I'm a Sick Fsck

That's what she said.

And she meant it in a most literary sense.

To say my sleep has been highly interrupted for the last 3 days would be like saying Rob Reiner doesn't like Donald Trump.

I have a fever. I have what Wife calls 'The Hot-Colds," which is pretty much what it sounds like; one minute I'm sweating, the next I'm freezing. It's not to say this is serious, but even my arm hair hurts. My head feels like it's currently in one of Uncle Fester's Rotator C-Clamps but I can't see the clamps. I have been trying to sleep with 4 blankets, but it's too cold for that. The dog has been helping by walking on my chest and pooping on the floor.

Last night I couldn't stay awake after 9:30 so I went to bed. I have never gone to bed at 9:30, so just out of spite, I woke up 5 hours later, as if the alarm had gone off, with no interest or ability to sleep anymore. My body laughed quietly. My body is revolting, which she also said.

Wife sometimes gets jealous when I'm sick, so she's sick too. She only requires 1 blanket.

They (they who?) tell me to emphasize the positive, so I'll tell you that ibuprofen is a minor miracle. If I remember to take it, I only feel horrible! This is a great improvement for me.

Work said to feel better, but I had to be online today for a presentation. I told everyone I was sick, they should move back from their monitors so they wouldn't get it.

Because of where I work, the presentation was on software that's nowhere near functional and that most of us haven't used or can't even log into. But boy did we baffle them with BS. Most importantly, the slides were colorful. If you get the right blink rate, you can keep them hypnotized until you're done. It helps cut down on questions.

I have to go now. Typing is making way too much noise.

Mortally Wounded by a Gownless Evening Strap

 

Your love is like  coffee growing hair on top

Big Meat Companies Want to Use Smartwatches to Track Workers’ Every Move

[put on your James Earl Jones voice]   Big. Meat.

Today I identify as  Carol Burnett

Speaking of Bombcast/Rexfinity, I had to go to the website to check something. Not only are they greedy, they have an entire department dedicated to making sure you get absolutely nothing helpful from the help app. There are corporate vacations where they play the results of user queries. They seem to have two responses: install the mobile app or install the mobile app. I've met sleeping anvils that were more helpful. I found out I was paying for a certain download speed and went to the provided link to check the speed. I'm fairly reasonable (once or twice a year) but 15% of what I'm paying for doesn't qualify as paying for that speed. If I were able to get a human on the phone, they would tell me they're very sorry and I am a valuable customer...

I have the 400mb download plan. Per your speed test, I get no greater than 75mb. I measured at all times of night and day, with similar results.

I see. Well, we are very sorry for the performance. Let me look at your account.

Thank you.

Ok, I see you have the 400mb download plan.

Where were you when I said that?

Ok, what you can do is upgrade to the 1,000mb plan, which gives you some tv channels, for only 4x what you're paying now.

I'll bet you can. However, I don't want or need tv. I don't even need 1,000mb. I'd just like something closer to the 400mb I'm currently paying for. 

You could get much better speeds with the 1,000mb plan.

Are you referring to advertised speeds or actual speeds? Assuming my math is correct, a 1,000mb plan will have an actual speed of 66mb.

Yes, and that is much better than your current 26mb download speed.

I have a bizarre idea: why don't you just provide what I'm paying for?

I'm sorry, Sir, but state and local ordinances prohibit it.

So you're not allowed to provide what you advertise?

That is correct.

Can you hear me shaking my head?

No, but you can always go to our only competition, whose actual speed is 10% of advertised speed.

It's called a duopoly.

Exactly.

How about troubleshooting?

What about it?

Let's try some.

That is most irregular.

Humor me.

Ok, you can get greater speed by moving the computer closer to the wireless base.

It's 2' from the base. Should I duct tape them together? How much of a speed increase do you think I'll see? Does the brand of duct tape matter?

Sir, you're never going to get full rated speed. It goes down the further you get from a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Then why do you advertise it?

Because we can.

Next troubleshooting tip, please.

You can also purchase the 1,500mb plan.

Which would arguably net me 100mb.

Yes. But you'd get Disney and The Masked Furry 24/7!

If you provided that, you'd have to lower the rate to compensate me.

We have a 2,000mb package....

• Boeing lost $766 million in Q3 on the project to build Air Force One aircraft.
• It increases Boeing's total losses on the two jets to $1.9 billion since the build began.  
• Boeing bears the cost of any delays under a deal struck with the Trump Administration.

We need more of this. Point to Trump.

My brand new, high powered work laptop is causing me grief. Yes, it has Windows, and that's a burden, but the current problem is the O-key. It's intermittent. Most of the time it refuses to perform its function of putting an 'O' on the screen.  O is a relatively popular letter, so I have to pay particular attention to the screen. If there's one thing I'm not really good at, it's paying attention. 

There are many words that become difficult, like word, your mother, osmosis, cock-a-doodle do, no-YOUR mother, laptop, nose hair, orgasm, and police found a bloody torso.

Here's where it gets bad: if I put in a service ticket, all they're going to tell me is that they can give me a new laptop. If this goes anywhere near as badly as getting this laptop, I might have to live with a broken O.

The Parkland shooting trial is in the penalty phase, with victims giving impact statements. You haven't seen anything like it - I guarantee. The victims stood up and eviscerated the defense team, wishing them harm, a quick death, and other things we don't want to discuss. This is not the defendant - these are his lawyers. They also took shots at the jury. Let's get past the hurt for a moment and recognize this behavior as ignorant. Everybody deserves a fair trial, even mass shooters. As for the jury, they ruled on the information they were given. Let's say it's a good thing the families didn't have weapons or there would be another mass shooting. Meanwhile, Judge Hottie listened to a defense lawyer say, "If they were your children, you would have noticed." Judge then had an absolute fit, accusing the lawyer of threatening her children, and sent him to the rear of the courtroom. Bad move, Judge. The lawyer said nothing wrong - you either weren't listening or took it wrong. Further, you lose your standing as Judge Hottie and will now be known as the judge formerly known as Judge Hottie.

Families: if you do something illegal and the police put you in jail, don't get mad at the police. 

We are sorry for your pain.

• There is a list of celebrities leaving Twitter because its new owner may allow speech that offends people. In short, they're against Free Speech.  Think about how ridiculous this is.

One of us wasn't paying attention, but more likely two of us. I'm excited about the guitar show this weekend. Wife mentioned the wedding I'm trying to avoid is this weekend. Oops. The other problem is that we still haven't gone shopping for clothes. I am not a fan of waiting til a few days before an event to shop for it, but no one asked me.

Considering I was buying something I would literally never wear again, we went to the 2nd hand store. Lo and behold, there were 2 black suits. Here's the funny part: I am apparently built like a gorilla. I have average dimensions, but my arms seem to run past my knees (they don't, but imagine the benefits of Really Long Arms). I never noticed this before, but every suit I tried on was too small, including XXL. I am definitely not XXL. Not even in 'that dream' am I XXL. When I am in high school and onstage in the auditorium, without a guitar, also without pants. I decided to further my useless knowledge and ask stupid questions like what's the difference between a blazer and a suit. My natural curiosity had the unfortunate side effect of annoying Wife. So in spite of my quest for knowledge, we left, suitless. Everybody I know goes to this place and succeeds. Except lefty the gorilla. I know that playing guitar and carrying amps does not stretch your arms, so the whole thing is a mystery. I found a really cool muted camo shirt. Wife agreed it was cool and I should buy it, but I wasn't allowed to leave the house wearing it on wedding day. Then I found a black shirt. My plan is black everything, which I hope will cause me to completely disappear. Hope springs eternal.

So off we went to a coat factory to purchase a new suit. Ugh. It hurts to spend money on something I'll never use again. It was an interesting start, as there was no sign of suits, period. There was sportswear, but I don't like sports. There was active wear, but I'm not active. We were going to ask a convenient, friendly employee where they hid the suits, but we couldn't find a convenient or friendly employee. I think the entire 57 member staff was on coffee break, in the back room, watching one of those idiotic shows with a panel of judges. I was minding my own business, not allowing the thought that there were no suits into my consciousness.  Finally Mrs. lefty SHUSHed me, closed her eyes, sniffed the air, and pointed to where the suits were hidden. This is a very valuable skill that has saved us hours of time and effort. I don't know how she does it. I can do it with guitar stores, but there's not much call for it. 

