. We've taken to not bothering to open the curtains. Why watch the gloom? Perhaps I can pay somebody to draw a nice sunny scene on the curtains, so we can pretend we have sun. But its not all the same 246 individual shades of gray; last night it threw us a curveball and sleeted. Today it's shade 237 of gray, with more than adequate rain.   If I didn't have family here.....

Florida, God's waiting room, has just as much humidity, plus hurricanes. So does Texas. It's cold in the northeast and there's a high suicide rate in the northwest because the weather is like here.  Southern California is nice, but we can't live on the planet of California; the governor is not in his right mind, and people had to vote him in, so neither are they. Since our main pizza place changed owners, the pizza sucks, so we're almost ready to move. Damn pizza was like a religion. People came from all around the city (and country) to sample it. Now we're left religionless.... But if you brave the Planet of California and happen to be in Davis at the college, go to Woodstock's Pizza. Try to forget they have a whole wheat pizza.

Being married, there is not a lot of.... 

let me try again

Being married, I don't get...

no, that's not it

THERE IS NOT ENOUGH BOOM BOOM IN THE HOUSE. Or out of the house. Of course I'd say that - I'm a guy. So how lucky did I think I was when she walked up to me and pulled her pants down. I thought my entire month was made. 

And then she said....

Then she said...

Does this black and blue mark look better than before?

Don't laugh - now I have to go change my underwear.

Is it safe to play Jeff Beck music now? My mind still plays it all the time, but I haven't listened to it on purpose, outside my mind. The initial shock has worn off; now there's just a hole. Don't you hate it when people 'share their feelings' with you? 

The truly sad part of this, even if you don't know who Jeff Beck is, is that he is one of the originals, from the 1960s. This was the beginning of rock, brought along by the 4 Liverpudlians. 60 years later, the originals are dropping off. Our heroes are in their 70s. I used to joke that we had to get Jeff Beck a security team, to make sure nothing happens to him. They're probably not all that effective against bacterial meningitis. So our favorites are getting up there. And dropping off. You've been watching it for a while. It ain't gonna get any better.

The Ice Cream Diet - now for the Lactose Intolerant

Your love is like   the lady who keeps her dead pets around

• You tell me: Hollywood's best rug - Chuck Norris or Ben Aflac  ?

Today I identify as  I sure picked a bad week to identify as Elon Musk

I still haven't figured out which vacation days I'm taking by the end of the year. Last year I wound up taking  off most of December, which produced the Forced Vacation series of blogs. I'd really like to avoid that this year. I don't want to be an ass to my coworkers (or my readers). Come to think of it, they don't always treat me so well (the coworkers, mostly). Although I do remember coming to work and discovering a large cucumber on my desk. It was definitely the first time that happened. Fortunately it hasn't happened since, as I work from home. I'm not sure I'd like what Wife was trying to tell me if it did.

I know you're reading this because you're incredibly curious about my laptop situation.

The first laptop developed a bad display connection and a bad delay when anything is typed or clicked.

The backup laptop, a 10 year old Cadillac that still runs great, has been a pleasure to use. Until I remembered why I needed a new one: it got hot, the display freaked out, and the laptop froze, requiring a reboot. This put a real damper on doing anything, because I never knew when the laptop would seize. While this would be an actual blessing for work, I kinda needed it to stay powered up.

Now I'm getting desperate. There's an android tablet somewhere. The charge barely lasts long enough to sit and surf. Oh wait... there's an even older laptop. It works, which is the best thing I can say about it. I am afraid to boot it up because the display will break within an hour. I seem to have this effect on displays. If I could get paid for this, I'd be rich! But it seems about as useful a talent as being able to destroy trashcans. Now if I could stop ear hair from growing...

The thing I forgot about the last laptop is that it's a 32 bit processor. All current processors are 64 bits. I am as far as I can go with the operating system (a few years ago) and many browsers won't run on it. At least the display isn't broken (yet).

