Category Archives: Sunday’s Rant

Sliding Downhill

Every Saturday I go to visit my dad at his house, and I always take my dog Grace along, but this isn’t about that.

So they recently they opened a new Hardee’s near my dad’s house, and Dad wanted to go there for supper. It sounded good to me too. So the three of us got in the car to get some delicious take out.

Dad and I went inside to get a good look at the menu. The first of the four TV screen menus was dedicated to promoting sliders. Grace always gets a small sandwich when we go out like this, and a slider would be perfect for her.

The girl behind the counter informed me that she couldn’t serve me a slider because they were out of slider buns until Thursday. When my dad asked, “Well couldn’t you just…” she cut him off and said she’d have to ask the manager.

OK, so normally I would have gone nuclear at this point, but it’s a fucking slider, not an international conflict. Still, it really got in my craw over the way this had been handled.

Never mind the fact that they ran out of buns. That shit happens. The “buns won’t be in until Thursday” kind of irked me, but that’s not the worst of it either. Cutting my dad off without hearing his proposal wasn’t very nice, but I could tell from her tone she’d been dealing with this all day.

Having worked a few fast food places in my youth, I knew from experience that you typically offer the customer something of commensurate value for the inconvenience, especially when 25% of the store’s promotionals are pushing the sliders. You don’t just drop that shit in the customer’s lap with, “I’ll need to check with my manager.” Have a fucking backup plan in place already.

The girl wasn’t trying to be rude either. She was just doing what management left her with, and when you have bad management, talking to the manager can turn a shaky dining experience into a shitty one.

Fortunately, Grace didn’t mind getting a cheeseburger instead of a slider. It just felt like they could have handled their bun shortage a little better. Great first impression Hardee’s. Good luck at your new location.

Pax,

-f2x

Settling In

As boldly announced late Thursday, we have a new web host running on a more modern platform. This upgrade came with a bittersweet realization. Flush Twice sees less than 40 visitors per day.

How do we know this? Well, on the backend of this site I run a visitor counter. Now in the past, it was polluted with crawlers and spambots. You could tell because it showed the most recent IP addresses, and randomly checking an address number would rarely be originating from an ISP, which would have indicated a person. Instead, most of the IP address turned out to be from some random hosting site, which would indicate a bot.

Fortunately the new host has something that naturally filters out around 99% of the bots: Enforced SSL encryption. Because bots don’t typically want to waste their time trying to establish a secure connection, forced encryption is like spraying Lysol on bacteria, but in this case the bacteria are the bots.

Even though that number is barely over a single visitor every hour, I’m actually impressed by how high that number still is. And you know what? I feel confident that this number will increase over time.

Furthermore, I replaced the old “NewStatPress” with “WP Statistics”. I couldn’t do that on the old hosting site because their version of PHP was too old. As a result I get a few extra bells and whistles. I’m being fully transparent. Every post has a hit count at the bottom of it, and if you’re reading this in the sidebar, you’ll see the visitor count for today and yesterday below this post. Keep in mind that “today” starts at midnight EST.

So there you have it. I only wish people would send me more jokes. My current contributors are a little burnt out, and it’s looking pretty thin in the queue… Oh I better stipulate the jokes have to be ones we haven’t posted before, and they should be funny. Don’t worry about format or spelling, because I’ll clean that up when I post them. Anyway, send me your best jokes, and if you have a friend that always forwards them to you, then forward them to me! As always my e-mail address is flush2x@gmail.com

Pax,

-f2x

Major Behind The Scenes Change!

I’m very pleased to announce that Flush Twice has successfully been migrated to a new webhost!

What? Why? Is this still the same site?

Yes, I’m still in charge around here, and everything is running great. I just signed on to be hosted by SiteGround for MANY reasons, but here’s a few things you can enjoy:

• Faster page loads!
• More reliable uptime!

… and my favorite:

• —- HTTPS! —-

The other thing I like is they actually do have 24/7 customer support. My trusty old webhost of 12 years was bought out by Endurance International Group a while back, and they pretty much got rid of all their technical support. When I had a back-end issue with Flush Twice, I couldn’t get ahold of anyone to help me. SiteGrounds has support, https, and a more modern interface.

It’s taken me a while to figure out this new hosting site, but I think we’re gonna like it here.

