It's Just Lesbians Looking at Your Penis

 

Your love is like  those little flies that fly around your head, pissing you off

You know that moment of screaming terror... when the alarm goes off....

I'm thinking to myself, as I strain not to go back to sleep, that it's pretty nice that we've had no snow the past few years. I hear this weird noise and get up to look. Someone's shoveling the tiny amount of snow that just fell. I don't want to have this kind of control over the weather. 

• Win10 allows you 10 days to roll back a new feature update. 
• The pope wants to grant them a humanitarian award, but his computer won't update.

Today I identify as  Ron Jeremy's penis, 20 years ago

My company is kind of sticky about its processes, and rightly so. My new project requires wiring up some internal seats with 120 volts. I always wanted to do this with keyboards, but chairs are pretty efficient too. The problem is that the seats are on a different circuit, so I have to request the necessary circuit access. Only having been there 6 years or so, I have never done this, so I had to ask. I filled out the required forms, then got a Tuesday Error. It was in huge red letters, in a huge red box, across the entire form. So I figured I should probably do something. I asked my team, which has perfected the skill I never did and never will: total silence, bordering on invisibility. Eventually my boss took pity on me and pointed out how to get rid of the Big Red Box. POOF - no more Big Red Box, POOF - off went my electricity request. The following morning, the same boss who helped me get rid of the Big Red Box looked at the request and asked if I filled out the Chaos Form. The Chaos Form would wire random seats with voltage, instead of specific seats. Honesty is my policy, so I told him no. The reason for the no is that I didn't KNOW about the Chaos Form. To make things more interesting, no one knew where to locate the Chaos Form. My days (and sometimes nights) are filled with this kind of Chaos. Eventually the Chaos Form will arrive, at which point I will fill it out, then my boss will point out I filled it out wrong, not having included the subChaos Addition Form. After another month or so, I'll have the entire request filled out correctly (or so I think), then it will move on to the next stage, which is the next department rejecting the request for some completely vague or way too specific reason. I expect to have these seats wired, roughly in 2025, if not later.

Since it's snowing, it's time for the Snow Removal Game.

There are several ways of getting snow removed..... my favorite is using the sun. Even though I live in Southeast Pennsylvania, the sun shines up to twice a week, so at some point it will melt the snow.

Years ago, my crazy neighbor, who was only 425 years old, had someone clear her areas with a snowblower. He was a nice fellow and did ours too. We gave him alcohol (and other incendiary devices). Crazy Lady forbade him from doing our sidewalk, for some reason. 

Since it rained up to 7 days a week, that usually washed the snow away.

Before the Flying AIDS, I worked in an actual place that wasn't my house, so I had to remove the snow, at least to get the car out. Mrs lefty used the Guilt Card, so I had to do the sidewalk too. If it snowed hard, I usually moved my back into interesting positions, sometimes for days. Drugs didn't help, nor did alcohol, nor did drinking. Even YooHoo failed me.

Last year, an enterprising youth came by. We haven't seen any enterprising youth in years, so it was exciting. The little bastard charged me $25 to clear a few feet of sidewalk. I'd still hire him to mow.

Pennsylvania has a Patreon account to buy itself a climate.

Dear lefty  

• Imma axe you a question.
• Stop listening to that rap stuff. It's not good for you.

It's not that I hate Windows, it's that I hate Windows. And Microsoft in general. I spent an incredible amount of time trying to figure out how to compare 2 Excel files. It did not go well. Then I brought in a coworker. We continued to work, with absolutely no success. My company has no Subject Matter Expert on Excel. Or much of anything else. If you're not familiar, a Subject Matter Expert is someone you can call on when you're stuck with that program. You become a Subject Matter Expert by being seen to operate the program once. I'm Subject Matter Expert on several programs, after my team saw me use them in a meeting.

So I asked a very smart friend of mine, who does this sort of thing for a living, and he gave me an idea. So with 10 suggestions from a search, plus my friend's suggestion, neither my coworker or I could move things an inch. Many of the suggestions revolved around a huge COMPARE WORKSHEET button at the top left. I liked where this was going, only I had no COMPARE WORKSHEET button anywhere on my sheet. After a bit more searching, I found out I didn't have a COMPARE WORKSHEET button because that was a different version of Excel. Of course it was. I needed to install an Excel addin, a feat which required its own set of instructions, and was not called anything like COMPARE WORKSHEET. After much wrangling, and a break for target shooting, I got the addin added in. We were off, and when I say we were off, I mean we were way off - the addin completely failed to work. I must say one thing about Microsoft: they're consistent.

We're saying out loud that billions of people use Excel, and it's a pretty important function to see the difference between 2 files. When Bob's Auto puts together a spreadsheet of part prices, then gets another spreadsheet with 157 more parts, Bob might not have the time to go down the list manually, adding in each of the 157 parts, after he finds them among the 6136 existing parts. So.... a difference function might be handy dandy. Yet the 2 of us have had no luck getting 1 going. Mind you, several of the searches we found were directly from Microsoft, so we had some faith in them (fools that we were). 