A Chromebook is inevitable. I might as well give Google the rest of the information they don't have about me, if there is any. Maybe my tiny android phone. Or 2 semi-broken tablets. I should use 1 of them for work - it tries to boot, fails, then goes into a loop. A long time ago, I used to be able to destroy hard drives by simply using them. My buddy suggested a custom plate for my car  NOMO HD. My skill went into hibernation for 30 years and morphed into Display Destruction. NOMO VID?

“You can’t win an unwinnable war. DEA knows this and the agents know this,” Irizarry said. “There’s so much dope leaving Colombia. And there’s so much money. We know we’re not making a difference.”

“The drug war is a game. ... It was a very fun game that we were playing.”

--Jose Irizarry - the DEA's most corrupt agent

It's a great article, but the above is a perfect summary of the drug war.



Enjoying the hell out of half of our weather. One day it's over 70, the next it's under 50, with a frost warning for the evening. This is somewhat aggravated by the industrial size fan in the bedroom. One of us, I can't say which but she has boobs, has to have fresh air, so the fan runs. Even in sub-Arctic temperatures. I suggested she sleep next to an open window, but she said "No - it's cold outside."

Speaking of sleeping, the dog's getting clingier. This morning we were back to back.  I'm not sure how I feel about that. I know I'm upset because I didn't notice it when it was happening. She has also taken to licking my pillow. Nobody knows why, but she's a cocker and that's perfectly normal. She also tried to drink all my coffee this morning. That's 4 cockers who loved coffee.  Mrs. lefty, bless her, tries to keep Dog from bothering me when they get into bed after me. It fails 100% of the time, but she tries. First the dog has to jump on me and lick my forehead. Only mine, no one else's. Then squiggle around for a few minutes. Then lick my face. Then lick my pillow. Wife apparently doesn't understand these are things Dog must do. I am told one of them would stand on my chest, turn around a few times, then lay down and go to sleep. I was completely unaware of this and continued sleeping. This makes me wonder what else goes on while I'm sleeping... I used to wake up with a sore.... never mind.

Aqara’s new smart feeder can give your pet control of its bowl

Because nobody knows when they want to eat better than your pet.

Except the kid who hacked your IoT network. 

It's not that I really like these sweet potato chips, but if your fingers get close to the bag, they might not come back whole. It's even worse with the sweet potato tater tots. It's like dessert with dinner.

• There is simply nothing for breakfast like coffee, Mt Dew, and bacon pizza.

Starbucks store-bought caramel macchiato creamer is better than Starbucks anywhere-bought coffee.  It's only $17.99 at CostCo, the only creamer in the entire store. Shit is gettin' real out there, people.

The first cubesat to fly and operate at the Moon has successfully arrived

"That is a huge, huge step for the agency."

• NASA wishes to apologize for the press release. One of their more dyslexic people in Marketing thought it said NASA, when it actually said NSA. 

The actual NSA press release said:

"That is a huge, huge step for the agency. With this multi-billion dollar small piece of hardware, we can be assured that nothing happens on the Moon without our knowledge. It's our Moon - nobody else's. Nyah nyah. Suck it, China."

 

• In completely unrelated news, one of NASA's marketing team has been promoted to CEO.

It's quiet in the house.

This might be due to my spending a few quiet hours with the computers, trying to do simple things.

The neighbors have called in their Rottweilers. There are no children out within 3 blocks. My wife, who has spent over 20 years perfecting the art of ignoring me, has taken the dog and gone to bed. This is all out of SHEER TERROR. Because normal people can do things and they get done and work perfectly. But I'm not normal. No sir. The art of getting email on a backup laptop that used to get email anyway, is such a fine balance that young children can do it with their eyes closed. I am not a young child. In fact, I am an advanced child. Of course I know every step and credential. It just won't work. Before you look at me like an idiot (I prefer you to look at me as a very sarcastic, yet entertaining, occasional smart guy), I copied each email account line by line, password by password and it WILL NOT WORK.

I'm beginning to think this has something to do with my not drinking. 

I have to admit, we're giving it our best try, but it never occurs to us to drink mid-day or at work. 