Pax,

-f2x

Moving Right Along

So “Art Evolution” is the way an artist’s work changes over time. Back in 2004 I drew stick figures, but that evolved. By the end of the first year, you couldn’t really call them stick figures anymore. The characters were still very rudimentary until the seventh year when the limbs tapered and I started drawing hands. In 2011 I started using a 3D engine to create the backgrounds, or as I call them: “sets”. A lot has changed, but my characters are easily recognizable from their humble beginnings.

Yesterday’s comic featured Alexis and Birdie. I remember the first time I showed those characters to one of my coworkers. She laughed at my comical attempts to put boobs on a stick figure. Later on when I tried to make actual characters, their breasts ended up looking like a couple of gumdrops stuck on a male torso. I’m actually pretty embarrassed even looking at those old designs. I mean, what was I thinking?

Today their bosoms look like they were illustrated by a person who’s actually seen a woman, and just this past week I finally finished upgrading their templates. (Yes, I make and use character templates. Don’t judge me!) At one point I made a test image of Birdie in a skirt. She looked very neat and feminine. I almost wept.

In the past I’ve avoided including the females in the story because they are inherently more difficult to depict. With my latest technique, I hope to put more of that reluctance behind me. Don’t hold me to it, but maybe in a year or two, I might even introduce a few more female characters.

My art evolution has been slow, but that’s OK with me. Now if only my humor and script writing abilities could improve as much, then this comic might be as good as “Gamer Chicks”. I know it’s a pretty lofty goal, but I’ve failed enough in the past that failure doesn’t really bother me anymore. It’s the “not trying” aspect that really gets to me.

Pax,

-f2x

Global Warming Saves the Day!

Finally a break in the weather! It’s not like the cold really bothered me, but the snow was starting to get on my nerves. This weekend the temperatures here in Dayton are approaching 50°F. Combine that with rain and watch all the snow melt away!

It’s funny how when I was a kid I used to love the snow. Sledding, skiing, building snowmen, having snowball fights, and school closings were so awesome. Now I have to deal with shoveling, digging out the car, and driving in a midwinter nightmare.

Being a grownup sucks.

Pax,

-f2x

My Unhealthy Relationship with Food

I like to eat, I like to eat a lot, and it’s probably going to be the death of me.

It wasn’t a problem when I was younger. I was quite the athlete growing up in the ’70s and ’80s. After high school I rested on my laurels and didn’t notice any problems until the late ’90s. Of course back then you could get the appetite suppressing diet pills that actually worked. Once phenylpropanolamine was removed from stores in October of 2000, my weight really started to creep up.

Of course in 2005, I got a wild hair up my ass. I joined the military and that masked the problem rather well. My physical fitness regimen and compulsory healthier lifestyle transformed me into quite the Adonis. I managed to become a very muscular 190lbs, and that kept things in check for about 8 years.

Actually, the last two years of that were a bit of a struggle though. You see, 9 years ago I started experiencing a cavalcade of weird symptoms. It began with fatigue, regular spasms and cramps, constantly exhausted no matter how much rest I got. I’m not going to list all of it, because some of it was pretty gross. Suffice to say, it was hypothyroidism. More specifically, it was Hashimoto’s. My own immune system was trying to kill me, and it managed to ablate my thyroid.

Not only that, but enough time had passed from when it started to when they finally diagnosed it and started treatment, that there was extensive damage all over my body. That “healthy lifestyle” I used to practice wasn’t something I could tolerate anymore. Even to this day, there are significant issues with anything more than “light exercise”. Keep in mind that I continue to maintain a moderately active lifestyle working in manufacturing, so don’t think I’m just sitting on my ass all day.

No, the problem isn’t my activity level. It’s my insatiable appetite. It doesn’t help that I happen to be really good at cooking comfort food too. So unless somebody develops magical zero calorie replacements for chocolate, meat, dairy, starches, oils, grains, and sugars, I’ll probably be experiencing a massive coronary in the near future.

Pax,

-f2x

On the Precipice of Disaster

From January 2003 to October 2008, Flush Twice ran as a collection of HTML files. I used a combination of text editing and a WYSIWYG HTML editor known as AOLpress. Every day I had to upload the latest index.html file via FTP. It was a lot of manual work, but I had it down to a science. Still, I couldn’t imagine doing that shit today.

