Who's the real moron, Larry?

Larry Wilmore had fun Wednesday night with reports about a North Carolina town that rejected solar panels because they "suck up all the energy from the sun."

No, it didn't. One person pointed out that some vegetation close to solar panels dies. (Which seems reasonable to me; they heat up the air around themselves. Anybody ever torture and murder ants with a sunbeam through glass?)

Woodland Town Clerk Kim Bryant pointed out to techtimes.com that the town, population 750, already has three solar farms. Reason for the vote against changing zoning to permit No. 4: The new farm would mean the town would be surrounded by solar farms.

North Carolina is No. 2 in solar energy production in the United States; California is No. 1 and Nevada No. 3.

Larry, don't let your staff run with an idea without checking more than one online source, please.

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 As long as we're in the neighborhood of Comedy Central late-night, Trevor Noah had fun last week, multiple times, with a segment, "Donald Trump wants to bang his daughter."

A clip from an interview showed Trump saying that if he were not married, he'd like to date his daughter.

Trevor, bang and date are different activities. Trump's comments about his daughter are still skin-crawlingly creepy, though.

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Go fly your saucer

So, the flying saucer that started the mess in this year's "Fargo" came back for the final massacre.

Way to fly!

If Peggy had taken the Gerhardt kid to the hospital, would the clan have killed her anyway? Even if he lived?

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During tonight's "NCIS: New Orleans," I realized that Scott Bakula's face is becoming a tribute to the Shar Pei. Or maybe Neapolitan Mastiff.

Botox, captain!

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Which FEMA you talking about?

I'm re-reading various SF novels by Englishman Charles Stross, including, today, the Merchant Princes series, which was published 2004-2010.

Early on, the main characters uncover a massive drug-smuggling operation in the U.S. and contemplate federal law enforcement reaction, including FBI, CIA and FEMA.

FEMA? Stopped me cold, kicked me out of the novel's world.

Sorry, bloke. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency is lumped into Homeland Security, it doesn't hunt criminals. Under GWB, it gave away public money by the handful, especially in Florida in 2004, and let people drown in 2005. With a change in President and philosophy, it's back to doing what it was created for: coordinate responses to disasters that overwhelm local and state capabilities.

One other nitpick about the Merchant Princes: The lead character is a woman who is aided by three other women and her mother. You can read for pages and pages and not find a prince anywhere.

Did the publisher not believe that the Merchant Princess series would sell books?

On the female side, the bloke's Laundry Files series finally added a novel narrated by the hero's wife, Mo, who has experiences more horrid than hubby Bob can even imagine. 

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The Doctor is out

I want a "Clara and Me" TV movie.

Now.

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Guru me, Scott

Scott Adams' blog is fascinating, especially for the Master Persuader filter and how it applies to The Donald, if anybody still calls DJT that.

He autopsies DJT's jaw-dropping rhetorical skills and negotiating tactics. Gobsmacked was I when illumination dawned.

Adams created "Dilbert," which anchored me to sanity when I was trapped in Cubical Hell with a Pointy Haired Boss and its clones.

Adams' past careers include hypnotist, which requires convincing people of things that aren't necessarily so. Adams openly admits he was a giant failure in many careers, until "Dilbert."

Dec. 8 blog: "According to the Master Persuader filter, the selection of the next U.S. president is dependent on whether the public is feeling hungry or scared in the coming months. I'm betting on scared."

DJT, President of the USA. President Trump. Get used to it.

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Man of the middle

Donald J. Trump?

Is the source the same as Bullwinkle J. Moose, Homer J. Simpson, Michigan J. Frog?

The intellect level's about right.

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Hey, Charter: You pissed me off, again

My TV screen right now, 11:22 p.m., holds a frozen picture of Trevor Noah in mid-commentary.

Only the HD channels are frozen; the old cable box in the bedroom is running fine. Trevor is on the only frozen channel. I checked; I've had plenty of time to surf.

This happens two or three times a month, usually around 11:10 p.m., only during "The Daily Show." Some times it's for a minute, sometimes for long minutes.

Who's in the control room at Charter/Spectrum, the KKK?

11:26 p.m.: it just unfroze.

11:29 p.m.: froze again.

I'm off to the tiny TV in the bedroom to watch "The Nightly Show."

Another black man for Charter to silence.

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It's Alive!

No apology to NV Energy, but the DVR is back.

I left it unplugged for a couple hours, then--just for a laugh--plugged it back in.

It came on.

I praise the DVR gods; I don't have $400 for a new one.