Perhaps if I got smashed, I wouldn't have any of the grief I encounter, almost as if it were perfectly normal. I gotta say, the idea of going through days just fine, without trouble, appeals to me greatly. Being able to add email accounts to laptops, with the same passwords and it Just Works. It might be worth my liver for that.

It was going kinda fine until the mail arrived. The state wants to extort $500+ from me over the car situation, only we're not sure why, because we already paid an exorbitant amount for the ransom. The DMV was set up by criminals in order to funnel private money to the state. There is NO reason to register your car. There is no reason to get tickets because you forgot to put your insurance card in the car. It's legalized robbery. This is another reason I'm a libertarian. This large bit of extortion made me start to think that practicing drinking should start earlier in the day.

THEN I figured why not put email on the last laptop functioning, as I could look right at a previously-functioning laptop to make things easier. This was my first error. And my second one. 

Email Acct 1

put in password

server says NFW, ha!

Website lets me log in and before going to email, tells me I have a ridiculous balance owed and they're charging me FEES on top of it. Hang on a minute, dingbats... if you have my payment information and the account is set to auto-pay, WHOSE fault it is you don't have the money?

Put password in.

server actually laughs.

Gmail account

put in password

server says NO.

I retype password

server says NO, you fool, then takes me to the web page.

I sign in and it tells me I don't have cookies enabled.

That's correct: the cookies are in the other room and don't start til after dinner.

But I figure I'll play - I used another browser, with cookies.

Gmail said UH-UH, don't even THINK about it.

Have you ever had to go through a sophisticated multi-account email program to find how to turn cookies on? Ok, so maybe you have.

Once again it took me to Gmail's login page, and I approved myself.

As I sign out, the error message stated 'error logging in.' Of COURSE there was an error after the page told me everything was ok. 

Email acct 3

Enter same password as on other machines.

Server say NO, I'm not going to make it that easy on you.

Oh. Perhaps drinking IS the answer.

It's a very long password, which I kept having to copy from another screen. Repeatedly.

Server still say NO.

Alrighty, then. Three email accounts, ZERO of which I've gotten working on the old machine.

Honestly, I ran very large, very expensive networks, and kept them free of intruders. No problem.

Try setting up laptop email? Problem.

Then I started figuring stuff out.

Account 1 requires you to go to their web page, login, and tell it that it's ok to get your mail.

Account 2 requires you to go to their web page, login, and do a short dance. Being bereft of rhythm, this is the most difficult part of email.

Account 3 requires you to find the people running the server, login, then shove all the not-working laptops so far up their backsides, they cough megabytes.

The last little trick was discovered by mistake, like all those neat explosive things. When you put your password into the email program, do NOT tell it to remember the passwords. This is stupid, counterintuitive, wrong, and the final strike against remaining sober for the day. And in the end, none of it was my fault, so I feel a little less mentally-impaired.

The funny thing is that my typing improves as I drink.

Do NOT Press the Red Button. NOT Red. Ok?

Your love is like  broken glass underwear

• Maybe if I say "the sofa told me to bomb that building," I can get it taken away free.

Today I identify as  male pattern baldness

• Why do so many horror movies have a dance scene at a high school gym?

 It's the weekend. Some weekend. I got up at the crack of 2pm and stumbled around, looking for the coffee machine. It was days ago, but it's always International Coffee Day for us. We found a new barbecue place and were excited to go. Well one of us was more excited than the other, apparently. The other announced she/they were taking a nap. Napping, as you know, is not conducive to getting bbq. It is also not conducive to getting pizza, Chinese, or a nice Brazilian wax.

I politely waited for the nap to end, neglecting to perform my brand new concerto for cymbals and explosives. It's a real hummer and the end's a real bang. Eventually I heard the stirring. Then the walking. To and fro, to and fro. Then the bathroom. Back to the bedroom. Hall for a bit. Bathroom again. Guys, we're all smart enough to know we'll never understand women. We won't even get close, so there's no point obsessing or being mad about it. Twenty minutes later she pops down. I figured she must've been getting dressed in something special to take that long. Yes, they were special jeans, with special holes in them. And she's always the better dressed of us. Twenty minutes.

