To continue the recent “poop” theme here (stay classy, Seditionists!)…. I’m not sure why I’d want a terlet with a wireless remote control (unless I could keep it by my bed at night – the remote, that is, though having the toilet by the bed isn’t a bad idea, either; it would help tp keep me from stepping on dogs on the weay to the bathroom – and have it get up and take a piss for me), but if you’ve been hankerin’ for a fancy bidet-style system, Woot has some deals for you today (I would say “Woot has your ass covered,” but that sort of crass humor is beneath me).

Technically speaking, these aren’t entire toilets – merely fancy-schmancy seats. For, like, anywhere from $260 to $450. This may seem like a lot of money for a toilet seat, but, for instance, the $450 one supposedly goes for $1500! And I must say, the features did catch my eye.

Hybrid Instant Water Heating Technology
Patented 3 in 1 Nozzle with Vortex Technology
Stainless Steel Nozzle
Wider Water Stream
Bubble Infusion
Wireless Remote Control
Motorized Nozzle Cleaning
Patent Pending Hydro-Flush
Oscillating Wash
Massaging Wash

I mean, without providing “too much information,” I definitely could use the “wider water stream” and while I’ve never actually used a bidet (up here in the provinces, it’s foliage in the summer, junk mail in the winter), the bubble infusion, and oscillating/massaging wash sound rather intriguing. And if you can use the remote to precisely target the exact area you desire….

Let’s just say, it’s got possibilities, though if I were to design a bidet toilet seat, I would come up with something like a rotating dishwasher spray arm.

Oh well, at that price there’ll be no such refreshing moments in my day, but I guess I’d better get ready for work anyway. As I was leaving yesterday, I almost hit our pet deer whilst I was rounding the bend in our driveway. Had to slam on the brakes and everything as she ran out in front of me and over into the corn field. Scared the crap right out of me (and me without a proper bidet). And then her two kids came along a couple moments later.

Then it was dead raccoon day, as I had to drive past (and around) several raccoon road kills on the way to work. Hopefully there’ll be fewer perils and less death and destruction today.

Finally, it’s Saturday again. Unfortunately, I seem to have contracted some sort of a disease (or perhaps it’s just a continuation of what I had before), and I actually stayed home from work yesterday for the first time in longer than I can recall. I think this is some sort of sinus thing, because I feel pressure in my head, and every time I change position, my head starts swimming. Like, every time I rolled over in bed last night and the night before.

I got out of bed yesterday and almost hit the floor, and had to hang on for dear life while I took a shower. I thought after I got up and showered and had some coffee I’d feel better, but it soon became apparent that it would be unsafe for me to drive. So home I stayed. I really hope this goes away by Monday.

I was going to go to the SU football game today against Maryland, but that’s off the table now. Fortunately it’s on the teevee. There are high hopes, because if they happen to win today they’ll be 3-0 going into next Saturday night’s’ primetime game on ABC against Notre Dame. This would ordinarily foreshadow a loss today, so there’s a chance things could get ugly (at least at my house).

Well, I guess I better figure out how to get the grass cut. Either that, or go back to bed.

A while back I heard somebody talking about how toilet paper hadn’t been significantly changed since 1890 when brothers Clarence and E. Irvin Scott put it on a roll. It may not be a perfect product, but it would seem to be pretty much as good as it’s gonna get (assuming we Americans don’t adopt the bidet style of – and I read this phrase while doing research on this topic – “anal cleansing”). Never fear, though, because when it comes to wiping your ass, Adam Smith’s invisible hand is always ready to reach out.

Along those lines, I got a free sample in the mail yesterday (addressed specifically to me, which makes me wonder what they know about me that I don’t know) for something called Cottonelle “CleanCare,” which appears to basically be moist towelettes for your ass.

This isn’t so much a new idea as the re-marketing of an old failed one that preceded the Scott brothers invention by about three decades. Back in 1857, Joseph Gayetty came out with aloe-infused sheets of manila hemp dispensed from Kleenex-like boxes. Gayetty claimed they prevented hemorrhoids.

Apparently these things didn’t catch on at the time because the Sears catalog was free and people couldn’t see paying for something that you couldn’t even read.

