Category: Humor

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Have I mentioned that I hate doing Plumbing?

We replaced the kitchen faucet about a month ago. We went the whole route, had a plumber come in and do the job and everything.

Yesterday, I washed my hands at that faucet and turned the water off normally. No problem… A few minutes later, the other half turned on the same faucet and got only a trickle of water from both the hot and cold setting.

It looked like the water had been turned off. But the other faucets in the house were still working fine. Hmmm.

A bit more diagnostic work, a phone call or two, and it looked like the new faucet had something wrong with the cartridge. Cartridge? What cartridge? What is this, a printer?

A replacement cartridge was going to take an indeterminate length of time to obtain as this particular faucet wasn’t normally stocked at Lowes. We’d ordered the unit from Lowes but it had taken 5 weeks to get here. Doing the math, if they couldn’t get us an entire faucet in a timely fashion, who knows how long it would take them to get a part to us. Meaning that without the piece, we wouldn’t have a functioning kitchen sink for as long as it took them to get the part to us. This was clearly not gonna fly.

Okay… I make a run to Lowes and purchased a new 3x more expensive faucet from local stock. Now the problem was installation. I get home and open the box. reading through the instructions it doesn’t look too hard. Ahem!

I go get the tools, pull out the crap out from under the sink… (Don’t judge, you all have crap under your sinks.) then thread myself through the maze of dishwasher, garbage disposal, reverse osmosis, drain pipes, and hose connections for the existing faucet.

The goal I’m seeking is in the form of two small valves hidden in the far recesses of this labyrinth. The first of the valves I encounter is the Hot water inlet. I turn the valve easily to the off position. Further on in my journey, I find the Cold water inlet. It’s almost unreachable and is firmly locked in the “On” position and there isn’t enough room to get a tool into the space to turn it off. Attempting to turn it by hand does nothing but tear up my knuckles.

Ugh! The only option is to turn off the water to the entire house. Fine! I unthread myself and return to the real world of light and being able to stand up without having my back bent 90° the wrong direction. (The latter, took some time reminding me that I’m not as young as I used to be.) I tromp down stairs into the far reaches of the basement and turn off the main valve.

I tromp back upstairs to rethread myself under the sink. Part one of the replacement procedure is to unscrew the lines from the existing faucet from the inlets. Part one goes okay, dripping water everywhere of course. Part two is to reach up into the narrow space between the sink bowls to get a screwdriver into two small screws so that I can remove the bracket that will allow removal of the faucet assembly. RIGHT! To get the longest screwdriver and my hand into the space so that I can twist the screwdriver is a near Sisyphean task. Eventually, after much counting to 10 rather than letting my true thoughts on the matter be known to the entire neighborhood I’m successful.

Next comes the interminable unscrewing of the bracket down the mounting pipe. Job done and I’m ready to remove the weight and the retractable sprayer assembly that’s a simple two screw affair. The problem comes when I need to remove the hose loop. so that I can pull the whole assembly up through the top of the sink.

Yeah, the mounting hole in the top of the sink is too small to pull a looped hose and the feeder lines up through it. The looped hose has a disconnect on it that is completely non functional without some kind of special widget. I’m seriously thinking about just cutting the hose. I don’t want to do that because this is a one month old faucet and I’m returning the sucker.

I note that the hose is compressible and reason that if I can get one of the feed lines through the hole then I should be able to get the rest through. After some gentle persuasion, (Alright, you caught me. Brute Force!) The whole assembly pulls out and I dang near tossed it through the ceiling.

YEA! I take the new unit and drop its hoses and pipes through the hole and consult the installation guide. The gasket is still sitting in the box. Okay I should have consulted the manual a tad sooner, but better to have figured this out before I bolted everything into the sink.

I pull the hoses back out of the hole, put the gasket in place and thread it all down the hole again.

Now comes the hard part. Threading myself back through the labyrinth of pipes and crap to put the mounting plate and bolt onto the pipe that mounts the new faucet to the sink. The manufacturer does provide a nice tool for tightening the bolt in tight spaces. Mounting complete I’m patting myself on the back and thinking, “That was easy,” then happen to notice two things.

