Sunday, July 21, 2019

Washing the Dog

Grace jumped up onto the bed and laid down next to me. It was as if someone had heaped a large pile of freshly peeled dirty socks on my head. I about gagged.

“Nope, nope, nope! Grace, get down,” I said to her. “This shit’s gone way too far!”

She went into the living room and jumped up onto the couch. It’s OK. It’s “her” couch.

I came out of the bedroom and announced, “You need a bath.”

She gave me that coy look as she lightly thumped her tail.

I went into the bathroom, and cleared the area out. This shit always gets messy. I started pulling towels out of the cabinet. The hair dryer too.

Grace isn’t crazy about baths, but she doesn’t avoid them either. She probably felt long overdue for one which is why she voluntarily sauntered into the bathroom. I helped her into the tub and commenced with the bathing.

I started with a tea tree oil castile soap, as it is very gentle and has marvelous antifungal properties. This was followed by a high quality conditioner and a thorough rinsing.

Now for those of you in the know, washing the dog isn’t the hardest part. Drying the dog is. Several towels were employed, followed by a blow drying. Once it felt pretty dry, I brushed her out, then followed up with the vacuum. Yes, the vacuum. It gets rid of the lingering dampness better than anything else.

I also took the time to clean the couch and change the bedsheets. Once it was all over, Grace hopped back up into bed with me. Her soft and luxurious fur smelled amazing, and she slept more comfortably than she had in weeks.

Of course she’s still shedding. She does it twice a year. Six months in the spring, and six months in the fall. It’s the price you pay for having a big cuddly best friend. Unconditional love takes work.

And now if you’ll excuse me. I have a labrador who is in need of some snuggles.


Kudos

To Glenn and George: Thank you for contributing the jokes. Flush Twice relies on people like you to send in the jokes. If you’ve been reading our jokes for a while, why not donate one today? You don’t have to sign up or agree to anything. Just head over to our submission page and type one in. You can also forward your forwards to flush2x@gmail.com. I’d love to be the recipient of your friends’ friends’ friends’ jokes.

You’re going to do great things. You’re the solution to the problem they didn’t even know they had. Your smile brings joy. May peace and happiness follow you wherever you go, for all who know you call you friend.

Pax,

-f2x

Nail Gnashing

Two older women were fussing about their husbands over tea.

“I do wish my Gerald would stop biting his nails. That makes me terribly nervous,” the first one said.

“Oh, my Ian used to do the same thing,” the other woman commented. “But I broke him of that habit real quick.”

“What did you do?” asked the first.

“I hid his teeth.”

A Vibrant Visage

“You certainly look different today,” Pam mentioned to Tonya.

“Really?” she replied.

“Yes. Your hair seems a little more curly, and you have this wide-eyed look,” explained Pam. “Did you use special curlers and some dramatic eye make-up?”

“No,” replied Tonya “My stupid vibrator shorted out this morning.”

The Burglarized Blonde

A police dispatcher received a call from a distraught blonde whose house had been ransacked and burglarized.

The dispatcher broadcast the call over the channels. It just so happened a K-9 unit was patrolling the area, and was the first to arrive on the scene. The K-9 officer got out of the vehicle and approached the house with his dog on a leash.

Waiting on the porch, the blonde clapped a hand to her head. “I don’t believe this,” she complained. “I came home from work to find all my stuff stolen, and now the police department is sending me a blind cop!”

Beat-up Beetle Bumble

Harry had just gotten a beat-up old VW beetle from a used car lot. He took it for a spin but misjudged a curve and overturned the car.

The car tumbled until it landed directly between the house of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Mr. and Mrs. Ball.

Luckily for Harry, he was pulled out by the Smiths

The Taunted Trial

Emotions were running high. The continual heckling and outbursts within the courtroom kept disrupting the trial.

Having had enough, the judge sternly warned, “The next person who interrupts these proceedings will be thrown out of my court!”

To which the defendant yelled, “Hooray!”

Sunday, July 14, 2019

Yet Another Reinstall?

So about a year or so ago, Linux Mint released LMDE 3. It was the latest successor to their Debian branch, and sadly, the developers chose not to support the Mate desktop environment. This left me with 3 options: 1) Stick with LMDE 2, 2) Install LMDE 3, then install Mate, or 3) Install the Ubuntu based Linux Mint.

The first one was a non-starter. I wanted the latest and greatest, and felt I had already waited too long.

At the time I chose the second option because I wanted to stay in the more pure Debian ecosystem for a contradictory reason: The Debian edition is supported longer, so there are fewer format/re-install cycles.

I avoided the third option for the worst reason: The snob factor. Let’s face it, Ubuntu users are very near the lowest in the Linux hierarchy. Ubuntu is Linux for the non-technical, Ubuntu is for the lazy, Ubuntu is for the idiot, and now Ubuntu is for me.

There were a few other reasons to favor the Debian edition over the Ubuntu variety, but something was irking me and if I didn’t leave the Debian universe, I would involuntarily blame that “irk” on Debian.

Sadly, the Ubuntu edition still contained that “final” irk, but all the irks up to that point were actually gone. It wasn’t Debian though… It was LMDE 3’s refusal to support a Mate edition.

By the way, that final “irk” had to do with VLC. It’s my preferred media player, and after the latest update, it’s been glitching when you are watching video in full screen.

It might just be my machine, but it’s a relentless glitch that causes the player on screen controls to not want to reappear when you jog the mouse, and the keyboard controls stop working as well.

When I press the space bar, the movie I’m watching had bloody well stop!

Alas, the problem persists under the Ubuntu branch of Linux Mint, so I know it wasn’t just my Debian install. I will not be going back to LMDE 3, however. The Ubuntu system basically looks and feels the same, and shedding a couple of other minor issues that I wasn’t able to fix on my own is a kind of a big plus.

So yeah, if you’re still playing games on Windows, I understand. You’ve got your priorities, and I respect that. I just really enjoy the feeling of the Mate desktop environment powered by Linux… glitches and all.


Kudos

Just another shout out to Glenn and George for supplying this week’s jokes. How do you tell who sends what? Glenn’s jokes are the dirtier ones. So thanks guys. If anyone else would like to add to the collection, please head over to our submission page or send them to flush2x@gmail.com.

Did anyone tell you how beautiful you are? I could just stare into those eyes of yours all day long. You really are something special. Have a great week!

Pax,

-f2x