TECH TUESDAYS - NEW FEATURE! - (AT LEAST FOR NOW)

My attitude about "spoofware" or malware disguised as "helpers".

I yap a lot about music and I haven't talked much about computers lately. They're my second and abiding love behind the exploration of sound and the organization of it that is music. For what is really at the very bedrock of computers and their operations? Numbers. Numbers and the orders of their operations. But this is in the abstract and I am here to talk about something that is just a giant P.I.T.A. (Pain In The Ass)

I am being delicate, because this is the kind of thing that has me foaming at the mouth, not that I am too far from that state of mind generally anyway, but this is something that hits consumers and people who are not all the familiar with two things; one of them being, computers in general, and the other being, the absolutely sordid ways in which people who should know better will take advantage of consumers. The innerwebz is a dangerous place, and just because you're on a safe site doesn't mean you're entirely safe.

I'm an experienced computer user and then some. Beyond then some. I build virtual machines and run Backtrack, which is what hackers work with then they are learning the craft. I am on the fence as far as being a "white" or a "black" hat. Unfortunately, you'll never know until it's too late. I rebuild computer systems from the ground up around here for my neighbors continually, because they blunder onto some idiot site and end up with a spoof screen that threatens them with prosecution from the FBI, and I have a formidable set of tools that allow me to bring their systems back to life. When I worked at IBM, one engineer, in awe at some fix I cobbled up, proclaimed that I "practiced the Dark Arts!" No boast, but I understand computers; the curtains, carpet and furniture (software) may change, but the foundations (logic) remains the same.

That being said and to keep this short, and to illustrate a problem I run into continually, but know how to stop cold, I want to talk about a few things that less-savvy computer users are aware of: spoofing, fraud and "over the transom" malware.

Now, "spoofing" refers to a branding of a product that is not the real thing. It's the cybersphere's definition for counterfeit and in this case, it is Mozilla's Firefox that is being spoofed. For the time being, I am using FF to write my posts, because, Google will not allow my to insert images without using their f'ing Cloud Drive and I have my own back-up, thank you. But that's another story and I want to stay on task. 

Today, as I was trying to look at my stats before posting something else, I had written last week, I was "prompted" by Mozilla that my browser was out of date. All well and good. I clicked on the download button and saved the file to my Download folder. I closed my browser and navigated to the folder and saw this:

This is what I would expect to see for a normal Firefox update.

I ran the download through my AVG and Spybot programs before clicking on download, but after clicking on download, this is what I saw:

Admittedly, I was suspicious because the UAC (User's Access Control) screen prior was from "Premier Downloads" and not "Mozilla or Firefox". The download is also verified with Verisign™, which speaks badly for them, but I proceeded, knowing what was to come. This screen appeared, with no FF branding, and the screen was very small and hard to read. I clicked "Accept".

Even though Firefox and Search Protect** are mentioned together in the same sentence, this is not an endorsement! Again, the writing and screen are very small. In the lower left-hand corner is the option to install Search and Protect and it's already selected. I de-selected it and clicked "Accept".

I've already pulled up Chrome by this time and am typing in "Search and Protect" in Google. Then, I see this:

**search protect become searchprotect in Google

Now, I have two more search perimeters: "Browser Safeguard**" and "RocketTab". I add these to my Google search and hit "Enter". 

**browser safeguard becomes browsersafeguard in Google

I don't have to look any farther than this to know that this is what is known as "malware," and while not necessarily a virus or a trojan, it can hijack your system, or re-direct you to places you do not wish to go. Sites like CleanMyPC.com will advertise as free and then after the first "cleaning" will want money to continue the service. All of this is an unnecessary expense to consumers.

This is where this particular "spoof" originates from. As I said, just because this guy says he is protected by Verisign™ that means nothing, and is no imprimatur of honesty. Once a consumer is caught up into this, they will be hounded into paying, and will continue to get advertisements and unwanted spam. Mozilla is "openware" which means anyone can write apps for it, so if you use it, you have to be very diligent about what you download. However, the honest developers advertise their plug-ins or widgets as such and don't try to disguise their apps as Firefox itself!

