Category Archives: Sunday’s Rant

Software as a Service

Back in the day, if you wanted to install the latest version of an operating system or application, you had to go to the store and buy a copy. You would install the software via floppy disk or CD ROM onto the computer, and that was that. Your computer never checked to see if it was running the latest version, your system didn’t try to download the latest updates, and your programs didn’t try to install newer versions of themselves while you were sleeping so peacefully at night.

The software became a part of the hardware. Until something bad happened, your computer would run that same old software the same old way every time. You didn’t boot your computer and receive a message, “Please wait while we reconfigure your system for the latest version of DOS.” If you opened Windows and clicked on the “About”, you know that the version number displayed was the version number you installed. You also knew that everything worked exactly the way it was originally set up to work.

Granted, those systems were slow, buggy, prone to crash, and setting hardware IRQ’s was a pain, but it was what it was, and most of all, it was yours.

These days, it’s like every internet connected device is constantly updating. Even the software that is running this website receives automatic updates… which is sometimes a pain, because it breaks things. Two weeks ago, this site’s theme updated. I actually have to manually retweak it every time they do this because it breaks the category continuity when clicking on the previous/next post links.

Every day there are new updates. It’s getting to the point where it might save bandwidth if the powers that be would track your mouse or touchscreen and stream the screen they want you to see over the internet. Seriously, the Google Play store uses more bandwidth than any other app because every other app is updating every other day.

But you have to update. If you don’t, then the terrorists win.

It’s a lot of horseshit.

Kudos

We got the jokes, folks! The Oldest Rater has blessed us with a mother lode of comedy for the entire first week of June. George has started sending jokes again too, so I’m pretty happy. When it rains it pours! The submission page is always taking submissions, my email address is flush2x@gmail.com, and I’d love it if you’d forward some jokes to me! Have a great week!

Pax,

-f2x

The DreamHost Nightmare

It happened again this past week: Database connection errors. It’s really frustrating. Perhaps you’ve seen the 503 errors too. This is hardly a misconfiguration on my part. It’s the misfortune of getting the cheapest hosting option.

When Siteground, my last hosting provider, went from reasonable to rapacious, I decided it was time to seek out a more budget friendly option. I got three years of DreamHost for under $220, and I figured I was set… Well it’s more like I was set up. At first it was just a little sluggishness, but now it’s tossing out failure messages.

So how’s that customer support? Well, you go through the trouble of typing out a detailed explanation of the problem thinking you’re opening a support ticket, and the next thing you know, they’ve redirected you to a nebulously related FAQ page based on key words in your support request… which is now gone as if you’d never typed it in the first place. So yeah… that’ll piss off just about anyone, but it nearly gave me an aneurysm

So this problem could be solved with either time or money. If I had the time, I could set up my own web server and host from home. If I had the money, I could just buy a better web hosting plan. Sadly I have neither at the moment, so it looks like these little outages will be a part of Flush Twice and mBlip for the foreseeable future.

Unbelievable! While typing this little rant, I had to take a break because the system went down yet again. Seriously, if you are looking for a web host, you might want to look past DreamHost.

(Update 5-26-2019 13:19) It just did it again, and I finally found where to submit a support ticket. The ball’s in their court. Let’s see how they handle it.

(Update 5-27-2019 23:39) So they got back with me by email. The response was disappointing. They started out by saying, “It looks like what you are running on the sites are exceeding available resources on the shared hosting service, which can cause the site to perform slower since processes may take longer to complete or fail due to resources…” It then goes on to suggest upgrading plugins, optimizing the sites, and if all else fails, upgrading to their $VPS plan$. Essentially, Dreamhost is telling me that now that my refund window has closed, my wordpress installs are using up too many resources… Also, account holders have no way of seeing where that resource usage is actually coming from. I can tell you this: It’s not coming from having too many visitors. I’d also like to point out that they are complete assholes when it comes to “upgrades” because you’re not really upgrading. Your old plan stays in place, and you’re just buying an entirely new plan at full price, but they’re such nice crooks, they’ll happily migrate your sites over to the VPS at no additional charge.

Now that I have a home fiber connection, I’m going to look into setting up my own server again. A goddamn 286 running DOS 2.1 would be better than these jackels’ shit servers.

Kudos

This week, we have more jokes from Glenn, and a couple of fan-freakin-tastic contributions from “T.O.R.”. Glenn tells me that George is doing much better now, and he should be back next week. In the meantime, the submission page is awaiting your best jokes, and flush2x@gmail.com is also a great way to send Flush Twice new jokes.

Pax,

-f2x

The Battery Powered Mower’s Time Has Come

If your estate requires a riding mower, just skip down to the kudos, because this doesn’t apply to you… yet. For those still using gas powered push mowers, lemme tell ya, you’re doing it the hard way. And if you’re still using a corded electric lawn mower, you’re really doing it the hard way.

I recently went to a popular big box hardware store and bought their “exclusive” name-brand battery powered lawn mower for $279. I had been wary, but I decided to take a chance.

See, I have neither a garage nor storage shed, and since I refuse to bring gasoline into my century old tinderbox house, I opted to use a corded electric lawn mower.

At first, it wasn’t too bad because my yard is quite small, but then my neighbor’s husband died, so I started mowing her yard too. Next thing you know her other neighbor ends up with a medical condition, so now I’m mowing his yard… And managing the extension cord got to be a real hassle, so it would take over an hour to cut three lawns.

So this mower boasted up to 40 minutes of run time… Well, if I didn’t have to fuck around with the cord so much, maybe 40 minutes would be enough to mow these 3 small yards. So how did that work out? Since I bought this battery powered mower, I’ve had to mow the grass three times, and the last time I cut the grass it took me less than 30 minutes.

LESS THAN 30 MINUTES.

I think the thing that really impressed me was how well it cut through the thick patch in my neighbor’s yard. It just went right through it without any difficulty while my corded mower would bog down. I also don’t have to overlap halfway so as to effectively cut the lawn twice. Just one pass cuts clean and level. Did I mention there’s no cord to fuck with?

Seriously, this is a game changer. You take the battery off the charger, stick it in the mower, stick the key in the mower, push a button, then pull down the lever, run it all over the yard, take out the battery and key, put the battery back on the charger, and you’re done.

No yanking your rotator cuff out of its socket. No priming the fuel line. No trying to guess what’s wrong with it this time like you do with a gas powered mower. It’s push-button simplicity that makes mowing the lawn a breeze.

When something easier comes along, the previous way becomes the hard way, and when the hard way doesn’t do it any better or faster, then it’s the stupid way as well. If you have to mow the lawn, you owe it to yourself to try one of these battery powered mowers… or you could just, you know… keep doing it the stupid way.

Kudos

I know I haven’t been posting his jokes that much lately, and I also know he doesn’t care, but I’m using them now, so thanks, Glenn. For those unaware, George is out for a bit because of health issues, and for the longest while I stopped using Glenn’s jokes because most of the time they were either jokes that had already been used or were kind of R, NC-17, TV-MA or perhaps XXX rated. My point is, if anyone would be so kind as to send jokes to my submission page, I would be ever so grateful. I still check flush2x@gmail.com for submissions as well. Hope y’all have a great week!

Pax,

-f2x

Unlearning Frugal Internet Habits

YouTube at 240p, video blocking plugins to prevent sites from autoplaying HD video, torrenting movies onto a thumb drive at work so I can watch them at home… Those were easy habits to end, but now there’s that lingering feeling of paralyzing dread each time I want to click on a link.

“Is it going to be worth it?”

Of course you should always ask this question when surfing the internet. I think that’s one thing being on a metered network indirectly taught me. Wasting bandwidth on crappy content doesn’t just use up a limited resource, it uses up my time, and my time is more valuable than the internet.

But still, I need to loosen up. I’ve got a terabyte data limit now, and I’m still only using about a gigabyte per day… which is what I had available to me using a mobile carrier! But who knows, maybe I’ll surprise myself and download a few new distros and try out some new flavors of Linux.

Then again, maybe I’ll subscribe to Hulu’s live TV or something else… I dunno… Maybe I just won’t bother worrying about it.

Kudos

So once again, no one sent in any jokes… Well, except for Glenn. So I wasn’t going to do this, but it looks like he’s got some new jokes. Brace yourselves though… He’s the prurient one. If your delicate disposition can’t handle naughty blue humor with unashamed F bombs, you might want to steer clear of this place for a while. The submission page is a great way to bring family friendly jokes back to this site. You can also send jokes to flush2x@gmail.com. Thanks for stopping by, and let’s hope George comes back soon.

Pax,

-f2x

Got Fiber?

Over the summer AT&T was laying fiber in my neighborhood. Of course I was mildly optimistic, but in some ways I’d kind of gotten used to my 4G modem, and was hoping for higher data allowances though my wireless provider.