The suits were waaaaay in the back, behind the huge winter coats, 3 rows over from the large sign that said SUITS, so they were relatively easy to find. There were about 11 of them, which were easily hidden behind baby clothes. We picked out a random size and started there. Sure enough, my arms dragging on the floor made it way too small. The next one was too large. The one in the middle was close enough. It reminds me of some old children's story that I can't remember. Then it was Pants Time. I stupidly went for pants with the same number on my jeans. Oh no. No no no. No no no no no no no. When I asked why, I got Evil Wife, who was very unhappy with me for some reason that wasn't worth inquiring about. It turned out I was right - it was the same number as my jeans. But then there was the other number. I was starting to feel like a woman, with vanity sizing and plain old incomprehensible sizing. We saw a 32 Long. WTF is that? Is 32 Long 33? 34? Long is kind of indeterminate. I knew the dog was waiting at home for us, so it was all she could do to to keep me in the store and on topic. 

As I mentioned, I was actually partially prepared, having a pair of black socks at home. Somewhere. In the house, hopefully. Wife humored me and said that she believed I had the socks, but I should buy another pair, just in case. I figured I'd play along and visited the Sock Department, conveniently located under the Children's Toys sign.  There were 130 pairs of socks that seemed to be missing half of themselves. Wife assures me it's supposed to be this way - they're ankle socks. Really? And people wear them? There were exactly 2 pairs of black socks that reached significantly above the ankle. Mind you they only came in 4 and 12 packs. You know what I'm thinking, right? What am I going to do with 4 or 12 packs of black socks? I picked the Adidas because they looked comfortable and the logo was so far up the leg, no one would see them. I felt proud. I had made a command decision, like one of those Apollo 13 guys, returning from space. So you know what happened, right? I was told to put them back because they're too casual. HEY - they're black - how can anybody tell? So I am now the proud(?) owner of 6 pairs of black uncomfortable socks. But of course that wasn't enough.... there were ties. Did you know that you can't purchase a black tie? It can have Mickey Mouse, sprinkles, rainlike designs, or nuclear green stripes, but not plain black. I found one that was close, but it didn't have a tag and would have taken 4 days to price at the cashier. I do not believe this would be sufficient excuse for missing the wedding. Ok, I said I had black socks already. I lied... I also have a black belt. I believe it's probably with the black socks. So I located a belt, where numbers don't matter and letters are even further out there. WTF is an M size belt? It's the one smaller than the L size, you idiot.

It's just way more trouble than it's worth. We went home and immediately continued with our new hobby: drinking. Unfortunately only one of us can get smashed on the way to the wedding, as the other has to drive. I think the non-smashed one drives, right? You'll have to excuse me, I'm very new to this.

I also realized that my poor, long-suffering wife had assumed the place of my poor, long-suffering mother, in having to take me shopping for something I didn't want. I'm fscking impossible on a good day; I don't envy either of them. In a way it's partial retribution for making we wait 5 minutes into and out of every store while a cigarette is smoked. 

If there's any bright side to any of this, it's discovering that short shorts have come back. Yes, it means that people with large, wide backsides will be wearing them, but it also means people who should wear them are wearing them. I can't wait for tube tops! 

10% of the web traffic from Teslas is to Drudge Report. 

1. that's ironic
2. Quantcast is measuring where Tesla owners browse

Are we done yet?

I think the putative anti-gun democrat, Paul Pelosi, husband of Nancy, really should have had a gun when the hammer-wielding illegal alien burst into his house. We hope he's ok.

Divide and Conquer has everybody's attention diverted. They have done a tremendous job. 

Meanwhile, government will get bigger and we'll all pay more for the privilege. Hardly seems worth arguing republican vs democrat or vice versa.

Deep Thoughts by lefty

Coke tastes different in plastic bottles than from cans. Don't you think someone should do something about it?

Nails grow faster on your dominant hand.

A rapper called Takeoff was shot and killed by a 'stray bullet' at a Houston bowling alley this week. Getting killed at a bowling alley without even feuding is going to trash his street cred. Coincidentally, Robert Plant took out an AK-47 and sprayed the first few rows at his Detroit show.

Wife just had something called Apple Betty.

I'm sorry, but I can't eat anything with a name.

One of our main server boxes went monumentally slow the other day. Since weird things tend to happen only to me, I asked if anyone else had a problem.

ME: The Fritzenberger Box is really slow for me this morning. Anybody else?

Bob: Yeah.

Sam: A little bit, yes.

Chris: Man, it's way too early to check the Fritzenberger.

Boss: I'll check. Yeah, it's slow.

I was glad we were all in agreement. 

Nobody did anything, but we were all in agreement.

[an hour later]

ME: I can't get into the Fritzenberger box at all. Is it down for you too?

Bob: Yeah

Sam: Yup. No signs of life.

Chris: Well. I guess I better tell the Fritzenberger team...

Good thing I said something.... we wouldn't be able to work all day...... 

Oh.

Dear Mr. lefty:

Your package shipped!

We will have your tracking number within 24 hours.

Approximately 5 hours after you receive the package.

Thank you.

I recently mentioned the magazines in the pile trying to escape.

I fear the magazines are aware and might have read the post.

No, I do not need medicine.

It's just that they were trying to escape wholesale. Ever since I noticed it, they have taken to escaping a page at a time. I come into the office and notice a page sticking out of the pile. I put it back, and an hour later, a different page is there. While this would normally take years to deplete the pile, the magazines are smarter than that: whenever I step on a page, it pulls the entire magazine out a bit. So by the end of the day, a few magazines have successfully escaped. Or rather, tried to escape. You see, I like to consider myself brighter than a pile of magazines. So as they escape, I put them back on the top of the pile, so nothing actually goes anywhere. The net effect is moving up the pile and being mentioned in the blog. Since I don't mention the name or dates, they don't get individually recognized. Perhaps October 2021 wants to be on top of February 2021. This is the only way it could happen. 

What have we learned?

1. Magazines are trying to escape.
2. I spend way too much time thinking about this

Annnnnnnd Black Friday Month has begun.

I'm telling you, next year Black Friday will begin in February.

The president accused Trump and his backers of undermining democracy ahead of key elections.

Uh, Joe... presidents and Congress have done more damage here than Trump could ever do (I'm not saying Trump has or hasn't done anything).

According to our hardware, Marsquakes are a thing. After studying 1,000 of them, experts believe Mars is volcanically active.

That's nice.

• UC Berkeley is withholding comment and strikes until experts determine if the Martians are Jewish.
• President Biden blames Donald Trump for the Marsquakes
• BLM blames systemic racism and threatens more Marsquakes unless they get reparations
• VP Kamila Harris says studies are needed to determine if the quakes affect African American Martians disproportionally. If so, all aid will go to them first.

ATTENTION CORPORATE EMPLOYEES:  The Official Buzzword has changed from "The Cloud" to "AI". So whenever you're in a meeting, make sure to reference the AI projects, so you look like you're ahead of the game.  "The Cloud" is so October.

No Rest for the Wonderful

 Your love is like   a choir of kidney stones

You knew the car coming home from the body shop wouldn't be the last of it.

And it wasn't. 

It has a flat.

Today in Olympic news:  the US Trans Bodybuilding team won everything. Everything.

I'm going to blame CostCo for the flat, the last place the car was.

The place poor Mrs. lefty got badgered and literally assaulted by some crazy lady, who accused her of stealing her cart. Yeah, the lady with the cane stole your cart, then whizzed away so fast you couldn't see her, right?  The police showed up, whereupon the crazy lady started yelling at them. They sent her away with a few pieces of paper.

I have never wanted to be at CostCo, but I wanted to be there at that moment. Lady, if you slap my wife one more time, I will break every bone in your hand, slowly. I will make you count them as I break them. If you do not appear sufficiently contrite, I'll start on the other hand. 

After the police leave, you will write weekly letters of apology, and do 47 hours per week charity work. for the foreseeable future. You will also take college level courses in anger management.

If you fail to make one visit, I will get mad. You do not want to see me mad.

Today I identify as   a pair of cheap computer speakers. I am everywhere hahahahHAHAHAHA!

But we clean. No, really.

Every now and then we get the Cleaning Bug<tm> and have at it.

This time I discovered the Cleaning Bug<tm> can be cured with antibiotics or chocolate.

Actually the bug was cured by attempting to clean.

 Scenes from a Cleaning

• pick up trashcan in house, 4 things attack me, trash spills
• Mom comes to help, walks into dust, isn't seen til time to leave
• HONEY.... I can't put together the clutter organizer you bought because there's too much clutter
• We've got to clean off the table. Ok, where do you want this box? Put it on the table
• This week in vacuuming: it picked up everything. Except the red dog hair. It used to pick up dog hair. Maybe it needs a new bag. It takes bags? Yeah. Where are they? Stop asking stupid questions. They'll pop up. Eventually...
• why are there six car trunks from 1957 Chevys by the table? You don't wanna know. Anything interesting in them? You definitely don't wanna know. Repeat after me: these are all factory new...
• I don't want to say you don't listen to me, but I said 1957 left handed Stratocasters, not 1957 Chevy trunk assemblies. Meh, I guess they're close enough to get mixed up...
• remember the paper boy who went missing in 2004?