Here are a few key things to follow when downloading any updates, whether for drivers, browsers, JAVA (which should be abandoned ASAP, it is unnecessary and is a horrible place! Known for bugs. It is what we termed a "bug-patch," or "bug-farm" at IBM and Verizon, more and more HTML5 apps are coming out. JAVA is strictly for Apple and was never meant for PC and DOS-based systems) and even operating systems, as Windows updates are not always necessarily. Remember, Windows and Microsoft lies!

  

• 1. Save the file you are downloading.

• 2. Before running the install, close all programs that are running, including your browsers.

• 3. Scan the downloaded file, preferably with something like AVG and either malwarebytes and/or Spybot. One scans for viruses, the other scans heuristically, for trojans. NOTE: They will NOT tell you that a download is MALWARE necessarily! You have to use your judgment, after this!

• 4. If you DO NOT see an authentic branding for the product itself, halt the installation immediately and delete the setup.exe file from your Download folder.

There. . . Now it's gone on to Software Heaven!

In Windows 7, you can right-click on the icon > Properties > General. Here is where I found that the program is "blocked". Which means nothing to Windows, because. . . Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't even see the spoof as it tells us this is "Firefox_Setup". Microsoft is like your elderly aunt who warned you not to drive all over town without gasoline, because she didn't understand how cars worked. I rest my case.

I already know this is at best a headache; but at worst? This can cripple a system and force a rebuild. I make no apologies for the fact that I live in a low-income neighborhood, but if it's a dangerous neighborhood, it's also a neighborhood full of proud grandmas and grandpas who have oodles of pictures of their grand kids saved to their desk tops. To our credit, my partner in this little enterprise and I have yet to lose a single precious moment. 

But this today, is a special kind of forgery, a spoof. I suspect this cat could be shut down easily and arrested, for he is not only spoofing, but blatantly using Firefox's brand to mask his malware and that's fraud. I've run these things down, but since the FBI doesn't have me on the payroll, let them pursue it and since I'm so damn lazy, I'm not even filling out reports anymore; I just send them links. I am just doing my bit to let my readers know that all of this is out there and you need to be damn careful. Next week, I think I'm going to put out some tutorials for maintaining your PCs, and laptops, Windows only, to start. 

I don't do anything with Apple products and thus have no use for JAVA. I keep my phones, Kindles and mobile stuff completely separate from my home devices, but that is okay, I'm pretty much a shut-in, anyway, and there is no need for me to synchronize stuff. At this juncture, iPads, iPods and PCs really don't mix. I hope Microsoft wakes up and dumps the Surface. Now, I'm editorializing.

As a side note, and a bit of hilarity, while I was pulling together the information for this post, I ran across an old nemesis, BrokenControllers.com. A while back, they stole a post of mine, "Playing the Violin, and How to Avoid It," and sold it on their website. I was alerted to this by another blogging buddy, of which I have legions! This is rather ironic and to me pretty funny, since I've never earned a penny for my writing. Enjoy my take on the violin, but take my advice on downloading anything, even from a supposed trusted sight to heart! 

#ROW80 4TH QTR WEDNESDAY CHECK IN - NANO UPDATE & WHO'S SPYING ON WHO

First the good news; for #NaNoWriMo, I've managed to spit out 44,013 words into something that resembles a manuscript, but that I would more likely refer to as a "hot mess". If you don't believe me, here's visual proof:

I feel like I've been underground since November 1, 2013. This cannot be so, as I've typed eleventy-billion words it seems, AND I've actually played Wolf. This is going to be a mostly graphical update, because of. . . Runescape?

Wait! What? No, that's not what I meant to say at all! I wanted to tell you that all that yammering I did last summer about the NSA and FBI really, really paid off! If any of you read my ground-breaking post on how to fuc-I mean totally encrypt every day conversations on Facebook and Twitter and just waste everyone's time by running all of your stupid lolcats and chain letters that say "teh quick brown jackal jumped over the lazy capitalist" through Bing translators ten times with 10 different languages, you'd know that I am on the cutting edge of spy bullshit! Take a look at this! Apparently, I have the HOMELAND SECURITY FOLKS recruiting me for THIS: 

God knows what in the hell they want me to do, but it looks totally legit, right? I can't wait to start. I am so excited! This must have been in response to a couple of letters I sent to the FBI and the SEC when I got this:

So everyone now knows I'm on my toes and fighting for the little guy or some shit out here in cyberland. I just knew if I kept pestering these people they'd offer me a job when they saw what kind of cyber-sleuthing chops I have!