So now we're at the point where we've spent way too much of our employer's time on this, not that our employer cares, plus one of us is out on a pre-planned sick day. Another method of determining the difference is giving me hope, except it keeps looking for other things that I don't care about and don't know where they are. This might sound hilarious to you because there are 4 types of Excel Users: actual experts, functional users, casual users, and me. I can very successfully open the program, yes sir, with the best of them. I can open spreadsheets with the program. I can even do stuff with the '@', if I must say so myself. I probably opened DOS spreadsheets when these people were babies. But this is getting to me. As God is my witness, I will have a difference between these 2 *$*#ing spreadsheets if I have to have someone else do it for me, for fear I'll have an aneurysm (then show me how for next time). 

Oops, no. Several coworkers felt sorry for me and offered to take a look. I'm not one to go into conspiracies (STOP LAUGHING) but they're absent the following day.

• Somebody hid my shaver and now my mustache hairs are doing battle with my nose hairs. It's all very itchy, until the battle starts to involve swords.
• As a result, my fingers are always either on my mustache or up my nose. This would be unbelievably cool if I weren't working from home.
• Speaking of working at home, it could be several lifetimes more, as I keep hearing there was an instance of the Flying AIDS in the building. Or someone who knew someone who walked by someone who might have been exposed to it. I like it at home - I really do. It just makes me work that much harder to terrorize my coworkers.

Meanwhile, Mrs lefty goes out foraging for chicken sandwiches, taking Penny for support. While in the drive thru lane, somebody buys Penny an ice cream, and several children come over to say hello. The ladies in the lefty household are hot. The lone guy at home has to pay for his own ice cream. But all is well, except for the tornado warning. There's a lot of weather out there today.

• Amazon would like me to know that the "no sweat, we'll have it here today" package will not, in fact, be arriving today. 
• Welcome to Amazon, where quantum physics rules: today is tomorrow or today could be the next day. It's the Quantum Delivery Uncertainty Principle
• you'd never know I flunked science 

After our friends, those inimitable jokesters, the aliens, deposited and removed a 'monolith' in Utah, another has appeared in Romania. When asked for comment, both the US and Romanian governments said, "It is a curious happening. We have no idea how it got there, but we know it wasn't aliens - that's for sure." The large metal thing has circular scribblies all over it; some call it art. 

Meanwhile, the aliens are hysterical. "Earthlings call anything art," they say through their laughter. "We made scribblies on it with an Illudium Q-32 Explosive Space Modulator, and the Earthies (that's what we call you people) are already listing artists who could have produced it. You Earthies are so brainwashed by your governments into thinking we don't exist that our next gag will be a 100' monolith by the White House, that says 'Aliens Exist - who do you think put this here?'  You see, our scientists have conquered space and time travel, so we have a lot of free time on our hands."

If all your energy goes into keeping yourself awake, maybe you should be sleeping

- Frank Zappa, Frank Sinatra, Dan Rather, Dan Rowan, Tracy Lords, me

At the Airport 

Ma'am, did you ingest any drugs?

No.

You're looking awful lumpy.

I'm on a diet.

We're going to x-ray you.

Ok.

Ma'am, the x-rays show you have a shit ton of packages inside you.

I'm visiting for the holidays-they're presents.

If they're drugs, you could be dead in minutes.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Ma'am, how many packets of drugs did you swallow?

24.

You've expelled 42.

I'm dyslexic.

These slightly discolored packets test positive for cocaine.

It's not mine.

It came out of your body. 

That's not my body.

How did the drugs that aren't yours get into the body that also isn't yours?

They forced me.

Who forced you?

The guys.

What guys?

The guys. You know, the guys at the airport.

What guys?

They told me my brother would never get the sex change operation unless I swallowed these packages. I never swallowed in my life. Don't you understand - my brother worked all his life for a vagina...

At the Other Airport 

Sir, we've selected you for a random search, based upon your suitcase, your travel plans, and the size of your earlobes.

Ok.

Did you buy your ticket?

Ah, no.

Who bought it?

A friend.

What's your friend's name?

I dunno.

Not a very good friend, then.

Why do you say that - he bought me a plane ticket to Columbia.

Did he give you anything?

Yeah, this suitcase.

Anything else?

Yeah, he said he'd pay me to take the suitcase.

Didn't anything occur to you?

Yes - how nice of him it was to buy me a plane ticket and give me a suitcase to go to Columbia.

Sir, as you can see from the scale, you're carrying 5 kilograms of cocaine.

It's not mine.

It was in the suitcase you were carrying.

It's not my suitcase; my friend gave it to me.

Sir, if you cooperate with us, we can get your sentence cut down from 8 years to 6 years. What was your friend's name?

He called himself Whitey.

Not Bob? Not a last name?

Nope, just Whitey. 