Now, while flush toilets were invented quite some time ago, I don’t know how prevalent they were back in the mid 19th century, but obviously one thing we need to worry about these days is “flushability.” These CleanCare things claim to be flushable, but I’ve read reviews claiming they plug up the sewer line. And since I’m on a septic system, I don’t think I’ll be taking the risk on these.

Once you’ve been ankle deep in human sewage in your basement, you tend to be a little gun shy.

Next time I eat wings or spare ribs, though, I’ll definitely break these suckers out. I may not want to wipe my ass with them, but I’ll give ’em a try on my face.

The other interesting thing was the notice inside the package inviting me to visit Cottonelle’s FAcbook page to “talk about my bum.” Now, I know there are a lot of assholes on Facebook, but I see no reason to seek them out, and I certainly don’t want to talk with and/or about them.

Whatever will they think of next?

It is with great surprise that I look around the Internets this morning and see very little about the anniversary of “the day that changed everything.” Oh, sure CNN has a little section on their homepage, but they’ve probably had that there for a while (dunno – don’t often go to CNN). Otherwise, not much of anything. Is it because Ray Rice and ISIS have consumed too much of the tiny little collective American consciousness? Or is it that “real” America has finally realized they never did much like godless, liberal NYC (or Washington DC for that matter) anyway? I mean, it took decades for America to more or less ignore D-Day and Pearl Harbor, so you’d think 9/11 would have a run of a few more years at least.

Well, screw everybody else – I remember 9/11. Mostly because I was a lot younger then, and in good enough shape to ride my bicycle to work (literally uphill – and down and up and down and up again – both ways). It was a very nice September day as I recall, back when things still made sense in this country and Katie Couric was on the Today Show where she belongs. I also remember how really fucking weird it was to have no airplanes in the sky (except for the occasion military flight – the “Boys from Syracuse” were flying Combat Air Patrol over NYC for a while, back when they still had F-16s. Now they’re gone in favor of a “Reaper” drone video game facility). I mean, even in a hick town like Syracuse, they skies are full of airplanes on a typical day.

Of course, 9/11 turned out to be less of a day that changed everything and more of a “best excuse ever.” Not only were they (or is it “we”?) able to justify the forever war in Afghanistan and the continuing mess that is Iraq, but we (or is it “they”) used it to justify torture, rendition, permanent incarceration without the benefit of hearing before a judge (let alone a trial), massive spying on anyone and everyone – you name it. Not that we didn’t do all that shit before, but now it’s all codified and made legal (if not exactly constitutional – but hey, it’s kinda like Nixon said, “when the President does it, that means it is not illegal”).

One thing that didn’t change from 13 years ago – I still have to go to work. Not by bicycle, I’m afraid (it’s not only about a four times farther trip, but the hills are even bigger). Those days, sadly, are gone.

Do ya? Well, you shouldn’t. At least not in NYS politics, as Governor Snotball rather handily (though not as handily as he’d have liked) withstood the Zephyr wind to win the Democratic nomination for Governor. So, thanks to the worthless, gutless, and feckless Working Families Party (I wish I still had links on the sidebar so I could take theirs down), we won’t be able to vote for Teachout in November. I guess that only leaves perpetual candidate for everything Howie Hawkins (he’s kinda like a Timex watch – or maybe Gus Hall). Since there’s virtually no possibility of that Republican guy (what’s his name? Ford Torino or something?) winning (absent some Anthony Weiner-style twitpics out there somewhere), I guess that’s a safe vote. Or you can write me in. But I think I’d vote for Howie instead.

In the other news, Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus to a standing ovation at the iSheep convention yesterday. At one point, I saw a slide of the “evolution of the iPhone” with each generation lined up. Other than size, they all looked the friggin’ same. Of course, Apple is great for people who like to be told what to do (they remind me a lot of the old AOL in that respect – they made everything so “easy” and with AOL you never needed to go out on that scary old Internet, ‘cuz AOL had everything you’d ever want right there within its safe little walls), and this “new” phone will be a huge hit.

Timmy also showed off a big, square, ugly watch that’ll go for $350. Too me it looks kinda like something they’d give you if you were under house arrest. I predict it will be lauded as stylish and revolutionary, and will be a huge hit (at least amongst the Apple crowd).

Oh well, time to get back to checking on my databases. I’m officially on-call now, so I spent most of last night waiting for a phone call (that never came, thank goodness, ‘cuz I really don’t know WTF I’m doing).