Gotta be a DVR, so I can copy shows to disc.

When ya gotta have a "Doctor Who," you can't wait for BBCA, or the serials on RetroTV.

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Underground killer

Once again courtesy of NV Energy, I have a dead DVR. NVE killed the first one several years ago when I was living in a very old house with old wiring, but new-ish power-surge bar.

Today, NVE killed its replacement, in my apartment.

Power went off for around an hour at 11:30 a.m.-ish. Back on, everything's fine.

Power went off and on at 2:40 p.m. Afterward, DVR's dead. It's hooked to a very expensive Radio Shack power bar.

The biggest laugh: utilities at the apartment complex are underground.

There was a refreshing windstorm today, clocking 55 mph at the Reno airport.

Again, underground utilities.

Power went off last month at the leading edge of a windstorm, which also managed to take down a tree on the far side of the apartment I'm in.

Consider this sentence a string of curses, accompanied by spitting and shouting.  And throwing things.

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Smoking!

I realized Thursday night during "Haven" that I am fed up with TV programs that show "smoke" pouring out of a character's mouth--or into--to indicate the movement of an evil creature.

"Supernatural" does it all the time. There were a couple of other shows in that week that did it, too.

Which is why I got fed up. Honestly, producers, let your writers imagine something new.

That would mean, however, that the producers and the "suits" would have to trust the writers and respect the audience. Not gonna happen.

I am grateful they use smoke moving via mouth. There were other choices.

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Old times, bad times

Today's the 52nd anniversary of the murder of JFK.

How old am I? I remember the look on the face of the schoolmate who dashed into the classroom and said the president was shot.

I remember that weekend when there was nothing on Reno's three television channels except JFK. I remember playing board games with my father while the TV droned on.

I was not old enough to understand.

As with the murder of John Lennon, it was the lost potential that harmed us most.

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Viewer in the 'Darkness'

I'm easily confused, but I'm fairly certain that the movie listed by Charter/Spectrum's on-screen guide for the Showtime Women channel, "Angels of Darkness," 1954, starring Linda Darnell and Anthony Quinn (IMDB),  is not the movie being shown. The story of the religious crisis experienced by a prostitute in Rome doesn't match what I've seen.

It looks more like "Styria," 2014, aka "Angels of Darkness" (IMDB), starring Eleanor Tomlinson and Stephen Rea. "Psychological thriller about a woman and her estranged father who go behind the Iron Curtain to a small Hungarian town plagued by strange events," says the Showtime online sked.

Ah, the pitfall of re-used titles.

It's on again Nov. 28; I might tune in for the whole show.

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How to ruin a day

For two straight days, I woke up to the sound of a smoke alarm beeping. No smoke, just slow, steady beeping. Loud. First morning, I got six hours of sleep before it started. Today, I got four and a half.

Apartment maintenance man replaced a 9V battery while I was out. I hope he got the right one; there are three in the apartment. Guess I'll know in the morning.

To complete the day's SNAFU, while I was donating platelets at UBS, the g-d machine crashed.

Would not reboot. Blue screen of death.

On the plus side, while they got about half of the usual draw, I got to leave a half-hour early.

I immediately downed a Vicodin. Sleep deprivation, sinus ...

Come to think about it, things started sliding sideways Sunday night while I watched John Oliver. HBO went off. All the HBO channels. About half of Cinemax and half of Showtime.

Today, AT&T's computer called, three times. First call came when I was almost back to sleep amid the beeping. Ignored it (gotta love caller ID). Second came while I was hooked up to the failing blood-sucker. Third time, I answered. The computer was doing a survey, wanted to know about how my recent dealings with AT&T went. Fine, I guess; I don't remember any AT&T dealings.

Computer gave me the option of hanging up. Guess what I did?

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Ben's life in fantasy

Of course, Ben Carson told "fibs" in his autobiography ... the man lives in a fantasy world of cult Christianity. He's got no way--and no reason--to separate wishes, dreams, and what people without fantasy-prone personalities call reality.

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Do they chafe?

When Zygons "normalize," where do their clothes go?

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The Texas two-step, aka backstroke

Parts of Texas are taking turns being underwater, starting last spring. You'd think somebody would learn about the wrong things to do during a flood.

Not in Texas.

On Nov. 1, a Houston official said there had been 130 water rescues over the weekend; they were still counting, but as many as 6 people died in the flooding.

Trump supporters have fallen in love with the "make America great again" bullshit he shovels out.

Could they please start in Texas?