Any other identifying characteristics?

He was black.

Officer, take him away. Tell the judge 20 years.

Narrator: all over the world, ugly people are targeted to smuggle drugs.

Don't be ugly. Don't smuggle drugs.

This has been a public service message on behalf of the Ugly Stupid People's Association on Stopping Drug Trafficking.

Happys 

Clare Torry - Pink Floyd's The Great Gig in the Sky

John Mayall

Billy Idol is 65. Isn't that enough?

Jaco Pastorious

Bye Byes

Allan Sherman - Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda

George Harrison - Something

It's 1am: Time to Put the Pillow on the Dog

I've mentioned my constant, recurring issues around my bed.
No, it's not what you think.
Normal people can walking into the room and fall into bed.
Like the rest of my life, I am not normal.

Mrs lefty twirls.
While this is not a problem for anybody, it winds up being mine, because she twirls while attached to sheets and blankets. Many times, in the middle of the night, I wake to find myself completely without sheet or blanket. I don't hold her responsible; after all, she left me damn near 6" of blanket. She has a death grip on said blanket and has twirled herself into a calzone, so, like most men, I won't be getting any. My guilt over possibly waking her falls prey to freezing my ass off and I pull.
Nope.
I pull harder. There is a result this time: she grabs the blanket harder, chastising me in some language even she doesn't know, and rolls away further.

As a concession, she left most of the blanket on my side.
This is a direct take on "Kick the ball, Charlie Brown." I fall for it every time.
Within an hour, she has twirled herself into all of the available covers, not even leaving me my customary 6".

As a 2nd concession, we got out two blankets.
The 1st night, she twirled the entire sheet. It's ok, I had a blanket.
The 2nd night, she got the blanket too.
When I mentioned this, my voice quaking from the shivering from the pneumonia I got, she giggled and said she was sorry. This I understand. What I don't understand is why she keeps asking me to get additional life insurance. She tells me it's to take care of her in case anything happens to me. I want that for her, so we're pretty well-insured. There's a delicate balance between Enough and "If I get more, she'll kill me and they'll never find the body." It's a hell of a dance, believe me. She watches those true crime tv shows. Nothing wrong with this; millions watch these at the same time. But when I watch it with her, her lips move, as if she's telling them what to do next. Sometimes she says it out loud, half a second before they do. The most scary time is shows like Deadly Women, where women perform unspeakable acts upon their spouse, not just killing them, but making them writhe in agony, like a cat torturing a mouse.  My fear-based shaking is only made worse when she cheers as the man finally dies. She jumps up and down on the couch, squealing and clapping her hands, like an 8 year old girl with pompoms. It is at times like these, I become invisible as quickly as possible, and hide in the Panic Room.

So, we have 2 sheets and 2 blankets. This is a workable solution, and now I wake up without her having twirled a single item of my sleeping equipment. Unfortunately, said equipment is still missing. Instead of falling victim to twirling, it has fallen to gravity. I wake up, every night, to find most of my blanket on the floor. This is a new thing, which bears further study, like how the Roseanne show has no Roseanne. Yet every time I get into bed, it has been rearranged, kinda like our kitchen. "Honey, where's the honey?" It's on the washer. "But yesterday you said it was in the pantry. The washer's in the basement." Yes, I rearranged. "You should probably tell me when you make minor adjustments, like putting the washer in the basement." Sorrrry. One night the covers are in place. The next night, they aren't. The next next night, they're on the dresser. Sometimes they're in the middle of the bed, in a knot. On really good nights, the pillow and covers are hanging in midair, by themselves.
Wife pointed to dog. This is a very effective technique because when I ask the dog if she did it, or any question at all, she wags her tail and tries to lick my face. So I generally re-make my bed nightly. Making the bed is like washing the car: why bother? It's only gonna get dirty again anyway.

So aside from that, everything's fine.
Well, except for the dog.
Penny, for some reason, loves to tunnel and cocoon herself in blankets. She arrived with the customary complement of fur and plays outside in the snow, so it's safe to say she's not cold. Yet she burrows into blankets. Every morning, we have to play Spot the Cocker in the blankets, so we don't trample her on the mad rush to get out of bed and make coffee, stopping every other day or so to get dressed.

When Penny's not cocooned, she's usually in the middle somewhere. Sometimes between pillows, sometimes on my pillow. Always adorable, that dog. She came in a perfectly normal dog, and within months, she sits at the door and whines when her mommy leaves.

One of the best nights barely even involved cover twirling.
A very smart woman, Mrs lefty discovered the key to a long marriage is never seeing each other, so she sleeps when I'm awake and vice-versa. Her schedule got messed up and she somehow wound up in bed when I was. I would have been shocked and pleasantly surprised, but I didn't notice her get in. In fact, I don't notice her get out either. My body did me one favor in all the time I've had it: it adjusted itself to sleep in the middle of tank battles on a small tactical nuclear weapons testing range. This is because she gets into and out of bed every 20 minutes.  She'll start snoring, then leap up and say she'll never get any sleep, and wander out of the room. My body realized it would be 6' underground if it got up every time she did, so it lets me sleep.