One, the fittings on the new faucet are female. So are the fittings on the hoses attached to the water inlets. Hmmm. This is a problem.

Two and more significant is that the fittings on the inlets are 1/2 inch and the fittings on the hoses to the new faucet are 3/8 inch. OH SHIT! This is why I hate plumbing. There are no standards. Why the hell are there no standards?

Time to head to the local hardware store to see if there is an adaptor to address this kind of issue. Grrrrr! The local guy at the hardware store is helpful and laughs with me, not at me, saying that this is why he hates plumbing too. He casually reaches to a hangar on the display next to him and pulls out a package that contains exactly the two parts I need. He smiles and says, “Happens all the time.”

$7 later I’m heading back home to complete this damn installation.

Old connections removed, new adapters installed. Sprayer hose threaded, weight attached, and I’m ready to turn the water back on. With fingers crossed I turn on the main and run back upstairs from the basement praying that there’s not water spraying all over the place.

God must’ve smiled on me. Everything was dry. New faucet installed! Whoo Hooo!

While I was at the local hardware store, UPS delivered part of the other half’s birthday present. A brand new iPhone SE 2. This gift is early, I decide to unbox it anyway because We’ve only got 14 days to decide if we’re going to keep it.

I’m not going to worry about setting this up tonight. I’ll save that “Fun” for tomorrow, A nice quiet Saturday morning.

The other half is seriously resistant to change. I’ll get up early tomorrow and set up a workspace with my Goal Zero battery pack on the dining room table. With it, I can provide power to the old iPhone and the new iPhone without having to be tied to a wall socket.

Then I’ll walk the other half through the setup process in a calm logical way where we can work without scrambling over each other to see screens.

Hopefully this will not result in a fight.

Pray for me…

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“Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it?”

“That’s what is to be a slave.” – Roy Batty Blade Runner.

Now we’ve all had a taste of it. What have we learned?

The vast majority of people in the USA haven’t actually been slaves. Yet there are a lot of folks who’d like to enslave us all. These people don’t care what your skin color is. They want you enslaved in a system. Their System.

These are the people that want you to be dependent on their largess. They offer bright baubles of technology, healthcare, entertainment, etc. then make us feel “less than” if we’re unable to afford those baubles.

They offer us a daily dose of fear via the news, & commercials. “More terrifying moments of unrest today in Minneapolis. The President today said, ‘insert daily out of context statement here‘ does this statement mean the end of America? See our report at 11. Suffering from Kidney Failure? Are you going to die? Try our new drug, if you can’t afford it (The implication is your insurance is bad, or you don’t make enough and are therefore ‘less than’) contact us and we’ll help pay your bill.”

They keep us apart by instilling mistrust in each other. “It’s white oppression, it’s black criminality. It’s racist, that person is a Nazi. Wear a mask, don’t wear a mask, wear a mask as a symbol of solidarity, You should wear a mask because you never know who might be carrying a virus. Black Lives Matter=Good speech, All Lives Matter=Bad speech, ACAB (All cops are bastards), Why are the police not stopping this looting?”

With each new presidential administration, there are people who are “Right” and people who are “Wrong” the actual facts of the administration’s accomplishments or failures notwithstanding. The “Right” and the “Wrong” people flip based on how the media presents a particular narrative.

In simplest terms, we’re always being manipulated by headlines, soundbites, and glamorous ads showing us things that a great many of us can’t afford. The ads implicitly extol the virtue of working harder to make more money so that we can afford these pretty things. The thing lots of people miss is that all of us working harder, generates more tax revenue that in turn, fuels the system.

The same system that locks us in our homes, costs us jobs, and vilifies individuals who after doing the math, decide that feeding their families is worth the risk.

That same system almost deifies individuals in protests that devolve into rioting and looting. It makes a sick kind of sense. Either situation creates an “Enemy” that can be pointed to, now or in the future, to maintain the cultural division.