So I got the mailer. 300Mbps fiber connection for $50/month with a Terabyte datacap and free installation. Uhhh… Yeah… What is it I’m getting right now? Oh yeah… Close to 100Mbps at $50/month, but only 24 Gigabytes. Hmmm… Let me think about this…

Of course the rate goes up after a year, but they do have lower priced options, and I can always go back to wireless if I have to…

So of course I signed up. I’m getting it installed this week.

Oh, and one more thing: FUCK YOU, SPECTRUM.

Kudos

George isn’t emailing anyone right now because he had a minor heart attack. From what I hear he’s going to be OK, but no one sent any jokes, and that left me scrounging. If you’d like to help out, the submission page is at your disposal. I also accept jokes via flush2x@gmail.com. Thoughts and prayers. Get well soon, George.

Pax,

-f2x

So Who’s Watching mBlip?

I run a few different sites, and on the backend I have a stats program running to get some idea of the viewership. I also like to be fairly transparent about it, since I’m not using these stats to track individuals or for targeted marketing purposes. Sometimes, however, the results are a little disheartening if not downright embarrassing.

At first glance, mBlip doesn’t look like it’s doing too badly. Because it grows so fast, I usually reset the site every couple of weeks. When I do, the stat counter stops working, so I have to delete and reinstall it. Basically, I can’t see any long term trends with mBlip, but what I can see bothers me more.

mBlip’s home page gets a fair bit of traffic… Mostly through server farms and China… And that’s about all it gets. No one seems interested in visiting the individual posts. The whole point of the site is to watch recently released videos, and my stat plugin is essentially telling me that no one watches the videos… except me… but I don’t count.

On the other side, Flush Twice seems to be chugging along nicely. While an uncomfortably high percentage of visitors trace back to server farms, the majority of them come from actual ISP’s (ie: Real people). Curiously, the comic gets a disproportionately higher amount of traffic. That’s awesome. Thankfully, these rants get ignored. That’s awesome too.

In the end, I suppose the visitor counts don’t really matter so long as I enjoy what I’m doing. I like a lot of the videos that mBlip collects, and I still think it’s a great way to find something interesting to watch. I also like taking care of Flush Twice. There have been over 1100 jokes individually reviewed and published. That’s kind of impressive.

So who’s watching mBlip? Me. Just me. Occasionally Google or some other search engine will randomly refer somebody to a video page, but after two years and 5 months, It’s time to concede that the concept doesn’t have any appeal to a wider audience.

Kudos

Once again I want to thank George for sending in the jokes. In case you were wondering, our submission page still works. You can also do what George does and email flush2x@gmail.com. Thanks for visiting. It’s been my most heartfelt pleasure to provide you with a laugh or two.

Pax,

-f2x

Happy Easter

OK, so now that that’s out of the way…

The New Rating System

It’s been in place for a while, but I figure I’d touch on it. It’s a simple like/unlike system that makes it painfully easy to stuff the ballot box. You can upvote it as much as you want, you can downvote it as much as you want, but you cannot take away anyone else’s upvotes/downvotes. The votes don’t really matter, so feel free to play with it.

I’m going through some shit again.

It’s an old TV/Movie trope where a sane person is in an insane asylum either visiting or by force. At some point the sane person strikes up a conversation with someone else who is presumably also sane, but within a minute or two it becomes apparent that the person they are talking to is actually just as cuckoo as the rest. They are then either led away or wonder off on their own while the sane person is left with a dumbfounded look over what they had just experienced.

That’s about how I’m feeling right now. I don’t know whether I’m taking crazy pills or surrounded by crazy people, but I feel like people around me are becoming less rational. It feels a little scary.

Another thing, it feels like people are treating me like I’m somebody else. Do I have an alternate personality or some form of schizophrenia I’m not aware of? Is there someone else who looks like me going around interacting with these people? Are they gaslighting me or have had some sort of psychotic break and are now acting out their delusions?

All of this has left me shaking my head while thinking I’m surrounded by crazy people and idiots… Or maybe I just need to get some rest. Yeah, that’s probably all this is.

Kudos

Thanks goes out to George for emailing me the jokes. Of course anyone can submit jokes via our submission page, or by emailing flush2x@gmail.com. Thank you for visiting Flush Twice, and may you have a blessed day.

Pax,

-f2x

I Finally Got my Taxes Done.

Being a wage slave, I generally get some money back from the fed and the state, but I always end up owing the city. That and the whole “doing your taxes” process always tends to grind my gears.

Here in my state, the employer takes out payroll taxes for the city you work in. I live in one city, but work in another. If the municipality I worked in had an equal or higher tax rate, I wouldn’t pay my hometown a dime. But my city is the metropolitan hub and therefore has a higher rate, so I have to pay them the difference, and I always resented that part.

