Gray hair and computers do not mix well

Actually that is a misstatement.
People and computers do not mix well...from a security standpoint.

Anything a human hand touches will get fucked up to some degree. That is more absolute than taxes or death.

One of my very senior partners emailed today to tell me he ran the computer "cleaner" program my part time IT guy put on his computer and now it was asking him for money to "clean" his computer.
He was on the intertubes and clicked the pop up that told him his computer was infected.
Similar name to the malware program we do use, so he clicked away.*

My gray haired users fuck up their computers because of ignorance.

My twenty something users fuck up their computers because of stupidity, and "OH! A Shiny Thing!"

I see all kinds of quips on the net about how adept the younger generations are with computers. Hell I can't figure this out, I'll get my ten year old to fix it.
It is a lie.  Yes, they know how to get this app and that app and how to stream music on their iphone.
Yet, they still have to find the email with the link to click for their timesheet so they can get paid.

Really? That's how you get to your timesheet?  Let me show you how to make an icon on your desktop with a quick link that will get your right there.

We are still cavemen, we just have higher tech clubs.

My network would be pristine and perfect if the "users" did not have to touch it.

* Years ago, pre-pentium days, when we first got Winders, he clicked the excel icon and it did not open right away.
So he clicked it again, and again...and again. He called me and said his computer was not working right.
As I arrived at his desk, I witnessed about twenty-seven instances of excell cascade across the screen.
PIBCAC
"May I have your chair?"
click "X", Click "X" twenty-seven times.
" if the program does not open right away, wait for a minute"
"ok, thanks Kx"

You have got to be shitting me

I don't know how this has evaded my attention up to now.

"As promised, TBAE can now provide some preliminary information regarding the new requirement for Active-status registrants to submit fingerprints for the purpose of a criminal history check. Please see the link below for all the latest information on the new requirement, and check back often for more news and updates as the program nears full implementation. "

Fingerprints?!?! *

Apparently, the profession of Architecture in Texas has become so over-run with convicted felons going to architecture school, spending 3 or 4 years in indentured servitude as an intern just to qualify to take the licensing exam, that finger prints are now necessary to ferret out all the drug dealing, murderous, father-raping licensed architects.

What jackass came up with this brilliant idea?**
This is Texas for crikey's sake!



* Of course being a government program, similar to obummercare, things aren't quite up and running yet. So while you might be mandated to submit said prints, there is no means by which the TBAE can receive them ...just yet. But.  As promised, they are working diligently night and day to strip your civil liberties as I type.

**Probably some California transplant loiya in Austin.
iamnotgoingtowritebadwords
iamnotgoingtowritebadwords
iamnotgoingtowritebadwords
iamnotgoingtowritebadwords
iamnotgoingtowritebadwords
iamnotgoingtowritebadwords
iamnotgoingtowritebadwords
iamnotgoingtowritebadwords
not helping. 
damnbusybodylibtardmotherfuckers

damnit stop helping

The last post left me famished so I'm online trying to order a pizza from Dominos and they've re-vamped their website to make it "more user friendly" I'm sure.

Now I'm confused, and what would have been a rote muscle memory exercise is going to require actual attention to detail.

do not try to help. if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

As a little kid, I wanted to be a hermit or a mountain man like Jeremiah Johnson. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be an auto mechanic. My mother was having none of that, so you can guess how that went.
I used to be an Architect. Technically I am still.  What I am, and what I actually do are two completely separate things.  Now I go to meetings about architecture, write agendas and meeting minutes, write and respond to email, oy gevault the email, ride in planes and taxi cabs, have the life force sucked out of me in conference rooms and hotel rooms, and spend my life waiting in airports. Glamorous, no?

I hate my commute on the few days I'm actually home, yet find myself wanting to move further out* to some acreage with a double wide surrounded by a massive wood deck and trellis over head.
Some place I can take my 9mm out back and pop off a few rounds, or even throw a few clay pigeons.

My inner hermit calls to me. As busy as I've been my whole working life, I always considered it a myth, but I think my midlife crisis might have finally arrived.




*I think I may need a much, much faster car, considering the longer commute..and while I'm at it, a really big earth fucking truck too, considering I'll be "farther out".
No, wait, a Star Trek transporter mounted in the front of my earth fucking truck so I can transport the dipshits in front of me behind me in rush hour traffic.  I apologize in advance for melding your Prius with the Chevy Volt that was between us moments ago. I'm still trying to get the hang of this transporter thingy.