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Your 'Star Trek' cliche here

Brief sweep around the IntNet shows that I'm not the only one with reservations about CBS's new "Star Trek" for 2017, on its digital subscription service, of which I've not heard until today.

Hooray?

Alex Kurtzman will be exec producer, which means it will be in the pathetic, brainless reboot universe. Thanks be to the Great Bird of the Galaxy that Nimoy's gone, so they can't drag out ancient Spock again. Unless they do ... digitally.

I saw Kurtzman and Roberto Orci at a convention many years ago, and they were such jackasses. Their work shows little maturity in the passing years.

But, 2017 is a long ways away, and I might be dead and gone and miss the whole thing.

Simon Pegg's one of the writers on next summer's movie, so there's some light at the end of the Jefferies tube.

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Shadow of the male

"He Named Me Malala," the story of the bravest young woman on Earth, has one problem.

"He" gets top billing. I'm sure her father's a marvelous man.

But he didn't get shot in the head. The Taliban respect his genitalia.

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Go "rate" yourself, Kindle

My dislike of the moronic features of my new Kindle Paperwhite ebook is fading, except:

At the end of every book, a page appears demanding that I "rate" the book. This page interferes with reading all the way to the end of the book.

Demands that people "rate" everything they touch are the advertising version of TB, HIV, Ebola.

That's not hyperbole.

No, Kindle, the only things I can "rate" are your uninvited waste of my time, and the unwarranted intrusion into something I paid for.

Negative stars.

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Nature's wonderful use of physics

Sunday, 5:50 p.m.: a sublime rainbow lit up the eastern sky of the Truckee Meadows in a towering arch that spanned at least 5 miles through the air.

On Interstate 80 just east of Vista Boulevard, the rainbow appeared to actually touch the highway.

Water, light, air.

Breathtaking.

Life didn't suck quite so dreadfully during those few minutes.

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At least they're consistent

The first rebroadcast of "Nightly" was still screwed up ... but the commercials were different.

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Religious cultist on the campaign trail

I'm not paying attention, much, to presidential debates and such, so I'm behind the curve, but:

Has anybody pointed out that Dr. Ben Carson is Seventh Day Adventist? Born and bred?  He managed to become a brain mechanic without learning about evolution, modern science, etc.

He's hip deep in superstition.  He picks and chooses whatever belief is most convenient at the time.

Repubs who choked on Romney's Mormonism should look up the Seventh Day Adventists, yet another Christian church invented in America.

President Carson will destroy the Department of Education, giving his cult and its friends the ability to destroy science education, state by state. Once science education is gone, the United States' slide into third-world status is guaranteed.

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That way lies madness

If I were conspiracy-minded, I would be whooping and hollering about why "The Daily Show" and "The Nightly Show" last night (Oct. 14) were screwed up on my Charter cable.

In the middle of each half-hour, commercials cut in during the actual show, wiping out content, a minute or more each time.

It's probably technician incompetence.

Probably.

I set a DVR to catch the first re-broadcasts. I might remember to check sometime today. Hooray for fast-forward.

And: "South Park" is genius. It's sad that the morons it blasts don't watch it. Morons never recognize themselves, anyway.

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Say it ain't so, Joe

If Veep Biden can't make up his mind in all the time he's been dicking around with the decision to run or not run, he doesn't really want it.

The fire's gone.

Joe should be, too.

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Seeking Superman's email address

Anybody know where I can borrow a device that will let me peek through the ceiling of my apartment?

I want to find out what the young couple who live upstairs do during their twice or thrice weekly freak-outs, during which they make all sorts of noises that reverberate through the floor.

No, not those noises.

It's like they move every piece of furniture by bouncing it along. Their flat, like mine, is carpeted; it must take extra effort to project such thumps and thuds. Some nights, they open and close the glass/screen door to their balcony five or six times within 10 minutes.

They used to drop still-lit cigarette butts on the sidewalk, but it's cleaner out there now.

I'm a night owl, so their Riverdance routines don't wake me up. I'm just curious/snoopy.

Thud, stomp, slam, thud, thud ...

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Hell-bound at high speed

Kim Davis's mindless hypocrisy keeps getting better and better. Obviously, she skipped Sunday School when the 10 Commandments were taught.

"False witness," Kimmy ... that means don't lie.

You and your lawyer are going to spend eternity roasting in Hell.

The Pope is pissed. His ambassador's gonna need a new job.

And, Kimmy? Jesus is crying. Totally your fault.