Fortunately Wife will deal with the flat. I'll work. Working provides structure. If I don't have structure, there's no telling what I might get into. Or who.

Still, one must wonder what the fsck is going on here.

• All the crashes to the last car, and now it's starting on the new car. We do not hit people - they hit us. Frequently without insurance.
• Tri-plumbing emergency.
• 2 cancerous cockers
• a house that knows when I get a few dollars and breaks accordingly

It has been one after another for at least ten years.

Can somebody explain this shit?

One of my friends absolutely poo-pooed any thought that it's personal. 

I asked him if this happens to him or anyone he knows.

Well...

I don't want to think it's personal - that's just weird.

But the shit falling is so regular and predictable, it certainly feels this way.

"You get more than your share."  When I hear this, I feel better. Nothing is sweeter than validation.

But I still have to pay for it...

We just bought 16 cases of sage. We're going to do the car and the house. So if you hear a lot of fire engines looking for flames, it's probably us.

BUT WAIT!

a friend dropped off some incense that's supposed to help.

C'mon now... incense? My friends burned that stuff in high school. I hated the smell.

Try it.

Does it smell like vanilla ice cream?

No.

Dammit. Does it smell like pumpkin spice?

No.

SOLD. What is it?

Frankincense.

I see. I don't suppose any myrrh will be involved...

No, just frankincense.

No babies - you know I hate kids.

Nope.

Camels?

No.

Mangers? I'm allergic to hay.

Negative.

Am I still a wise man?

That is up for discussion.

So I just burn this stanky stuff when some planet or other goes into retrograde?

And Mondays.

You have to figure that even things we can't see don't like Mondays.

And put this in your pocket 

Dare I ask what it is?

It's a quartz crystal.

I see.

No you don't.

What does it do?

Protection.

Oh, wait, I got this one... if anything bad happens, I take the stone out of my pocket and wing it at someone, right?

You have just split the physical and the metaphysical.

Hey, I'm just that kinda guy.

You must recharge the quartz monthly.

Does it use the USB-C plug or the old one?

[sigh] No good deed ever goes unpunished. TO THE LIONS!

Speaking of BlueTooth speakers, it appears they're mono. Every one I've seen, anyway.

Without arguing whether it's necessary, I find it interesting.

• Rutgers banned unvaccinated students from attending virtual classes
• another institute of higher learning 

The beatings will continue until "health" improves        - @mkibbe

• The president of game server company Tripwire stepped down over support for Texas abortion law
• stop it already. So he has an opinion. I disagree with it but support his right to have his opinion. The only thing I'd be concerned about, if I gave a rip about games, is if he did his job well.  More witch hunts.

In 8 US states, Apple will begin storing driver’s licenses on the iPhone

What could possibly go wrong? 

What about android phones?

• Coronavirus can spread among vaccinated people
• No it can't.
• Ok, yes it can.
• Get your booster.
• Still. No. Clue.

US states that had some of the worst Covid-19 case rates in past week also reported the highest rates of new vaccinations

Android sends 20x more data to Google than iOS sends to Apple, study says

Google: no we don't. Ok, we do, but we're 'improving' the situation.

Internet shutdowns by governments have ‘proliferated at a truly alarming pace’

Of course they have. Governments need to be kept away from the hardware/software. This is part of Full Control. Heaven forbid anything serious happens, rest assured there will be connectivity issues. Also watch for back doors in encryption.

The government is already monitoring everything going through the net via humongous taps in carrier service rooms. This is fact.

• California bill takes aim at Amazon’s productivity-tracking algorithms
• this tells us that the government is meddling in Amazon's business, plus Amazon has productivity-tracking algorithms. Neither being too surprising.

My cousin got her shots. Upon completion of the second one, the pharmacist said, "Great, now we can schedule your booster."  She was not amused. Her arm hurt for days and she was out of it for a day or so.

People around eastern PA like to visit the Pocono Mountains.

If you're from southeast PA, it's pronounced mou-ans.

A relative has a cabin. For some reason, that was entirely hunger, a bear took a fancy to it.

The bear ripped the screen door out and punched out the glass in the wood door.

The bear has obviously done this before. Are there Bear Universities where they learn this stuff?

Don't feed the animals, people.

Get some bear repellent, loud noisemakers, and a gun to fire up in the air.

Don't be bear food. I recommend against it.

• I've been trying to figure out what I hate about Teams, aside from everything and it's Microsoft.
• I think a great start would be to make all bleeps and popups opt-in and optional. Most of them are extremely annoying and not needed. Every meeting dropping notes into the Teams chat is silly, and I don't need to be notified every time it happens. I don't need a BING and large blue notification when someone starts a meeting I'm scheduled for in 5 minutes anyway. I didn't ask for them, yet they popped up anyway.
• Microsoft - you should take notice. When somebody who doesn't like your software makes a suggestion, there may be value in it.
• and while you're at it, when someone highlights text, why not make it an automatic copy, like linux? It does away with an extra step.

An astrobiologist suggests viruses may form a vital part of ecosystems on other planets.

Fauci, the FDA, and the CDC are petitioning NASA for immediate flights to these other planets, to give them shots.

Manufactured Mask Mandates Mask Mental Methane

 Your love is like  eating too much spicy Mexican food

Today is Friday the 13th!

Run around and do stuff. More importantly, harass your friends who refuse to go out on the 13th. Leave dead bats on their doorstep.

Flying AIDS News

The masks are back!

Wear them in your house!

The employers who demanded you come back are hearing you won't.

School mask battles rage on as more children fall ill, fill hospitals

Covid booster: US approves third jab for the immunocompromised (I can't wait for the 4th)

Reddit Quarantines AntiMask Antivax Subreddit  (keep that control absolute

In the first example of its kind, a virus has skipped from the IT press to humans.

It's the FUD virus. FUD is Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, initially referring to nonsense stirred up by an entity with something to gain in the IT field. It hopped from IT press to humans in 2020. It makes so much noise that people have no idea what the truth is, and blindly follow an alleged authority. They stop thinking and don't bother to do their homework. Symptoms include mask mandates, compulsory vaccines, social distancing, schooling at home, and repeating the word "science," even if you don't know what that word means.  Also may involve repeating phrases mindlessly, like "mask up." Can also involve vaccine passports.

Recently seen is the FUD-D virus, which has already morphed from the FUD virus, causing the entire symptomatology to return again, from the top.

Today in Olympic News: one country is arguing with another country about uniform colors, a one time final winner-take-all grudge match between the trans and (sadly) not-trans athletes. The winner will make up everybody's Olympic team from here on.

• didja ever get a snake up your nose?
• me either

Today I identify as  Napoleon

That's Our President, episode 43

• Conservative radio host and vaccine critic dies of covid-19 complications
• oopsie 

An Australian brewery has been banned from promoting one of its beers, after a minor mistook it for chocolate milk.

Not related: all parents in Australia have suddenly disappeared 

• Oregon Law Allows Students To Graduate Without Proving They Can Write Or Do Math
• Oregon parents ask "..and this is different how?" 
• Oregon's graduation rate is nearly the lowest in the country, so this is to raise the rates. 

Looking at my inbox at work, it's pretty damn clean from my coworkers. Unfortunately it's absolutely gummed up from the company. While my group may publish 10 emails per week, all relevant, my company will send 50, mostly irrelevant. And then when it's done sending them out, on Friday it sends out a recap of the week's messages. No one knows why. I wonder if they get a discount for using more space.

You know, highly relevant stuff, like Martian Astronaut History Month. We're also concerned, for no understandable reason, with what other groups in the company are up to. That custodial got a new riding mower should be kept on a Need to Know basis, and I have no Need to Know. If we're changing our phone system in another office, I worked really diligently but couldn't come up with any way it could possibly affect my group. Let's also consider that most of us work remotely, so any phone system news wouldn't be Need to Know. Likely anything about sexual harassment. Not only can't we harass anyone if we're not in the office, I already know all about sexual harassment. It has been mentioned that I should run the courses (but not as a HOW TO).

And there's still that one guy in my group. The guy who's quite a bit more experienced (smarter) than me, who still pronounces 'malware' as 'mallware.' I've never heard of mallware, but I'll bet my wife has.