So I'm having a great time, sleeping, even though I think I'm not, when I hear SSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. That's code for "you're snoring, you idiot. Cut it out, before we play Famous Female Murderers." Feeling great guilt (it's my heritage), I leap for my Snore Stopper. It's a very strange device she got me. It looks like any normal black hood - the kind an executioner might wear, but it's got extra padding around the mouth and nose area. My theory on how it works is that it stops snoring by a process called Air Reduction: if I don't get a lot of air, I don't snore. I could be mistaken, but she assures me it works and tells me to keep wearing it. Even when she's not in bed. I reach for my handy earphone, where my phone plays things to make me sleep, like recordings of singer of hit records getting tortured (which generally sounds like them performing the hit records). Finding the cord, I pick it up, at which point the phone goes rocketing to the floor. Now here's the strange part: Wife strongly objects to my snoring, but she doesn't hear my fusillade of cursing, having seen the phone go down again. Reaching around the floor, in the dark, I locate the cord, but the phone is nowhere to be found. I gave up, figuring it would let me know where it was when it rang. I later found it, 6' in the air, with the pillow. I reached for the Hood Stopper and immediately fell out of bed. It's ok - the large pointy metal table caught me.  Amityville ain't got nothin' on us.

Why, you ask, did I fall out of bed?  Is it because I'm the worst kind of klutz imaginable? While that is true, that's not the reason. No, I fell off because I have literally 6" of bed to myself. My little darling dog has her head on a spare pillow and the back of her across my spot. If she were sleeping any closer, she would have been inside my stomach. I attempted to move her, where I was as successful as de-twirling Wife, and cherished my 6". Wait, that didn't come out right...



My work computer is confused.
I put it to sleep last night, because I always like saying that.
This morning it stared at me, with only a white screen, silently mocking me.
Everything I had going on when I put it to sleep (all saved) was lost, as it continued to sit there, like Rob Reiner, but making no noise.
I hard rebooted. It slogged on, barely booting.
I think I surprised it. It just wasn't ready to boot up.
It's like walking through molasses, which is how a friend describes depression.
Maybe my computer is depressed.

There's yet another program with an issue: Microsoft Teams.
I installed it for a single presentation, so now it remains, thinking it's a VIP (Very Important Program). While booting, the Teams screen comes up. NO - I DON'T want this friggin program coming up, so I hit CLOSE. Not content with my very clear answer, it brings up a FULL PAGE notice that something's wrong with Teams and maybe I should reboot. Something's wrong with Windows, but rebooting ain't gonna fix it. When this crap is over, I start Office. Office has a long history of never coming up the way you left it. If I drag the window to a custom size, it opens larger, or full page. This is a known issue, across several releases. Microsoft apparently doesn't care enough to do anything about it, preferring instead that Office just take over all available screen real estate... it just does what it wants. You can count on it to open in any size (except the one you left it in).  This is closely related to Skype, which you physically cannot resize below about 25% of the screen. It just stops at that size, obstructing whatever else is on the screen. Microsoft is such a small company, they can't afford anybody to fix these bugs.

Speaking of which, a Microsoft employee just mentioned on Twitter that he's switching his primary development computer to linux.



Stress, Heart Attacks, and 135 with coronavirus
Japanese health officials on Monday confirmed an additional 65 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infections aboard the quarantined luxury cruise ship, Diamond Princess, bringing the ship’s case total to 135.

Wow.. think good thoughts for these people, pray, whatever. 

They're in a sealed incubator.

• The FDA has approved the first drug to treat peanut allergies.
• It's delivered in a Snickers bar.

Users of Skype or any program that shows availability of team members will find this familiar: my coworker is shown as Presenting. This is a technical term for 'presenting'. They're probably sharing their computer's screen to a lot of people. This affords the perfect opportunity for a little Work Hijinks<tm>. When you're bored and your friends are presenting, send them texts. The texts will appear on their desktop, allowing the entire meeting to see them....

• were you serious about the sex change?
• did you ever get to the sex shop for that weird toy you mentioned?
• how are the hemorrhoids?
• I can't believe your boss is as big an ass as you said

A nasty Google bug sent private Google photos and videos to others.

Yeah, I got a video of Mike Pence in a black robe, chanting Satan this and Satan that....

• If there's one thing Iowa proved, it's that beta testing software should happen before it's used. 
• If there's another thing Iowa proved, they shouldn't use software from groups directly tied to the Clinton campaign.
• Another thing is that Vermin Supreme is doing very well in the polls. This has got to terrify certain groups....

People are popping up all over the place with the coronavirus.
This proves, once again, that there are certain advantages to being an amateur agoraphobe.

• It is not polite to hit family members with a baseball bat. I know this now.

