What a Week!

Pressure cookers?

For real?

I had to think about that one… Then I had the inevitable Aw Shit! moment as the physics and chemistry played out in simulation in my head. 

This does support my assertion that anything at all can be used to ill purpose. All it takes is the will to harm others.

I do hope that the perpetrator(s) is hunted down like a dog and served justice.

Preferably a justice befitting the crime.

I was surprised to see the Pakistani Al Qaeda denying any involvement. That seemed unusual to me since they love anything horrible happening to Americans, and often lay claim to things they couldn’t possibly have any connection to.

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Then theres Westboro Baptist Church claiming they will picket the funerals in Boston.

Uhhh, Westboro if I were you, I’d sit down and shut the hell up!

You really don’t want to piss off Boston and the rest of the country on this one!

Do you even have enough people to call yourself a church anymore? Oh right all you need is 3 gathered in his name.

Of course with Westboro I’ve always wondered whose name they gather in. They do seem to have a rather intimate knowledge of Hell and the people that are going there.  

Just Sayin…

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And then… Anonymous hacked Westboro’s Facebook page in response to Westboro claiming they’d picket funerals in Boston. 

You have to love it.


The talking heads on all the networks are another group that needs to sit down and shut the hell up.

Blathering on and on about stuff that is contradictory or just completely wrong is not journalism it’s gossip.

Anderson Cooper shamed himself on Wednesday standing in a parking lot with another CNN “personality” and some “expert“. While… a Hospital and Federal building were being evacuated just blocks away.

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The two CNN “Journalists” didn’t even break stride in their gossiping to take note of the potential news taking place behind them.

It was shameful.

The NBC reporter from LA was equally irresponsible and frankly annoying in his breathless reporting of the Boston federal building evacuation.

Someone needed to get that man a double dose of Valium.

I’d turned the TV off sometime on Monday and really haven’t been watching more than 15 minutes at a clip. More than that and I want to vomit, due to the piss poor reporting.


It amazes the hell out of me that Twitter is faster, and often more accurate in reporting news than any of the “Big News” organizations.

I guess 140 characters limits the hyperbole. (It sure as hell limits mine…)

YourAnonNews actually does a great job of getting all kinds of current events out on twitter. The irony that they may be affiliated with the infamous hacker group Anonymous isn’t lost on me.

It was YourAnonNews that was covering the Ricin mail that was sent to Sen. Roger Wicker and President Obama. YourAnonNews reporting was simple, to the point and amazingly accurate. Here’s the NPR report about the suspect

I’ve noticed that when YourAnonNews gets it wrong on Twitter, they send out corrections as fast as they sent out the original item. 

YourAnonNews is gaining my respect for simply saying “This Happened” With no further commentary or spin. 

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We managed to Piss off President Obama when the Senate blocked the gun control plan.

I caught just a snippet of the president berating the Senate and to some extent it felt like he was talking to a bunch of children (Which is when I turned the TV off).

The president claims that he has the public on his side. Really? I don’t think he’s got as much public support on gun control as he thinks he does.

Perhaps he should consider polling OUTSIDE Washington and the Democratic party.

I’m sure that more and more gun control laws will be floated but I strongly suspect they’ll meet the same fate. 

It’s not that people aren’t willing to discuss solving the problem… It’s that lots of people question the wisdom of making yet more laws that either won’t be enforced or can’t be enforced. 

And aren’t we still waiting for the whole Fast & Furious investigation and trials to wind up? Seems that we should clean up the problem inside DHS so that they can follow the law before we create new laws.

I personally didn’t like the Presidents tone. He lost, he shouldn’t be a sore loser.

Isn’t “don’t be sore losers”  what the republicans were told repeatedly in November? You know I’m a whats’ good for the goose is good for the gander kind of guy.


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It was YourAnonNews who first broke the news about the fertilizer plant explosion in TX. Here is the Fox Coverage. The other was USA Today and I wont subject you to the infinite ads.

My Twitter feed lit up about 2 hours before the mainstream media made their first reports about the TX explosion.

I’d be really depressed and angry if I watched all of this on the live repetitive loop.


A couple of weeks ago a friend sent me this blog article Why you should stop watching the news 

So I’ve been weaning myself off the 24 hour news cycle and taking control over what invades my life.

Twitter serves this purpose well. I see the 140 character descriptor and if it’s of interest I’ll open the link (if any) otherwise it’s like water flowing off my consciousness and out of my life.

Eventually, I can see myself not bothering with TV at all.