After forcing my group to read this blog, plus a series of meetings where we point it out and laugh at people, we have the oral noises down to just teeth-sucking. This is a great improvement in meetings over grunting, coughing, whistling, teeth-sucking, pencil tapping on teeth, and belching.

But I like these people. Ok, going out for a beer after work would cost $16,372 in plane fare, but they're good people. Yes, some of them have questionable hobbies that involve livestock, but they're all really nice to each other. As you'd expect, the women are more gross than the men, but we take care of each other.

I just came out of a meeting. A meeting where I work is the sound of one man talking. No matter if it includes 5 or 50 people, only the moderator speaks. It's company culture. Unless there's a wiseass comment to be made, then 2 people will speak up. Today's meeting involved something we work with daily and how to streamline it, so you'd think we all have a vested interest in things working faster. Nope - not a peep. Except for me. I can't decide if my group hates the sound of my voice or is glad I ask questions so they don't have to disturb their vocal cords. If I can get an hour or two cut out of the week, that's kinda important. But no... nobody says a word. I am convinced that if my boss asked how many people want the rest of the week off, there would be silence. I told him the loneliest man in the company is the man leading a meeting. He agreed.

• A woman in Sydney, Australia, is under investigation for pretending to be a doctor. For eight months. The only reason she was discovered is that her ratings were so good and she saw so many patients, that the real doctors were complaining.

SEVENTY THREE year old Stevie Nicks canceled her remaining performances to 'keep healthy'

Her original face was gorgeous, as is her second(?) one.

Limp Bizkit is also cancelling the remaining dates on their tour due to the Flying AIDS.

Music fans all over the world rejoice.

• The Senate approved an amendment proposed by Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio to provide free internet to Cuba
• WTF? 

As if this blog isn't random enough.....

If you are in a committed relationship, and we're not talking about your goldfish, have some sex.

It would seem a tremendous idea in general, wouldn't it?

What you might be missing (get ready for it) is that sex isn't just the best thing in the world. It's also a means of staying close to your significant other. It's communication. It's releasing all sorts of wonderful 1chemicals into your system, like oxytocin (the love stuff). Sex and touch are actually essential to every relationship: if you're not doing one or the other or both, you're probably drifting apart and not reconfirming your feelings for your significant other. Some people go through their lives not knowing this. It's a big hit with relationship counselors. You will look at your SO differently the next day.

Now RUN over to your SO and show this to them:

"HI HONEY... we're supposed to have sex. It says right here in this very silly blog, so it must be true. Get nekkid and let's non-verbally show our love for each other. Someone told me it means twice as much love if we do Butt Stuff...."

Fun Body Facts

• there are over 60 sphincters in the human body
• there are a ton of nerve cells in the butt - the better to feel you, My Pretty
• there are a ton of nerve cells in the kidney - so kidney stones can hurt so bad you want to die
• a man's penis can also be used for peeing    -monty python

My friend's dog is terrified of thunder and tries to hide.

My dog barks at it.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, my cable service is down. 

If the cable company can tell me it's down, when it went down, and when it's going to be up, it sounds less unforeseen than the English as a Second Language gentleman in customer service told me. I am not demeaning this person, but his accent sounded like a mixture of Indian and tv westerns.

Earlier, I had gone to their website to check on service. I went to Search and put in Outage Map. For the life of it, it couldn't locate Outage Map. Mind you, on the next page, it told me if I signed in, I could view the outage map. Mind you, if internet is broken, I can't check anyway. I have to use my phone. I don't think it should be a national secret that there is an outage in the area. On the phone, they wanted my phone number. I gave it to them and they told me there's no account with that phone number attached to it. Funny, I pay the bill monthly, so there must be a phone number attached to it. I can't exactly give them my account number, because it has 47 digits, 3 spaces, a couple of Q's, and something that looks like emojis, but this is a 100% emoji-free house.   They wanted to know if it was for a wifi password or email issue. IT'S FOR THE COMPLETE AND TOTAL LACK OF SERVICE, but there was apparently no option for that. Sometimes if you scream, curse, or hit zero, you can get to a human.

The gentleman politely informed me it would be operational by 2am, which is a shame, as it's 11pm and it would be a good idea to sleep at some point. While my team and boss have no way of telling if I'm asleep at the keyboard, I'd feel bad about it. I'd also feel bad about waking up with the imprint of a keyboard on my face. If I think about it, almost anything would be an improvement, or so my family and everyone I went to school with told me. The kind fellow offered to text me when it comes back up. I can tell the future sometimes, and I can tell that a text at 2am will not be welcome by Wife, me, or the dog, who will probably bark at it.

You realize what this means, right?

I am so far behind on my pr0n that there's no catching up.

No sleeping with my step-sister, various MILFs, clown pron, in a taxi, butt specials, or just my regular old hamster pr0n. If my boss notices I'm off tomorrow, how do I explain this? I think he's very religious, which I'm going to go ahead and assume means he's not big on pr0n. So it's down to pr0n or sleep, either of which will affect my ability to do my job tomorrow.

My workplace is so rough

HOW ROUGH IS IT?

Because of an alleged sexual assault, Alibaba is offering its 250,000 employees self-defense training.

Are You Left Handed or Backwards?

Mercedes UK admits spying on drivers with tracking devices. Your location is not a secret on new or used cars. The government is outraged because only they should be able to spy on citizens. Is this happening in America too? Check what you're signing.

Lincoln is introducing Phone-As A Key, where you download an app to unlock your car (android or other). You're tracked here too because the app sends the data up the line every time you use it (and probably when you're not using it).

Faceyspaces gives everyone a 'clear history tool' that doesn't clear anything. 
Still logging in? 400+ million users' data on the loose. Still logging in?

Over a third of firms have suffered a cloud attack.
Once again, I have been proven correct.
If you can't touch your data, it's no longer yours.




Boris Johnson, the UK's new PM (PDQ), said he appreciates Donald Trump's kind words, but promised that he wouldn't say anything nice about Trump if Trump doesn't say anything nice about him. A Trump endorsement makes it even harder to get anything done.

• Denmark's PM said that Greenland is not for sale. She recommended the US take a look at China.

Dear lefty

• Why are you so nasty all the time?
• Because I hate you.

Angela Merkel (D-Germany) is being hauled into world court to explain why she deliberately uses a hard G in Angela.

Boris Johnson went to meet Angela Merkel as his first visit out of state. Boris took some remedial German classes in preparation, but couldn't make all the classes. As a result, here are a few things he said to Merkel

Good evening. Your mother is a fire truck.
About this Brexit thing.... God, you're ugly.
Germany holds a special place in my spleen.
Terrible thing about those Jews, isn't it?
Don't mention the war. Did I say that out loud?

• England will never be taken seriously until it stops saying conTROVerSEE and SHED-ule.

No thank you, I'd rather vacation in Jeffrey Epstein's jail cell.

Speaking of Epstein's cell, his former cellmate is being politely requested not to talk about a single thing that goes on in prison. Lest he get transferred to that cell.

• Having a bad day? A man burying his wife, a victim of the El Paso shooting, had his SUV stolen at the funeral.  Stop complaining.

I bought an ergonomic mouse, forever answering the question 'can I get a left handed mouse?' If you take a regular mouse and pick one side up to about 45 degrees, it looks like that. I really like the device and recommend it. It even has backspace and forward buttons for browsing. Since it's tall, I always knock it over with my hand.

Related: know how it's difficult to grab the tiny perimeter of a window to resize it? I have a hard time NOT grabbing it. It's like magic. Evil magic.



OXYMORONS

• Faceyspaces Privacy Officer
• Congressional Ethics
• Microsoft Security Engineer
• MTV Rocks

Work is fun and I'm learning all sorts of Stuff.
Stuff like being security conscious but using Chrome and Internet Explorer is ok. Internet Explorer is a Hall of Horrors. Whenever I use it, I remember why I not only hate it, but why I use ad blockers on my real browsers: it's the only time I see ads. So this is what PTSD means....

As with all jobs, there are meetings. I have tried with all my might to avoid meetings, without success. Even bad behavior hasn't helped.... when I try, I find out the others are trying harder than me (and succeeding). It's a competition to keep up. My behavior is actually encouraged. I tried feigning incompetence, but this also failed, as most of my coworkers are genuinely incompetent. I also tried Tourette's Syndrome, randomly blurting out curses, but no one could tell it from my regular outbursts. I tried an earring through my eyebrow, but the boss has a 6" bone through his nose.  I even tried explosives, but one coworker laughed and said, "You call that an explosive," then showed me his desk drawer. I even claimed I'm second shift (where literally nothing gets done) but no one heard me because they were off doing nothing of their own.