Big day today, as Zephyr Teachout will try to Wu NY Democrats and hopefully defeat that sorryass non-Democrat Democrat Governor of ours. Or at least hopefully she gets enough votes to make Andy nervous. If you’re a NY Democrat, be sure to head to the polls and vote for her and for Wu as well. If you’re not a NY Democrat, well, I hear voter fraud is super easy to get away with here in NY, ‘cuz we kind of encourage people to vote instead of making it difficult for them.

As if Primary Day wasn’t enough, today is also the day the cab for my tractor is supposed to arrive. Not that I’ll be installing it anytime soon (I certainly hope the snow doesn’t fly for a while, but you never know), but it’ll be nice to have something new to clutter the garage with.

But wait, there’s more! Destiny – a PS4 game I pre ordered months and months ago so I’d get exclusive access to play the beta when it came out (but never did) – will be delivered today as well. This is good, ‘cuz I’ve been through Wolfenstein: The New Order a couple of times now. Unfortunately, I suck at video games, but what the hell.

None of that matters, of course, because today’s the day that Apple will announce a new iPhone! And it’s reportedly gonna be something special – the same fucking iPhone as it ever is with a bigger screen (actually, two bigger screen sizes). Oh, and it’s going to be slightly thinner, of course. And cool, really cool. Probably the coolest iPhone ever. Plus I hear they may incorporate a few features that have been available on the Android platform for a long time, but which will now be THE MOST AWESOME THINGS EVER!! Oh and they may announce a watch, too!

So, I guess I’d been living in a news blackout zone, but I hadn’t heard anything about the Ray Rice guy until a couple days ago, even though we knew about it back in February. And that was just to catch a headline that there was video of him punching his then-fiance (now wife) in an elevator. I guess I assumed it would be something disturbing, but yesterday I actually saw the video and I have to say it was worse than I thought. I mean, I was shocked (and that’s not easy to do).

To see this “big man” haul off and knock this woman out cold and then drag her out of the elevator…. I dunno what to say, so I guess I’ll just go with the words of < a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/brian-kilmeade-jokes-ray-rice-video">Fux News’ Senior Relationship Expert Brian Kilmeade:

“I think the message is take the stairs.”

Or, as co-host Steve Douchey replied:

“The message is, when you’re in an elevator, there’s a camera.”

Good point, Steve. If you’re gonna beat the woman you “love” unconscious, wait until you get someplace private.

Damn, still pitch black out there. When the hell does the sun come up these days?

This is it – the beginning of the only thing that takes the edge off the thought that winter is coming. NFL football. OK, so, technically football actually started on Thursday as they snuck in a game between somebody and somebody else (Green Bay got killed by Seattle, I guess), but we all know that football on Thursday isn’t really football (unless it’s Thanksgiving, but then it’s always Detroit and Dallas playing somebody and that’s not really football either).

Of course, I hardly ever get to watch football these days. Today, for instance, I’ll probably be out cutting the grass. I blew it off last week, and it’s gotten kinda long. And I’ll need to be doing some weed whacking, too. Last year I had free NFL Sunday Ticket, so I was able to not watch every game. But this year I’ll only be able to not watch whatever games are on locally (which are usually the only games I have any interest in anyway).

Truth be told, the NFL hold less interest for me every year and there’s just not enough time on the weekend to accomplish what needs to be done. If I had friends, it would be different and it would be kinda fun to sit around and watch the games. As it is, all I have are the dogs and they’re pretty indifferent to the games (and they don’t like it when I hoot and holler too much).

There’s a new version of WordPress out – version 4, “Benny” named after Benny Goodman – and like an idiot I updated yesterday. This caused some kind of problem with the thing I use to detect and deny robots and spammers the ability to register as users. As a result, I had to turn that off, and now the spam registrations are coming in fast and furious. And there seems to be a problem with every other de-spammer plugin, too, ‘cuz they all seem to break things. It’s kind of annoying.

So, anyhow, I’ve set things so that you need to have an approved comment before your comments will get shown. I think everybody here will be OK, but if you notice something not showing up, it’s because it’s being held pending my approval.

Sorry about that.

Oh well, time to finish my coffee and then get busy. Back to work tomorrow.