I'm ready to go out to the car, but I know better. Wait... wait... wait..... she has to figure out which coat to wear - it's starting to get chilly. Where's her phone? Normal guys would be very mad and very loud by this time. I am not normal and the doctors have told me it's not healthy, as has my lawyer.

Oh, wait. I bought flowers for the neighbor for the favor she did for us. I better give her some jam too.

Why can't you just give her the flowers, like you said? 

It was a really big favor. See this card?

Of course there's a card too. 

The technique on the front is called frontechnique. It's brand new and very fancy.

That's magnificent. Should we give them a vacuum too? Better yet, a mower!  

Just go to the car.

[the phrase guaranteeing longevity in relationships]  Yes, Dear.

I drive to the restaurant. The first thing we see is a large Eagles banner, with the schedule for the season. 

Uh-oh.

You see those kinds of things on sports bars. I'm here to eat barbecue. Out of the car, I stand there like a dolt. Why? Because of the thing that controls my life: cigarettes. I have to stand there because part of a cigarette must be smoked before we go into any building. Since most people don't like smoke, we stand further out. Then I wait. And wait. And take the time to wait.

Finally in the restaurant, we discover it's not a restaurant, it's a sports bar. The little voices in my head are no longer little, and they're telling me stuff it would be better not to repeat, especially in a sports bar. They were kind enough to suggest there's a table in back. When they say there's a table in back, it means there's a table outside, in the gray rain, in a little shed, and somebody's already sitting at it. The waitress seemed surprised we didn't like that option, but found a small table with lawn chairs for us, near the humongous circular bar, where we could smell the wonderful smell of barbecue. Mrs. lefty has spent enough time being Mrs. lefty to know how I am going to react so she thanks the nice waitress, grabs my hand, and RUNS out of the place. She didn't even have the time to give her any flowers. Or a card.

I get in the car. You know what's next, right? A cigarette. I must wait for the other half of the cigarette to be smoked before she gets in the car. My foot is tapping on the gas pedal, in a most threatening and a-rhythmic way.  I was doing everything I could to not back the car up and drive home. When the half cigarette was done (halleleuhah!) we discussed going to a real restaurant. As we start discussing, I hear the door open.

What are you doing?

I'm going to smoke a cigarette.

I'm told my scream could be heard in four states.

I want Chinese food.

Fine. Drop me at home and get Chinese food.

Ok, what do you want?

I want something very special.

What?

Nothing. You know I don't like Chinese food.  [imitates martyred mother] Don't worry about me eating. I'll have a cracker or something.

Is this sarcasm?

Have I eaten Chinese food in the last twenty years? 

Oh.

She returns an hour later. The Chinese food place is two blocks over. They watched her standing there for ten minutes before telling her there was a 45 minute wait. They are take-out only.

Is this Cosmic Revenge or what?

The next place had a register breakdown.

The next place had power problems.

The last place, a convenience store, had food, but didn't carry milk in gallons. Since the last gallon we bought, 2 days ago.

She came home, dying to tell me about this, but I had gone nappy, due to my inability to deal with it anymore. I can safely assume she went out back to have a cigarette.

• As we rush(?) to the end of another year, we're still stuck with GAME CHANGER. Won't this pox on the language ever go? 
• Don't forget this year's worst: super.  It's super bad in our super happy lexicon.
• and the fscking Medicare commercials... those people better walk around carefully, because they may be at risk of serious bodily injury if anybody sees them on the street.

In case you missed it, sex change surgery is out. "Gender affirming" surgery is in. A major hospital just stopped all procedures on children under 18, due to republican pressure. As much as I hate to admit it, the republicans are right. You can look back in the blog history for statements to the effect that under 18's are not equipped to make this important decision. Some over 18's are not equipped either.  I get that you feel the way you do and I respect it. But wait til you're at least 18. In the meantime, live the way you feel.  

The weather is back.