After racist incidents between students in Michigan, the school district called a meeting to heal divisions. You guessed it - the parents brawled.

Dear lefty:

• Are laptop cooling pads worth the money?
• Depends on how hot you like your crotch

We just saw a great video (not linkable) of a lady in the Iowa Caucus. She voted, signed, and handed her vote in. At some point, somebody informs her that Pete Buttigieg is gay and married to a man. The lady kinda talks through her laughter, and said REALLY? She then asks for her vote slip back.

Her vote counts as much as yours.

(provided it's counted)

Quickies:

• Here's a list of bad android apps - delete them immediately
• Remove bloatware from Windows 10 quickly and easily.,
• Why Your Next Cell Phone Should Be Unlocked
• If you're in the SE Pennsylvania area this year, you won't be able to swing a dead cat without hitting Cheap Trick.

Today I identify as   cancer in Ted Kennedy's brain.

Heroes of the Stupid

Neanderthals’ relatives climbed an erupting volcano 350,000 years ago
Big deal. Teenagers here ate Tide Pods.


Gwenyth Paltrow's company released a product that smells like vagina.
Now Erykah Badu released incense that smells like her vagina.
Imagine being on the research and development team....

SJW SoCalled

"Your racist coronavirus jokes aren't funny."

If I had any, they would be. Apparently, calling it "kung flu" offends people...

UN Women, doing the work of the Lord

Allowing white people to vote is systemic racism. Their children should be in the cages.

How about a smart device that could detect implicit bias in the workplace?

UC Berkeley Students: We must do something about antisemitic incidents occurring on campus.

I did - I voted on a bill that condemned it!

Well, I tried to. The vote was interrupted by people chanting "Free free college."

UC Berkeley is a sitcom. Instead of laughing, the audience sits there, open-mouthed.

A remembrance

Elsewhere I told the story of my dear friend who left us way too early.

Right around today, it has been ten years.
Ten Years Gone.
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page wrote it. Plant was memorializing his son (Karac?), who had been ten years gone.

My friend liked when I taught her songs on guitar.  She would study and practice them methodically. The last song I taught her was Ten Years Gone (a favorite of us both). When I say she practiced methodically, I mean she would sit there with her guitar, or any guitar that was laying around, and play the song. Over and over. As far as she could get, then start over from the top. Repetition drives me up several walls at the same time, so I'd frequently have to politely suggest she pick a different song (to drive me crazy with) or maybe could get something to eat.

She was very pretty and had the most amazing smile. The whole room laughed with her, especially when she made a rude comment or picked on me. She was obnoxious after a few beers sometimes, but never really reached my level (stop laughing - I am a certified professional in obnoxious and teach a master class in sarcasm). We laughed a lot and had a blast.

She'd probably smile and laugh about being attached to that song.
I loved the way she watched me when I played it. Made me feel like a rock star.

I hope to see her again sometime....
Sleep well.

Luscious Pole Licking in Summer

Our good friend, AOC, says facial recognition is nasty.
You cannot argue with the truth.
And even a broken clock is right twice a day

The many faces of AOC

I'm sorry - sometimes the intra-cranial pressure builds up...

if Trump doesn't win in 2020, I'll have nothing to do!

let me guess - I left home without my makeup again. 

this is my lovey-dovey face, for my honey.

Don't tell them I'm only a little pissed today.

if I have to tell you one more time....

Hillary taught me to eat babies. Do you really want that on your conscience?

They caught me smiling. I'm ruined! They cannot know I'm actually pretty.

you take-uh da cheese, you put it onna capicola - capeesh?

I will not smile. I will not smile...

I see you taking this picture and I will kill you in your sleep

They're not watching.. I can rest my face now...

Good morning, people. I love you all.

• It's 23 outside. With the Wind Chill Factor, it's 15.
• Yearly rant: WTF is this - a new method of making you feel worse in the winter? 23 isn't cold enough, no sir, it's 15.  In Alaska, when it's zero degrees, the Wind Chill Factor says it's -40. 
• And they're wrong most of the time.

Remember the GirlsDoPorn scandal I wrote about a week back?
The website just went offline.
The owner fled to New Zealand and is still there.
He's also charged with child porn, after flying a 16 year old to California.

Today's item to ponder: is child porn with a 16 year old the same as child porn with a 5 year old? They're both illegal, as they should be, but is it the same thing?

• Ya know those beeps in astronaut audio? They're there for a reason.

Remember that Major League Baseball regulations prohibit the use of electronic equipment... ??

This only applies to you. They can and are using it against you.

• Dear Ebay: when I do a search for lefty guitars, "other things you might be interested in" probably shouldn't include righty guitars. Just a thought.

"Richard Nixon got kicked out of Washington for tapping one hotel suite. Today we're tapping every American citizen in the country, and no one has been put on trial for it or even investigated. We don't even have an inquiry into it." - Edward Snowden

• US Congresswoman reveals alopecia diagnosis
• That brave, courageous woman, telling the world she has hair loss.
• I told everybody about Male Pattern Baldness years ago.

