Safari vs Google

Posted on 20/06/2021 by Grumpa Joe

Ever since the last election in the USA when my favorite candidate was opposed by Facebook, Twitter, Google and Amazon along with a few million left wing dingbats who voted for taxes, a green new deal, and global warming, I have a personal war going against ground squirrels, rabbits, and Google. For years I have avoided using Google as my web browser in favor of Safari. Safari is so simple compared to Google’s many and complex ways to reach into your pocket and empty it’s contents of any or all cash.

Recently, I got myself involved in a project which required that I share many scanned documents with a lawyer. The lawyer insisted I use Google Drive which I had never heard of before. Google Drive allows one to set up a cluod based file system that can be shared with a single person or teams of people depending upon one’s needs. It seemed to make sense, so I opted to take the recommendation.

It took me a few dollars to lease cloud space from Google which now renders my cloud space from Apple so much more useless. It also has a space especially designed to share photos which I needed for my project, which also requires cloud space. Again, this is a duplication of resources. Anyway, I am now reluctantly using Google for more than I ever did before, but Safari remains my favorite browser.

A few weeks ago, I encountered a problem on WordPress that Is still with me even after bitterly complaining about it. WordPress has a bug which is activated when using Safari. The post has a mind of it’s own while I compose online as I am doing now. I hate to write using Apple Pages or Microsoft Word and then copying to WordPress. I skip the middle men and their various hangups, and opt for direct writing into WordPress. What happens is that after a couple of paragraphs the screen suddenly turns black for no reason at all. I can continue to write, but I must be a able to read black print on a black background. When I preview the post it all comes out normal, but it makes writing creepy.

I contacted WordPress help, and they determined that I am using Safari when this happens. WE have our team working on resolving the issue, they said, but we recommend you switch to Google as your browser to make it go away. I have chosen not to do that. Instead I will haunt WordPress until they make me go away. How could this be a Safari problem when WordPress is “fixing” the problem at their end? To me they are deflecting the issue by blaming it on someone else. A very famous liberal trick to avoid responsibility.

In the meantime, let me complain about Google. I have it open on my computer now, and I am continuously deleting an annoying string of pop-up ads from the left side of the screen. I know there is a way to eliminate this but I don’t want to take the time to find the switch that will shut it off. Google’s business model is one of give the user free stuff, and then charge them for it when they get hooked on it. They gave me free cloud storage when I began using Google drive but I ran out of space quickly. Thus I had to buy extra space. Within two days I ran out of the new space Bought and had to upgrade again. Slowly, my pension money is being scammed by my lust for giga bytes of storage space. Google also drives me nuts with their insatiable need for passwords. In that regard, they are not different than Apple, amazon, Facebook or Twitter. My biggest problem with internet usage is my lack of memory to remember good strong passwords to let me in. It doesn’t matter if it my desk-top, lap-top or phone the internet thirty for passwords. What the world needs is a secure password free system. Frankly, I don’t understand how the millennial can handle all their internet usage and keep passwords safe and simple. If you ask me I believe they by-pass passwords completely and take chances with people stealing their useless content.

That is my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

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Just When I Thought I Was Out of the Woods

Posted on 20/06/2021 by Grumpa Joe

I set a goal this year, that if I were still living in the same house as I have for the past fifteen years that I would plant an award winning garden, I neglected the Monet Vision for two years and have been paying the price in tired muscles, weary joints and the latest, cellulitis. What I forgot over those twenty four months was that the same plot is loaded with sleeper cells that get angry when I don’t provide them with luscious annuals to feed on.

This year’s trip to the nursery to buy flowers was a joy, but very short. The instant I walked through the door into the green house I spotted a flash of color at the furthest point away from where I stood. It was the color I wanted in the Monet Vision. Before I knew what the flower was I saw the theme for a picture outside my kitchen window. The two colors were a flashy bright golden orange and a very deep bright sunny yellow, and they were marigolds. I will suffer looking at yellow just to deter the rabbits, I thought to myself. There is nothing I hate more than declaring war on rabbits. Rabbits look upon my annual plantings like I do looking at a box of Fannie May chocolate cremes.

To add spice to our lives, my beautiful wife planted a large pot with a spike, encircled by yellow marigolds encircled by moss roses. It sits boldly on our front porch next to our front door. A couple of nights ago, she called me out to see something. “Look,” she said, “what is digging in my pot?” I wanted to laugh, but knew better. What I saw was a trail of rich black dirt scattered all about the porch leading to a very round and pronounced hole at the base of our spike. “This not a rabbit,” I said, “it looks more like the work of a ground squirrel.”

“We have to put something around it,” we meaning me, she said. I took the watering can from her hand and poured the entire two gallons down the hole. Nothing came out. I expected to see a drowning stripped squirrel come out gasping for air. Nothing happened.

A couple of days have passed during which time I spotted a rabbit in the middle of the Monet Vision. I jumped out of my easy chair and chased him out of the yard. Upon returning from the chase I saw what he was coming for. I planted a single Black Eyed Susan almost ready to bloom next to our new rose bush. I had pictured this one plant seeding into a large mass of yellow with dark brown centers backing up my Stella Dora lilly patch. This is not to be because the mature plant had become a stub poking out of the ground. Now I am mad, I said to myself. I have two different adversaries to fight at the same time, as well as a very unhappy wife.

In past years I posted a series of garden stories titled “Wabbit Wars.” In these stories I picture myself as Elmer Fudd of long ago cartoon days. Elmer constantly battled with Bugs Bunny who raided his carrot patch often. Elmer had a lisp and couldn’t say “rabbit”, he said “wabbit.” Therein the title “Wabbit Wars”. I try to use my wits to outsmart the rabbits, while Elmer used his shotgun, but he always missed the mark.

My mind will go crazy in the next few weeks as I begin the battle on two fronts. One against Osama Bin Wabbit, and the other against Mohammad Squirelsalam. Two sleeper cells who have been awakened to the odor of newly planted fresh delicious cuisine that I have named squirrel-rabbit food.

It is not fair that I should finally open my wallet to a rush of moths flying out to pay for plant materials that are the dashes of color on my garden palette to form the “2021 Monet Vision- Durango Gold,” only to find rabbit scat in place of my beautiful Black Eyed Susan. Perhaps if I catch and kill these terrorists and place their heads on a spike at the entrance to my yard they will hop around the perimeter and not invade the heart of the scene.

Filed under: Biography, Cartoons, Garden, Wabbit Wars | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »