This is the curator’s corner; a place where I express my own thoughts about whatever crosses my mind. The jokes are much more fun to read. This section of the site can safely be ignored.
When you’re young, Christmas is a magical time that you look forward to, and revel in every year. Then you get older, and Christmas becomes this pedal to the metal shit-storm of too much to do and too little time.
Just driving home from work becomes a test of nerves as the holiday shoppers play demolition derby in every intersection. Stopping to pick up milk, eggs, and bread is like trying to get a seat on one of the Titanic’s life boats. This isn’t a war on Christmas; Christmas is war!
So in this week leading up to the holiday, I want you to know that I’ve said a prayer for all of you to get through this season safely and sanely. Don’t forget that it’s not about the petty mayhem surrounding you, it’s about those precious moments you get to have with the people you care about the most.
So a couple of years ago, I decide to register denyfrom.com. I’m not actually linking to it, because I never really developed it, and at this time I intend to let it expire when its time is up on February 11th. Nevertheless, I rather liked the premise, so I’m going to add a “Deny From” category to Flush Twice. Since most of what I’m going to publish is a lot of shitty CIDR blocks that need a second flush to get’em down the drain, it should fit in nicely.
So what is this premise?
It’s about unwanted crawlers and bots on the internet. You see, in the old days, most of the botnets were individual’s infected PC’s. While some of them still are, the current trend is to use compromised hosting accounts. So basically server farms. There also seem to be certain rogue countries (Notably China/Ukraine/Russia) that also mercilessly hammer websites with their spambots.
The good news is that these hackers/bots are easy to identify. You just look at your visitor logs, and when you see an IP address trying to do things on your site that a typical person could not even imagine doing, cross reference that address with an IP address information site to see if it was coming from a rogue nation, or a hacked webhost. Then you collect all the associated CIDR’s and run them through an optimizer before dumping them into your .htaccess file’s “deny from” list.
The goal is to achieve a reduction in unwanted hacking attempts and improved analytics. Once you block all the bots, then the rest of your visitors are the actual humans you built the site for in the first place.
Of course not everyone wants to go through the trouble of looking through their visitor logs, so I’m going to post my “deny from” lists here. People can simply copy and paste them into their own .htaccess files, or leave comments on the merits of denying all the IP addresses I keep adding to the file. (People leaving comments? Ha! Like that is ever going to happen.)
Some groups really hate this idea and feel that bots should be free to roam, rape and pillage every WordPress blog with endless login attempts, referral spams, comment spams, exploit seeking, and content scraping activities. To them, blocking these IP addresses seriously impairs their ability to piss on someone else’s parade in hopes that maybe they can compromise other people’s sites and use them to bolster their clients’ analytics, or maybe get you to buy their security product.
Why are you bringing this shit here?
Because I can.
No seriously. I thought about doing it before, but I didn’t because I couldn’t figure out how to keep it separate from the main attraction: The jokes and comics! But in case you haven’t noticed, you don’t see these side posts in the main blog. I’ve solved that problem, and if all you want to see are the jokes, and maybe the comics, then that’s all you have to see.
At the end of the day, it just means another menu option under a new category, and that way I don’t have to be bothered with running yet another entirely separate site to express a sub-genre of my many neuroses.
Besides, it didn’t feel right to put it on GoldenSoapBox.com, which is a site that I also maintain. GSB is already exceedingly boring. But it has a really good tomato soup recipe. Be sure to visit it if you like recipes, Linux, and more of my little side rants. The deviled eggs are simply to die for!
Last year, I never would have imagined that my living room would end up looking like this. I used to have a 40 inch TV sitting next to a computer desk and chair. The TV acted as a second monitor. On the other side of the room sat a couch with two end tables… Oh, wait… You’ve probably seen it in my comics, because Brandon’s living room (and the entire house) was based off of my own. There are some differences, but I literally modeled my house in 3D and used it for the set design.
So in the early part of 2016, something went wrong with my back. Way wrong. As a result I decided to get a rocker/recliner, and I tossed out the computer chair. So now I sit comfortably on the other side of the room with a wireless keyboard in my lap. It helped my back a lot, but I had to forgo the dual screen setup because the smaller monitor was now too small to be useful. I also had to switch the resolution from 1080p to 720p so I could easily read the text from across the room. Needless to say, I had to move a lot of things around.
Now I had been using this 40″ TV as a monitor since I bought it back in 2010, and over the past year the TV had been glitching badly, and it finally got to the point that I decided to replace it. Naturally I also took this as an opportunity to upgrade from 40″ to 50″. Believe it or not, the new TV was a little too big for the arrangement, and I had to rethink the living room layout again.
So… I actually have a console piano in my exceedingly small living room. It was Christmas present from Grandma Sauer back in 1979. This is one of those things not depicted in the comic version of my house, but nevertheless it’s here. Well it got moved against the wall where the TV stand and desk used to be and has become the new TV’s “stand”. I know it sounds kind of hokey, but it actually looks pretty good. In a way it looks like the TV is mounted on the wall, and there just happens to be a piano under it.