IT NEWS
I'm (almost) sorry about including IT news today, but it's relevant to all readers.

With a spare 3 minutes, I decided to have a computer race: Win 10 laptop against linux laptop. It wasn't exactly fair... the Win laptop was brand new, with 16G RAM and current i7 snappy processor; the linux laptop was well over 6 years old, with 8G RAM and an obviously much slower processor. They would both boot from power off.

Off the line, linux in first, entering the first turn. Win10 coming up on the left. Coming up to the 2nd turn, we have definite activity, with the brand new Win10 machine having something on the screen. Turn 3 and we've selected which boot system we'd like on linux. Ladies and gentlemen, at the finish line, it's linux, reading its email, while the Win10 machine has yet to even put up one of its goofy pictures or a login prompt. Linux is drinking its coffee, when it's interrupted by a Win10 login prompt. This is exactly how it happened, except I drank the coffee, not the laptop.

New facial database used by the police. It's beyond creepy and disgusting.


Google and Microsoft weigh in on facial recognition technology and laws concerning it. Strangely enough, Google is finally on the right side of something. Microsoft, naturally, is on the wrong side.

• Apple is genuinely concerned about your privacy. Except if the FBI asks.

Over 1,000 devices went missing from London councils last year.
Now for some Real News<tm>: prosecutions of people who say 'fuck' and use 'racial language' are up! Prosecutions of people who say bad things online are also up. 1,337 people a week are thrown in the pokey, the most ever, for saying, "Not tea - I'll have coffee, please."


The final Win 7 update includes black wallpaper on some systems.
Good thing I'm not at my last job... I'd have the entire team spending the entire day changing backgrounds. The ticket system would die from volume alone. You'd think the entire company had gone down. The FBI would be brought in to investigate this cyberhack.

• Why Win 7 users should switch to linux
• they list some good reasons...
• Win 10 should have started a stampede to other OSes

Above is a positive.
Now here's my negative: the announcement that Xubuntu 20.04 will include a dark theme. Absent actual vision problems, this is what we have as an announcement? Not 'it's faster and safer?'  We, as people, are way too focused on looks and blinky lights. In the earlier days of cell phones, there was great excitement over the ability to put a different startup automation on your phone.

Related: watch car commercials (like you have a choice). Very little about the actual car. Very much about the colors, On-Star or similar systems, how many cameras in it, and how you can make the driver's side door open with just your genitals. This bothers me (like most things).


Small Business Matters: Boeing seeks $10 billion in loans as 737 MAX crisis continues.  Good thing they have those huge military contracts....

But WAIT!  If you lend now, you get up to the minute news of 737 MAX issues, of which they just found another....



Today's Game: you're running for president. Your slogan is [name] 2020: [last thing you said to your dog]. I'll start..

lefty 2020: Ok, stay in bed with your mommy


It's 7am. Mrs lefty is in the bathroom, Penny is demonstrating her "I HAVE TO GO OUTSIDE" dance. Then she tries it on me. Being a dog, she's not entirely talkative, but she jumps up a lot when she wants something. No problem, I'll take her out. Penny, let's go outside.  PENNY - OUTSIDE (both of us). Finally get her to the door and she turns and runs. Apparently I don't take her out well enough. Mom leaves the house. An hour later, Penny appears, telling me she wants something. Yes, she wants to go outside. This time I'll be sufficient to let her out. An hour after we first asked.

I get my validation from the dog.


Speaking of dog, when her mommy got back home, she went out back to smoke. Penny did her traditional thing: came running to me, insistent on me taking her to find mommy. Penny fails completely in the recognition that I might be doing something. So she walks in on me and sits down, waiting for me to say something. Whoever had her before us (she was a stray) must've gone over manners with her.. if I don't see her, she hops up and gently touches my leg with her nose. Then she does it 4 more times until I do what she wants. She sits there, looking at me with those huge, sad brown eyes, deliberately being a spaniel.

When mom comes back and goes into the bathroom, she stands at the bathroom door and whines. But she whines softly.  It's definitely the house - she wasn't like that when she first got here. The house turns cockers neurotic. Yeah, that's it - it's the house.



People can be identified by the way they dance.
Kill me now.
Mood, level of empathy, how extroverted or neurotic can point to identification.

Every election cycle I get asked to participate in “get out the vote” public service announcements. But I figure if a TV game show host has to convince people to vote, they probably shouldn’t.   - Pat Sajak

Heroes of the Stupid

• PornHub sued by deaf man over lack of closed captioning in videos
• Woman: ooooh. yeah. baby.  Man: mrnmmmmph  Woman: ooooh. yeah. baby.  Man: I'm gonna explode   Woman: ooooh. yeah. baby.

SJW Symptoms  

Trinity College removes ad for 'Campus Reform Early Responder'
They wanted someone to monitor a 'right wing' website. Job ad pulled.