We have 2 seasons: Hot and Rainy.  Hot runs from June-September and rainy is the rest of the year. Spring and Fall were fired; we were told it was a Supply Chain Issue. When I was little, the seasons changed gradually. Now Mother Nature flips the switch and voila, it's the next season. Last week it was 90. Today it's 50, gray, and raining. It's been that way for days. Mother Nature is a bit of a Certified Bitch<tm>, hence Hurricane Ian and the misery constant gray skies bring. Either that or she's flipped her wig and is waiting for a room at the Happy Place<tm>. Global warming my ass.

The republicans are dropping their fight against Obamacare.

I told you: 2 sides of the same warped coin.

 Dear lefty 

We have 3 trash cans in the house, due to recycling. Does this mean I need 3 trash cans in the bathrooms, bedrooms and office?  - Puzzled in PA

Dear Stupid: I am not going to answer that question. Just call the local Trash Police and ask them. They will say something about your medication being off and send you on your way. OCD is not a pretty thing.

Speaking of OCD, I tread lightly with Mrs lefty. I don't make fun of any of her diagnoses. Except OCD. I guess I'll never get over being an Asshole. It's a compulsion (sorry). My latest is coming out of the closet and saying I have it too. So when the tv has to be on an even number, I tell her is has to be on an ODD number. Whenever I have to put anything in her pocketbook, it must be over 3' in the air.  My sandwiches have to be cut straight, while hers are diagonal. I told you I'm an asshole. But I'm a lovable asshole. I may not be easy to live with and I may not be easy on the eyes, and I may not dress well, but.... at least I'm an asshole.

Cult leader meets the Pope: Apple CEO chats to Francis

JFC, if they ever get together, I'm toast. I'm toast already, but I'll go down a few levels in hell.

Fun Fact: Toyota's CEO is Akio Toyoda

I mentioned getting attacked at the refrigerator by the lidless container of chopped liver. It happened again, this time with yogurt. All I did was open the door, and the large yogurt container shot past me, in a short trajectory to the floor. Yes, it had a lid on it this time, but this didn't seem to matter. Rivers of yogurt all over the fridge, the floor, the flamethrower AND the chainsaw, and of course, me.

I'm beginning to think the fridge doesn't like me. It keeps launching stuff at me.

If the fridge was really smart, it would get warm when the door is closed, making me unknowingly eat food that had gone bad. Instead, it lobs the stuff at me. I can't imagine why it's so upset at me.. I paid for it, use it regularly, feed it, and talk nicely to it when I walk by. I'm working on Be Nice to Your Fridge Day. I'm having trouble getting it passed; UC Berkeley says I'm insensitive because not everyone has a refrigerator. 

Come to think of it, most things in this house send projectiles in my direction. Wife, dog, fridge, side tables, and the rocket launcher (which is particularly nasty). What have I done? Do I have a bullseye tattoo on my forehead? Am I the fat kid in my house? Will I have to spend another few years on the therapist's couch (assuming it doesn't throw things at me)?

I want a bowl of cereal. This requires milk, which requires opening the fridge. I'll need my kevlar underwear, a facemask, and one of those I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up thingies.

One of these is King Charles. One is a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. 

One has huge flaps on the sides of his head. The other is a dog.

Ever since Charles' recent promotion, his mates have been instructed not to use any of his old nicknames in public

• Chuck
• Princy
• King, NOT!
• Susan
• 'arry's Dad

Augmented eyewear is here! This is generation 2 of Things That Make You Walk Into Walls.

I expect you out there, with your phones, taking video. Extra points for somebody falling into a hole.

Coroner lists Instagram algorithm as contributing cause of UK teen’s death

  

"an act of self-harm whilst suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content."

The family is naturally blaming Meta and Pinterest. I hate like hell to sound like a Redditor, but if the family, who spends more visual time with her than social media, looked at her well-being, maybe they could have gotten her some help. Or if she spoke up.

Now that social media has been listed as an official cause of death, people will be coming out of the woodwork to censor.  Please read the article and make up your own mind.

Morally, it's absolutely sick the way Pinterest and Meta's algorithms wound up giving the girl back what she was looking at in suggestions (self-harm, suicide). They can do better, but it wasn't set up this way on purpose.

