National Breast Awareness Month

Penny got her first(?) whipped cream, which she enjoyed immensely. Marshall inaugurated this, by being in the car when ice drinks were bought for home consumption. He'd put his nose right through the hole in the top and consume the whipped cream (and drink if he could get to it). Penny also went nose-down and managed to get some of the drink too. Thus far, the only thing she doesn't like is actual lemon, which seems universal for pets. She has also discovered that it's best to sit under Mommy, who tends to drop stuff. She now guards the floor from dropped food. She also guards the bed from me getting comfortable.

Hours after typing the above, I got a call from Mrs leftystrat, who's visiting and took her new child with her. As you see in the commercials and real life, she loves to put her head out the window, flaps flying in the breeze. Mrs noted it getting windy, looked over, and saw Penny lowering the window. Twice. She had discovered the button, then discovered it doesn't work when it gets locked. So she flew across the floor to get a view from a different window. Another smart one. Several of us are apparently going to dog training class soon.

• I love this stuff... an employee at the US Geological Service (USQLK) managed to infect a government network with Russian malware, via visiting porn sites. An investigation turned up 9,000 visits. 
• 'Legit porn sites' are businesses. They can't afford to have malware.
• 9,000 visits, not broken down by site. How can a person do their job and visit 9,000 sites? Your tax dollars at work.
• You'd think government networks would be heavily protected, especially with a block on porn sites. Network security devices can protect against this, regardless of whether it's porn or anything else.
• Even if the network didn't protect itself, they could probably tell there was an issue by the guy having one arm much larger than the other.
• 9,000 visits. What kind of rocks require 9,000 visits?

I'll be honest.. I haven't spent much time on cryptocurrency, other than the basics and news. Yes, it's done wonders for some early adopters. Yes, the government hasn't gotten its paws on cryptocurrency yet. But there are downsides, as mentioned in this article. A number of exchanges have been hacked, leaking millions of dollars, if not more. There have also been complete scams, where a hack is claimed, then the owner(s) closes up shop and leaves town. This is why I don't spend much time or money there.

You might be shocked to hear me type this, but if the government DID get its paws on cryptocurrency, as they did with banks, things would have ended very differently.. the exchange owners would cry poverty, prompting the government to bail the poor billionaires out with taxpayer money.

• After all these years, I finally made it. I have a remote control for my fan. 
• Sometimes you don't know what you've got til you look back on it.

The very funny, crossdressing comic, Eddie Izzard, just did a commercial for some charity for either starving children or democrats who believe in gun ownership. I get the appeal of a celebrity, but how seriously are you going to take a comic, no less one wearing lipstick?

Speaking of Halloween (and charity), we're in the season. Or at least we were when I typed this. I find the best way to survive Halloween involves candy, booze, and something that fires projectiles. I eat the candy, of course.

Speaking of charity, I saw an appeal from UNICEF, one of the best known groups. Speaking of Halloween (don't you love how I tie this shit together?), a long time ago, there was an effort to collect money for UNICEF, via children going out on Halloween collecting coins instead of candy. Now tell me what children you know who would forego candy for anything at all, no less charity? And even if they did (children are basically good... well.. most of them), then give the money over to charity? This is the fruit of their labor. Actually this is training for growing up and getting a job.

And here we are, in 2018, with UNICEF still in full action, collecting money, except now on tv.  I have had enough jobs to know that if I was still trying to accomplish my single goal after 40 years, I'd not only be fired, but I'd be fired long before 40 years (even in government service). Think about this for a minute.... same charity, same starving children, same parts of the world. Is there possibly some inefficiency? Have they failed to make a dent in the problem? Does their upper manglement receive $2 billion Halloween bonuses? Are they running the countries they're shilling for? Has the IRS checked for vacation homes in sunny climates? Child running? Solid gold utensils and toilets? Lighting spliffs with $100 bills?

Let's give them the benefit of doubt... say they're totally above board, but the countries with the starving children are run by tyrants who intercept aid and distribute it to their friends and paying for concerts by Bono.

Q. How many Bonos does it take to change a light bulb?

A. One. He stands there with the bulb and the world revolves around him.

Again, after over 40 years, they still haven't fixed the problem, not to mention the starving children having to sit through a Bono concert.

The only other way to deal with this would be the US invading. Unfortunately this won't happen because they have no native drugs (like..say... Afghanistan) or fossil fuels (like.. say.. the Middle East). They don't even have enough weapons to make it worth an extended stay and $4 billion in new bases. How will we feed Halliburton? And BOOM - we're back to UNICEF.

• Parsnips? They should be illegal. There's no reason any law abiding citizen needs parsnips.

You're probably wondering what the ticket agency has recommended for me this week. If you are, you have great psychic abilities (or are in the mood for a little self abuse). Let's start with KISS. Better yet, let's not.  Ariana Grande, perhaps? No, perhaps. Dan + Shay? Who is Dan + Shay? Gordon Lightfoot! Isn't he dead? No, the Canuckian decided to do a solo tour for the first time in 78 years. If you could read my mind, love... you wouldn't want to. On the positive side, it's at the Hershey Theatre. You can go, avoid the concert, and gorge on chocolate! Hanson String Theory. I know there's a Hanson and a String Theory. There's no way they joined together. It would have caused major disturbances in the time-space continuum. Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. No one has heard from Mrs Paul Simon in decades. You can tell she's serious because there's no 'the' before New Bohemians. New Kids on the Block? This is everything about childhood we hated, coming back to bite us in the groin. Again.

Out of the 15 shows promoted, they managed to get one right, overcoming great odds. Generation Axe, featuring Steve Vai (Zappa, David Lee Roth, Whitesnake, solo), Zakk Wylde (Ozzy, Black Label, solo), Yngwie Malmsteen (God himself), Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme), and Tosin Abasi (Animals as Leaders). I saw them last time and it was Christmas for guitar players. I have a great picture of Zakk playing about 15 feet from me. How many readers divided by how many play guitar.. I will be sending (bear with me a minute) ...approximately zero people to the concert.

• I just got a new, expensive vintage left handed guitar. I'm stunned.
• No, wait, what's that other word.... I really want a new, expensive vintage left handed guitar. Sorry.

The Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination ("I'll take the Fifth"). Sometimes this merges with the Fourth Amendment (search and seizure). In a recent court case, the owner of an iPhone was ordered to give up the passcode, so the prosecutor could get at the evidence in his phone. This issue has been banging around the courts for a while: giving up your PIN is a violation of the Fifth Amendment. The legal wrangling and technicalities are very interesting (to me) and it might be a good idea to take a look. It never hurts to be up on individual rights.

• This shouldn't come as too big a surprise, but 90% of free apps on Google Play Store share data with Google parent Alphabet.
• Nearly 43% share data with Facebook  - this is interesting, given my direct observation that nearly every android app calls FB the moment it comes up.

In the five months since GDPR came into effect, I finally figured out what's going on. Europe, or some of the people living in Europe (I'm easily confused) got mad about sites not being transparent about stealing your information, so they put up the draconian law stating that sites had to let you know what was going on. This met with incredible resistance, with some companies pulling the European versions of their web pages. They claimed it was to comply with the GDPR, but in reality they were pissed. No one had ever demanded they be honest before and there was no internal procedure to deal with it.

A compromise was reached, resulting in those horribly annoying popups about accepting cookies before looking at the page. So they can continue to screw you, but they have to announce it first.

• So about Faceyspaces getting rid of those foreign fake political ads.... Lord Zuckerburg said measures were being put in place to stop additional accounts. OOPS, it seems the alleged measures have failed. Vice News and Business Insider applied to buy ads, with all sorts of funny business, like 'paid for by 100 senators' and using the same text as ads that were banned. Each ad was approved.
• One can safely assume Lord Vader Zuckerburg is not amused. I would not want to be the employee blamed for this. The beatings are going to be particularly harsh, compared to the regular beatings.

I just saw an alert that a local high school has been locked down by the police. But there are no known threats. Obviously the police are just doing surprise visits to check for no known threats (and to cause parents to lose bowel control).

POLICE: knock knock

SCHOOL: yes?

POLICE: Police!

SCHOOL: what do you want?

POLICE: We've come to inspect the place.

SCHOOL: why? have there been threats?

POLICE: No, not at all. We're just here to really upset people. No threats, though.

SCHOOL: are you sure? Last week, the bomb squad came by to make sure there were still no bombs here. We caught them 'monitoring' the girls' showers.

POLICE: Oh no, no, no, nothing like that. Not at all. We're just doing random drills to cause panic, so we can practice saying "DON'T PANIC!" And to announce that there are no known threats.

SCHOOL: Ok. Well, come in then.

Moments later I heard the subject they were not looking for because there were no known threats had been detained and had 'it'. 'It' turned out to be a gun.

After briefly monitoring the situation for six hours or so, I think I have the factual sequence of events... I'm like some sort of unwell private dick... errr... reporter.

Hello, Police Tip Line..

Is this the police tip line?

Isn't that what I just said?

Did you say something?

I did.

No you didn't.

I most certainly did.

I have a tip.

Thank you for calling with a tip. I DID say that earlier.

You're lying.

We're the police - we NEVER lie!

You did. Just then.

Did you say you had a tip?

I don't want to talk about a tip now. You lied to me.

-- ten minutes later --

So I have a tip for you.

Good thing. This IS the tip line.

There's some kid.

Ok.

He's going to school.

Yes, that's rather serious.

No, he's going to school with a weapon.