Think about it. The “News” as it’s called is really a concentrated loop of bad crap that lasts about 18 minutes. It’s interspersed with commercials that in one way or another make you feel bad about yourself. 

You need a new car – the subtext is that you’re not stylish or wealthy enough.

You need this or that drug – Reminding you that you’re mortal, aging, and perhaps not enjoying your life as much as you could or should because your health is failing.

Be happy buy more crap – as if we all don’t have enough useless crap in our lives.

I’m enjoying the control I’ve been exercising. I’m also feeling a lot better about a lot of things.

Perhaps the brightest spot in this week has been my phone interview and apparently doing well at a friends company. Perhaps there will be some of my own news to tell in the near future.

Have a good day, and remember You’re in control you don’t have to be victimized by TV. It is your servant not the other way around.

Gotta Love the Web

I’m settling down last night for a well deserved sleep. 

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It’s about midnight. I put the iPad down & plug it in to charge.

“Ding” the display flashes a message about me moderating a comment on the blog.

I enjoy comments.

Its always interesting to see what people’s take is on my sometimes lucid, more often than not chaotic thoughts.

This comment has a provocative subject line and is attached to one of my older posts. 

I couldn’t resist.

I get up, pad softly into my office wake up the computer. My computer is really grumpy when I wake it up late at night, then log into the blog site.

As I’m reading the whole comment I realize it’s essentially an advertisement. It’s for another web site selling items of an Adult nature who figured they’d get free advertising by commenting.

Say what?

Nothing is free Bucko!

Where the hell is my percentage? Where is my ad click revenue? Do I know these people? Have I been sent a catalog, samples, asked permission? Uh NOPE, No, No & No!

Needless to say, The originating server got banned.

Actually, my Hosting Service beat me to it. I guess the originator of this particular comment ticked off a lot of people. I didn’t even have to reject the comment, it was in the deleted items before I even got to it.

Gotta love the efficiency of the Hosting Service.

So here’s the deal, If you want to advertise something on this blog contact me. Lets talk and see if we can come to some arrangement that is mutually beneficial. Once that’s done, I’ll proudly put your links on the page.

… For a percentage

Gotta pay the bills somehow!

Ughhh! I hate Doctors Appointments

I just remembered I have a Dr Appointment today. I hate doctors appointments, I always feel so… violated.

Well I’ve already had coffee with sugar so there goes the cholesterol screening.

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Oooopps! Oh well.

Been thinking about a lot of things where the Doc is concerned.

I like him a lot but he’s too busy. He’s also recently (within the past year) gotten some new help and frankly they’re snotty little bitches.

Again we go back to the basic question of “Who is the Customer and Who is the service provider?” 

It’s funny how often issues boil down to that simple question.

From Politicians to Physicians, Lawyers to Mechanics, Educators to Customer Service people, it’s always the same. If they forget that you’re the one paying the bill it’s time to remind them.

You can do that by finding someone else or by working your way up the chain of command. All too often we forget that simple truth.

I’ve been contacted more by the satellite company recently than in the previous 10 years I was their customer. All because I told them exactly why I was pulling the plug. I guess $1400 a year gone from a customer that was no trouble and who paid their bill on time due to crappy customer service got their attention.

I know my place. Apparently these new people at my Doctors office don’t know theirs.

I’m asking myself do I want to expend the energy to train them? Or do I want to expend that energy to find a new physician?

In a typical year I see a Doctor only once or twice.

Like most men, It’s gotta be arterial bleeding before I even think about going to a Doc.

Because of that when I fucking call with a problem I don’t want some smart mouth little bitch giving me more attitude than that Snookie woman from Jersey, or one of the Kardashian sluts.

I want straight answers and if I leave a message for the Doc to call me back… He damn well better get the message. 

I’ve been nice and polite and gotten nowhere.

I had hives from something he told me to take last year. I had no idea Hives could be dangerous. I thought they were simply an annoyance. Didn’t matter, I never got a call back from the Doctor. It was the pharmacist at my local Rite Aid who clued me in and helped me out.

I think the Doctor and I are going to have a little discussion about my expectations.

If he can meet those expectations great! if not… I’m going to be looking for a new Doc.

I’ve approached this health thing as a partnership if I’ve become another piece of meat well then we have a major problem.

On the plus side… I’m going to go drinking with some buddies I haven’t seen in a long time. That should be fun.

Maybe then I won’t feel quite so violated…

I suppose I have an active nightlife…

It’s a pity I don’t remember what I did.