As long as the American people are fearful and divided, the powerful can do as they please in plain sight. Who will question the national guard being brought in to quell riots? Who will question another lockdown because of a spike in Covid-19 cases?

Social Media was supposed to help level the playing field allowing people to communicate with each other directly, expressing thoughts and beliefs freely without bias, other than those biases the people brought with them.

As Social Media blossomed, controls were put into place to silence dissent. Those controls started out innocently to prevent blatant racist and hate from spilling unbidden onto computer screens. Those controls quickly escalated into full blown censorship.

The implied reason for that censorship is that “average people” are unable (too immature, or too stupid) to process dissenting opinions without experiencing angst. Therefore it is assumed they need to be protected from free thought, instead of exercising the freedom of simply choosing not to view items which are offensive to them.

Mind you, what one may find offensive, others may find informative. With censorship instituted on social media no-one has to decide, and everyone is once again placed in a bubble of docile safety and conformity.

Safe, in that bubble, they’re not troubled by dissenting opinion and not forced to think for themselves or form their own opinions. The narrative of those in control is preserved and the correct “Group Think” is doled out 200 characters at a time, by sanctioned influencers.

How are sanctioned influencers picked? They’re approved by Twitter checkmarks and number of followers. An influencer with a large number of followers and a check mark is seen as someone “In the know“. They remain a blessed influencer as long as they maintain the appropriate narrative.

However if an influencer goes off the reservation or someone speaking counter to the narrative, (There are always a few allowed, to maintain the illusion of Facebook or Twitter’s impartiality,) becomes troublesome. Their follower count mysteriously decrements. Their coveted Twitter Checkmark is removed, they end up in “Twitter Jail” or their messages simply vanish, and finally they are banned outright. These people still have online presences, they’re just on other platforms with lower brand recognition.

Platforms like GAB aren’t allowed to post their applications on Google Play or the Apple App store. Other platforms like Parler are allowed to have Play Store or Apple App store presences for the time being.

This speaks to the tight integration between Google, Apple, and the group, or groups controlling the narrative. Not only are specific people exiled from Twitter and Facebook, their ability to be seen by the masses is limited by the corporations who provide the dominate operating systems for smart devices as well.

Isn’t it odd that nudity, violence, and graphic sex is allowed on a platform like Twitter and freedom of political messages is not? Even odder is that Apple and Google provide access to an application which can present these images while at the same time denying access to alternate applications which are largely politically conservative in nature. The only difference being that Twitter filters out comments that present dissenting political opinion?

Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing that is never supposed to happen in a free society?

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Wow! Whitmer is really being painted negatively.

221059_5_.jpgI saw this and spit my coffee out.

Holy cow! 

She’s been in the news a lot lately and rightfully so because of her draconian orders regarding the MI lockdown. 

I never expected to see something like this over my morning coffee.

Kudos to Mike Harris @ mikeharrisartwork.wordpress.com

It’s high time we continued the tradition of lambasting politicians in cartoon and caricature.

Keep up the good work Mr. Harris. We all need good single frame editorials.

 

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I keep waiting for her eyes to start glowing.

Greta Thunberg is apparently an “expert?“

She appeared on CNN’s Townhall about coronavirus.

Really? I guess all it takes for you to become a celebrity these days is to speak to your elders harshly. Remember this is the little girl who chastised the United fucking Nations and predicted doom and gloom for the world.

All I can hear as she speaks is a ringtone from The Goths in SouthPark “Death and Despair… Death and Despair…“

We have climate change scientists that can’t seem to get their modeling right. And I’m talking about real scientists who are doing real work.

What makes this little girl an appropriate spokesperson on anything, much less a chaotic system like climate?

But there she is on our televisions again.

What power does she have? 

Greta Thunberg 2 420x315I see her picture, hear her speak, and wonder what is going on?  Then I saw this picture on Breitbart this morning and it clicked.

I’ve seen that look before. It bugged the hell out of me and after a few minutes searching my memory, I remembered.

I saw that expression in Village of the Damned

VillageOfTheDamnedOMG! We’ve been invaded by Aliens!!!!