Of course, I'll have to work from home. That Imaginary Trotsky fellow-traveler probably isn't going to rate me much in the way of a very high security clearance. 

Anyway, 6,000 words from the finish line, at least for this draft of "Music of the Spheres". I like the title and I think it fitting for the subject. I sure couldn't have gotten here without my #ROW80 crew mates and everyone else in this new endeavor. What a great couple of years it's been. The Primodone is working wonders and I've put on over 40 pounds, since I first went into the homeless shelter. Who'd a thunk it? As my late Ma used to say. Thank you everyone! 

#ROW80 SUNDAY CHECK IN – FUN WAYS TO CONFUSE OUR NEWLY-HATCHED POLICE STATE

I'm not even going to try and put lipstick on this pig; from Techdirt comes this article, “Creating Chilling Effects on Speech is aFeature, Not A Bug, Of the Surveillance State.” Regarding Free Speech and written by Mike Masnick. As a tech article, it starts out with the usual blah-blah, but this caught my eye, “implicit in our assumption is that these “costs” are things that are negatives of the program (kinda like a bug.) Others would point out that for those in power, that's not so much a cost as a benefit. It's not a bug, or an unintended consequence, but a “feature.” By the way, an update or a patch is also a bug, just not one that spies on you, in most cases. Or maybe it does.

On July 11th, 2013, Microsoft granted access to the NSA and FBI for Outlook, SkyDrive and Skype

Yeah, I get that, in 2 ways. Calling something by another name makes it something else. Not. A bug is a bug. But, hey, if it's Microsoft? Microsoft is nothing but a HUGE bug patch, along with JAVA, ORACLE and all the other half-assed software companies that are raking in big bucks for shitty software. I am not bitching; I have a cottage industry going in fixing crap you never got right in the first damn place!

"When email isn't enough for us to get our nosy little mitts on your information," would be 

truth in advertising.

The author then goes on to write about the “chilling” affect this has been on free speech, not just as a consequence, but as a motive. Even Peggy Noonan, describing a conversation with longtime civil liberties advocate Nat Hentoff, writes that “the inevitable end of surveillance is self-censorship.” Well, since I've been in a homeless shelter and mixed it up with different sorts, I tend to NOT self-censorship; a lifetime of it, pretty much fucked up my personal life. As long as I don't foment treason, I can say any damn well thing I want, under the 1^st Amendment, and so can you, if you're a U. S. citizen.

Also, at TechDirt, the July 11^th 2013 headline was regarding the “Latest Leak Shows Microsoft Handed the NSA and FBI Unencrypted Access to Outlook, SkyDrive and Skype. Even though I hardly think Microsoft has the warm fuzzies for the ABC agencies, we're talking about Microsoft. I truly believe they don't their ass from a hole in the ground. IBM worries me, as they made a deal with the Nazis in the early 40s that hardly anyone talks about. And yeah, I've worked for them both and know the chicanery they are capable of. Remember too, that I hunted down rogue servers at IBM, back when no one thought it was a big deal. This was in 1997. When I worked for Verizon, I didn't have that type of job, but we did have computers up on the towers on 9/11, and they were still transmitting signals for weeks, until their batteries finally died. Shivery stuff.

Anyway, if were being told it's not a “bug” but a “feature” how fucking stupid do the NSA, FBI think we are? Wait, don't answer that. We gave up it all up with a stroke of a signature in 2001, when Bush, Jr., signed the Patriot Act. Obama re-signed and expanded on some things the government can do, with no warrants, no knock, no nothing. President Obama is our first technically savvy president and understands the ramifications over time of what this all means. We put up with Joseph P. McCarthy's nonsense, list-waving, his 238 or 149 names, whatever, of known members of the American Communist Party. Until Joseph Welch chastised during the first of the televised Army-McCarthy hearings. Senator McCarthy and his lists and career went poof!