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Repeating the same action, over and over

There was an article on Daily Beast this weekend concerning why Christian Evangelicals are so angry. Rick Santorum was cited.

Here's my answer: They're angry because they pray and pray and pray, with all their hearts and souls, and nothing changes.

Abortion doesn't stop. Teenagers have sex. Grownups have sex.

Most of the American people don't reject homosexuality any more.

Nothing changes. Or, the "sins" increase.

Judges uphold the Constitution instead of "religious values." And are verbally attacked as traitors.

One trait fanatics share: When all they see is failure, they ramp up the struggle. Abortion fanatics have murdered doctors, and blown up clinics, killing or blinding people.  Even after they won control of state governments, little changed.

America's Christian fanatics expected the people they fear and hate to destroy the country when Obama became president. That didn't happen either.

Some of them hate/fear "others" so much, they beg their god to jump-start the End Times so they can go to their segregated heaven.

Some of them will find nothing wrong with priming the pump. You've seen men with firearms patrolling city streets to "protect" citizens after race riots. You've seen men of the same ilk threaten to kill lawmen in Southern Nevada to protect a liar and cheat. And others marching through the Arizona and Texas deserts to shut out the desperate people of Mexico and Central America.

As for unanswered prayers: As my grandmother--and others--say, "Sometimes the answer is no."

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Page-turner

My 1st-generation Kindle--2008--croaked a couple of weeks ago. After a solemn (bookcase) burial, I bought a new one, 7th generation touch-screen Paperwhite. It cost around $95 dollars less than seven years ago.

The wi-fi picked right up, and I was able to download all my books from Amazon's "cloud," 300 of them. One at a time. I took several breaks.

Overall, it's better than OK, but there's a lot to dislike. I'm going through the usual practice period where I follow the instructions step by step, and what's supposed to happen doesn't happen.

Mainly, I've created a knot of bookmarks by accident. And in trying to get rid of them, I only created more. And more. And more.

I'm more puzzled than pissed that there's no way to turn the machine off. The screen will turn off, but the computer's running--in the dark.

Why, oh why, Amazon?

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Proof positive

I'm not the only person smiling sadly about the new report about brain disease and brain damage in football players. The data were taken only from autopsies, so they're influenced by a dead man's family deciding to turn over the body.

But ... so much brain damage in so many players ... the perfect explanation for why Texans are so dumb f*** stupid. They are brain-damaged. It's not all genetics and Christian-school dumb-down.

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Can you dig it?

Superb PBS documentary tonight about the recent hominid fossils discovered in South Africa. One batch of skeletons were found in a deep cave, with openings just wide enough for skinny, tiny women to fit through.

I was disappointed to see that the paleoarchaeologists bought into that crap demanded by cavers: never change anything. Instead of sending down a guy with a big hammer, rock chisel and basket-on-a-rope, they sent in women scientists, which is nice.

Except it left the world-class experts--men of course--sitting topside watching the action on CCTV.

They could have widened the complex series of tunnels that led to the bottom and the fossil treasure trove, without ruining anything.

But no, cavers have to possess and lock down every freaking cave, keeping out everybody but skinny-ass men ... and a few women. But only when the boys decide to let the girls join the club for a few hours.

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The country's worst drivers ...

... live in Northern Nevada. The latest trick is leaving a car-length or more between yourself and the car ahead of you at the stoplight.

That pushes the car at the end of the line so far back that it cannot get into the left-turn lane. It then has to wait through the entire cycle, thereby wasting gasoline and polluting the air.

Courtesy is the territory of a person who doesn't drive in Northern Nevada.

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Show us the paperwork, Big D.

I'm way behind on events in the GOP  cesspool, so I have to check:

Has anybody said:

Show us your birth certificate, bully-boy Trump!

Time to troll the Troll.

#

Unrelated matter: There's a godaddy commercial with a bunch of people pumping their arms, including a plump redhead ... I hope those actors were paid well. The advertising agency, however, should be destroyed. Painfully.

I know it is standard practice for TV commercials to have characters that act like fools, but this one's in D. Trump category.

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Lazy Amazon workers, my ass

Monday's "Nightly Show" had Larry Wilmore and guests discussing the Amazon workplace story, and calling Amazon employees wimpy and lazy.

Hey, assholes on TV, with your makeup department and  bottled water, try this:

You get paid $11.50 an hour to stand on your feet for 10 or more hours, having to ask permission to take a bathroom break, with computers tracking your every move, every moment. Your supervisor's got a metrics chart that shows how much work everybody should do (the person who made that chart has never done your job). If you complain, the guy standing next to you on the packing line gets a reward for ratting you out.

