Naughty?

I first found this images in 2014, but was never able to track down where these animated GIFs came from. Whoever the film maker was, he or she certainly had a naughty sense of humour. (That's humour spelled with a you.)

2024-04-19

My Internet is down. Now, what do I do?

I’m plugged in, twenty-four by seven. My entire world is centered around my laptop and my phone. Email, social media, news feed, YouTube, plus all bills, credit card, phone carrier, Internet provider, banking, etc. The only time I have to go to the bank in person is to get rolls of coins for the laundry machines in my apartment building. Even if I need cash, I get it from an ATM.

Years ago, people talked about a computer addiction. Today, it is a necessity. Bills are received electronically and paid electronically. Snail mail is out. In fact, if I get a piece of paper, I either scan it or take a photo of it because all of my files are now electronic. I no longer keep paper. Several years ago, I took all of my paper files, nine storage bins full of them, scanned them, shredded them, and carefully organized all those filings so my entire life is now digitalized. I have not one but two cloud storage systems to ensure that I never lose anything.

Addiction? Necessity!

Today, Friday, July 8, 2022, I wake up to discover my Internet is down; Rogers cable is offline. I sit at my computer desk, looking at the flashing red light on my router signifying no signal. Now what do I do? Suddenly, the world has shrunk to the confines of my apartment. No email. No news feed. No social media. I also discover my phone is showing just about no bars. Has this outage also affected my phone carrier, limiting whatever cellphone tower services my area? I can’t dial out. I’m doomed! Well, at least cut off. Like Tom Hanks, I’m cast away. All that’s left is to explore my island.

I sip a coffee and stare out the window. I sit at my computer desk and look at files representing writings I’ve started but not yet finished. I wander around, tiding up here and there. I get out an old toothbrush and clean some of the grout in the bathroom. I vacuum. I refill my coffee and stare out the window again. I wonder what everybody else in the world is doing.

Throughout the day, I have meals, snacks, more coffee breaks, and naps. Mixed up in all this, I peck away at some writings, including this article. Later in the afternoon, I discover the news feed in my phone will work but is terribly, terribly slow. Click on a link and come back in a minute or two to see it open. At least I have something. It’s painful but it’s something. It’s here that I find out about the extent of the Rogers outage, and it’s big, like really big, like 25% of the Internet service for Canada. Never mind me being offline, this has had an impact on all sorts of businesses including debit cards, Interac, and anything working over the Net. I have to chuckle about this. I worked in I.T. for over thirty years, the last twenty-three as the manager of the computer department for a small company of sixty employees. I’ve seen all sorts of crazy sh*t. Install an update, crash the system, and knock everybody in the company offline. I liked how my phone would light up like a Christmas tree with irate employees, or how I would hear the pounding of feet as people ran down the hall to my office, demanding to know what’s going on. But I only screwed things up for a small company. Rogers has screwed things up for the entire country of Canada! I’d like to be a fly on the wall to see this tap dance! Ha, ha!

Over the years, I’ve known people who’ve gone off the grid. A woman and her husband dropped their Facebook account. Several years later, I heard through the grapevine they were doing great and did not regret getting out of it. Can we live without it? However, here I must make the distinction between the computer and the Internet, a necessity, and social media which is a time suck. Getting into arguments about politics with total strangers. God, don’t we love our drama?

I’m now writing this the following day. I went to bed without the Internet. In the middle of the night, I got up to go to the bathroom and noticed my router showing a green light. Rogers had solved whatever problem brought them down. As I sit here with a cup of coffee, all is back to normal. I’m plugged back in and once again, part of the global community. I’m alive!

Rogers is one of the largest if not the largest cable service provider in Canada. What happened? We may never know. I've been with them for the past ten years and have always found their service to be reliable. Do I classify this as nobody's perfect? In scanning the headlines, I see this has had a significant impact on the country. We are reliant on technology. We can't live without it, and we don't want to. Oh, well. I'll chalk this up as just another blip in life. At least, I got some of my bathroom grout cleaned up.

2022-07-09

Male Genitalia in Second Life

For those readers who are not in the know, in the online game Second Life, you get an avatar, normally male or female. While females get the obvious traits of breasts and something down south, males come with no genitalia. At all. We are born eunuchs, and then become men. Users are obliged to purchase a cock and balls, a type of sex kit. Well, I said obliged but if you always wear clothes and don't participate in any sexual activity requiring nudity, nobody's going to pull you to one side and verify whether you're packing. But if you do participate, we conclude that women can fake it, but men can't: They better have something to hang out if they're going to let it all hang out. And for Heaven's sake, don't be a cheapskate and try to get by with some freebie. It turns out the ladies can be just as visual as men and are not going to let somebody spoil their fantasy with some cheap knockoff. If you want to play, you've got to pay.