I saw this absolutely bizarre, hysterical show on public television. I was glued.
Some guy was standing there in a dress, and some other guy was on his knees, looking up the dress.

The dress was a kilt.
The show was Monty Python's Flying Circus.
I was young.
I was hooked.
Every week I had to wait for the night Python was on.
It was the Most Important Thing Ever, for most of my life. It completely corrupted my sense of humor, rendering me an honorary Brit and forcing me to seek out other British comedy.
I met other, similarly smitten, people who agreed: Life is Python - Python is life. No, we weren't deranged fanboys - we just noticed how inappropriate they were and used Python Quotes a lot. To this day, I still speak in Python. We all saw the movies when they came out. We bought anything Python. I have a t-shirt from the final live appearance at the 02 Center in England. We saw John Cleese a few months back.

We were sad when Graham Chapman died.
We are now sad that Terry Jones (77) died (of a rare dementia that first took his speech). The other Pythons are more worried than a parrot going to a pet shop in Ipswitch.

There is some bad footage of Graham Chapman's funeral that's really funny - an appropriate sendoff. Maybe there will be some Terry Jones footage too.

This dying stuff has to stop.

So I'm Just Sitting There, Braiding my Nose Hair....

Pity me
I'm getting Windows 10 forced on me at work. I tried begging, whining, doctors notes, and faking death, but I can't get out of it. Before it arrives, I figured I'd need to know how it works (if it works). The best way is to download a VM (virtual machine), so I can run it in VirtualBox, where it won't interfere with my system. You can do this too - it's free and runs on all OSes.

I got ahead of myself, though. As soon as my system found out I was downloading Win 10, it started groaning. Then my stomach started groaning. When I went to ms.com, my browser refused to go. The cherry on top was when the (6g) download stopped for no particular reason. Yeah, this is Windows.

While we're on my favorite software company, Outlook 365 just told me I have Analytics! I'd rather have no lytics, thank you.  This little piece of.... software... notes what you do and recommends things. What kind of black arts are they forcing on us now?  If you are unfortunate enough to be subjected to this too, go to 'manage addons' and unselect it. People seriously want to know why I don't love Microsoft.



Twitter Headline: Trump impeachment proceedings started November 2016.


If we accept that nuts are in some salads and cream is in some salad dressings, then my huge-ass nut brownie with ice cream and whipped cream is a salad.


Don't you hate when you hear this?
This is your captain - don't panic, but does anybody have any flight experience? There is no need to panic.

• Egypt will be launching its first satellite.
• The payload is secret, but it will fire on Israeli satellites.

Hey Joe...
Every now and then, you hear some lyrics that apply, to you or others.

TOMORROW  - Joe Walsh

Tomorrow
Makin a list of things to do
And when I wake up
Gonna cross off a few

There must be millions of reasons
Try and explain but you're never through
When they give you 24 hours
Only so much a man can do

Tomorrow
Made up my mind
Gonna get busy
Come from behind

Today
I'm staying right where I am
Break a few rules
Make a few plans

There's thousands of things
Keep you from doing what you wanna do
And if it isn't this then it's that
Back where it's at and you're never through


There must be millions of reasons
Thousands of things, just to name a few
I'm gonna spend the rest of today
Making a list of things to do
But I'll do em all tomorrow




Dear lefty

• What do you think of the debates the other night?
• What debates?

Doctors are harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence to watch porn while pretending to look at xrays.

Objective reality doesn't exist, according to a quantum experiment.

So remember, while you're reading this, that neither you not the blog exists.

Today I identify as  one of those round, tubelike bumps on your power cords.


Batman and Robin are set to update, and they've gone Full SJW:

• Robin wears a bitchin frilly costume and identifies as the 234th gender
• chapter title- Batman and Robin: 2 Men in Leather
• Batman Lets Robin Drive
• Batman and Robin shoot the evil gun-owners
• Our heroes join the protest against white men in the comic book genre
• Robin identifies as black: black groups say No Thanks.
• Batman PSA - "Kids - never leave the cave without your Bat Rubbers"

Just so you know, Steve Winwood's brother is Muff Winwood.




Security and Privacy

These 2 are Sadly Related Required Reading. There IS no privacy, but you need to know why....

How Knightscope's security robots surveil the public

The fantasy of opting out



No thank you, I'd rather politely ask the goog to stop tracking me.



So about those search engines.... we know not to use goog. We know I like duckduckgo.com. After reading this, you won't use Startpage. Let's guess that being bought by a behavioral ad company makes the confidentiality and results suspect.




Heroes of the Stupid

A suspicious vehicle tried to enter the White House Grounds, but was quickly stopped. Driver rumored to 'look a lot like Joe Biden.'




SJW Standings

"Perhaps I am mistaken...
but it seems like the majority of go-fund-mes are for the Extreme Left.  Many are getting rich, without a real cause."  - Twitter


The San Diego Public Library system discontinued fines to alleviate inequity.
Next week they will give books away to obtain peace on earth.