A (not so) friendly note to the 2nd Amendment Foundation

Particularly to the telemarketer named "Travis" that squeezed one last call in juuust before 9pm.
Travis, I was actually in bed wanting nothing more than to attempt to recover from a horrible work week earning money so I have the wherewithal to support just short of half the country with my tax dollars  and still have something to donate to the 2A foundation.
Asking me to get out of bed, and get my credit card did not sit that well with me.  In particular, when I declined, your comment that, "well, I wouldn't want you to over exert yourself", frankly pissed me off.

Travis, go fuck yourself.

And to the 2A Foundation:  You guys need to screen your callers better. A pushy dickhead on the other end of my phone line does not particularly motivate me to open my wallet.  Particularly when they insult me personally.

Silence is sometimes frustrating

Yes I know that I've been pretty silent these past months here on BAR.  The fact of the matter is I've been doing other things (as TBG hinted) and basically have just stuck my head in the sand.

Part of the reason for this is that I'm angry.  So angry that a part of me doesn't trust myself to blog about it because I don't really feel like going through an IRS audit (said tongue in cheek... sort of).

I'm angry that I constantly feel the need to have to explain to buttheads WHY I have a right, endowed by my creator, to defend my own life, and lives of those whom I value.

I'm angry that my government wants to make it has hard as possible for me to defend myself.

I'm angry that my country, which was once the land of opportunity and promise, is now becoming the land of blockades and excuses.

I'm angry that we've allowed grown men and women become more and more dependent on the state, and less motivated to rise above the bondage of dependency to a level of personal achievement and success.

I'm angry that our society has determined that it's okay to just get by, that it's okay to shirk responsibility, that it's uncool to work hard to make a living rather than keeping with the values that we are each responsible for our own actions, that we alone are the determinors of our own fate.

I'm angry for the fact that I am constantly forced, by the point of a gun, to give my earned money to those who neither earned it, nor deserve it.

I'm angry that my (and i say that loosely) President is incompetent and corrupt, yet isn't forced to take responsiblity for his failings.

I'm angry that in an effort to sway public opinion about guns that this administration allowed guns to go across the border and then lost track of them.

I'm angry that this adminstration allowed terrorists to overrun our embassy and then LIED about it so that Obama would get re-elected.

I'm angry this administration has wire tapped the press (though it's comical to watch the media defend it while feigning outrage).

I'm angry that the second party couldn't find someone better than Mittens to oppose him.

I'm angry that....................  ugh!!!

See???    This is why I've been silent, I really haven't had many positive to things to say lately so I figured that silence was better.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest....   well not all of it but  a lot of it....    I am ready to resurface...   maybe.....  

I know one thing is for certain.........   DAB III Can't get here fast enough!!

 

Hey Kids! it's that time of year again!

Time for the semi-annual employee review!
In keeping with BAR corporate policy, nothing factual, also known as "negative" will be brought up in your review.  The fact that you are a living, breathing, semi-sentient being that shows up for work on time mostly on time when you want to, is a real plus in our eyes. [thumbs up]
 Also the fact that you are willing to work really long hours to get that sweet, sweet time and a half overtime pay to put random lines and words on paper with no thought whatsoever makes you really stand out among your peers.
Well Done! Keep up the Good Work!

In reality, I do have to do employee reviews before the turn of the month. I loath doing these.
When I'm king of the company, things will be different.
A piece of my soul erodes each time I have to scrape the inside corners of my mind with a fish fork to find something...anything positive to say.

I have a much, much different metric by which I deem an employee "good".
My partners assign a  "good" or "great" label to the aspiring licensees if they are willing to work ridiculous hours to churn meaningless drivel on to electronic "paper".

I deem them good if they've run up against a problem, researched the building code and the Americans with Disabilities Act [ making the world flat for you!], present an actual construct-able solution and have an answer for 90% of my challenges to their solution.  The last 10% they get as homework.
No margin for error. *





* Were you to do the risk versus reward assessment on my profession, the first question that would come up is, "why would anyone in their right mind do this?".



.

Hmmm, what to do with my refund

No.
That can't be right.
[blink, blink]
Amount owed = big buckage.
No refundy goodness for me.
Some of my tax deductions grew up and we made juussst enough that we don't qualify for some others.
Now I 'm glad I procrastinated about doing my taxes, and that check won't get mailed till Apr. 15.
And, while it took me quite some time to earn the total amount I paid in federal taxes last year, it will take the gubmint far less than a second to spend it.*

Hard to get ahead. The federal government makes sure of that.




*In reality, it was spent in less than a second decades ago.

Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead - Citgo Sucks

Yes, Hugo Chavez has died.  Yay!!

Apparently, the Citgo building in downtown Houston is flying an American Flag at half mast!

WTF is that all about?

First off, that slimeball was NOT an American.. in fact he hated America.

Secondly, that bastard did not stand for liberty and freedom, he was an opressive, murderous dictator.

Third...   well, need I really say more?