I'm not going to enumerate the different brands and extoll the virtues of each one; I'm sure there are other bloggers who are far more detailed than me and have systematically reviewed each and every product available. Let me restrict myself to saying I use Aeros. It's a good product and has always served my purposes quite nicely.

Sidebar: Recently, I discovered Aeros has been removed from Marketplace, and in a user group, somebody noted that the account of the creator has been deleted. Somebody else wondered about people disappearing because they has died in RL, but it was then pointed out the account was deleted, indicating a conscious decision by the individual involved. Ah, the vagaries of Second Life versus Real Life! Who knows what goes on behind the curtain?

I was amused by the above picture of Ken and Barbie. It accurately portrays the situation in Second Life and the necessity of we men having to do something extra to be fully functioning males.

I was also amused at all of us playing Second Life, this virtual fantasy world of make believe, and trying to be realistic. I contend that by merely logging into SL, we've stopped being realistic per se and are now role playing. We may say that we're not role playing because we're not a vampire or a Neko or a furry of some type, and we're not participating in an RP SIM like Gor, but our avatar is representing our fantasy self. We certainly all are not twentysomething and in top physical condition with the perfect male or female body type! Ha, ha!

Afterthought 2023-11-28
Many people in their profile have a pick dedicated to Likes and Dislikes. In a number of women's profiles, under dislikes, I've read Cocks the size of my forearm. Wait! What? Ha, ha! Talk of over-compensating! I suppose all of us guys tend to exaggerate at one time or another: 7 inches instead of 6. But a forearm? Holy cow! I suppose one could argue that in this virtual fantasyland, enhancing or embellishing is part of the fun. But I also know that some people want, no demand, the visuals to be a close approximation of RL so their fantasizing can be more realistic. Yes, that seems lke a contradiction, but a forearm? Ha, ha, ha!


References

The Strange, Sad Story of the Ken Doll's Crotch, Jezebel, Oct 31/2019
The thing about Ken is that he doesn’t have one. Mattel’s gentleman companion for Barbie, its Ken doll, came into the world without junk and remains that way.

reddit: What happened to Aeros?, Jan 26/2022
Apparently the creator has left SL. There has been no development of Aeros cocks since the end of 2020

2022-06-06

One Panel Stories

An intriguing and creative premise: Take a single panel from a comic strip and change the talk or thought balloon in a way that makes a complete scenario, a one panel story as it were, but with a romantic and/or sexual angle. Let the chuckles ensue.

One panel cartoons have been around since forever, but I found this premise to be novel. And amusing. I have no idea who came up with the idea, or who runs the Pinterest board "One Panel Stories" where I first ran across them, but I did have a good chuckle or two.

2019-11-11

Some Funny Images (NSFW)

Wow. Is that a Volkswagen convertible?

Do I need a new attachment?

This isn't how I remember the library. Time to renew my card.

I never could understand math. And women. Yes, I never could understand math and women.

I'm guessing this is a joke about boning. See? I do have a sense of humerus.
*facepalm* I can't believe I just said that.

Sometimes, a guy has to know when to keep his mouth shut.

I failed.

A new interpretation of "The Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo

Have yourself a nice day. Keep smiling.

2019-10-28

Second Life: Ha, ha, ha!

Published on Apr 20, 2007 by bourgery
YouTube: Second Life (1:00)
Note: This video seems to have been created by DraftFCB (now just FCB), apparently one of the largest advertising agencies in the world.


Ha, ha, ha! An oldie but goodie. This hilarious 2007 one minute video recreates various aspects of Second Life in Real Life, and in doing so, points out the weird and humorous of the virtual world we've all come to love and hate.

Wikipedia: Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world, developed and owned by the San Francisco-based firm Linden Lab and launched on June 23, 2003. By 2013, Second Life had approximately one million regular users; at the end of 2017 active user count totals "between 800,000 and 900,000". In many ways, Second Life is similar to massively multiplayer online role-playing games; however, Linden Lab is emphatic that their creation is not a game: "There is no manufactured conflict, no set objective".

Curious about more up-to-date numbers, I found this.

Quora: Dawn Townsend, Fortnite Player Since July 2017 (2017-present) - July 29, 2019
“By 2013, Second Life had approximately one million regular users; at the end of 2017 active user count totals "between 800,000 and 900,000"

This is according to Wikipedia, so looking at that decay of approx 150,000 over 3 years, one can hazard a guess that Second Life probably has an active user base of somewhere in the region of between 650,000 and 750,000.


I've commented elsewhere that the technology is primitive, the graphics are clunky, and the lag is horrible, and yet, we all keep coming back. It ain't The Matrix, but it seems that it's the best we've got right now.

2019-10-20