WEAPON? Why didn't you SAY weapon?

I just did.

What kind of weapon.

A rocket launcher.

Rocket launcher?

Yes, a rocket launcher. Why do you repeat everything I say?

Are you saying I repeat everything you say?

You just did. Right there.

No I didn't.

Are you going to do anything about this rocket launcher the kid is bringing to school?

Yes sir, we're going to call every student in, plus their parents and the weekend staff (and their mothers). 

Why?

Higher body count. Works great in the news the next day. We get more funding.

-- ten minutes later, Lieutenant's office --

Sir, we have a creditable threat.

No you don't.

Yes sir, we do. I just got a tip... a student is bringing a rocket launcher to school.

This is horrible. Rocket launchers can be folded up and carried in pants, or up butts. Something must be done.

Yes sir, that's why I came to you.

Oh, is that MY job?

I believe so, sir.

Right... send SWAT, the dog team, the bomb squad, the drug lab, and the guys who wash the Special Neighborhood Police Tanks, wouldja? I want a detailed search of everyone in that building for a rocket launcher. Check a lot of pants. And make sure to get a good look at the girls' showers: SWAT didn't finish their last reconnaissance. Something might have changed. And put out a statement to the press.

Yes, sir.

Members of the press: SWAT and the bomb squad are doing random checks at a high school today - nothing to worry about. No credible evidence that there is a threat. 

What are you looking for?

Oh, nothing in particular.

Who made the threat?

No, there is no credible threat.

How do you know then?

It came over the tip line.

So there IS a credible threat.

No, we're just doing a surprise inspection to make sure there continues to be no credible threat. You can't be too careful, can you.

So in brief, an entire department is going to lock down an entire school to make sure there's no credible threat.

Exactly.

 --  Press Conference, 6 hours later  --

Members of the press: thank you for coming. We'd like to announce that SWAT, the bomb squad, the drug lab, and the guys who wash the Special Neighborhood Police Tanks visited a high school today and put it on lockdown. 

Why is this?

No particular reason.

Was there any credible threat?

None at all.

What did you find?

Nothing at all. Just a small, foldable rocket launcher. Nothing to be concerned about.

How long was the lockdown?

Not long - about six hours.

Where was the rocket launcher?

Uhhhh... in two people.

IN two people?

Yes. 

Are you aware there are midterm tests today?

No more questions, please.

Guitar Videos and Cat Excrement

It's been a long weekend...  haven't been terribly motivated plus my wife and I seem to be playing ping pong with some sort of flu.  In her, it travels from her head to her chest (lucky flu).  In me, I just seem to feel off (moreso).

So it eventually became about nine o'clock Sunday night when I saw the handy link sent by a fellow guitar player.  This bunch is a surprising lot from all over the world, which meets whenever on the Yahoogroups' Stratlist - a list for guitar players of the Stratocaster variety; but moreso an excuse for six-stringers to chat, share tonal tips, and your mother jokes.

The link was for the angriest guitarist in the world.

I passed.

The next link was for the fifty heaviest songs before Black Sabbath.

I bit.

I don't spend much time on YouTube.  In fact, I only recently bothered to watch a video or two, when I was bored and wanted to play Stump YouTube.  This is a game wherein I think about really obscure guitar players I like and look them up.  I found, much to my delight and dismay, that YouTube really does have a great inventory of guitar players, famous and not.  Unfortunately it tends to take me into the depths of YouTube Oblivion<tm>, where I can dwell for hours.  I showed it to my wife, who was bored one day, and it literally sucked up most of the rest of her day.

It was a dark, but not a stormy evening.... 

It became apparent to me at nine pm that my wife wasn't going to join me for dinner.  Some would say I learn slowly.  Others would say I keep strange hours.  The rest of you who eat dinner at nine or ten would notice nothing out of the ordinary.

The cat (Satan, aka Ren) has been a bit clingy lately.   He's got this whole sibling rivalry going with the dog (Marshall, aka Muppet Paws).  If one of them gets something, the other wants it, regardless of whether he really likes it or not  If you call one, both come.  If you scratch one's ears, you had better be scratching the other's ears.  It has gotten so bad that if a mouse makes it into the house, Ren will chase it and then Marshall will all of the sudden develop a taste for rodent (simply because Ren has it).  I'm not entirely sure what a cocker spaniel can do with a mouse but fortunately the cat's much faster.

When the little monsters were younger, we noticed the house starting to smell like cat urine for the first time.  After a quick trip to the vet, Ren was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection.  The vet explained that Ren was peeing on the carpet because he associated the pain of peeing with his litterbox.  Ok, so much for Feline Logic<tm>.  While we were waiting for the antibiotics to kick in, the vet recommended her foolproof way to keep a cat from peeing on the carpet: lay down a covering of aluminum foil.  Cats hate aluminum foil and wouldn't pee there.  Remembering back twenty years of so, I was at a friend's house, who liked to show me his cat's tricks.  He'd get out a roll of aluminum foil, crinkle a piece, and the cat would literally disappear.  For a week or so.