People who say, “I don't care who listens to me, I have nothing to hide,” are full of shit and let me tell you why. 99% of them have nothing the NSA, the FBI, or the CIA cares to hear, but that is not the point. We, as Citizens of the United States have and inalienable right to privacy. If an outside government agency wishes to breach that privacy, they MUST produce a warrant. It doesn't matter if it regards coming into your home, reading your mail, email, searching your car, requesting certain documents and wiretapping your phone. Interestingly enough, 5 amendments come into play here, the 1st, 3rd, 4th (especially for wire-tapping) 9th and the 14th amendments. I am not even going to get into Habeas corpus, which is sort of a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.

So, in actuality, these things trump stupidities like the Patriot Act, at least in my book, and here is where the fun comes in. Get yourself a batch of Facebook friends, preferably some from Russia, Kazakhstan, or Tajikistan and the Middle East. Chat back and forth and then exchange jokes and stuff. Misspell lots of your words and talk about your dogs, pets and hobbies. For instance, mention that great WIRE-HAIRED TERROR that your mom bought you. Swap recipes. The ones for bombe glaceé, or bombe Alaska might just perk up some ears.

That thing can won't be around long enough to explode. It looks delicious!

Talking in pig latin, or maybe esperanto is probably good. I don't think the NSA has any algorithms for that yet. Better yet, before posting on FB run your text through several translators. It works like that stupid game “Telegraph,” where a bunch of kids would sit in a circle and someone would pick a phrase and whisper it to his/her nieghbor. So, we have this sentence that I started out with in English and ran through several different languages before going back to English:

Kid 1: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. – English

Kid 2: قفز الثعلب البني السريع فوق الكلب الكسول – Arabic

Kid 3: Le quick brown fox saute par dessus le chien paresseux – French

Kid 4: wyqfz ạltẖʿlb ạlbny ạlsryʿ fwq ạlklb ạlkswl – Georgian

Kid 5: wyqfz ALTHʿポンドạlbnyạlsryʿFWQạlklbạlksw – Chinese (simplified)

Kid 6: wyqfz ALTH ʿ பவுண்டுகள் ạlbnyạlsry ʿ FWQạlklbạlkswl – Tamil

Kid 7: wyqfz alth ʿ ポンド ạlbnyạlsry ʿ FWQạlklbạlkswl – Czech

Kid 8: wyqfz alth ʿポンドạlbnyạlsryʿFWQạlklbạlkswl – Norwegian

Kid 9” wyqfz alth ʿ ポンド ạlbnyạlsry ʿ FWQạlklbạlkswl – German

Kid 10: wyqfz alth ạlbnyạlsry ʿ ʿ ポンド FWQạlklbạlkswl – English

Fun!

This is very much like the crap that Bing comes up with. I like making up my own stories.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-most-baffling-subtitles-in-foreign-action-movie-history/

As always, my undying gratitude and love to Mr. Brockway at Cracked.com

And that is how you play “Telegraph.” This would be great and send the NSA haring off into all kinds of directions, and wondering what sort of nefarious things are going on. I plan on doing this, as I already know I'm on all sorts of lists, ala Joseph P. McCarthy dating back to my father's non-escapade, when 2 of his employees somehow managed to smuggle out 2 personnel carriers and then sold them to the Saudis, back when they weren't our friends. So, we got to put up with the FBI showing up at all kinds of hours, replete with sunglasses at night. My dad used to pick me up after school; it was my senior year, and then we'd spend hours aimlessly driving around, not even bothering trying to rid ourselves of the remoras in our wake. I joined the American Socialist party in the 80s. President Reagan was in office, so not looking very kindly upon anti-capitalists, I'm sure I went in the barrel for that.

Tampa has one of the largest presences outside of D. C. because of MacDill Airforce Base. That Base was the center for the prosecution and direction of the Iraq War in 2003. I guess this is Eric Holder; all FBI agents look alike to me.

Anyway, we have inalienable rights, per the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and those are being abrogated and this is a fearful thing because, when one right is stepped on, then 2 are stepped on. When we get to Writ of Habeas corpus, which I fear has already been violated, we're toast. We've lost and we have nothing to protect us then. No matter. I have no one, other than JC, and he understands this very clearly. He also knows that I will not let this happen, if at all humanly possible. We need to wake up, get over the bullshit. People breastfeeding in public, so what? People get outraged about stupid temporal things, but this is hard because it feels like an abstract idea. It isn't.