You know me as a First Amendment supporter and a free internet supporter. It was designed to be redundant and free. Now countries are blocking an censoring and installing OFF switches. With all this admitted crap available, the parents have a responsibility to look into what their kids are doing. It's not radically different from what parents have done all along. Of course the UK is putting together the Online Safety Bill. It has already censored saying bad things about people, with a fine.

There is nothing sadder than losing a child. We are terribly sorry for the family's loss. 

Security forces were forced to a Tehran university, due to protests.

What Security didn't know is that TU is a remote partner of UC Berkeley, which was shut down in solidarity.

The FCC ruled that all the cell carriers have to help each other in an emergency. Because unfortunately, you have to legislate what neighbors would do. Meanwhile, the only communications were the radio amateurs (hams). They were also the only communications on 9-11, when all cells were overloaded or down. They're like a volunteer army of people doing this for the general good.   arrl.org

Be advised: because of the Flying AIDS, Christmas trees will be more expensive this year.

And they will have to wear masks.

No, seriously, did the virus inhibit growth in trees? Did Fauci invest in trees? 

Kanye went 'death con 3' on the Jews, but can't be antisemitic because blacks are Jews too.

He was immediately tossed off social medias (obviously because the Jews, of which he is one, own it).

I like Kanye. Not his alleged music, but his outbursts. He was really funny with Trump. He generally made sense, whether or not you agreed with him. This one seems a bit... odd, paranoid, conspiratorial, silly, and requiring more sleep or less chemical assistance. Everyone knows the Jews run the banks, not the record companies. Sheesh. Can't anyone find him a long-haired woman with an incredibly large butt for her size? She could keep him 'busy' to avoid these outbursts. But what do I know about rap?

I just proofread this blog.

Small wonder the only comments I get are from therapists.

An Empty Coffee Cup is a Metaphor for Life

 

Your love is like squirrel parfait

I just put on an obviously clean shirt. Only it has dog hair all over it. The dog has figured out a way to get her hair all over clean laundry too. It saves her from rubbing all over it when we first put it on. I apologize for saying she wasn't the smartest pup in the litter - just the prettiest.

Today I identify as  a Mack truck (in transition)

Sometimes in the mornings I take a smoke break. I don't smoke.

One day I looked down and discovered a beer belly. I don't drink beer.

I'm terrified of runner's leg, smoker's lung, over-exercising, pothead brain fog, heroin arms, and Congressional ethics.

Is somebody trying to tell me something? 

Wife related a story about my dear departed Marshall the cocker.  Apparently he had never seen a body of water. She took him to a lake and he wasn't entirely sure what to do with it. He put a paw in the water, confused that he could not walk on it. After that, he was perfectly happy to play in it and he got his own little plastic pool for the yard. I suggested he avoid walking on the water, as it tends to cause a commotion. 

Recently I looked down and found what looks like a plus sign on my arm. I hate it when body parts try to communicate it with me. I noticed that any communications from beyond reality seem to be garbled. Think about dreams and messages from Elsewhere. They're never clear. They never say, for instance, "Do not take crap, especially from your neighbors." Or, "Nuclear weapons should be reserved for the most formidable opponents."  No sir, they're always in pictures or allegories or similes or other things you cannot understand equally. In your dream, you watch a yak going into a small building and brushing his teeth. Somehow you are expected to get from this that you really should be nicer to your mother. Those of us who never went to college or have serious A.D.D. always get "Huh?" from these things. This only benefits two kinds of people: the Really Deep Thinkers, who tend to just get it, and the people who travel around giving seminars on What it All Means. The seminar givers don't actually know more than you; their conscience is just assuaged by the steady stream of money fleeced from everybody else. If there are indeed pearly gates, they aren't allowed through (but a toll is collected first).

A small bit of brown marker could turn my plus sign into a bit of a cross. If Marshall were still alive, we could both walk on water and I'd never have to work. But I'd never get used to the circus that would spring up around me wherever I went. This would be very different from the circus in which I live. At very least, it would involve an awful lot more people, and they'd all be expecting things. In truth, I don't mind doing things for people, but I could imagine it quickly getting out of hand. First, Penny would bark at Marshall because she doesn't like dogs.  It would only go downhill from there. People would expect me to do all sorts of stuff which I am not equipped to do. 