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No this isn’t about booze and debauchery. If ONLY!!!

This is about my going to sleep one night and waking up the next morning feeling like I had a knife in my back.

Friday Night I went to bed as usual. Saturday morning I woke up and felt like I’d been in a car accident.

I couldn’t really use my left arm without sharp stabbing pain. 

A little investigation and I was able to confirm that I had a whole group of muscles in spasm and as long as I didn’t ask them to do anything we had a nice Détent.

The problem is that no matter what you do, if you move you’re flexing muscles in your back and shoulders.

By Saturday afternoon I was in a lot of pain.

Over a pleasant lunch / dinner I had two JDs and that seemed to help some. I’m not sure if the drinks anesthetized the muscles or my brain but I really didn’t care all I knew is that I wasn’t hurting so much and that I was going to go interact with other people. I’d been cooped up in the house way too long.

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I did have a nice evening. It was nice talking with people about slavery. (No, not the Slavery of pre-Civil War America although we did end up there) Voluntary Slavery, as in Bondage and Domination.

Yes, I have interesting acquaintances…. Moving on…

The price I paid was that Sunday I was pretty much immobilized. Ibuprofen and the heating pad were my best friends.

Monday wasn’t much better but it was obvious that I was on the mend. This morning there’s still a little twinge but I’m much better.

I still don’t know what the heck I did. 

I don’t think it was an Alien abduction… I scared the hell out of those guy years ago. I’m not aware of any nocturnal secret agent missions I’ve been involved in. I’ve not had any wild crazy sex, so I have no explanation for why I was beat up.

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I have one likely suspect… The elder of the two dogs. He sometimes gets cold and decides to snuggle all night. His Idea of snuggling is to try to push everyone else off the bed. He’s sound asleep while he’s doing it but I suspect my discomfort was caused by a paw in the back.

I’ll never get him to admit it!

This could just be a function of me getting older… But You’ll never get me to admit it!

It never fails…

I’m out having a nice time and my phone starts blowing up.

Emails are rolling in at about 2 a minute and I’m wondering what the hell is going on.

The emails are dumb and from people I don’t know.

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Don’t worry, this chunk above is a screen grab. So the link isn’t live. Obviously don’t manually type it into your browser. I have no idea what the heck kind of viruses you’ll infect yourself with if you do.

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Obviously they’re trying to interest the unsuspecting in a dating site. The site may actually be legitimate but the 50 emails that blasted into my inbox were all from different servers and appeared to be spoofed.

I ignored the first 5 or 10 emails. Then I got annoyed, so while I was drinking my JD, waiting for my meal I pulled out the ipad and started poking around. Pretty soon it was clear that these were spoofed emails. the problem was that I didn’t have all the tools on the ipad to really put a stop to the problem.

About the best I could do was just turn off the email account until I could get back to my computer. (Note to self, beef up iPad tool set.)

I fucking hate spammers.

I was surprised at how many European servers are apparently open enough to allow spoofing.

Some of these emails were originating on Latin American systems too. Bolivia comes to mind as one of the worst offenders.

Maybe I’m just cranky. I’ve thrown my back out and am becoming acquainted  with new definitions of pain. Or maybe it’s that I wanted nothing more than a quiet night spent in a social situation without having to think about technology…

This morning after figuring out the scoop behind these emails, I put the originating servers and a bunch of other questionable sites hitting my blogs from Russia on the deny list.

Don’t get me wrong I like Russia, and have had the pleasure of working with some great folks from there. I just don’t see why a site called prostituteks.ru needs to be linking to my blog 1000 times an hour but not reading any pages.

I’d like that kind of traffic on my blog but only if it was really people reading the site. This looks like some kind of bot trying to do something strange.

So I just spent an hour investigating the traffic and then configuring my deny IP list to block the strange stuff. I’ve also for the first time enabled a SPAM filter on my host. It’s a pity, yet another thing I have to manage and maintain simply because some people can’t restrain themselves from screwing around with other peoples stuff.

I suppose, that it takes a factionally small percentage of people to click on a link to make it worthwhile to a spammer, whether the spammer is looking to increase their bot army or scamming money out of the unsuspecting.

Bottom line, if you even think that there’s something weird about an email you’ve received, just delete it. If your friend really sent you something they’ll probably follow up with you about it.

Stuff like this does make me more likely to leave my phone at home, or turned off.

I miss the days when we weren’t so connected all the time.