Back in 2003, I wrote a post in which I confessed that I had never used an ATM. In the post, I told you why that is and provided a picture of what can happen when an ATM doesn’t work, or doesn’t work fast enough.

Well, ten years have passed, and I’m here to tell you that I still have never relied on one of those things to hand me money. This is the case, even though my new bank set me up to use the farookin’ widget (they proudly pitch how many of such usable widgets are all over the state).

I don’t consider myself a Luddite (techno-challenged, for sure, but not a Luddite), but I just don’t trust a gizmo to deliver me cash. Indeed any thoughts I might have had of giving the magic cash machine a try vanished today.

I had to cash a check and, because the South Jersey wind was doing its vicious thing, I decided to use the drive-up window rather than getting out of the car to go into the bank. While I was waiting for the teller to deliver my cash, a lady drove at high speed from the other lane for the drive up window (the one to my right, with those pneumatic tube-sucking things) and cut to the left to get in front of me to pull up to the ATM. The ATM is situated past the main drive-up window. Presumably this is so that if a person wants to use the ATM, he or she can drive up to the ATM and let the person behind use the drive-up window or wait for his/her turn at the ATM.

Anyway, this woman who effectively blocked me in, flew out of the car, leaving the car running and the driver’s side door open and someone squawking at her over the speaker phone in the car. She was doing a high-speed button push thing on the ATM and after the button pushes, she placed her hand in the place where cash is supposed to come out. No cash. More button pushing, even faster this time and again putting her hand where the cash should appear. No cash. Now, frantic and angry button pushing while screaming something at or about the ATM. She again placed her hand under the cash slot, and still no cash appeared.

There it was, before my very own eyes – my worst ATM nightmare. Here was a person, obviously dependent on ATMs for cash and obviously in need of cash in a hurry (the person on her speaker phone seemed somewhat exorcised) and the machine was not delivering the money.

The cash-strapped woman realized that my transaction had been completed and that she was blocking me in (I never complained; I was enjoying the show), hopped back into her still-running car and roared out of the parking lot. I figured that she would have to go into the bank to see what was wrong, but I guess she knows more about ATMs than I do. All I know is that I got cash and she didn’t. It was all quite nuts.

I still have no use for ATMs. I’ll let you know in another ten years if anything has changed.

Recognize this? I suspect you do. It is, of course, a plunger – sometimes known as a “plumber’s helper.”
When I was a kid, we had one just like it, but it was not often seen. In fact, it was kept in the basement, as it was so infrequently needed – and when needed it was almost always the result some foreign matter having found its way into the toilet. That was back in the days when we had toilet tanks that held enough water to actually flush away the typical volume of shit solid waste. Those were also the days when the federal government was not terribly interested in dictating the size of every farookin’ toilet tank in the United States.

Now, the federal government’s tentacles have reached into everyone’s bathroom to mandate the amount of water per flush. Ostensibly, the Toidy Police took this intrusive measure to save water and therefore the goddamned planet. I must admit that I have been unable to find the provision in the Constitution that makes my toilet bowl the business of the United States Government.

Their lack of constitutional authority notwithstanding, the regulations are not saving water and are downright shitty – pun intended. What the regulations have accomplished is the regular need to use Mr. Plunger to flush away the waste that defies the federally-mandated shot glass sized flush. As such, the once basement-hidden plunger now occupies a prominent spot next to Mr. Commode. The plunger’s new visibility has been a boon to the plunger industry (Plunger industry? Who knew?), in that everyone now needs a plunger that is dolled up or camouflaged so as not to look like a plunger.

Of course, it is possible that my need for multiple flushes and regular plunger plungage is unique, and the real problem is that I am simply full of shit.

One doesn’t want to piss of an Italian mama.

Note: Nor surprisingly, the language gets a bit salty at some points.

Thanks to Rich F.

John Kerry is still an asshole.

I wanted a practice amp, portability and simplicity being key. This fits the bill nicely, and it sounds good too.

Isn’t it cute?

Note: More pics and reviews here.

I believe that if I were walking through a parking garage where this car was doing its thing, I might well shit a pickle.

Thanks to John for the link.

Got this one from Catfish.

As I mentioned yesterday, I will be playing in a band again after many years of just fooling around by myself with my Beloved Gibson Guitar, playing at blogmeets with Denny (the other half of the highly esteemed “Elderly Brothers”), or just showing up at parties and inflicting myself on the well-oiled guests.

I will be playing with Timeless Soundz (that’s not me in the photos), a four-piece group (nice guys, all) that specializes in 60’s music, which is right down my alley. Despite having played in bands for decades, this will be a new experience for me, as I will be playing guitar, not drums. As such, the Ludwigs will remain packed away for now. Instead, I dragged out my Paul Reed Smith electric (literally, from under the bed), my new Yamaha electric-acoustic and my Fender amp to put them all into service.

The good news is that I won’t have to lug a bigass drum set to the gigs, put it up, take it down, load it, unload it and put it away. The not-so-good news is that I have to spend a fair amount of time figuring out how to adjust all the knobs on the guitars and the amp in order to get the right sounds out of them. The very good news is that one of the guys in the band actually repairs and builds guitars, so I’m sure he can help me when the electronics get the better of me.

It promises to be quite an adventure, one I am looking forward to. I’ll keep youse guys posted.

… in the band business.

Not as a drummer, but as a guitar player-singer. Go figure. Should be fun.

Deets to follow.

Bill Whittle explains.

For may part, I would have reminded that horrible woman that the entire point of the congressional and senatorial hearings was to find out what happened in Benghazi on September 11th. The purpose of the hearings was not, then and there, to figure out ways to prevent this debacle from ever happening again. That process cannot even commence until we know what the hell happened in Benghazi.

The sad thing is that we still don’t know, in large part because of the expert stonewalling of Madam Cattle Futures and the stinking administration that hired her. Of course, it did not help that the Republicans spent so much time making dumbshit speeches rather than asking pointed questions, one at a time, and demanding answers.

Sickening.

If there’s a God in Heaven, Hillary will decide to spend her golden years in some far away place and take her sack of shit husband with her.