Today I use WordPress. It’s much better. I can schedule jokes and comics in advance. Think about it: The jokes you’re reading this week were uploaded to this site three weeks ago, and the latest joke of the day posts at midnight (EST) while I’m fast asleep.

Now WordPress alone is ugly and highly ineffective. You need “plugins” to make the site bearable to use, and themes to make it look the way you want. The theme I’m using is called, “Mantra”, and it’s credited at the bottom of every page.

Recently the authors of “Mantra” released an update, and it fucked things up. Then they released another update, and it fucked things up again only different. Fortunately I had a backup copy and was able to restore the older version.

This is not an isolated incident. Certain plugins used to work really well. Several versions later, they completely suck. The old star rating program that used to be here was a perfect example. I’m so glad I found a replacement, but I’m starting to notice a pattern here.

Now generally speaking, updates are important. Once an addon is compromised, either the security patch must be applied, or the plugin/theme has to be removed. I suppose you could try to rewrite the plugin yourself, but without a modicum of proficiency in programming, I don’t consider that very practical. Once the updates start breaking things, it puts me in a predicament. If I keep it, but don’t update it, will I be opening my site up hackers? It’s a tough situation.

The thing is, I really like the current look of the site. Oh sure, there’s a few things I wish I could change, but for the most part, I couldn’t imagine Flush Twice looking any different. That’s why broken updates kind of freak me out a little. With all the tweaks and custom setups, forcing me into changing Flush Twice’s layout at this time would be a messy disaster.

So here I sit on this precarious cliff, with plugin’s and themes being frozen from future change, but the erosion of time could render them unsafe for use.

Pax,

-f2x

My Last Post for 2017

Somehow I made it. The year 2018. Is there anything special about this year? Not really. Although it will be the tenth year that I’ve been using a Content Manager for this website… Still, not really that important.

The amazing thing about it is that it’s really getting up there. We are only a couple of decades away from realizing a new era of existence. Once that is achieved, all that is around you now will be gone. A new world formed. Consciousness will evolve, and life will gain new meaning.

Look, I know it doesn’t make sense to you now. It doesn’t make sense to me either. The future is going to be fantastic. A little scary perhaps, but fantastic nevertheless. You only need to hang on a bit longer, so take care of yourself.

Of course it’s not all going to be joy and happiness. The worst part is not being able to bring everyone along. Some will get left behind. Too many friends and loved ones won’t make it. Even enhanced enlightenment can’t salve that kind of grief.

But still our future is nearly here, and we just need to be patient while we work towards that more perfect tomorrow.

Happy New Year

-f2x

Year in Review

Here at Flush Twice we managed to post 256 “jokes” and with the 5 still in the queue, that comes to a magnificent 261 jokes for 2017. When you combine that with the rest of the archive, we’ve accumulated 1077. That’s amazing!

When it comes to comics, there’s actually a lot there as well. There are 52 Pathos in the Plumbing episodes for this year. This brings the total up to 180, but don’t forget we also have the 134 comics from 2008 on, and the 547 prior to that for a grand total of 861 comics since I began creating them back in 2004.

Of course the numbers are nice, but the main goal is quality. I don’t mean just the funniest jokes, but quality in terms of organization, canonization, and overall readability. Is Flush Twice the greatest joke site that I had envisioned? Not by a long shot. I don’t yet have the coding skill to set that up. On the other hand, it’s objectively better better than the majority of joke sites I’ve seen… though I tend to be a little biased in my opinion.

So what’s on my wish list?

What things would I like to see for Flush Twice down the road? I’d like to find a plugin that lets visitors add tags to the jokes. Sure, I guess I could run through and tag 1077 jokes myself, but I think the readers would be able to do a more thorough job of selecting the right tags. I’d also like to recreate the original comic’s structure in the post archive. There’s 547 comics that are lumped into a few “historical pages”, but it doesn’t really give that same sense of continuity.

I think the number one thing on my wish list is that it keeps going. Obviously I’ve spent a lot of time on Flush Twice, and I’ve really enjoyed seeing how that work has grown and evolved. And while even google.com might one day cease to exist, I would like to think that Flush Twice will actually rank up there with the long term survivors.

