Sunday Morning Funnies and “The Don”, Capone

Cross-posted at Really? Seriously?

Good morning from between the two stadiums in Seattle. It is a Sunday, 41°F and drizzling, with more of the same forecast, and a high of 51°F. In other words, the typical May weather for Seattle.

I’ve gotten a start on the beta-testing of my SQL project. I’ve run into a small problem that I should have anticipated and set up ahead of time: I need to have the Microshaft OCDB 17 drivers installed on all of the work stations in order to get the program to connect to the servers. But Boy Howdy, I have the display monitor in Engineering up and running.

I will have to get IT over here to install the drivers on the work stations tomorrow. Oh well, it gives me an extra couple of days to do some more tinkering on it…

I went to bed early yesterday.

I get up at 0300 hrs every morning. I have been getting up at this hour for about a hundred years now. I shit, shower and shave my head, then I have the quiet of the morning to do the things that REALLY need getting done, with no interruptions or distractions from anyone or anything.

I’ve been building up this little sleep deficit for the past five days, and it all came down on me yesterday afternoon when I got home. So I thought I would take a nap around 1500 hrs, and got up this morning at 0300. Twelve hours of sleep.

Headlines That Caught My Eye This Morning

The first headline I saw this morning was about Trump comparing himself to Al Capone. This was too much to pass up…

Item 1: Trump likens himself to Al Capone during fiery Mar-a-Lago speech.

Trump says Jack Smith is a ‘fucking asshole’, and brands Fani Willis a ‘real beauty’

He does realize that Al Capone was into organized crime, doesn’t he? That Capone’s conviction was over tax evasion? It’s strange that he would choose to consider himself closer to Al Capone, the criminal, than any other positive example he could have chosen.

Does he believe that Al Capone should never have been convicted of a crime?

Weird.

Item 2: US campus protests: ‘Student arrests will be my final college memory’

Gee. That’s something to strive for.

Item 3: 10 old-school Windows programs you probably didn’t remember until now

My time with computers predates Windows. My first encounter with computers and computer programming was in school in Redmond Washington in 1965 as an extracurricular program sponsored by Rocket Research Redmond. I learned how to program BASIC for three years. But I never EVER touched a computer during any of that.

My first computer was the Tandy TRS-80 from Radio Shack. It had a cassette tape memory. I went from there to the Commodore 64, and from there to Apple. Then came the IBM Desktop with IBM-DOS. Then it was the IBM compatibles, and MS-DOS. Windows 3.0 and 3.10 came next, and I pretty much skipped it because I didn’t think it would ever take over from MS-DOS.

Then Windows 95 came out and from there it was on…

Of the ten old windows programs listed here there are only two that I wish they still had:

MSN Messenger (or Windows Live Messenger)I would rather use MSN Messenger than call or text someone.

Windows Movie MakerI STILL use Movie Maker. I found a copy of it that will work on Windows 10 and 11.

I still use Microsoft Paint. I have Adobe Photoshop 7 also — they both work well on Windows 10 and 11.

Item 4: Netanyahu accused of ‘sabotaging’ truce talks

Netanyahu has NO intention of stopping until he has killed every ~~Hamas combatant~~ Palestinian he can. (I felt the need to clarify) He knows that as soon as this war is over, he’s toast. Burnt toast, considering he is still facing fraud charges that he hasn’t been able to shake yet.

Item 5: Israel’s Cabinet approves immediate closure of Al Jazeera

“The government headed by me unanimously decided: The incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel,” wrote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X

I personally have no problems with Al Jazeera as a news source. They are a valuable resource if you are trying to get another POV on a story.

This is the problem with a lot of you: You don’t ever want to hear the “other side of the story”. And there is ALWAYS another side or two of EVERY story, and if you want a complete picture of what’s going on, you HAVE to know both sides of every issue.

Item 6: Donald Trump May Have Violated His Gag Order Again

“May have”? Does a chicken have lips? Does a Bear shit in the forest? Is a pig pork?

As sure as the night becomes day, Trump will have violated his gag order. Again. He’s too bull-headed at this point not to violate court orders.

Why? Because he’s never really had any consequences for his bad actions throughout his entire life. Maybe a few hours in a holding cell for his next violation might wake his fat ass up.

Item 7: Republican Firebrand Ted Cruz Now Courts Democrats to Win Re-Election

If more and more Republicans hate this Fidel-looking asswipe, then what makes him think that Democrats would help him out?

Item 8: The new cure-all for vacation excess: the IV drip

Oh for fuck’s sake, talk about a ‘first-world problem’.

Item 9: The Growing List of Global VIPs Who Detest Elon Musk

Money does not make a person likeable. But it can cause a lot of people to hate you.

Item 10 While U.S. Debates Free Speech, Pro-Hamas Rhetoric in France Is a Crime

If Republicans have their way it would be illegal here also.

Item 11: TSA discovers a bag with small snakes in passenger’s pants

“Is that a snake in your pants…?”

Item 12: Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis”: Watch First Look Teaser