Happy September, everybody. And welcome to the earliest possible Labor Day. If you’ve been holding off on going to the NYS Fair (and I suspect you have), today’s the day to get out there, as it’s $1 admission and $1 rides all day. Plus you get to see the Labor Day Parade and if you feel like hanging around ’til sis o’clock you can even see the Doobie Brothers (which at least still includes Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons from the olden days, and blessedly doesn’t include Michael McDonald – no offense, Mike, just was never into the “What a Fool Believes” or “Takin’ it to the Streets” shit. I’m more of a “Black Water” – the song, not the mercenary company – guy).

I saw the Doobie Brothers on my last night home before leaving for college back about 36 years ago. With MM, I’m afraid, but also with Skunk Baxter, who at one point came out of a jam playing his riff from Stealin’ in the Years. I went with my best buddy Rich, and I recall feeling very emotional at the end of the night when we went our separate ways for what would be the last time as “high school kids” (this may have been at least partly due to the copious amounts of Mad Dog, Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, and dope we consumed that evening).

Now I’m perfectly straight and feel highly emotional thinking about the fact that damn near 40 years have slipped by with my barely noticing (having squandered a vast majority of both the time and the potential I once rather narcissistically thought I had). I still hear from Rich now and again, mostly to have him tell me we should get together and for me to say, “yep, whenever you want, man,” and then another two or five or seven years go by before I hear the same thing again. There was a time when that bugged me, but that time has long since passed. Now, if I feel anything at all (apart from headache, heartburn, and nausea the past week or so), it’s mostly apathy.

Yesterday was kind of rainy and muggy, and since I still don’t feel that great, about all I did was read, nap, watch some “Every. Simpsons. Ever.” and then some Breaking Bad Binge. A pretty wasted weekend, and now I have to think about going back to work tomorrow. Which mostly means I need to do some laundry and maybe go get gas and groceries. But I’m really not feeling the whole gas and groceries thing, so hopefully I’ve got enough of both to make it through four days of work.

Anywho, if you’ve got the day off toss some veggie burgers and non-GMO corn-on-the-cob on the grill or go to the beach and toss the Buzzbee around or knock back a few cold ones (have a few for me – been a bit off my feed lately) and bid a fine adieu to the Summer of ’14. Here’s hoping we have a long, warm, and snow-free Autumn. And if SU could win a few football games, that’d be cool, too.

Another 5-day week for me, and this was a tough one. Thank goodness I have three days off, as I seem to have contracted some sort of disease. Summer cold, sinus infection, free-radical poisoning from coconut oil left on the stove to fill the house up with smoke – I dunno. Whatever it is, it’s been long and lingering and has made it difficult to breathe and to sleep. I still have a pretty snotty head and a sore throat, but that part seems to be abating.

Unfortunately, I seem to have something else going on that I don’t know whether it’s related or not. I’ve been getting frequent heartburn and bouts of nausea. Feelings of pain and pressure on my diaphragm (brought on by the simplest of things like drinking water, fer chrissakes). I’ve even been awakened in the middle of the night by stomach (actually, more up higher than that) pain and lying there trying not to puke. I was at work yesterday and wasn’t sure if I was going to pass out or throw up (or maybe both).

As if I wasn’t nauseated enough, last night was the first game of the SU football season against Villanova (an “FCS” team, which I think used to be called Division I-AA, and which is in theory a step down from an FBS school like Syracuse). We had (not, I say “had”) high hopes going into this season, but Syracuse was terrible – the QB got thrown out of the game in the first half for lamely punching another player in the face mask, which is pretty pathetic; if you’re gonna get tossed out, might as well go for the throat) – and barely escaped with a one-point win in two overtimes.

It would appear that another long season is at hand.

This is the first time we played Villanova since 1975 – I game I went to with my dad and my sister. My dad used to get tickets from where he worked from time to time, so we’d get to go. On this occasion, he was sitting with the other guys from work somewhere arouind midfield, and we were in the end zone of good old Archbold Stadium – a big bowl dug out of the ground back in 1907 with concrete “seats.”

To me, it looked like the Roman Coliseum.

As I recall, it rained so hard in the ends zone during the second half that my sister and I wound up going into the building behind the stadium and watching the rest of the game through a window. It never rained on my dad’s part of the stadium – in fact, I remember him saying they never even knew it rained at all. Welcome to Syracuse weather.