The "fulfillment center's" AC is broken and it is 98 degrees outside, meaning it's 120 inside. You're breathing diesel fumes from the forklifts.

No talking, no music, no laughing, or you're fired.

And when your shift is finally over, it takes you more than an hour to get out of the building, because management is doing searches that barely stop at cavity probes, because they're so paranoid about stuff being stolen.

When you wipe your ass with that delivered-in-an-hour toilet paper, remember that the person who fetched it off the shelf and put it in the box was treated no better than a sweatshop worker in China.

Amazon had to move its warehouse 45 miles, from Fernley, Nevada, to Reno, because they couldn't find wage-slaves to work there any more. They poisoned the work-force pool.

If the employees in Amazon white-collar jobs bitch about the horrid place to work, they should be bused to a "fulfillment center." Paper-pushers don't know what work is.

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Pasadena's not that cool

Finally figured out what bugs me about "The Big Bang Theory," the sitcom: Two  of the men wear 3 or 4 layers of clothing, in their own apartments and most everywhere else.

Leonard will have a light jacket, a sweater, and a shirt on, indoors. Raj, too.

It can't be that cold in Leonard's apartment building: Penny's usual clothing leaves lots of skin showing.

Sheldon and Howard go jacket-less indoors.

I've spent a lot of time—mostly wasting time—in Pasadena, and it's not that cold anytime and rarely superhot in the summer.

Take it off, guys! Cue the stripper's music.

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Hello, I.T.? I.T? Are you there?

A computer using the number 702-786-4810 called me 24 times tonight (about once every 30 seconds with occasional pauses of about a minute) before I unplugged the phone line. (I take back everything I ever said about caller I.D.)

702 is Las Vegas/Southern Nevada. The computer informed me that I won a free trip to ... I don't really know because I cursed it and hung up.

The string of calls began.

The good part is that while the computer was stuck calling me, it was not calling other people, including some sucker who might fall for the criminal's pitch.

You're welcome.

The bad part is if my best friend tried to reach me because she was having another heart attack, or worse.

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The Hobbits gave it back?

It's been months and months since New Zealand vanished from the world map that looms behind Larry Wilmore on his talk show.

But it's back! I first noticed it Monday night, but it might have returned last week.

About freakin' time!

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The ship deserts the sinking rats

In revenge for Jon Stewart's abandoning me, I'm going to eat pizza with a knife and fork. Suck it, Stewart.

Live long and prosper, too.

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Great White Hunter?

That personality-damaged, lion-killing dentist's got nothing on the old-time Nevada casino-hotel owner, the late Charles Mapes.

In the mid-1970s, Charlie fell back into gotta-kill-me-some-animals mode. Off to Africa he went.

He already had a room full of dead animals' heads and elephant tusks, but he needed more.

When he returned from safari, he was most proud of bagging a dik-dik. Oh, it gave him quite a challenge. He was having it stuffed.

The dik-dik is an antelope that weighs less than 16 pounds and stands around a foot tall at the shoulder.

Charlie and the dentist have holes in their minds.

So do the sick bastards threatening to kill the dentist; they've missed the point of what he did wrong.

Can we take the tooth-jockey and his fans and dump them in Death Valley with a gallon of water each and some bone knives?

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Thought better of it

Bye Bye, entry that bitched about a bitch.

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Tyranny lives on in South Carolina

It’s wonderful celebrating the victory of “the people” over racism in South Carolina, but  terrifying to watch the state cops take the flag down in a military procession.

Cops are not military. Well, they should not be, in the United States. But, hundreds of cops, from small towns to big cities, think they are military. Hey, they’ve got military vehicles, guns, gear. 

So does ISIS.

It’s a short slide from freedom to tyranny. Ask Tom Paine.

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Racing downhill to Starbucks

What I look forward to is the first lawsuit filed after a barrista is fired because a customer objected to what the coffee-slinger said about race.

Because, of course, the customer is always right.

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You want agony?

So, I sent in a pitch to a movie producer. Supposed to get a reply in 1-3 business days. It's 5 days on, and not a word. No way he likes it so much that he's showing it around.

I just sent an inquiry, so the "pass" will arrive in the next few minutes.

It's like holding a lottery ticket, watching 4 numbers come up. Then no matches.

Urgh.

Plus, it's Friday 13th. Which is OK; it's when Friday 13th comes on another day of the week that you have to watch your back.

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