the big switch

after years of threatening to cancel our cable/internet connection, it finally happened yesterday. the cost of cable/internet is pretty high these days but i had been getting a sweet deal for years. years ago sonny found out about a special for students that was about half price so i put the service in his name for a few years and then after he graduated i put the service in my daughters name and that lasted a little over a year. when the student program was canceled i kept threatening to quit the service and they kept giving me 6 month promotions. the last promotion they gave me was $40 month for cable/internet which was a real sweet deal. after that promotion expired the bill skyrocketed to $137 month. quite the increase.

my sweetheart has been negotiating with the competing phone/cable/internet company for a few months and she was anxious to make the switch so yesterday it happened. the rep booked a 2 hour installation that turned into 7 hours of hell. ruby had to be locked in her crate for the whole 7 hours so she was probably suffered the greatest but i sure got a headache too. they ended up having to run a new line into the house. it took the guy 4 hours to figure out we needed the new line and then he had to call his manager to come out and approve the new line as well as assist in the installation. after 7 hours they got me connected and guess what, they fucked up the order and i didn't get any of the channels i wanted. it took a call to customer service in montreal to order the changes that couldn't take effect until the next day. after that call was made i decided to make another change and spoke to a different rep who said she would put in the order for me. when i got up this morning there had been no changes made so i called back. finally, i now have my fucking channels. we got a pretty good deal, $65 month for cable/internet/land line for 1 year then it goes way up for 2 years. my sweetheart signed up for a 3 year contract.

i wouldn't have signed up for the 3 year contract but it's in her name and she's paying so as i'm fond of saying, jimmy crack corn.

to celebrate i went and bought this sweet little table to hold the remote controls.

R.I.P. jack bruce

i love you sons of bitches.

chainification.

a few months back i decided life was too short to put up with the frustration of turning lamps on and off with cheap sub par switches and decided that chains were the way to go. i'm happy to report that chainification has been achieved in the bat nest:

i don't know how i was able to function at such a high level in the past when i was wasting so much time feeling around for knobs to twist that might have been on the right side of the lamp, on the left side of the lamp, at the front of the lamp or at the rear of the lamp. now i just pull the fucking chain and through the magic of renewable hydro electricity, my world is illuminated. i feel right at home in the illuminati. they're a bunch of real swell guys.

now that i'm illuminated, i decided that i needed some illustrations of dune so i ordered a hardback copy of house atreides to get some maps and illustrations. i plan to read sisterhood of dune and mentats of dune in the very near future and e-readers can't do maps for sour apples. the screen is too small and it's a pain in the neck changing screens. whilst looking for the the cheap copy of house atreides i came across a few first editions of the original "dune." i've been wondering what to buy myself for a retirement gift and a first edition of dune might just fit the bill. a very large fucking bill for a pristine copy.

i love you sons of bitches.

mexicans

those darned mexicans are up to their old tricks. back in december 2013 a mexican woman was picked up for riding public transit without paying. when the transit cops checked her identity it was discovered that she was in the country illegally and had been ordered deported twice. while in custody she killed herself. so it goes.

all of the politically correct special interest groups jumped on the case and somehow or other it became our fault that she was in the country illegally and decided to kill herself. there were lots of protests by other mexicans and statements from the government of mexico condemning our actions. imagine a lowly country like canada having the temerity to try and enforce their immigration laws. there was such a hue and cry over our actions that an INQUEST WAS CALLED FOR TO LOOK INTO HER DEATH. these public inquests are not cheap and it's almost a foregone conclusion that the government will be condemned for doing its duty:

"This coroner's jury listened to six days of evidence and it is absolutely crystal clear that they understood that Canada Border Services had made just so many mistakes, had so many problems that contributed to the death of Lucia Vega Jimenez."

what really bugs me is not one politician has the guts to stand up and say, "oh fuck off, she killed herself. blame mexico for having a shithole of a country she was trying to escape."

but who gives a shit. hockey season has started and our mighty 'nucks are undefeated at the moment. 3 wins, zero losses! and hockey is a very classy sport!

if mexicans and hockey aren't your cup of tea, how about HITLER'S SEX LIFE??? i kinda believe the bit about hitler having his niece crap and piss on him.

i love you sons of bitches.

legitimate threat or hysteria?