"Oh, give us a miracle, please."  

Miracle? You got the wrong guy, lady.

"No, you are divine."

Wife once said that, but it wasn't around a miracle and I ain't doing it with you. Wife gets Very Upset about this sort of thing.

"But how can you deny your divinity?"

How can you deny your ugly?

"But you have The Mark."

It's just a freckle.

"He speaks through freckles."

Look, I just washed off the marker - it's just a plus sign.

"No, you're a sign to humanity. You just don't know it yet."

Apparently.

"Do something divine."

I can make butter cream vanilla icing. That's damn divine.

"Walk on the puddle over there."

See, this is the problem. Walk across one lake and all of the sudden, people demand stuff of you. You are no longer yourself's; you are the property of the public.

"Cure my son... he has no filters."

Neither do I, Sir. Selfish bastard.

"My daughter has Oppositional Defiant Disorder."

NO SHE DOESN'T!

"My eyebrows... they're weird."

Stop plucking them.

"I'm cured! He cured me!"

[groan] This was better in theory than practice. Marshall - get off the lake, we're going home. You should probably stop talking til we get there.

The sad thing is that once the marker washed off, there was only the plus sign. I was then besieged by a bawdy band of accountants, who all figured I knew the sum.

* Marshall: please come home.

Some guy in Georgia just got ten years for involuntary manslaughter. His story goes that he was minding his own business, when a car came up and tried to run him over. The occupants were shouting racial epithets (the guy is black). He whipped out his trusty AK47 and started firing into the vehicle, killing a 17 year old female. The kids deny shouting at him and his girlfriend, who was walking with him, never heard anything.

Either there were voices or there weren't. This really bothers me. It's not all that difficult to discern whether or not there were epithets. There is no known phenomenon that will cause voices out of the blue, especially those of a racial nature. Simply because the kids happened to get into a Dodge Charger would not cause words to appear out of nowhere. The exhaust sound would be deafening, but would not contain or translate into speech.

I think if he's hearing persecutory voices, perhaps he needs to see somebody. I missed the full story, but he just happened to have his trusty AK47 with him? That must've made quite the spectacle, walking down the street. In fact, if the kids in the vehicle saw him carrying it, it would act to dissuade them from shouting anything except, "Good morning, Sir! Fine day. That's quite a piece of hardware you have there. Please do not discharge it in our direction." 

Also a little off-putting were the people who wanted to let the guy go with time served. He did manage to kill a child, which should count for something. Even in Georgia. Well, he didn't mean to. Ok, then.

What have we learned? That Congress needs to pass laws forbidding the hearing of racial epithets, doubly so while armed. If you just let them, government will take care of all of our problems. And money.

I come from the time when, if you dyed your hair, you did everything you could to not let the roots show. Now it's virtually mandatory. Not that anyone would notice bleached blonde hair with 3" brown roots.....  don't even get me started on bra straps...

Mrs. lefty called, from many states away, on vacation. She told me a card game had just broken out. Old maid. I guess she was right - I could never compete. I hear they're going to the supermarket tomorrow!

The Pentagon has ordered a review of US psyops on social media

Never in a million years would I have expected this headline. The long and short of it is that the Pentagon was messing around with opinions through fake social media accounts, and social media was throwing them off. Take a moment to spit out your Kool Aid over this. At least we know the Pentagon isn't sending down the narrative for social media to repeat and police.

Remember: If you read nothing else today, but have read this.. you will have read nothing else but this.

 Remember the Uvalde high school shooting, where the police took 77 minutes to do something? Freedom of information requests for messages sent from the former chief keep getting rejected for the strangest reasons:

1. it would expose our procedures and tactics, creating safety issues
2. "Temporary custodians" of the data only turned over a little of it
3. "They're incredibly important"
4. The video that everybody's seen does not exist
5. lawyers for the City of Uvalde claimed it doesn’t have to release records because they could contain “highly embarrassing information” or regard “emotional/mental distress,”

Judging by the city's complete failure to produce the information, it's going to be a real doozie, should it ever make it out of somebody's trunk, before it gets buried 20' down, below the bodies, in the concrete. Here are some of the things they don't want you to see..