That would explain a lot of things.

Her meteoric rise from obscurity, her access to the halls of power, and the elite.

Her disdain for humanity and the feeling that when she’s talking she’s judging people as vermin.

(Full disclosure, I often feel that way too. So I’m possibly calling the kettle black in this instance.)

It makes perfect sense! She’s part of the advance guard. Her people are on their way and they’re concerned that the planetary ecology will be too screwed up for them to take over. The area of the planet that she comes from is a bit cooler, maybe her people can’t take the heat. That would make global warming a big problem.

I guess we need to start looking for others. Probably folks who come from Canada, the northern United States, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, Iceland, and Siberia. Lest we forget the Southern Hemisphere. New Zealand, parts of Australia, Argentina, The Falkland Islands, and The South Sandwich Islands.

Anderson CooperWho else from those areas might we be suspicious of? What positions of power might they have? How long have they been here?

Now wait just a damn minute!

Nooooo It can’t be true! Not Anderson!

Just a goof folks, Having a little bit of fun.

I honestly don’t think Greta should be in the public eye, I think she should be in school.

I’ve just had it with the constant doom, gloom, and the lockdown. So I thought I’d let my conspiracy theory horses out for a run.

I’d almost prefer an interstellar war. At least then I’d know why my life has been thrown into chaos, and why it may never return to normal.

Loki.jpgAfter hearing what some of our politicians have said and how they’ve behaved toward their citizens I was reminded of Loki in The Avengers.

“Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It’s the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power. For identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.” ― Loki of Asgard

Which is why I decided to take a break from the news, and quite possibly a break from technology for the weekend. 

I hope you have a great weekend. Turn off the news and take a deep breath.

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How to get written out of the will…

Real id logoMy Mom and I were chatting.

The usual pleasantries, How the family is and how things are going, you know, usual Mom stuff.

Then Mom started talking about the upcoming election and vote by mail. 

In the back of my mind I’m thinking this will probably not go well, but I go along for the ride.

Mom asks me what I think about vote by mail. Uh oh, this is going to go South really fast.

I tell her I disagree with the “All vote by mail” initiatives.

“Why?”

FL Driver License REAL ID topshot“Because I think it’s too easy for shenanigans to affect the vote.”

“Not really,” she says.

“Yes really Mom. Voters in FL couldn’t handle pushing a pin through a piece of paper several years back. Other states have been sued to force them to review, and clean up their voter registrations. Each of those invalid registrations would produce a mailed ballot to a household that shouldn’t be sent a ballot. This would potentially allow multiple votes to be counted that shouldn’t be.”RealID

“People wouldn’t do that,” She says.

“Trust me they would, Mom. Probably for no other reason than it would be funny and they’d think it’s no big deal. Mom, I’m actually in favor of requiring ID at the polling location.”

“Oh we can’t have that. There are lots of people that don’t have ID and can’t afford it,” She replies.

“Really? So how do these people write checks, do banking, cash their paychecks, get on a plane, or use a credit card, Mom? It’s a pretty low bar to produce your state issued / required identification to cast a vote. If it’s a matter of not being able to afford a state ID, then make state IDs free, and still charge for drivers licenses.”

“Some people don’t have birth certificates, Son”

“Come on Mom, I don’t have my birth certificate. I’ve never gotten a replacement copy since the fire. But I do have my driver’s license, and a little thing called my passport which every citizen is also supposed to have. So once again, if you’re a citizen you’re supposed to have some ID right? Those folks who are so old that they may not have these things are probably not in much shape to vote, not that they shouldn’t be able to, but it’s a very small subset. Unless you count the vote by seance crowd.”

“You sound just like YOUR FATHER!” [Note: They’ve been Divorced for 50 years, He’s been Dead for 28 years.]

“So you’re saying I Win????  Hello? Hello? Mom?”

“IF YOU WISH TO MAKE A CALL PLEASE HANG UP AND TRY AGAIN…”

Hmmm, I knew that wasn’t going to end well.