This will challenge all my creativity but I'm up for it.


Speaking of work, I had to put in a trouble ticket for some broken software.
My department must get to our issues in 24 hours...  to this day, we're not sure if Helpdesk is obligated to even look at their tickets. Since this was a fairly important request, they got back to me within a few weeks. I got asked if I'm still having that software problem. Well, I'd say so, as I can't fix it myself. You know, that's why I put in the ticket. Software doesn't spontaneously repair itself.

Oh.

He goes away a couple of times, without informing me he's working in the issue. I'm staring at the screen, waiting for something magical to happen. Fortunately there was no extensive breath-holding going on. I gave up and went back to my own job, where I get to all issues within an hour. A few disappearances later he informs me of what's wrong.  Well, that's nice. Then he disappears again. Where do these people go? When he eventually gets back, it's Fixed!

He has this whole dance down to a science. No one ever complains because, like their doctor, they're just happy to see him.

Now he'll tell his boss he spent 4 hours with some idiot who broke his machine, so that's why he got nothing done this week.

Oops, the fix was less that perfect, in that it didn't work at all, much like Congress. I'm sure someone will get back to me. In a month or two.




A girl was found bound and gagged in a car on a California freeway. The family said they were taking her to drug rehab. Turns out they were taking her to a Taylor Swift concert. It was for her own good.

There's a commercial on in the background and I notice the jingle sounds perfectly vapid and perfect for a commercial. Then I find out it's not a commercial - it's Taylor Swift. This is only the second song of hers I've heard, but my first instinct is RUN. She seems like such a nice person, though.

• Porn Industry Worried Association with White House May Tarnish Its Image.

Heroes of the Stupid

Fearing they could be overwhelmed with visitors, officials in the remote Nevada county that’s home to the Area 51 military base have drafted an emergency declaration and a plan to team resources with neighboring counties and the state ahead of events tied to the “Storm Area 51” internet drive. The entire storm will peter out when they find out cell service just crashed and they can't livestream to Faceyspaces.


If you play touch football at Lamar High School in Arlington, Texas, things just got safer: you are now required to wear a helmet.


Best headline: Joe Biden's brain surgeon is defending Joe Biden's brain.
He plans to install it after the election.


I just saw a message from someone using Microsoft Outlook for Android.
A virus you have to install manually.



SJW Stupidity

San Francisco board rebrands 'convicted felon' as 'justice-involved person'.
Richard Ramirez, 'the Nightstalker,' is now 'serially female-involved'.





History will look back on us and get a neck sprain from shaking its head vigorously.    - lefty

Some things never go out of style

Resolving Not to Resolve

Continuing the embarrassment, Work replaced the iDevice 6 with an iDevice 7.
When they gave me the 6, I asked my boss to get me an android. He said he was ok with that, but I needed some sort of doctor's note. This time I figured I'd approach it differently: I asked the tech handing out the phones how much of a bribe he'd need to give me an android. He told me to go to the next department, where they all had androids.  HEY.....!!  I'll take a bag phone at this point.

So I got stuck with another iDevice.
It feels quite inferior next to my personal phone, both in operating system and size. Don't let anyone tell you different: women like big phones.
Work being what it is, I got a phone. Just a phone. Mind you, they went the extra distance and charged it for me. So the phone powered on, but the Ultra Triple Secret Logon is so secret, I don't have it.  We changed carriers recently, from the reliable one with great coverage to the One That Doesn't Work. Because of the change, over 2 months ago, no one knew to send out the new information. It was a total surprise.

So the bad news is I can't use my phone.
The good news is I can't use my phone.

P.S. one week later, still no Ultra Triple Secret Logon.
P.P.S. three weeks later, a minor miracle happened - it worked without intervention!
P.P.P.S. I had a guitar adapter that plugged into the headphone jack so I could play through the phone. The iDevice HAS NO HEADPHONE JACK. Just one of the many reasons I hate Apple.

• Let's talk life insurance. There are 2 kinds: the one that you pay for and the one you get when you haven't bought enough for your spouse to do away with you.

One of my favorite people I never met is the never-equaled and never will be Frank Zappa. Check this article out - it's a very good, light overview. Zappa would have been 78 on 12/28/2018. I wonder what he'd be up to....

• My friend offered his wife her favorite: a foot massage. She said no thanks, her feet hurt. He asked if her breasts hurt too.

Dear lefty

• Will you resolve to lose some of that weight?
• Will you resolve to lose some of that ugly?

The new 'networks' showing ancient tv shows leave no doubt about the kind of people still watching broadcast tv. Magnum PI is back. My wife shrieks and turns the channel because his shorts are shorter than a Kardashian. I'm sure they didn't seem odd at the time, but neither did sawing off limbs without anesthetic.

Precisely one hour after I wrote the above, I discovered there's a remake of Magnum PI coming to your tv. We are doomed. Can't they make it a cartoon and put it on 6am Saturdays?  "Hey Mom, WAKE UP - why are his shorts so small?"

• Is it a sign of affection when a dog belches in your face?

Why Stunning Ukrainian Women Are Seeking Men Abroad.

Wanna know what's wrong with your country?

Wanna know what's right?

The owner of a website that hooks Ukrainian women up with western men answers questions. The answers are alternately hilarious and frightening. The main answer deals with standard of living (and hygiene).

It might be worth a trip to the site, but do so using the Private browser tab, in case you have a wife or girlfriend.

• a Las Vegas customer ran over and killed her manicurist to avoid payment.
• This is a perfect example of Americans getting more stupid: everybody knows nails are cheaper than dents.

A fitting end to 2018

One of the kids telling Penny she'll love this treat.. it's the kind Marshall ate when he was dying.  Ahh, children....

• it turns out the dog can't say "fungal spore"

Dear lefty

• Where do you get the crap you type?
• Your mother.

Don't you hate it when your hotel room has a GSM (cell phone) listening device? A person in Wales found it behind an outlet. What he was doing behind the outlet, I have no idea - maybe planting his own

I hate to have to say this, but our first 2018 Rock Death is Roy Sawyer, better known as Mr. Eye-Patch in Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. Their biggest hit is "When you're in love with a beautiful woman", but their most fun hit was "Cover of the Rolling Stone." He was 81, no cause of death listed.

• a fisherman in Florida (of course) found a 60lb package of cocaine. He immediately reported the 40lb package to the US Coast Guard.

The truly important news of 2019 can be summed up thusly: there is a gadget for brownies that looks like an old ice cube tray divider. It allows you to get brownies already cut, and all can be ends, if you like.

Inventions, Stats, and Outright Lies

Speaking of anniversaries, ThermionicEmissions is coming up on a big one: at the end of this month, it will be a year and a half since the last comment on the blog.  Sure, lefty, bitch at the people who are brave and nice enough to read the blog in the first place.

• Speaking of Portugal, we had a mad rush last week from Canada. Heh heh. Get it? Rush from Canada? No, seriously, lots of Canadian visitors. And one from Portugal.
• Don't ask me - I just read the stats and look at the pretty colored charts.

The Great Ant Battle of 2018 continues. They show up in weird places... you'd think they'd go after food, which is what insects (and little brothers) do. Not these ants. These guys are after something else. The only problem is that no one has any idea what it is.

Sure, they'll show up where there's food... that's easy. But we find them in the bathrooms. I found them in my office. Nothing alive or dead is in my office, with the possible exception of me. No food, no ancient dog treats, no decaying former guests, and definitely NO dessicated local tax assessors. The only organic matter in that room is occasionally ME. I hope they're not after me, like most other things in the universe.

Maybe some nefarious entity has spliced in some African Killer Bee DNA, rendering the ants nasty, with a taste for blood. A theory about assassination ants is no more strange than any other theory (especially for this blog). 

Somebody told the wife that where there's one ant, there's a ton of ants you can't see. She takes this to heart, so when she sees one, she puts on her Sherlock Holmes hat, with 2 brims, so you can't tell whether she's coming or going, and does some deteckin' work, hunting down the little $&@^ers. One day they appeared to be coming from the dishwasher. She actually spent a while tracing them back. It's a good thing the cabinets are firmly attached to the walls or I'd be even more afraid to go in the kitchen. Then she pulls out the Big Guns... an industrial size yellow gallon container of Everything Killer, with an actual pump and spray gun. It's extremely effective for killing ants. It's also extremely effective at stinking, so you need to plan your strategy carefully. Except for last night, when she found about two hundred of them, having a party in the bedroom. I don't know about you, but if I'm not having a party in the bedroom, no one else is either. She fired, ridding the place of live ants. Did I mention this was the bedroom? In which we sleep? Which was now unfit for human habitation... even Monsanto wouldn't come within a mile of the house. They know why too.