Of course the new TV looks great. They all do. Even my old TV looked great when it was working right. That’s the funny thing about TV’s today… They all look good because they all look the same. It’s just a big black rectangle up against a wall, and when you turn it on it’s a vibrant window to another world… or in my case, it looks like a really large computer monitor sitting on top of a piano.
My family started doing the “Secret Santa” a few years back, and I really dread it. Every Thanksgiving we have to draw names from a hat. I suppose I should be grateful since I only have to buy but one gift. In years past, the gift giving was getting out of hand, so it’s nice that the family elders decided to reign that nonsense in.
But this year I drew my sister-in-law’s name. Why can’t I get an easy one, like one of my aunts or uncles? Up until a few years ago, I’d just ask my mom, but she’s gone now, and I really don’t care to face conundrums like this on my own.
Of course, I want to get her something she would enjoy, but to be honest, I don’t really know what that would be. It doesn’t help that outside of family gatherings, we don’t really have any sort of relationship.
I suppose in times like this it’s best to play it safe. I need a gift that is pleasant, and not controversial. Yes, I’m almost certain that we’re looking at some sort of gift basket for women. Maybe I’ll order something from the Bath and Body Works website. Wish me luck.
Thanksgiving (US) is just around the corner. In a way, I’m one of the lucky ones. Every year I get Thursday and Friday off to make for a 4 day weekend. I used to resent the fact that Thanksgiving messed up the long weekend, but now that I’m older, all I have to do is make a tray of deviled eggs and show up for a free dinner at my Aunt’s house on Thursday. I generally find a recliner and take a nap while I’m waiting to eat, and then take another nap when I’m digesting. Oh sure, I spend some time with the family, but I’m not very good in social settings, and they understand these things make me very tired.
This year I may have to get a new television on black Friday. I bought a 40″ TV back in 2010. 40″ was still respectable back then. It’s six years old, and for some reason the screen keeps messing up. It starts flickering green and purple horizontal lines until you turn it off and on. It does this randomly, and it’s been getting more frequent. It’s done it 9 times in the past 2 hours. Believe me, it’s fucking annoying.
I thought I’d also mention that it’s almost time to renew my hosting plan. This year it looks like it’s going to cost me $120. That doesn’t include the $25 annual fee for my domain name registration in May. So basically Flush Twice costs me $145 a year. That’s about 40¢ a day. These aren’t special insider prices either. My webhost is essentially fucking me up the ass compared to some others out there, but it’s still cheap enough that I don’t want to mess with it.
Personally I’d love to go back to running my own webserver in the basement again, but because I have a quasi-dynamic IP address, I’d have to find a reliable rapid DNS updater, and most of them have terms shittier than my webhost’s. Just so you know, I pay my webhost $120 a year and can host an unlimited number of domains with 2 Terabytes of disk space, 100 Terabytes of data per month, and operating up to 50 MySQL databates and 50 PgSQL databases. I don’t even begin to scratch the surface of that, but 40¢ a day and I get my own website? Sure… Why not…
OK, I’ve droned on long enough. Tune in next week when I’ll probably be moaning about eating too much at Thanksgiving.
I suffered the summer’s heat, and was a little disappointed to find October was much too warm for the season. Basically, I’m looking forward to the cold. Most people hate the cold, and if we’re talking sub-zero temperatures, I’m with you… But I’ll gladly take 28°F to 48°F this time of year.
It’s an amazing feeling to bundle yourself up into a nice warm sweater while breathing in the cool crisp air. It’s so much easier to chase away the chill in the fall than to draw off the heat in the summer. The weight of the extra blanket comforts you in the night as you snuggle into bed.
And don’t forget the best holidays are just around the corner. While I’m generally partial to the charm of Halloween, the flavors of Thanksgiving and Christmas along with the love of family and friends lifts the spirit and fills the air with a sense of hope and joy.
If you cannot find the love and joy in your life, perhaps your spirit has been poisoned. You must draw the poison out and cleanse yourself of hatred lest your soul wither and die. Cast away your fear and anger, and strive to enjoy life as it is. You can’t make a better tomorrow unless you make peace with today.
You know, on average, there is less than a single day per year that I don’t have something wrong with me. Usually, I get over it pretty quickly and life goes on. Right now I’m dealing with some kind of throat infection that keeps lingering and getting worse. Who knows! Maybe it’s cancer. In any event, it’s really pissing me off.
So basically it’s a swollen lymph gland. Go ahead and google the damn thing. I’ll wait. Now I kinda had an earache too, and there was a soar throat with sinus drainage… But I cleared all that shit up already, and now that lymph node in my neck is still aching. If I move my head or touch it in the wrong way, it will send intense pain shooting through me. Oh joy!