It's very real, and it's what I call a chromatic failure, because it's at every level of the government and then some. Corporations try to tell people how to vote. That is none of their goddamned business. In one of my Triberr groups, I heard about a Chief who won't share a poster's blog if they don't agree with the opinion. That's fucking censorship and wrong. In closing, we must look to ourselves and not just to what is going on outside. A free society means that all can air their opinions, peculiar or antithetical to ours they may be. That's what liberty is about.

#ROW 80 1st QTR – POST 25 – CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Okay, enough high art, and fiddles, which in my eyes and after my treatment usually becomes low comedy. By the way, in the world of strings, we do call them fiddles, or axes. Unbelievable, but there it is. Although treated with the reverence they deserve, they are our kith and kin. Enough.

I got my crime report for 33605 this morning via email. I’ve been receiving it for several months. I signed up for it and when I received it and had a hilarious time with it, I decided to let them keep sending it to me. This is not the 33605 I know. I know for damned sure it’s not my wee ma’s 33605, nor is it a Wallace 33605. I’ll let you all look at this ferocious crime wave. I am sure Dostoevsky would have written something like “Crime and Scones” had he lived here:

Some laddies made off with Mrs. McGuires' pig, near Pentreath Ln. BOLO

So, I went and hunted up my own 33605. I don’t really need it. We have the Nebraska grapevine and it is pretty right on. We often know who got picked up on a parole violation before the igmo gets put back in the system. Sometimes, I’m not sure if I’m in “Guys and Dolls” or in “Clockers.”

We’ve got a batch of folks (I can’t bring myself to say posse, we might be a crew, loosely inferred) who were all in the homeless shelter together and some of us are still there and some of us are out here, but close by. There are about 5 houses that shelter near one another in this area. Our neighborhood association President, knows everyone. These shelters have a mix of everyone, homeless who are part of homeless recovery, felons who are on parole, sex offenders, B and E specialists, a murderer or two, mental cases. There are habitual offenders who steal everything that isn’t nailed down. I was there because I was homeless and a “victim” in a domestic dispute. I say “victim,” in quotes, because the guy I was with, looked a hell of a lot worse than I did.

Anyway, here’s the deal. Whatever happened is in the past. You’d be amazed at how far that gets you in the good will department. Some people do get violated. There’s one guy who’s been running around and I suspect he had something to do with the death of a friend of mine over the summer. I hated him on sight, because he is so very cold and a sociopath, and when I was still kind of frail, I fell between the washer and the dryer and hurt myself, badly. A drug users and one of the sexual offenders were beside themselves. They couldn’t pick me up fast enough. One was running around, getting manager to help me. They were still connected enough to people to respond. The sociopath just stood there and looked. That kind of guy.

I have to say something about sex offenders, or s.o. as they’re called. 90% of these guys are what they call “Romeo and Juliet” people. 18 year old guys with a 15 year old girl. Daddy finds out and bam! They’re in jail. There are some truly creepy ones and when I was there, they were singled out. Everyone knew and you can tell. They’re just fucked up in the head. The others? I lived there for 11 months and never a problem. That is just my opinion, but they are all stigmatized and labeled and their lives ruined and it sucks. I hold my hand out to every one of them. Their gratitude is overwhelming. They work hard to regain some kind of legitimacy in society. As I said our Neighborhood Association Prez knows they’re here. She said no NIMBY here.

This is just part of 33605. Red ellipse shows Nebraska Ave. Of course, some of the crimes include crap like the famous calling TPD because 6'4" tall Mr. C wouldn't do his dishes, so 4'11" D swore at him. Mr. C called cops 'cause she swore. TPD took one look at the 2 of them, told Mr. C to do his dishes and D to stop swearing. Me? I'd have arrested 'em both, just for yuks.

Anyway, we all keep each other informed about what’s going on. The socio-psychopath has no peace, because we’re all on the phones to each other telling one another where he is. He’s scheduled to go back to court for a Grand Theft charge anyway. Hopefully, the judge will stick him in the pen, where he belongs. He’s the Brainiac who ran from the TPD, after he’d made a deal of some sort with the FBI. Dumbass; I heard this WHOOP! And feet running south on Nebraska and Einstein went to Prisneyland for a while.