The other gun is some sort of natural ant killer which is harmless to humans, dogs, and sometimes ants. I kid - it works about as well as the yellow gallon, and somehow manages to smell almost as bad. How do natural ingredients manage to smell like chemicals? Maybe the manufacturer added a chemical scent so the customers would think it was working. And now I'm finding a few on my desk. And on my left leg only. Even natural spray isn't all that good for computers and stuff, so it can't be deployed. In some cases it would be nice to say the only interesting thing in the room is me, but not this time.

The prevailing theory is the ungodly amount of rain we've had lately. It's the prevailing theory because no one brought up another theory.  I really need to get some picture of her kills. There was the Battle of the Drying Rack, where thousands died.  The Battle of the Upstairs Bathroom, where bodies flew far and wide. The Battle of the Kitchen Molding, where hundreds were marching, on the way to some top secret target. The aforementioned Battle of the Bedroom, where the casualties were beyond counting. The most senseless slaughter happened during the Battle of the Downstairs Bathroom Molding on the Outside of the Bathroom. I may not be an ant (I'm not...really) but I can't figure out what's so wonderful about molding. You know what they say: it's not the destination, it's the journey.

The latest news involves the Battle of the Office. A favorite internet suggestion was to interrupt their reproduction, as opposed to killing them outright.  We bought a rather large box of this stuff, hoping for some relief. How in the known universe does one apply 5,000 ant condoms?

So we returned that box (Amazon is really good with returns) and went to Plan B; the Morning Before Pill. A trap is set, with micro doses of Ambien. The ants eat it, and immediately become confused, then head off to dreamland. At some point they wake up, whether they know it or not, and become so disoriented, all six legs start moving in different directions. If they manage to find their pad, they go in and stumble about for a while, eventually passing out in their little ant beds. Or on the floor. When they finally arise, the Ambien has rendered them sterile so no more ants. The moral of the story is to stay away from Ambien, lest you become confused and sterile.

• How to stop your smart tv from tracking you. This goes over how to stop your information from leaking, featuring instructions covering several brands.

Work

So I'm enjoying the hell out of my new job, which is exactly like my old job, only with a different name on the checks.  This is a job in which a brain comes in handy. Rarely is any day like any other. But no matter how hard or different the job is, nothing comes close to the overwhelm and sheer terror of benefits selections. There are more health insurances than I've ever seen. With all sorts of bizarre names, having nothing to do with anything identifiable. I made a point of asking if they cover pets, hoping that I'd be employed after asking. No, they do not. How many times have you had to decide between a lot of insurers? It took four days to get up the steam to start looking at them. Wife asked me why I was shaking my head. Apparently I do that when I'm disgusted. Don't ask me - I can't see me when I'm doing it. If you have a shortcut to making this less of a herculean task, please share it with us. Otherwise you have to go through each insurance and figure out what they cover. There's a compare button online, that lets you compare up to three insurers. Three. You still have to figure out if they will cover your specific needs. After what felt like four weeks, but was in fact three weeks, I made a selection. I should have done this weeks ago. I closed my eyes and pointed to a spot on the screen, choosing the insurance under my index finger. Statistically this produces better results than making huge spreadsheets, especially when you can't remember all the shortcuts and commands for spreadsheets. Of course I'm kidding.. I asked my coworker what he has and selected that. 

I have a great dental plan. In fact I've had a great dental plan at the last three jobs, but don't use it because I'm terrified to go there. Since I'm telling on myself, I might as well admit I don't go to the doctor either. I'm not terrified of the doctor, so I have no idea why I don't go. It definitely doesn't have anything to do with the serious lack of very attractive medical assistants, no sir. I can even let them take blood without passing out (me, hopefully not them). Maybe I'm just ridiculously healthy and my body knows it, keeping me from wasting time (and that nice doctor with the gloved finger...at least he says he's a doctor). Ok, ok, I'll go this year; I promise. I've had the same blood slip for five years. I should ask for a new one...the labs probably stopped doing some of those tests. And I ain't letting no one near my cervix until I find out what a cervix is.

Please don't make me look at the life insurance or whatever the hell those other forms are for. Maybe I'll ask Benefits to pick them for me and buy the department some pizza.

It's a nice place to work, provided you don't have any computer problems. I've been in computers for all of my life, so I'm somewhat familiar with them. They're large purple things, the size of a trailer park. Very Smart People set up these computers so the users can't mess with them. This scheme has saved the company millions in User Assisted Screwups and viruses. Unfortunately, anything that goes wrong requires someone with the correct permissions to assist you. The only people with the correct permissions are the good people at the service desk. But you have to put in a service ticket first. The service desk has four hours to contact you. They forgot to put the 2 in front of the 4. Every time something breaks, we do the Service Dance. I put in a service ticket, then email, call, and text them. They always get back to me within 72 hours. Right about 72 hours every time, during which I am working with a broken or seriously disabled computer. I asked my boss about this one day. He didn't seem at all surprised about this. Apparently it's institutional. Not getting my work done is also institutional, judging from some of my coworkers. I'm old school - I don't get this. Plus I used to do this work.

I don't want to get down on the department; I had enough of that when I did it. The techs are all nice and helpful. This points to Manglement. Perhaps gross understaffing. I really don't care - I just want my friggin computer fixed (jackass). After waiting 72 hours, they managed to fix it. For damn near an hour. I called, phoned, and texted them to let them know. Expecting another 72 hours, they pleasantly surprised me by only making me wait 24 hours. This also failed to fix the problem. They're going to try again tomorrow. Or at least that's what they told me.  Maybe it's their fault after all... they have this 24/7 party/orgy happening, which they leave every 6 hours to take a call and promise something they have no intention of delivering. Sure - we'll get with you first thing in the morning and get you all fixed up. Yesterday, first thing in the morning was 1pm. The thing that upsets me most is not getting invited to their parties.

• We received another card from the vet. A donation has been made In Marshall's name to the University of Pennsylvania's Animal Hospital and teaching facility; number one in the area.
• his spirit, personality, and fight touched a lot of people.

We're on a list for another rescue dog, because we didn't learn the first time. Or the second time. Or even the third time. The house is so empty. If we don't do something now, this blog truly will document my journey into madness, as joked about earlier.

Way way back, before any of us were born, cocker spaniels split off into American cockers and English cockers. Americans are the smallest sporting breed, at up to 28 lbs or so. They have short snouts and a merry temperament. English cockers are larger, taller, and more broad, with a longer snout and the same merry temperament. We're on the list for an English cocker. I had one when I was a little terror. Looked almost exactly like this guy:

English cocker in "blue roan"

young American cocker in black

Airport Facts

A fascinating program I saw a bit of was on people moving in airports. Apparently someone sat in airports and observed people. On coming across people walking at them, Asians move to the right and Europeans move to the left. If they're coming at each other, they crash.

They also went into signage. The fellow in charge of signs said "Less is more".
From my two years of high school math:

If less=more then more=less
More air over the plane wing causes less pressure = lift
Plane lift = flying
Flying = cramped seating with screaming infants and a little bastard kicking the back of your seat
Cramped seating = a bad experience, possibly involving cramps
A bad experience = a worse experience picking up your baggage
Difficulty picking up your bags = hostility to airport personnel
Therefore: less=more creates airport personnel fatalities, so keep the food and souvenirs at affordable prices.


The average human hands carry 100 species of bacteria, requiring a war against disease outbreaks.

The runway's biggest problem is birds, which can cause fatal outcomes if they get sucked into the plane's engines, not to mention what the bird feels when shredded by a humongous Rolls Royce airplane engine.  Remember Sully, the pilot who landed his plane in the Hudson River? He had no engines because of bird strikes. My solution: use imprisoned gang members to shoot at them. It's a win-win and a much better shot (sorry) at criminal rehabilitation. It would also be less expensive than designing a laser-guided bird annihilator, assuming the military doesn't already have one.

Or they could rid the place of mice, which attract foxes and birds, which hunt the little $&#ers.

• As if the food weren't enough to keep you away, fast food restaurants are using facial recognition 'to remember how you like your burger'. It's almost everywhere, even in Walmart's parking lots. Mall stores are also using surveillance techniques, whether they're detecting your phone or your face combined with your purchase.
• The main need for remembering who you are is so the restaurant can remember how to screw up your order uniformly.
• Facial recognition software isn't all that accurate, especially on black people. So if you go anywhere with this software, make sure you identify as black.

