Okay, I Get the Colors…

…especially the orange/yellow, but the gold tone arms are a real turnoff.

50th anniversary, Technics? Thanks for making me feel ancient. I remember when the 1200Mk2 first came out.

Well That's Interesting

Oh Apple…

Since…oh, I don't know…the last two O/S updates I've been having issues with my external monitor coming on when the MacBook comes out of sleep mode. It's not that it doesn't turn on; it's that the displays are for some reason swapped from what they had been. In other words, the external monitor that was being designated my main display shows what had been on the laptop screen and vice-versa. The only way to get it to (quickly) reset itself is to unplug it from the laptop and plug it back in.

Well yesterday I needed to set the external monitor to its native resolution in order to do a screen capture of a Dell quote for work (don't ask). Anyhow the thought came to me to leave the monitor at the default resolution (I normally set it a bit larger—or is that smaller?—for my aging eyes) and see if everything works normally when it comes out of sleep.

Voila! Woke the machine up this morning and everything displayed as it should.

Stupid Apple.

"It just works!"

Boosted…Again

Because I'm officially an old fart, I got a second COVID booster on Sunday afternoon. While I didn't suffer any side effects save for a sore injection site for most of yesterday, late in the afternoon the expected (based on previous shots) reaction hit, and by the time dinner rolled around, I was on the sofa bundled up in a blanket with fever and chills, slipping in and out of sleep.

At Ben's urging, I finally dragged myself upstairs and went to bed around 8. I threw an extra blanket on the bed and immediately passed out until his alarm went off at 6. I woke this morning with a horrific headache (I'm not sure if that was vax-related or simply that I'd not had any caffeine yesterday), but I'm happy to report all is pretty much back to normal now and I'm fully caffeinated again.

And my 5G reception still hasn't improved! Hmph!

I'm still going to continue to wear my mask in public and in the office, if for no other reason that I haven't had any of my usual winter/springtime respiratory maladies for the last two years and I'm happy to continue that trend.

 

Right?

Also known as, "How to Raise an Entire Generation of Children Who Hate Their Parents."

Great Takes on the Current Madness

From Darwinfish 2:

I love that President Biden has come out publicly for a tax on the Super-Rich. It's about time. But it's funny seeing so many of the lunch-pail brigade criticizing the proposal as if it wouldn't make their own lives so much better. It just shows they've been well-trained by their overlords at Fox "News," who bleat about the plight of those poor, trod-upon billionaires, who are only trying to put bread on their family's tables, just like you and me. And by "bread," I mean thick bundles of cash and reams of stock portfolios, possibly tinged with the blood of those who did the work that reaped such benefits for the executives.

Already I see lots of moaning about the terrible unfairness of it all, how these put-upon billionaires would be taxed on earnings they haven't even realized yet. I say, screw'em. All the better to get some of that cash before they stash it in off-shore accounts.

This is a group that has had so much for so long, they don't even understand how badly the rest of us get screwed. Or maybe they do but WE don't. All I know is they can afford to shake some cash down to better the lives of the rest of us poor wretches, slaving away in stores, factories, or god-forsaken open office seating areas. And once they've been taxed, they'll STILL be billionaires, with plenty of dough leftover to fund their next yacht.

And if they still want to complain, my counter-proposal would be to keep the tax structure the same but eliminate all the loopholes they use to pay a lower tax rate than do you or I or the janitors who sweep up their offices after they leave. Just pay the taxes as already directed by the tax code, on the straight up. Then we'll see how they like the new proposal.

Russia Russia Russia!

Did you see this headline/story?

So this is how they're going to handle the acts of savagery being brought to light in Ukraine… by putting out absurd lies that no one with half a brain cell believes*.

*Except on Fox "News."

I wonder if Republicans know that this is how the rest of us look at their ongoing stream of bullshit stories. You know… BLM and Antifa were behind January 6th, Democrats are Satan-worshipping, child-eating pedophiles, TFG really won the election, tax cuts to the top trickle down to the rest of us, abortion laws are to protect women, recent local election rules were passed to fight election fraud, etc.

I don't think it's a coincidence that both Russia and the Republicans dissemble information and distract our attention from the truth in the same way. Top Republicans crave the kind of sheer, all-encompassing power wielded by Putin and Kim Jong Un. It's such an inconvenience to have to pledge fealty to a system of government that sometimes puts them out of power for the flimsiest of reasons, like ""The People" want someone else in charge" or "they totally botched the economy the last time they ran things." It totally interferes with their siphoning tax dollars into the pockets of those who have the most. The rest of us would just waste it, I guess. Stupid peasants…

Out, Out Damned Twat

Speaking of distractions, did you see the latest verbal excrement from the Colorado half of the famous performance art duo, Heckle and Dyed?

The quick answer is that buying beer or cigs is a decision, whereas sexual orientation is not. And I think most kids know pretty early on regarding where their interests lie. I know that even from my earliest school days, I was interested in holding hands with girls, not boys.

I think that ignoring the signs from your child regarding their orientation would be akin to abuse. Why punish a child for knowing that they're "different" at an early age? This needs to be an issue between the parent and child, and not the government, least of all some uneducated freshman Representative who's better versed in attention-whoring than passing legislation.

Knowledge is Knowing That We Know Nothing**

I see a lot of impatience afloat regarding the progress of filing charges against TFG and the rest of the 1/6 Planning Commission. All I'll say is what I said while the Mueller Report was being assembled: There's no sense in speculation or even forming opinions because we don't know jack shit yet. This process has been buttoned up and leak-proof. The wheels are turning slowly and that goes against the grain of our "I Need Answers NOW" culture. If we don't have the beginning, middle, and end of the story in 42 minutes, plus commercials, we have a collective fit.

Look, you'd like to see TFG get rung up, I'd like to see that too. But they have to tread carefully if they want charges to stick. It will be unprecedented to charge a former US President with such serious crimes. And you know what they say, "If you take a shot at the King, you'd better not miss." Because if he beats the rap, it will be open season for presidential corruption for the rest of our days. Given what we already DO know, you'd think charges should be obvious. But we don't know what we don't know. So there's no sense in squawking about the lack of progress while we don't know what progress has been made. So let's just breathe, huh?

And hope we're not in for another Mueller-sized swing and miss.