1. Donkey show
2. they didn't know anything was going on
3. data would show highly regarded guardians of law had peed their pants. Or somebody's pants.
4. they forgot their guns
5. it might affect pensions and future employment
6. had to go back to the station to change into men's underwear.
7. watching terrorist training videos on YouTube
8. "We're not going in there - we could get hurt! Can't we send the lunch ladies instead?"
9. Couldn't find Pelosi to tell the shooter he shouldn't have guns
10. Chief was out 'hunting wabbit'

Best Headline

Britons Back New King Charles, So Long as He Keeps Quiet

I think the Britons have reached a new level of intelligence and truth. We Merkuns would do well to learn from them. Incidentally, his numbers rose as soon as he became King. Not sure what this says about the Britons, but let's choose to ignore that now.

HOWEVER, things are a little different in Charles' world....

Charles: Kneel before your king!

Camilla: I will NOT.

Charles: But I am your sovereign.

Camilla: I told you a long time ago, I don't DO that.

Charles: I could have you thrown in the dungeon.

Camilla: Now we're talking!

According to a study, antidepressants work better than sugar pills only 15% of the time. Rather than spend any time on this, we need to look into the sugar pills. They indicate the mind/body is doing the work. The brain is the strongest, most fascinating part of our body. We have little idea how it works. Big Pharma wants no part of anything they can't sell pills to counter.

As a big Joe Cocker fan, I loved this.... it also gave me even more respect for someone else:

Just before his life-changing performance at the Woodstock festival, he played the Whisky A Go Go in Los Angeles. During his show-stopping rendition of With A Little Help From My Friends, a nubile admirer was hoisted on to her companion’s shoulders. She then proceeded to unzip Cocker’s jeans and give him a blow job in front of the entire audience. According to the Rolling Stone reviewer John Mendelsohn, ‘He gave the scream of his career as she worked the Cocker cock with considerable fervour.’

Joe recalls: “Jimi Hendrix was in the audience that night, sitting in a dark booth with a lot of groupies. I was just doing my thing when this lady… er, appeared. After the show I met Hendrix, and he was laughing his head off because he’d put her up to it.” He tried not to sing out of key. 

A few days ago, there was sweat dripping down my forehead. This morning it feels like time to turn on the heater (it's 50). Ah yes, it's Switch Time. We only have two seasons: summer and winter, with odd interlopers. It's never forecast, but we know that Someone has tripped the Winter switch on days like this. We hope it's just a fluke, and history shows we'll be back to sweating in a few days. At least the Southwest is just plain HOT. You always know what to expect (like in Hell). 

I always wanted to move out of the area because I hate the weather. One of the few things holding me here was the One True Pizza<tm>. Now that they've gone to hell, there's just Family, which isn't always as important as getting the right pie. I'd have to say goodbye to humidity and constant gloom. Who would want to do that? 

UN chief asks wealthy nations to impose windfall taxes on fossil fuel industry

I think the UN was a great idea, in practice. It has failed completely and now wants to dictate additional taxes to member nations. The US is sovereign and must always remain that way. We have enough trouble with our own, without dictates from outside. Yes, I understand what they were going for.

The James Webb telescope has just provided pictures of Neptune's rings. 

Neptune has rings? Since when?

Immediately after the pictures arrived, representatives for Saturn declared a solar system-wide strike, saying, "HEY - we have all the rings here." They refused to recognize Neptune's rings, and are calling anything Neptune says 'ringist.'

Meanwhile, President Biden promised Saturn $55 billion in Really Foreign Aid to 'get to the bottom of this.'

In unrelated news, the Government Accounting Office put out a release in response to the president's query as to why the deficit is climbing so rapidly. When asked for comment, the press discovered the GAO had given up and shot itself.