What a slap in the face of every single person who has defended our civil liberties and who have served the public ( emergency responders included) both living and dead, who truly deserve to have our flag at half mast in their honor.

Shame on Citgo (owned by Venezuela btw, so I stopped buying their gas years ago) for their insulting actions.

To Hugo Chavez... may you rot in the depths of hell for eternity... too bad it didn't happen sooner.


/end rant

Boy, I paid way too much for that

[Language Alert!  I nudged the throttle to full ramming speed rant by the end of this]

Bought a book for my Kindle. Found my way to it via Instapundit.
"The Obama Confession"
"Secret Fear, Secret Fury"
by Andrew G. Hodges, M.D.

Dr. Hodges is a Shrink, and a "profiler"

I got 20% of the way into the book. Scanning the table of contents from there on, the remaining 80% appears to be a repetition of the first 20%.
To sum it up so far, Obama has daddy issues because his daddy, whichever it was, Obama Sr. or Frank Marshal Davis, was not around.  Obama has mommy issues because his mommy really didn't want her mulatto child and he got dumped on the grandparents.
( poetic justice in a way, the pinko commie liberal parents raise a daughter with no morals or sense of responsibility then reap the "benefits" of her free lifestyle)
Obama is confused about whether he's a black zebra with white stripes, or a white zebra with black stripes.
Because of this, Dr. Hodges points out a thousand times 1/5th of the way into the book, Obama is an extreme danger to this country.

No shit Sherlock.  And to think it took years of medical school for you to arrive at this conclusion.

So, I will summarize the book succinctly; Obama is a seriously fucked up individual that is very dangerous to the future of this unique Republic.

There has never been, in the history of mankind, a country like this grand experiment we call The United States of America.  If we lose it, it is gone forever.


** I got the book for free. I'm seriously considering sending the esteemed doctor a bill for my time.  It really is that pedantic, and that bad.  Psychiatric mental masturbation at best.  I don't give a shit WHY Obama is doing what he is doing. I can SEE what Obama is doing and I want it to fucking STOP.  I feel no compunction to put a cold compress on the Won's forehead and say, "poor baby"!
Hit the road motherfucker, you are on the wrong side of the White House fence in my fucking opinion.

Product review HTC Evo 4G LTE phone

4.7" HD 720p Super LCD display

1.5 GHz dual core processor
8.0MP primary camera
1.3MP front-facing camera
Android™ 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Google Wallet™
Beats Audio™, for authentic sound
HD Voice capable*
An easy-to-use kickstand

All of that would be so awesome if it freaking worked.  Ok, so the kickstand works flawlessly.

 What I have is a cell phone (sometimes) and an itty bitty tablet pc that only works when in range of a wi fi signal.

Step one foot outside the wi fi signal or the Sprint 4G LTE signal and you get "Data Call Failure: error 97".

The GPS works wonderfully if a wi fi signal is available. If there is no wi fi signal, the phone proudly informs you that no cell signal is available in this area. Heh, you can't fool me, I can see a cell tower right thar.

*facepalm*

I coulda had a V8  I-phone.

From what I've read on the innertubes, some folks have returned this phone twice for a replacement only to experience the same result.

While it's going to be inconvenient, in a sadistic sorta way, I'm looking forward to the conversation I'm going to have with the phonedood behind the counter at the Sprint store.

I plan to pick a really really busy time of day.  I will explain to him that I have 5 phones with Sprint, and that after his attempts to remedy this problem, if I have to come back again, I will be shifting each of those 5 phones over to Verizon as the contracts run out. (some already have)

I'm very proud of my restraint in not having used the word "fucking" as an adjective applied to his HTC P.O.S. (well, at least until now)

Why?

Why, when I place the ceramic coated disc on the gas stove burner is it always off center in exactly a 180 degree orientation relative to the handle of the pot which I just placed on it?

-resulting in a 2 inch long blue flame up the side of the pot which heats the handle to "Holy bejeezus!"



Suggestion for gas stove designers:  Indexing lugs to center the burner disc would be really great.  Really.

What to do when a long time close friend seriously offends you?

Belle placed an order at Bulk Ammo a week or so ago.  Delivery was to my office.
The box arrived this morning and I went to the reception area to retrieve it.  Carrying it back to my desk, my part time IT guy asked if it was the UPS replacement battery. I said, "No, this is stuff that goes bang... about 500 rounds of surplus Russian ammo."
My associate sitting in the adjacent workstation, a very close friend of twenty + years said," got your movie tickets?"
He knew of the recent events in Aurora, CO. which is why he made the "joke".
I have not had that much anger well up in me in that kind of tidal surge ever I don't think.  It takes a lot to offend me, and I mean a lot.  But he managed to do it.
Part time IT guy got real quiet, close friend was looking at me and smiling. I gave close friend the dead fish eye, slowly flipped him off and turned to my computer.
It took a while to settle down.