I Love the Smell of Peanut Butter in the Morning

One of the symptoms of ADD/ADHD is when there is too much input at one time, one gets cranky, in an explosive kind of way.

While I'm doing some VIBW (Very Important Blog Work), my parents call. I know this because their ringtone is Zappa's Jewish Princess. It is their ringtone because they're neither Jewish nor princess. Suffice it to say that I can not discuss whose ringtone is Fat Bottom Girls, for my well being.

Since this is during working hours, nobody is supposed to call me, unless something is on fire. My sixth and seventh senses tell me nothing's on fire and my Special Training on Shitty New Software sold by the Boss' Daughter is about  to begin, I don't answer.

So I'm home from work, working. I'm talking to my workmate about something that was supposed to be clarified last week that is due tomorrow. My boss, bless him, is the nicest person I know. He does fourteen jobs at once. He asks for something, like a few slides on working environment, and we deliver. Before we deliver, we always have to nail him to his chair for five minutes to clarify that 'a few slides on working environment' means 'two full color PowerPoint slides for a presentation to a number of groups, on the topic of workflow in our specific little group.' He's truly the nicest person I know. Takes his kids to church three times a week. To synagogue twice a week. Every other week to a mosque.

My boss is not answering my workmate's pleas to clarify the last project, which has been going on for months, so we're less than optimistic about the project for tomorrow. We discuss this on our call, after working hours (which, as we know, may become illegal in New York). While we're talking, Marshall barks. He can always tell when there's work involved and it goes right to his bladder. So he barks and I start to growl.

Back on the phone, Workmate continues to talk, oblivious to the fact that I put the phone down 2 minutes ago. I get a few words in, when I hear silverware rattling. As I'm the only human home and Marshall can't open the door by himself, this is not good news. This is a rodent.

I'm horrified to admit this. But it's not my friggin fault. We're clean, don't leave food out, and wash dishes frequently. In the winter, they arrive all over the neighborhood, even in the antiseptic conditions of the (non-crazy) neighbor's house. If there's no food, what the hell attracts the little fuckers bastards? Warmth, probably. Apparently they like wires too. Aside from iron, I'm not sure why. We spent time over the winter mouse-proofing the house. Finally we found a hole and patched it. No more mice. Until today.

My growl is growing in volume and is starting to concern my workmate, who mentions it in an offhand way. I become aware of my overload just as I'm reaching through the phone to strangle him. No, I tell myself, that will have to wait til after the presentation tomorrow.

Back to our discussion, we're coming up with ideas and someone is knocking on the door. The schizophrenic with the guns knocks in morse code, so 'they' won't know he's here. This was a more defined, whimsical knock. It's a shame that the door doesn't have individual ringtones. Because of the whimsy, it could only be the wife. Last I heard, she had house keys, although the way things have been going lately, they're with everything else she lost. I say to myself CANT I GET A SIMPLE PHONE CALL DONE WITHOUT A FLYING TRAPEZE ACT SUDDENLY MATERIALIZING in the living room?

My wife does not simply walk into a room. Fran Drescher (more likely Joan Rivers') autobiography is called Enter Laughing. My wife's is called Enter Talking, Loudly. She does precisely this and it takes all sorts of hand signals and screaming to let her know I'm on a WORK CALL. Oh, sorry.

Back to my call. Three words in, Wife stands in front of me with a bag, like there's a tremendous surprise in it. She tries to hand it to me while I'm still taking. For some reason, I get REALLY MAD and try to convey, in hand signals, that I'M WORKING. STILL. NOTHING HAS CHANGED SINCE TWO MINUTES AGO, WHEN YOU WALKED THROUGH THE DOOR that I had to open because your keys fell into some sort of multi-dimensional vortex. Or you just think it's cute that I'll open the door for you.

There are all sorts of mouse traps. Glue (inhumane), regular old (not effective), variation on regular old, with a fake cheese-like step, and these White Things. The White Things are ferocious-looking beasts, with huge, pointy teeth, but all plastic. I have no idea how a mouse could get bait out of this thing, because it closes on my finger whenever I try to bait it. It's hair bloody triggered. Wife will not go within a ten foot radius of it when it's armed.

After my call, I go into the kitchen, where there is no mouse. This worked out well, as I don't like mice. I checked the trap. I'll give you one guess what I saw. Yes, the little #*@&er ate the peanut butter.  HA, I thought. I am going to win this war. I put fresh peanut butter in the trap, feeling like MacArthur. I love the smell of peanut butter in the morning.

On the way out of the kitchen, Wife wants to know where she put that bag, because she lost it.  It's now been fifteen minutes since she entered the house, and in that time, she has already misplaced the bag she carried in. Maybe it's in the car.... no, Dear, it's not in the car. I know this because you tried to give it to me repeatedly while I was on the phone. Oh. Did I?  I'm already through for the day and have given up rage, work, and looking for Stuff.

Apparently I had not given up grief, though.
My parents make a phone call and if no one answers, go right into Panic Mode<tm>. Because I didn't answer, they called Wife. Why hasn't she called in weeks? Does she no longer love them? [insert Charlie Brown teacher noises - wah wha wah wah.] When the first person fails to answer, they call the spouse, the kids, the landline, then the hospitals and police.

While she is regaling me with Tales of the Parents, I listen to their voicemail to me. "We were wondering what happened to Wife. She hasn't called in WEEKS and we thought something was wrong."

It's a good thing I didn't answer the phone.
'Weeks' actually means 'a few days'.
None of Wife's behavior, or for that matter, mine, is new.  So why is it a surprise every time? The parents are not 90 years old and they have their wits about them, or at least keep them in the trunk at all times.

Wife goes upstairs, probably to look for the previous item she lost, and I immediately find the bag she just lost. Friend texts from vacation, in Bangkok. I don't care how old you are, Bangkok is FUNNY. Try it with me: BANGKOK. BANGKOK. heh heh... he said Bangkok. I advised him that if he goes on any dates, he should check the plumbing first.

It is unnaturally quiet as I type this. I brace for imminent arrival of a train, in the living room, next to the Flying Trapeze Act, which is still packing up before going home.

It's the Thing. The THINGY Thing. Over by the Thing!

I hear that a lot at home. Also heard elsewhere.
The bizarre part is that two women know what the other is referring to.

• We've decided to eat healthy. Just the other morning, I noticed a bowl of cut up vegetables. It was right on top of the chocolate cheesecake.

United, America's most bizarre, assaultive, and death-bringing airline, has done it again. After killing a dog by insisting it go in the overhead bin, today's rage-inducer is flying a dog from Kansas to Japan. While United has no comment thus far, we understand they will charge the owner for the return flight from Japan.

SIRI ALERT

I have not verified this but you'll want to read the article, just in case.
How Siri leaks your private iPhone messages, and how to stop her

Slippery Slope Strikes Similarly

YouTube 'conspiracy' videos will get links to Wikipedia and other sources to 'fact check.'  At first, only videos with 'significant debate' will get the text box links. A YouTube spokesman says they're always exploring new ways to battle misinformation. In other words, do not question the established narrative. Google, YouTube's parent, admits to pushing down the 'craziest' content. This has failed, because people like to watch it (if it bleeds, it leads). This is happening with Google search results, as well as YouTube. As one would expect, I have questions:

• Who decides what's crazy?
• Lawmakers and media advocacy groups are pushing this. If I understand things correctly, this directly contravenes the First Amendment.
• Wikipedia's information is crowdsourced - meaning it comes from people. Just like conspiracy theories and fake news and misinformation.
• You will notice that no outlet questions the fake news and legislation proposed by Congress or Mainstream Media. The CIA planted people at the major news organizations - this is fact.
• Conspiracy theories quite often turn out to be true. The term was invented by the CIA to make people look crazy and decrease their credibility. Even if we choose to believe that the government just started looking into UFOs, they were a conspiracy theory.

Faceyspaces and Google have actively pushed down potentially fake content. This failed.

Let's call this what it is: an active effort to start the censorship and suppression of content somebody doesn't like. Irony: people will call this a conspiracy theory but it's right here in the links. The content being affected leans mostly to the right. We've already seen this with Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter.

Again, I'm not right, alt-right, or left; I'm free speech. It starts with the right. Then who is left to protest when they come for the left? Some useful idiots on the left will actually push for this. Some useful idiots on the right too, although it's mostly their content at risk.

And it's happening right here, under our noses, dressed up as combating misinformation and fake news.

Do you disagree? Let me know and I'll give you space.