the ebola adventure is getting quite interesting. disputes over funding, disputes over quarantines, disputes over transmission, disputes over vaccine etc etc etc. what's a poor boy to believe? here in the great white north we've been immune from most of the world's problems. someone mentioned an economic meltdown a few years ago but from what i've experienced, there was no economic crisis. just more hysteria. here is the photo that has caught my attention regarding the ebola situation:

the above is a photo taken from the christian science monitor so i tend to believe it's authenticity. it's a convoy transporting one nurse suspected of carrying the ebola virus in spain. several ambulances with an escort of police in cars and on motorcycles. why the heavily protected convoy to transport one suspected person with the virus to an isolation facility? do they think the nurse might escape captivity and roam the countryside infecting innocent people helter skelter? do they suspect some terrorist group might kidnap her and drop her onto the world trade center? or are the spanish authorities a bunch of nervous nellies?

i don't know the answers to these questions but i thought it was a real cool photo.

on a more pleasant note, a gaggle of indonesians got together and rescued a bale of sea turtles:

indonesia is infested with muslims so i'm guessing they were in on the good deed. imagine if those ISIS renegades were to lay down their weapons for a day and launch an effort to save a few loggerhead turtles in the mediterannean. does anyone have the email address of the guy in charge of ISIS so i can put forth my suggestion? i smell a nobel peace prize for your favorite pilgrim. my mentor, eliot rosewater, will be pleased as punch.

so take a deep breath, forget about ebola, imprint the picture of sea turtles on your brain and enjoy the moment. the world is a beautiful place.

i love you sons of bitches.

deadwood

it's getting to that time of year when the annual deadwood marathon begins anew. i think this will be the 8th time i'll have watched the series and every time i marvel at the wisdom of al swearengen and hang on his every word. does anyone remember me crying the blues over the faulty discs i bought on ebay that damaged my blu ray player? and last year i bought new blu ray discs from amazon that presented another problem, the LG blu ray player had a memory like a sieve and could never remember where i left off the previous evening. when you only watch about 20 minutes each night and are often medicated, this can be a real problem. of course one man's problem is another man's opportunity.

yesterday while the world was enthralled with baseball playoffs and the marketing genius of the nfl, i was adding another dvd player to the mix. i dug up an old harmon kardon dvd player that sonny had bought years ago and never used. it didn't have a remote but that was no problem since i have an ample supply of harmony programmable remotes. i also have a huge box of wires, cables, cords etc so all systems were a go. after a few trials and tribulations everything came together and i now have 3 dvd players connected to the tv.

it's a HARMON KARDON 31. when we last moved and i was clearing out junk i posted it on craigslist for $20 and didn't get one response and now i'm very happy to have hung onto it. the picture quality is about average but the sound is excellent and best of all it's really well built. the discs fit snugly in the tray and the mechanism for sliding in and out is top notch, much better than my sony or lg. and best of all, i've programmed the remote so all my favorite buttons are right where i want them. i can lay in the dark and let my fingers do the walking.

once again, the al swearengen take on life that is my guiding light:

AL SWEARENGEN'S TAKE ON MISFORTUNE. (some son of a bitch disabled embedding, hence the link)

i love you sons of bitches.

black is the new white

it seems there was a small mix up at a sperm bank resulting in a WHITE WOMAN DELIVERING A BLACK BABY. at first glance i found this quite funny, and as a matter of fact i continue to see the humor in this although i can understand that the mother is a wee bit peeved. i first learned of this mix up on facebook where every single person in my small circle of friends was outraged that the mother would sue, she was called all sorts of nasty things. in fact, i lacked the courage to stand up for the aggrieved mother.

i don't see the problem with a woman being pissed off after paying for a white baby and then surprise, surprise; out pops a black baby. she paid for the service and had a contract stating that she would end up with a white baby. there is no grey area here, she paid for white and got black. pretty fucking straight forward. it just seems that there are a lot of people who are more interested in preserving their self-image of being some fabulous fair minded liberal person than sympathizing some woman whose world has been turned upside down. the self proclaimed liberal thought police always claim the moral high ground and will take extreme umbrage if anyone points out that their shit does in fact stink.

the woman who was the victim of the mix up happens to be a lesbian so this must have been a real tough decision for all her critics since part of their mission statement is to champion the cause of all members of the gay/lesbian/transgender community. who the fuck knew that a lesbian could possibly be a racist! jesus fuck me christ, i hope someone has updated wikipedia.

on another note, i was quite verklempt upon learning that MALCOM YOUNG HAS DEMENTIA. as a young man i was one of those music snobs who considered ac/dc to be a crappy band that relied on theatrics more than substance but in the past few years i've come to enjoy a few of their tunes.

i love you sons of bitches.