Sounded as reasonable as anything else, so we, only having owned one cat before, laid the foil over his preferred spot by the door.  The next time we walked through the door, we spotted Ren rolling all over the foil and putting tiny claw holes through it.

Foolproof.

What does this have to do with guitar videos?  I'll tell you....

After having recovered from the Great Urinary Scare, the little bugger developed diabetes. This cost a few grand in insulin (yes, they use the same stuff) and Cat Darts (I had to take a prescription into the pharmacy for syringes).  The good news is that he actually became cured (no need for insulin) but requires special food.

Guitars??????

I'm getting there- hold your horses.

So recently the house started smelling like cat urine again.  My solutions always run along the lines of Feline Aviation.  Being of longer memory, the wife suggested UTI treatment.  As we know, it's sometimes best to let her win, so antibiotics it was.

While you're treating with antibiotics, it is recommended to put up a second litter box.  And poof, Ren started using the box immediately, which was good news.  You're supposed to move it toward the original until it gets close enough to use the original again.  The bad news was that the box was in front of the tv in the living room.  The badder news was that it's cold, so we closed the windows and there's little ventilation.

The worst news is that I'm sitting here, with my solo dinner, and the little bugger has just made use of the facilities.  Normally I wouldn't notice this, as the box is in the back room.  Because the box is in the same room with me now, dinner took on a completely new aroma.

I also got to observe the Bathroom Ritual<tm>, which is beyond fascinating in many ways.  I'm discovering that people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder have absolutely nothing on cats.  He can't simply go in the box, no sir.  It must be accompanied by so many rituals I lost count.  First there's the walking around the box.  Then there's the whole burying and obscuring thing (instinct?).  Then there's more walking around, followed by exiting the box.  After the Grand Exit, there's strange walking and extending of the paws, as if they're suddenly straight as a rod and incapable of flexing.  Finally there's shredding of newspaper, which is the bit that put me over the edge.  I can drift during all of the above phases except shredding.  It drove me NUTS. 

He shredded an entire Sunday paper before I exploded.  He simply looked up, as if to say `you talkin to me?' and stopped the shredding activities.  He almost looked embarrassed, if that is even possible for a cat.  It sure as hell is for a dog, especially when people dress them up.  When I become president, I will impose the death penalty on people who dress up their dogs (except for the cold).

So dinner has taken on a new and less exciting complexion, yet somehow I managed.

Between bites and after, I finally got around to viewing the 50 heaviest.... etc.  While somewhat interesting, it linked to much more amusing folly, namely the 50 Fastest Guitarists of All Time.  Now this is something all guitarists can relate to.  Guitar players tend to enjoy speed, even more than long hair, hats, equipment, and possibly women.  The only thing more important to a guitar player than speed is Guitar Faces.  Nothing is a greater sign to the universe that you're serious about your instrument than your Guitar Faces.  If you don't believe me, search YouTube for Robin Trower. 

Told you so.

I strongly suspect many singers today of being closet guitar players.  For example, Mariah Carey can and does sing a million notes a minute, oversinging just like a guitarist overplays.  I understand the classical term for this is melisma, knighting her Melisma Carey.  Best to watch her videos with the sound down.

The problem with rating guitarists for speed is that there's no scientific basis for this.  Recognizing this conundrum, Guitar World went for alphabetical order, a truly wise move.  If they had used any other criteria, the letters to the editor emails would burn up their internet connection.  Guitar players are a rather stubborn, religious lot and you don't mess with their opinions (which they take as fact).

Going through Guitar World's list from fifty to one was truly an interesting experience.  It was done via YouTube videos, with a bit of biographical information thrown in. 

My problem with this exercise is that you get some real speed demons in the list, many of whom I know by name only.  While they truly live up to their inclusion in the list, the `music' is so abhorrent that I can't sit through it long enough to enjoy their playing.  I'm speaking mostly of the thrash and death-metal genres.  I give them points for staying true to their vision but more people would appreciate their talents if they lent them to something more.. ummm... musical(?).

The list included people from before I was born to some of today's hottest shredders.  Truly worth a listen and watch.  Good luck trying to get through some of the less tonally appealing pieces.  One high point was Steve Vai's live performance with an orchestra.  And hate him though you may, I still can't play the stuff Yngwie Malmsteen plays.  And although I don't think Johnny Winter belongs on this list, you have to admire the way the quasi-blind guy gets around in 70's high heels.

And here I am, hours later, wondering what's for dessert and why the place still stinks of cat excrement.   

Perhaps I need an additional job to keep my mind occupied and out of the house.  You will notice that the dog doesn't do this stuff.