Well, a few years ago my city raised their income tax rate from 2.25% to 2.5%. That increase of 0.25% prompted all the smaller satellite cities to up their game from 2% to 2.25% the following year. If you know how percentages work, then you realize that identical increases of disparate amounts results in a net lower disparity between the two amounts.

That means I actually owe my own city less on my taxes each year in spite of the fact that everyone raised their taxes. Yes, I am paying more taxes overall, but if you know how much I hate my city’s tax department, paying my hometown less than they would have gotten if they had just left things alone and not jacked up their rates, kinda makes it feel like a small victory.

Happy tax day.

Kudos

I managed to get a couple jokes from George’s emails. Thanks, George. I’m coming up short this week, so I might end up grabbing some jokes from Glenn’s emails… That is, if I can even find any we haven’t used already. Meanwhile, if you just happened by this place and want to do something totally crazy, leave us a joke on our submission page. You can also send in jokes via flush2x@gmail.com. And thank you to everyone who visits this site.

Pax,

-f2x

Finally! A Break.

The past few weeks have been pretty rough. Since I got over my cold, I’ve been putting in a lot of overtime, and last week, I was on my own running the floor. I’m feeling a bit run down, so I decided to take an extended weekend.

Actually I scheduled to take off April 8th and 9th months ago as I do every year. I’ll leave it to you to guess why, but right now I really need the time off. It’s spring, and spring is nature’s time of renewal. Believe me, I’m ready for my renewal right about now.

Of course when I go back to work on Wednesday, it’s back to 10 hour days plus Saturdays… Well, I’m also off on Friday the 19th for Good Friday, and naturally we’re not working that Saturday or Sunday either, being it’s Easter and all.

Hmmm… maybe I can schedule Monday the 22nd off as well. You can’t have too many vacation days.

Kudos

Woah… Almost missed again. The post went live before I got a chance to add on the kudos. This week’s jokes were contributed by George, and I had to dig a couple up on my own. If anyone out there is feeling generous, our submission page, could use a few donations. I also accept jokes through my e-mail address at flush2x@gmail.com. Your contributions are always appreciated!

Pax,

-f2x

Busy, Busy, Busy.

I’ve always been more of a solitary person who enjoys his personal space, but people keep tapping me on my shoulder every 5 minutes, and I feel like I’m gonna scream! Why do they always come to me? Why can’t they bother the other group leaders?

Things at work have been a little crazy, and this coming week is expected to go from crazy to bonkers when I’ll be the only group leader on my side of the factory. Thankfully, I’ll be taking a 4 day weekend after this, so maybe I’ll be able to regain some of my composure.

Even though all this work is driving me insane, I’m going to take all the overtime I can get right now, because I need to toss in a little extra to my savings for a rainy day fund. It’s nice paying cash for everything while watching your bank balance grow. I almost feel like an adult.

Of course I’m not stupid. It’s always easy come, easy go. The universe can sense when you’ve got your head above water and that’s when things tend to break down and need repairs, or you have to pay extra fees, or the the world decides it’s a nice time for the apocalypse. The rain never stops in my neighborhood.

Forgotten Kudos

Last week I forgot to put the kudos in at the end of my rant. Didn’t even notice it until Friday. It was darkmare and George who contributed the jokes. Thanks guys.

Kudos

I’m not going to forget to give thanks this week. Thanks goes out to George, darkmare, and even “The Oldest Rater” who also contributed to this week’s daily jokes. With me being so busy of late, it’s a godsend to have so much help. Just a reminder, our submission page, is always accepting contributions, and if you’d prefer to send me jokes the old fashioned way, my e-mail address is flush2x@gmail.com. Thank you all so much!

Pax,

-f2x

Addendum

So you may have noticed the stars slowly fading away… Well now they’re gone. Good riddance. Bye bye. I was sick of looking at them.

Instead, you may now “like” or “dislike” to your heart’s content. Go ahead. You won’t hurt my feelings if you dislike a joke. You probably won’t hurt George’s feelings either, since he’s never actually seen this site.

Honestly, I’m not even really sure why anyone should bother liking or disliking things. It’s not like it will affect the quality of future jokes. It won’t tell you which jokes are the funniest either. As far as I can tell, it’s just something to play with when you get bored… reading jokes. _{(Oh god, that sounds depressing… Would you care for some Paxil?)}

So there you go. I finally got around to hatching my evil scheme. It’s a simpler up/down vote system, just like you see on every other platform out there.

Enjoy.