There Are Some Days, and This Is One

This is the kind of thing we read this blog for: a Michigan highway billboard was hacked to play porn for 15-20 minutes. This is positive hacking. They destroyed nothing, made some people happy, possibly caused some outrage and a car crash, and everybody gets a funny story. I'd avoid the rush, however, to move to Michigan, as police have a bit of video and are searching for the perps.

For those of you who are upset about their work computer being locked down, there's a fake browser update that will infect the entire network with banking trojans. If you're locked down and updates are automatically installed for you, this won't matter.

Anyone who has read at least one of these entries knows of my great love for Faceyspaces. Well, it hurts like hell, but I have to back Faceyspaces. No, really.  Attorney General Bill Barr, along with the UK and Australia, is about to ask Lord Zuck not to go ahead with his plans for end-to-end encryption across its messaging services until it can guarantee the added privacy does not reduce public safety.

When you're done producing filling for your barf bag, allow me to translate: We, the Five Eyes, are rather upset at your attempt to keep all of your information away from our five prying eyes. If you don't leave everything wide open or accept one of our Extremely Safe Backdoors, you are making it very difficult for us to steal scan your information for terroristic threats and to keep the world safe from democracy. Because everybody except lefty and two of his friends uses Faceyspaces, it is our largest source of information. If you do not allow us access, we will convince the founder of Faceyspaces, the NSA, to allow us access.

Remember when back doors were something fun?



Dear lefty

• How do you categorize people?
• There are only 2 classes of people: Munsters and Addams Family

Today I identify as a shrubbery



China recently celebrated 70 years of communism with parades and displays of weapons. And riots and a shooting of a protester. The people of the People's Republic also celebrate, but only when they're told to.

In unrelated news, The US celebrated their public education system by publishing these stunning results: first in spending of any country per student, 38th in results.

In yet still more actively unrelated news, Maria Bartiromo reports that... well... I don't really care - look at that face. She's a classic.

In related news, police are filing criminal charges against the person they shot during the riots.    I always say, "If you shoot them, they'll never do it again."  

The young man will be charged with rioting and assaulting a policeman.
Back in Tianamen Square, the lone protester was finally charged with assaulting a tank.

No thank you, I'd rather spend a few weeks with with Richard Nixon, in his  underground bunker.

• Every now and then, one must give thanks for even random positive events: today I'm thankful that the new project will no longer require Windows 10. I argued so politely and so strenuously, they redid the project just for me.
• Sometimes a good thing comes in the middle of tragedy. This is one.

Bernie Sanders, genial old Silly Person, noted communist, and inveterate alpaca plooker, said there should be no more billionaires*. What a funny old dude. He says random sentences with 'free' in them, generating cheers from his fanbase; like Bruce Springsteen, but much more expensive.

*Unrelated news: Billionaires said there should be no more Bernie Sanders.

• Today I want to share something of great import. I feel it will enrich your life and keep your kids happy too. Unfortunately I already forgot what it is. The mind is a terrible thing to... ummmm...

I am proud to let everyone know I like Orange Crush.
I am proud to raise my eyebrow upon seeing a bottle of Watermelon Crush.
I am proud to say eewwwwwwwwww upon tasting it. Yes, they got it right, but watermelon soda? Join my campaign for Kidney Stone Crush.





When a reporter for the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command interviewed Frank Zappa for the Command's news syndicate, the story was held by a superior who demanded that Zappa - who had been rather hard on the Army - answer one more question: just who does he think will defend the country without the Army?

Zappa's reply: "From what? The biggest threat to America today is its own federal government.... Will the Army protect anybody from the FBI? The CIA? The Republican party? The Democratic party? The biggest dangers we face today don't even need to sneak past our billion-dollar defense system... they issue the contracts for them."

The interview was not run.

We need Frank more than ever today....





Heroes of the Stupid

A federal judge ruled that Harvard University’s undergraduate admissions program is constitutional, rejecting a challenge accusing the school of discrimination against Asian American applicants.

In a decision released on Tuesday, US district judge Allison Burroughs in Boston said that while Harvard’s admissions program is not perfect, “the court will not dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster, solely because it could do better”.   Reached for comment, the KKK was outraged that their Harvard admissions will be capped at 20%.

Why is my cable bill so ridiculous? It couldn't be because of added fees, could it?



SJW Time

University and College Union apologises after failing to include Jews on list of groups of Holocaust victims (the Jewish Chronicle).

It described how the Nazis had persecuted groups such as “trade unions, including social democrats and Communists”, “Europe’s Roma and Sinti people”, “Black people”, “disabled people”, “freemasons”, “gay and lesbian people”, “Jehovah’s witnesses” and “'asocials’, which included beggars, alcoholics, drug addicts prostitutes and pacifists” were persecuted by the Nazi regime.

The international section in your supermarket is racist. The food is segregated.

sometimes you need to keep your soda cold