We are a little community; one of ours died recently. I was on the phone with Jason who still lives in the shelter. He was on the phone with Dana who was at the bedside of Jeff who was dying. Mike was beside Jason. We were all there when Jeff died. It was strange, but oddly fitting. We’ve all been through this hell of being in the system, somehow and landing in the shelter. Dana came to the shelter when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She and Jeff struck up a relationship; he was there because he was homeless and an alcoholic. They cared for one another. Dana and I talked about it later, crying on the phone together. We’re family and like any family, we squabble and we’re rather more dysfunctional than other families.

I had another little epiphany recently. One of the guys, Rick, who still lives at the shelter, works at one of the convenience stores in the area. He can be a pain in the ass, but, who isn’t? I’m horrible. He was the one who cleaned my knee, elbow and head when I fell. JC had had to go to school that day and wasn’t around at the shelter. Anyway, I said something in my stupid callous way; it hurt Rick’s feelings. This big, rough and tough guy. He proceeded to haunt JC for about 3 weeks and kept asking him if he’d done anything. I had noticed that Rick had been sullen and I hadn’t spoken to him. I just assumed he was going through one of his moods. I thought for a moment, after JC mentioned this for the 3^rd or 4^th time. He never did anything like that; this was just not like Rick. Big bear of a guy; I’ve seen him throw some punches. He’s the enforcer at the shelter.

Oh my God. Rick actually looks up to me. He does respect me and cares what I think about him. I would never have expected that because this is such a rough environment. You just let it fly. I can’t ever do that to people I’ve bonded with so closely. It’s like war. We’re foxhole mates. I told JC, “I have to make this right.” I went to the store and apologized and got him some YooHoos, his favorite drink. I told him, “Don’t you ever think I don’t care. We’ve been through some shit. You’re my friend. We can talk. If I say something. Tell me, okay? Are we okay, now?” Big grin. Aw shucks smile. All was right on Nebraska, or as right as it gets.

ROW 80 POST 28 – ILLICIT ACTIVITY ON NEBRASKA AVENUE 33602 & 33605

BOLO - Not This Guy

I’m pretty sure this is NOT the future my mother envisioned for me, when I was 15. I think she wanted me to marry some rich doctor or lawyer. At one point she wanted me to be an anchor woman?! Or a model, or other idiotic things. Always things I thought were boring or stupid, or damn nigh impossible. Nothing I would have enjoyed, certainly. My dad was pretty laid back about what I wanted to do; he knew me and knew I wasn’t going for all that folderol.

I started thinking about that last night, when I heard about Ray. I heard about Ray when I called Alex (my hardware counterpart in the ‘hood) to see if he was coming over for Thanksgiving, but Alex is going to Ocala and giving us his turkey. We’re cooking chicken and a ham for the ALF (Assisted Living Facility) people because they don’t seem to get fed very well and that’s what JC wants, so we’re by God doing it. I’m happy about it, too.

Well, during the course of that conversation, Alex mentioned that “Ray-Ray” as he’s called, is the psychopath, who stole the neon Buccaneers’ helmet sign from his neighbor that was caught on video one night. The warrant had actually been expunged from the Hillsborough Country Sheriff’s website, because, according to the Nebraska grapevine, Ray was some kind of low-level informant for the FBI, which pissed me off all to hell.

He’d already skipped on the Wade thing, true or not, gotten away with the domestic violence charge, pleaded down to Misdemeanor 1, but the Grand Theft Charge of more than 300.00, and less than 5k had gone *poof* and nothing. What had been an open warrant for his arrest was no longer even posted on the HCS website after the Feds came looking for him around Neb Ave. What the hell?

Yesterday, I don’t know what shit he pulled and damned if I didn’t regret having moved off Nebraska for say, oh, all of 5 seconds, since I no longer live directly on said avenue. I heard a sharp WHOOP! And then the usual bunch of Nebraska mayhem. This must have been early afternoon, since I typically sleep until noon-ish.