 I think I broke the F and U keys on my keyboard.

Patently Racist

It couldn't be more obvious. Houston is a Sanctuary City after all.

Had it been one seat belt for four kids, I could understand, but three?

And, the driver, she's just an undocumented democrat voter worker from Mexico and they don't know the laws here, like when the light turns red you are supposed to Stop!


Oy Gevault.

I'm going out to the garage now to get my drill and 11/32" stainless bit to relieve the pressure in my brain pan so my head does not explode.
The way I feel right now, I might not even sterilize the bit.

As a postscript: I've driven in Mexico. There, traffic signs, lanes and laws are optional.

It's been a Bad Day for Computers

Question: Who would write software that produces copious log files, that appears to have no means to purge said log files?
Answer:  Microsoft.
More specifically, The Microsoft Exchange development team.
Eventually, the hard drive completely fills up and the email server arrives at the point of fuckitIquit.
If your third party backup software is functioning correctly, it clears the log files. (why do I need a third party application to clear log files?)
So the email at work puked its guts last night.  If I wasn't the lightning rod for this event, I'd have been quite amused today.  I haven't seen this much "I have to pee pee" dancing and hand wringing in quite a while.

kx59:  "Yes, I know, the email is not working.  Do you have a personal email account you can use while we work on getting this back up and running?"
peepeedancer:  "No"
kx59: "NO?"
peepeedancer:  "No"
kx59: "Really?"
peepeedancer: "No."
kx59: "K, if you go to google you can create a free gmail account in 5 minutes or so. Do that. This may take a while."

So after working with outsource IT guy for a few hours, the email is back up and running, just in time for me to leave early to go get fingerprinted.

For my CHL.

I arrive at the rundown electronic fingerprint location for my scheduled appointment a few minutes early and walk up to the receptionist's window.  No humanoid is present.  So I occupy the window and wait.
Finally underpaid receptionist arrives to inform me that their fingerprint server died of electronic bloody flux and, "You weren't notified by a phone call or email?"
Well of course I was.  I just left work early and drove way the fuck over here so I could stand at your receptionist's window for 15 minutes until you came back from your potty break and look really irritated at you!
Now my day is complete.

Are we sure his last name isn't Obama??

The nerve of this guy blaming everyone but who is really at fault......   HIM!


http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/07/11/concordia-captain-distraction-figured-in-crash/


It's just sickening.  A captain is incharge and responsible, regardless of who is at the helm!  Period.. the end.

What an asshole.

Un-frigging-believable!!!

Okay, here we go.  Time for a good old fashioned Southern Belle rant. 

This is unfucking believable...   apparently the SCOTUS ruled on Obamacare and upheld the damned individual mandate.

Why did they do this?  Well, because the lawyas who defended the fucking POS  argued that it was a TAX!

But wait!  Didn't they sell it shove it down our throats by saying to the American people that it was NOT a tax?

Fuck this shit.  Vote every last one of those sons of bitches out of office. 

Well folks, it looks like this is the beginning of the end.  Progs want to us be more like Europe?  Well, just take a look across the pond and see what's happening to them.  The EU is about to go belly up and they can't seem to figure out that when you have too many people on the puplic funds and not enough people who can afford to make the purchases that fuel the economy, which well..supplies jobs and creates tax revenue.. well..   you tend to go bankrupt in short order. 

You fucktards will get your wish, it's only a matter of time.

The government can not and should not be everything to everybody.

Unfucking believable.

/end rant

Assessment

AS SESS MENT (noun)
1. The act of assessing; appraisal.
2. An amount assessed, as for taxation

Consider this payment in full:

Let Me Help You With That

No, really it's no trouble at all

It's teh eevil Trees!

go here

and here

Plants, to a lesser degree, give off similar substances, such as terpenes from pine trees.

We have a few of those around here, pine trees that is. Roughly eleventy!!11! Billion.

I thought Ozone was a good thing. I mean, what ever happened to the whole Ozone hole crisis thing?

Oh. Nevermind Algore found a better wealthredistribution scheme; Global Warming Climate Change, er Climate Disruption, er Sustainability!

I only mock you, in the most church lady loving way, because you are self loathing insane moonbats that believe you don't deserve to live on planet earth Mother Gaia and you think I should not either.

By all means, please lead by example and euthanize yourselves first. 

A (not so) Friendly Note to OccupyBird

Dear bird that has decided to roost in the Crape Myrtle under which I park every night,
  If you don't stop shitting on my car, seeing as my shotgun might disturb the neighbors, I'm getting one of these:

Your days are numbered.

.