• Tired of the infuriating popups while browsing? If you have the new Firefox 59, go to Tools > Options > Permissions and check "Block new requests asking to allow notifications” (Windows) or Edit > Preferences > Privacy & Security (linux). It will be similar on Macs. Probably in android too.

Hey, how about that humongous Equifax breach that disappeared from the news, as if it had an anchor tied to it... a former executive has been charged with stock dumping before the breach was disclosed.

• Speaking of Mac malware, it has risen 270 percent. If you're really comfortable with your Mac's security, you might want to think again. I'm not taking a swipe at Macs, like I usually do. I'm warning you not to be complacent in thinking you're immune. Bad People wait til your operating system or software is popular enough to make it worth their while.

Actual Work Conversation. Names changed to protect the guilty...


ME: Why did they schedule Meeting B the same time as Meeting A?
HIM: Yeah, I see 2. Which one are you talking about.
ME: the two that are at the same time: Meeting A and Meeting B. We have Meeting A every week at the same time.
HIM: At 1:00?
ME: yes
HIM: I had Meeting C earlier. Then Meeting D at 3:00. You're not on the invite for Meeting D.
ME: [suppressing rage and violent urges] We have Meeting A every week at 1:00. Today I got an invite for Meeting B.
HIM: Well.... I got the usual one for Meeting A and one for Meeting Q, but that's it.
ME: [I have to put me out of my misery] Ok.
HIM: I do have one at 3:30 for Meeting H.
ME: GOOD GOD, DUDE - DON'T YOU HAVE ANY PROZAC OR HEAVY MUSCLE RELAXERS AT YOUR DESK?

• Darwin Winner Pedro Ruiz III planned a YouTube stunt, wherein his girlfriend, Monalisa Perez, would shoot a .50 cal bullet through an encyclopedia he was holding in front of his chest to see if it would pass through.
• Perhaps Pedro didn't fully consider the implications. As it turned out, the bullet did, in fact, pierce the encyclopedia. Then his heart. Pedro is no more. Perhaps Pedro was suicidal but scared to perform the act himself. Perhaps Pedro did the science and discovered that a .50 would go through an encyclopedia like a fat person through a box of chocolates. Perhaps he was much more intelligent than he appeared. Alas, we will never know.
• Monalisa, the mother of his two children, will serve a modified jail term. She had better come up with an interesting story to tell the kids.

Let's face it... most productions for St Patty's Day involve alcohol and pretending you're Irish. If it were St Hendrix's Day, everybody would pretend to be black. I just saw the best promotion for SPD ever: 20% off green guitars at Eastwood. Finally, a holiday promotion relevant to me.

• Why? 
• Why, Dog the Bounty Hunter?
• Is the same hair stripper right for both of them? His hair is yellow, while hers is more stripped blond.
• Will they change the name to Dog the Fatty Hunter?
• He's about four feet tall. How does he climb over her ample chest?
• Their minions... what kind of self-esteem issues does one need to follow him blindly, unarmed?

Congratulations are not necessary, but China shipped my new laptop keyboard early and I installed it in short order. This is a process that would've caused Major Panic<tm> two years ago. Have you ever operated on a laptop? Even putting memory in the things is a process. Desktops are pretty easy: open the case (if you ever put it back last time - putting cases back on is the major cause of computer issues) and do what you need. The cases are (were?) pretty roomy and you had many slots to install Things. The worst that could happen was ripping your hand open trying to get around some sharp metal structure.

Laptops are a certain kind of Black Magic, requiring a certain temperament. A temperament with which I was not born. Fortunately I am ridiculously brave (stupid). Although any computer repair involves copious amounts of cursing and airborne objects, laptops are their own special hell. Because they're so friggin tiny, everything must be sandwiched into an alloted space and every manufacturer does it differently. Sometimes 15 screws are involved in adding memory. If you've never had to replace the display, God is on your side.

Fortunately for me, this particular keyboard required about 4 screws and sliding this and removing that. The results are spectacular. I can now see every letter on every key. Unfortunately the cursor still wanders a bit on its own, like my wife in a shoe store.  And unfortunately, there were a few parts left over, but in my defense, there was no place to put them. Now most of the errors are operator-induced, or PEBKAC - problem exists between keyboard and chair.

• You may or may not be happy to hear that a judge has taken the death penalty off the table for Mitt Romney and former Gov Christie Todd Whitman. A suit was brought by a New Jersey woman, claiming Romney, Whitman, and four others conspired to blow up downtown Newark (this is another one of the 'you may or may not feel this is a good thing').
• The suit also mentions a county executive and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, with the death penalty specified for all but Farrakhan. No word on what Islamic punishment was mentioned to the plaintiff to cancel the death request. Perhaps they gave her a free bow tie.
• The judge referred to the suit as "frivolous and malicious." Frivolous and malicious? Isn't blowing up downtown Newark malicious, Your Honor? They have committed the perfect crime. Now they can blow it up without fear of legal ramifications. Double jeopardy: you can't try someone twice for the same crime. I am not a lawyer, but I watched a lot of Night Court.

In case you're still playing along at home, the national debt has hit $21 trillion. With a 'T'. Our presidents and congresses keep blindly adding to it. like they did very recently. As an incredibly large group of See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Watch Tv, we don't really want to be bothered with it. The congresscritters know that they'll be retired or dead so they won't have to deal with the consequences of their actions. And the debt rises. It's great that Trump is giving us a break on income taxes, but the debt still grows. In a bid to appeal to our lack of thought, they're referring to the tax cut as 'costing billions'. Well, no, it doesn't cost anything. It's just less money appropriated from the fruits of our labor.

Sometimes republicans sound vaguely libertarian. They claim to be for small government and less spending. Look around you... is government getting smaller? Are we spending less? Are we revving up for more war? (no, no, yes). What would be wrong with pulling our troops out of most, if not all countries? Cutting the size and cost of government (starting with Dept of Homeland Security). Seriously reducing the debt. Not subsidizing Big Pharma. No more billions in foreign aid.

Don't get me started on the Federal Reserve (oops, too late. I've already gotten myself started). The Federal Reserve is not Federal, nor a Reserve. It is a bunch of private banks that lend money to the US with interest. Somebody's making an unbelievable amount of money on interest and it's not the country. Again, don't take my word for it- do the research. None of this is a secret.

• I have an idea (uh-oh).  For some reason, I wanted to run it by you before letting it loose. I had the moral obligation to go to a birthday party for a child the other night. I know that nothing I do, including chewing my own limbs off (trust me, I tried), will get me out of this duty. It's not so much the children themselves or their appearance... it's their NOISE. If they could come over and not be heard, I'd be better with it (better, but still won't want to go). 
• So as the kids arrive, we explain to them that there's a noise limit. As we're explaining that there will be NO SHOUTING, we're affixing a collar to them. As soon as they go over the limit, the shock collar will let them know. Then they can go back to being the quiet little angels you knew they had inside them.  They say it's safe for dogs with the electric fence system - why not kids? Then the adults will always show up and stay to help clean, amazed that the children are so well-behaved. And quiet.
• Will this one take the market by storm, or shall I budget for legal expenses first?

Let Us Not Keep Up With the Joneses

Bob got married... it happens to the best of us.
He and his bride moved into a really nice place, north of San Francisco.
Being the gregarious sort, he met the Joneses, an older married couple who lived across the street. They became fast friends, despite their difference in age.

Marriage took its natural course and Bob got divorced. As with all divorces, he had to forsake his nice place and find somewhere else to live. I visited Bob, and they'd have to pry me loose from that house. It wasn't particularly large, it wasn't a particularly wonderful or bad neighborhood, but it was a great place.
Being California (or the southwest), people had garages and used them for parking cars, due to damage from direct sunlight. I don't have that worry.

Bob moved closer to work, but kept in touch with the Joneses on a frequent basis.  One cloudy day, Mrs. Jones left, on what one would call a permanent basis. Bob worried for his friend, and how he'd get along. He needn't have worried - Mr. Jones picked right up and continued living, for himself, as there was no family to insist upon it.  Bob drove to see Mr. Jones frequently, roughly an hour in each direction. In California, an hour means you're trying to drive to the next exit on the freeway.

Mr Jones became well known to Bob's family. Even Bob's mother would call out there to chat. They all knew each other. Somehow. Jones did what most people his age do; he kept getting older. He passed ninety, full of health and even some energy.

In casual conversation with Bob, he mentioned coming into into some money recently.  That's nice, if you can do it. Good on him. Because I don't talk to Bob as often as I should, I hadn't heard about his windfall.

"Didn't I tell you?" Bob asked. "It's my inheritance from Jones' will."