It’s amazing for me to think that I’m pretty much the same age now as my dad was back then. Of course, unlike me, he was a grownup with four kids – three old-timers in their mid to late twenties (one of which had already gone to and thankfully come back from Vietnam) – and 14-yr old me.

I know a lot of people think sports are stupid. Maybe they are, I dunno. To me, football (in particular) elicits memories of good times. My sister is 9 years older than I am, and when I was just a little fella, she, my dad, and I would go to the high school games on crisp autumn afternoons (no “Friday Night Lights” back then – or even electric scoreboards). I remember the high school kids looking so grown up, and the players looking so big. And I remember the cheerleaders jumping and twirling so I could see their red panties (yes, I was a little pervert even back then).

And then of course there were the times when we’d get to go see SU play – and even sometimes make the trip down the Thruway to see the Bills play. When Syracuse tore down Archbold and played a couple of games at Rich Stadium in Buffalo (where, at the time, I was going to school), my family came to visit and we went to the games, and we also went to the first game in the new stadium a year later.

So I guess that’s at least one reason I like sports – makes me think of good times with my dad. Then again, so does going to the laundromat – which the trio of my dad, sister, and me did on Saturday nights for several years when I was a kid and we had no washing machine. I don’t remember it as a chore at all – we got to hang out, and I always got a Welch’s grape soda from the machine (damn, those were good), and I even remember having fun helping to fold the sheets and blankets and stuff.

Of course, my thoughts are even more with my dad than usual right about now. Next Thursday, it’ll be 20 years since he died. Two decades – I don’t know what’s harder to believe, that he’s been gone for so long or that I’m in my fifties now.

Neither one of those ideas seem real.

Finally, the web host seems to have gotten things back up and running after being down for several hours. Not that they bothered to tell anybody there was a problem (I don’t expect a personal e-mail, I guess, but they have a “support” Twitter feed that I follow and there was nary a word). I guess they figure if nobody noticed, then it didn’t happen. I’d go with somebody else, but, well, they’re cheap. Not as cheap as they used to be, though.

It’s been a weekend of computer problems. The latest issue was my mother-in-law’s crappy little netbook. She inherited it from my stepson, who had it trashed by Homeland Security a few years back when they told him he had to check it as baggage on a flight. Or something. By the time he bothered to mention it to anybody, it was too late to do anything about it. I guess. I wasn’t really involved.

At any rate, the screen is AFU and it only works with an external monitor so it’s been in a drawer someplace for the last few years. But the wife’s mother needed a new computer so she got this piece of crap. It’s got an Atom processor in it and has Windows 7 “Starter” edition. I bumped the RAM up to the max – 2 gigs – and that’s pretty much as good as it’s gonna get. It’s OK for what it is, but what it is aint much.

Her big complaint is that when she calls people on Skype, they complain of a little echo. So of course she calls Skype and they tell her that her computer is too slow. I tried to tell her that if it’s too slow then she needs to spend some money and get a better computer, ‘cuz this thing was crap five years (or more) ago, and it aint gonna get any better. She doesn’t seem to believe me.

So of course when she goes to various websites and gets popup messages saying “Computer slow? Install this shit and make it even worse!” or gets spam that says “we can make your PC faster” or “you have a virus” or whatever, she of course installs it and then I have to uninstall all this shit and then tell her, look, THESE PEOPLE ARE LYING TO YOU!! HONEST!!! STOP INSTALLING SHIT!!!!

Finally, I took away her administrator rights and gave my wife an admin account and if she needed to install shit she’d have to ask my wife who could tell her, “no,” but damned if she can’t figure out ways to install shit every now and again.

The latest issue was something or other about her doing a “Windows Update” and it had her put in a password (which she never needed to do before) and now she doesn’t know what the password is. So I’m supposed to fix it.

I managed to boot to a USB drive with UBCD on it and I cleared her password. It appears that she somehow managed to boot to the restore partition and restore the damn thing and now her account is admin and there are no other accounts and why she didn’t write her damn password down on a sticky and stick it to her monitor, I dunno.

I find this all very tedious and tiring. If I screw up my computer, that’s one thing – then I have to fix it. But when I have to repeatedly pay the price for other people’s fuckups, I start to get annoyed.

OK, I guess I’m done venting for now. Time to go put a second coat of stain on the back porches.