So I’m taking antibiotics. Maybe that will take care of it? Usually those things work pretty quickly, but it’s been a few days, and I’m still not better. So maybe it’s the early stages of sepsis, and I’ll be dead before the next holiday… At least one can hope.
One good thing about a painful malady, is that you momentarily forget about all the other shit that your body has been annoying you about. Oh, my feet still hurt like they’ve been mercilessly beaten, but that doesn’t begin to be in my top ten concerns. My arthritis is probably still there, but my neck is just screamingly painful.
I don’t dare scream though. I don’t even want to talk. It hurts to move my jaw, or even swallow. (insert “that’s what she said” reference…) All I can do is take my medicine and wait. Wait while this damn thing steals more of what’s left of my life. I’m not getting any younger here!
So my dear, gentle reader, take heed. Avoid bad habits, get plenty of rest, drink plenty of water, get plenty of exercise, practice good hygiene, and eat nutritious meals every day. You’re still going to die, but at least you won’t be in my situation thinking that it was the lack of the aforementioned lifestyle that led to your demise.
Did you ever stop to think that I actually write these side posts? That’s right: I sit down and try to come up with my own original material to amuse and entertain in this sidebar. Even the little images in the corner are either photos I took, or original artwork that I created in a bitmap editor.
At first I was merely trying to be informative with regard to this website in these little asides, but as time went on I just started writing shit for the sake of entertainment. Kind of like that cheeky columnist in the “Life” section of your local newspaper.
I’ve noticed that I can sit down and read the stuff I write, not just here, but in forums, reviews, and e-mails. Occasionally I’ve actually found myself enjoying it, not because of how narcissistic I am, but because I thought the sentences and paragraphs were easy to consume. On more than a few occasions, I actually forgot I was the author of the text I was reading while I was reading it, and just enjoyed the way it “flowed”.
So does any of my original writing do anything for you? Do you even bother to read this text? I never get any feedback on it, and maybe that’s for the best, but no… I’d like to know. Do my stories entertain or bore you?
Let me know what you think in the comments. We’ve got newobviously stolen jokes lined up for Monday through Friday, so don’t forget to stop back and see them.
It’s been a long week. I’ve worked a lot of overtime, and I ache like hell. If I hadn’t already put the jokes in the queue, I’d be saying “fuck it” right now.
We went to Foy’s
If you find yourself around Fairborn, Ohio in the month of October, you simply must make time to visit Foy’s on West Main Street. It a big Halloween celebration. Friday and Saturday nights towards the end of the month get really crowded. Vendors line the streets and people have a really good time.
OK, well that’s about all I have time for this week.
Seriously, this past week just flew by. Also, if you have any good jokes, please send them my way. The next few weeks just don’t look that hilarious to me, but the jokes are in place. Even though only one person ever seems to rate the jokes anymore, feel free to click those stars. Trust me, it makes your visit feel so much more satisfyingly interactive.
In other news, I’m still getting moved around a lot at work. I’m being used to triage a massive shortage of qualified help. In some ways it’s kind of fun, but it’s also very nerve-wracking. I have to be on top of my game every day, and it’s taking a lot out of me. I pretty much spent most of yesterday in bed trying to recover, yet I’m still experiencing symptoms of exhaustion. It’s not pleasant. Hopefully I’ll start to get the hang of my enhanced responsibilities. Too bad it doesn’t come with an enhanced paycheck.
Other than that, Grace is still doing fine. She seems to be eating quite well, and has more energy than I can possibly deal with.
Flush Twice has been around since May of 2003. It started out as a JOTD (Joke of the Day) website. New jokes were published every weekday. Over the years, good jokes were increasingly hard to come by, and eventually they got so rare that I just stopped trying to publish them.
Since 2004 there has also been an eponymous comic. I still occasionally publish a new one on Saturdays. It’s also rare anymore, but sometimes it happens.
Here lately I’ve been posting a “Link of the Day”. For the time being, I will be featuring a new website from my enormous collection of bookmarked websites every weekday. None of it is solicited promotions, and no one is paying me to feature their site. These are just websites that at one time I thought were interesting enough to add to my bookmarks folder.
I highly encourage using some kind of ad blocking extension before clicking on any of these links. You’ll also hear me say this phrase a lot about these posts: “They can’t all be winners.” But it’s better than just leaving the site abandoned.
The jokes were generously provided by friends and visitors such as yourself. I want to express my eternal thanks to everyone over the years who helped contribute to the collection.
So what is it that makes a joke funny?
It all boils down to a sudden shift in perception. The story starts you thinking one way, then the punchline turns that thinking on its ear. The art of the joke is to craft a short story that isn’t overly contrived, then deliver a punchline that suddenly shifts your perception about the story you were being told.
Many of the jokes on this site are offensive, and I make no apologies for it. Offensive jokes work by making the reader uncomfortable through the use of a taboo subject thus enhancing the underlying humor. Without the offensive element, the joke would simply not be as funny.