Merry Christmas,

-f2x

Not This Shit Again…

OK, so basically I’m without a wired internet connection again. Spectrum is the only option here, and they just kept pissing me off. The intermittent problem grew exponentially worse, and they wanted to charge me to come out and fix it.

You have to understand that there is a 15′ length of coax cord from the box on the side of my house to the internet modem. I purchased a very high quality RG-6 cable and installed it myself. That coax cord is firmly attached, and doesn’t sway or move. The idea that it could be this line is laughable.

Then there is the modem itself. I guess in a world where anything is possible, it could be the modem, but the spectrum customer support rep says that from their end, the modem seems to be working normally. They insist that there’s a problem with the line.

OK… So where is the problem? Well, it’s on the line outside my house. You can even see the cable swaying down a bit lower than it used to. But spectrum wouldn’t send anyone out to fix it until I agreed to let them into my house. I said no, because there’s no reason to come into my house… unless I’m missing something.

Turns out, once they get inside your house they will touch your equipment to check for other issues. At that moment, you just got charged for the service call. Even if all they did was unscrew the coax, blow on it, and screw it back into your modem, they just serviced your stuff, and you will get screwed with the truck roll charges. You won’t even realize you got charged until the next bill, and then you waste hours of your life calling them in an attempt to get those charges removed. Good luck with that while you enjoy being put on indefinite hold. It’s a scam, and they’re good at it.

But I’ve got my own scam. I cancel them, wait a few weeks, call them back and sign up for their “everything but the kitchen sink” package with free installation and a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. Even though I DO NOT WATCH TV, or need another phone line, I have to order the whole enchilada to get that free installation. Now they have to make sure that everything is working for FREE, and after 28 days or so, I’ll cancel again because I’m not going to be satisfied with a TV service and phone line that I do not use. Now I just have to wait another few weeks, call up and order their internet with the special $44.99 “new customer” rates.

So it’s come to this. Maybe if Spectrum wasn’t a fucking monopoly, they might try a little harder to not be a bunch of scammy scumbags. All they had to do was send out a fucking truck to fix the cable coming off the telephone poll, and I wouldn’t be forced into fucking with them like this.

Fuck Spectrum.

Wait a minute… How are you still getting on the internet?

Oh, that’s easy. I have a wireless hotspot device. I unplug the cable modem from the back of my router and plug in a bridge device that turns my wireless hotspot’s WiFi signal back into ethernet. The router just thinks it’s a plain ol’ internet connection, and my whole house has reliable internet again. Even the phone calls over magicJack still work/sound great!

But aren’t wireless data plans more expensive than cable?

Absolutely! Wireless doesn’t come cheap. That’s why I have to keep trying to get Spectrum to work for me. In the long run, Spectrum is cheaper… even if they are assholes.

Addendum:

OK, so the hotspot is through T-Mobile. This time I opted for their 2GB plan, and after you use up the 2GB, they drop your speed down to “2G” speeds. Turns out, they drop it down to that of a dialup 14.4 modem. It’s been about 5 days, and I’ve already gone through the 2GB of “high speed” data. So you may be wondering, “Just how bad is the 2G speed?” Well, it’s a surprisingly mixed bag.

Using T-Mobile’s “unlimited” 2G speed is good enough to listen to Pandora. The magicJack is still doing fine with no noticeable drop in call quality. Alexa (AKA echo dot) easily plays music, streams iHeartradio, and otherwise functions normally. I can shop Amazon, read Wikipedia, Google things, and even manage this website. I’m kind of amazed at how well a lot of things are working.

What I can’t do is video. YouTube is basically unwatchable, and Netflix is pretty infuriating. Even animated GIFs are considerably painful.

Now this is with T-Mobile’s cheapest monthly plan of $20 a month. Sure, I could throw money at them and get more high speed data, but I want to try this “slow speed” internet for a while. I mean, just think about it: $20 a month, I can read websites, listen to music, and make phone calls. It’s actually not a bad deal, and once a month I get 2GB worth of high speed data that I can use for whatever.

Then again… I do like watching YouTube videos and Netflix, so I may be coughing up the extra cash for more of the LTE network before the 30 days is up.

Pax,

-f2x