So, Alex tells me with great glee about Ray and to check it out. Anybody who’s honest has been plagued by Ray and his bullshit lies and stunts. Sure enough, it’s all there on the HCS webby-web. I’m not sure what he did that the Feds felt they had to rescind whatever little penny-ante protection they had given him, but all bets are off. Or maybe he just pushed it one too many times with the TPD. He really is an arrogant asshole with no brain cells to back it up.

The funniest thing in all of this? I called his ex-girlfriend, a very good friend of mine who’s possibly one of the funniest people on the face of the earth. Let’s call her H. H has had the second of her exes, living on her couch for a couple of weeks. When it rains, it pours. I had to tell H that we were having Thanksgiving at our place, blah, blah, blah, and couldn't come to hers, so I had a good reason to call, or let's just put lipstick on this bulldog, snoop.

I proceed to tell her about her first ex, Ray. She then proceeds to tell me about Tommy, the 2nd ex, sort of, the other weasel who lived with us all at FSJ, who used to piss me off and then run off. He had a laugh like the old “Penguin” character on the original “Batman” series. He was this little ferret of a man. 

H thought he was pretty okay, but he lied like a cheap Persian rug and nothing that came out of his mouth was the truth. JC was onto him immediately, and pretty much ran interference for me. Anyway, I didn’t think much about him, until H brought up the fact that he had called her a few weeks ago and was staying with her. I was alarmed right away. H had a hard time with Ray and didn’t need another user in her life. She spent quite a while getting back on her feet after her divorce. I needn’t have worried.

On November 8, 2012, H sent Tommy away and told him her apartment complex had a 2-week stay clause and he would have to go. Smart woman. She and I laughed about this. On November 9, 2012, Tommy allegedly tried to rob a bank, with a gun. You can read about it here. I told her all we had to do was get a couple of my exes locked up. Some of them have been in the Orient Road Jail, I know. Today, Alex came by and told JC and I that Bill somebody on our block got arrested for God-knows-what. “It does happen in threes, right?” Alex asked?

So, no one can say that I haven't had an interesting time. Bank robbers, psychopaths, dopers in the 'hood and all. I have enough material here for about 50 books. When I was talking to H last night, JC just shook his head. We'd look at each other and just bust out laughing. Sometimes, that's all you can do. Quandarious, indeed. 

ROW 80 POST 27 – DO NOT ENTER

I had to try and think of several catchy titles for this post. Titles are very important and I stress over the creation of them, much as I stress over every other goddamned piece of minutiae in my life. This is why I have a head full of bats, moth balls and cinders.

Anyway, JC was telling one of his epic stories yesterday. When JC tells a story, it is awesome. Truly; it’s like listening to God. He can make you cry, but more often he makes me laugh and he really had me howling yesterday about one of his wives who got all puffed up at him during a tent revival. He was on the other side of the tent. She thought JC “was a-lookin’ at the choirmistress,” which would have been a neat trick, since the choirmistress was not in his line of sight. He saw his wife “swell up, like a puffer toad, and start cussin’,” although he couldn’t hear her. Ten years with the woman and he knew what was fixin’ to happen. In his words, “I grahbbed mah Bahble, went straht out the back o’ that tent, got in mah truck, and drove 165 miles without stoppin’.”

YEEHAAA!  Ah'm outta heah!

His accent is pure west Texas and pretty, but his expressions are all pure JC. When we lived over at Happy Acres, he asked the particularly asinine Mr. Pimp My Ride, who festooned his bicycle with tin foil, thinking it put him in competition with the true bad asses who drove the hopped up Camaros and Chargers, before the FBI got them, with custom paint jobs, rims and 20k sound systems, if he was an Astronaut. “What yo mean, Cracker?” JC and I were standing in the House's hall, when this took place. When Mr. PMR said that, I looked at my feet. JC just said, “Cause a' ahll that spay-ace bah-tween your eyes.” He really emphasizes the drawl, when he's being particularly snarky. Now, I'm looking at the ceiling.

I hustled the two of us on out of there before Mr. PMR realized he’d been made fun of, but that was the thing. He was easy meat. He never got it. There were about 4 or 5 of us who got away with all kinds of shit like that. But that’s not what this is all about and I’ve really digressed. While JC was telling the hilarious story of his late wife who pulled the puffed up toad act at church, my mind hit on and then filed away for today’s #Row80 the topic of ta-da “The Evolution Of The Carriage Return.”

I’m sure there’s been tons of horribly boring, or not so boring articles written on this fascinating evolution. Back in the day, when we all learned to type, I learned to type in some old sourpuss’s class in my sophomore year in high school. I sat next to Steve Tersigni and Kevin Phillips, who always somehow managed to be in my classes and make them fun. Our teacher made us type to horrible songs like “Turkey in the Straw” and that’s all I remember. Except the god-awful racket of all of the keys hitting the carriages and the sound of all of us hitting the carriage returns. It sounded like siege engines at war.

I typed 35 words a minute from the age of 15 and never went near another typewriter if I could help it. The only other thing that sounded remotely that horrible was the sound in my 1^st year Music Theory Class at SJSU with Dr. Brent Heisinger, where we all had “ear training,” or some shit. There were 25 music majors, non-piano majors, in a room full of out-of-tune pianos and we were supposed to play “chords.” What we played was a bunch of noise. Dr. Heisinger, being the wonderful, hip, cheerful guy, would holler, “almost! Once again!”

Somewhat Akin to Eternal Rooms of Monkeys Typing Shakespeare... 

Once again, what?! It sucked. Even if we all played the same thing it sucked. The pianos hadn’t been tuned since the Punic Wars. Well, my ear got trained, or maybe it already was. I digress. So, after wandering around in the music biz and then marrying the chucklehead who believed the piccolo fairy was going to come and turn me into piccoloist and that didn’t happen, it was back to school and computer science for moi.

An amaze-balls thing happened in the 20 years since I’d been around a typewriter. Number one, there weren’t any. Number two, there were these cool things called keyboards now and they didn’t clack as much and you could work up a pretty good head of steam on them. My typing speed improved. I was still a bit confused by some of the names on the keys, but that stuff sorts itself out.

Off I went to work at IBM, and further sortage occurred. IBM IT Support in 1995 was a warehouse of the weird, old, halt and lame. We had some older systems, that hadn’t worked out, and lots of applications that only few clients used, as well as all of the big, mainstream stuff. If the client wanted to pay for it, we would supported it. Some of us became eclectic masters of the bizarre, others stayed with the mainstream. And until the telephony system was put in place, you never knew what you were going to get on the other end of the phone when it rang.

These are actual calls, not verbatim, but real nonetheless. 

"Hey! My fat ass-wife sat on my printer and mashed a bunch of buttons; now it won't work." After a few hours noodling with this and brainstorming with other engineers, solution? Mash a bunch of buttons. This was back in the day of Printer Hell, when no one had any printer that resembled any other printer.

“Hello? My screen wants me to press the ‘ANY’ key. I don’t have one of those.” Simple enough. “Press your space bar, the letter “A” It doesn’t matter.”

“Hi! This here XYWrite is telling me to press the NEXT button. I ain’t seeing that.”

Again, analogous to, “Enter,” and simple to fix.

But along with the weird WORD 6.0 for MAC O/S (which no longer exists) which was probably the worst program ever, the AmiPro, Word Pro, Lotus 123, Word Perfect, (now owned by Corel) there was one product that we. Never. Figured. Out. If we ever did, and were able to execute the damned thing, it probably would have blown up the entire Universe. We spent months on it. Not a bunch of engineers all out. It was this one call, one guy. I didn’t even get the call.

But we spent weeks trying to get an answer for this guy. He was trying to install something. Some kind of Word processing program. It was probably so old it was used back in the days when you had to turn on the computer and install the brain before you could use it. That was some rockin’ shit back then. 1984, I remember kind of seeing those at the University of Michigan along with the Halloween screens. High tech, cutting edge.

This poor schlemiel is stumped because he can’t find the “Go” key. Sounds kind of like “Enter,” only “Enter” isn’t working. We actually had the manual for that software package. It, by God said to press the “Go” key, only there’s no fucking GO key. We start calling other offices, we’re trying to get a hold of the manufacturer, which is no longer in business; they’ve been eaten up by MicroShit. We. Never. Solved. It. So, I put that one in the Unsolved case.