Happy New Year! The Communists Have Moved In

Good morning, all ye readers. How did you enjoy the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, or, as I call it, the Other Sweeps Week? Mine was ruined because my son Brian got me a Friendly’s gift certificate. He knows I don’t eat there. I stopped eating there the day they stopped letting me order the chicken meal from the children’s menu. I don’t even care about the price. The thing I like is that they put the chicken cutlets on skewers for you. It’s very attractive that way, and it’s easier to eat. If there was a version of it on the regular menu, I’d be more than happy to order it, but since there’s not, there’s no good reason why my cold, hard greenbacks shouldn’t be good enough to buy it off the children’s menu.

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to keep a lower Internet profile on the Internet. Yesterday I saw a bunch of Commies all go into the house next door. The reason I know they were Commies is that they were all wearing red hats. Sure, they tried to disguise themselves by wearing purple sweaters, but that didn’t fool me. No, sir. And they were all lady Commies, the most sinister kind of all.

I told my grandniece Tricia and her friends to be careful not to talk about our Capitalist system over the Internet, because the Commies have probably bugged our system. Since you’re reading this “lifestyle column”, you might want to take my advice as well. That’s how it all starts: They move in next door innocently enough, and the next thing you know, they’ve started monitoring your phone calls and your Internet blogs. So I’m not going to say anything pro-Capitalist here in this space. But just to be on the safe side, I’m going to be keeping a lower profile until I’m sure they’ve stopped watching us. I wouldn’t be surprised if my son Brian hired them to snoop on me. He probably thought they were regular spies and didn’t even realize they were the Communist kind. The unobservant could easily make that mistake.

Until next time!

Ahoy,

The Codger

Don’t Fall Victim To a Phishing Virus

A good day to you, dear readers. I would like to make a point of pointing out to you all something important I learned this morning. I was buying a special Christmas gift for the common-law Mrs. Codger this morning at the mall when the cashier asked me if I wanted to give her my E-mail address for their mailing list and to enter some sort of contest to win some sort of prize.

Well, I was all set to give it to her when the good Samaritan in line behind me piped up and told me about the dangers of a what is known as “phishing”. They spell it with a “ph” so people know it’s bad, not like recreational fishing. As I understand it, the phisher phishes your personal information and uses it to send you a virus that has a phishing scam in it. And if you get the virus, you’d better look out. You’ll be stuck paying a computer programmer large sums of money to fix your computer…a grave price, indeed.

When I got home, I decided it would be prudent to do some additional research into the matter. And what I found will blow the cover off the hippies’ so-called “peace and love” charade once and for all: It turns out that the people most responsible for phishing viruses are these tarted-up hippie delinquents: Phish.

That’s right, they’re in a band that flaunts its evil mission statement right there in its name for all the world to see! If this isn’t investigative journalism at its finest, I don’t know what is. Now where’s my Peabody Award?

Until next time!

Ahoy,

The Codger

Exemplary Codgers: Patsy Campbell

Hello and ahoy again, all of you who ready this “lifestyle column”. As I was out last week, I let my E-mail get backed up…why, there must have been over a dozen unread E-mails in there! So I spent all day yesterday reading them and getting caught up. One of the best ones came from my grandson Max. He sent me a fantastic Yahoo article: http://finance.yahoo.com/loans/article/111500/the-25-year-foreclosure-from-hell and it gave me the inspiration for this week’s Exemplary Codger: None other than 71 year old Ms. Patsy Campbell.

As Max’s article describes, the government has been trying to kick poor Ms. Campbell out of her house for the past 25 years using a legal loophole called “foreclosure”. I would imagine some of you are familiar with it, particularly those amongst you who don’t manage your finances well. Well, Ms. Campbell has been maintaining her house for 25 years, putting in a watchdog, boarding up all the windows to keep out the storms, and doing all those things that good homeowners in subtropical climates do for the past two and a half decades. That’s because she lives in Florida. And her husband wanted her to have that home when he died, not the government. But as Ms. Campbell says herself, “If they had a case, they would have already won it, years ago”.

Because of all they’ve put her through, this foreclosure truly has become “the foreclosure from hell” for Ms. Campbell. I would’ve stopped making payments years ago, too! But she keeps her spirits high: “They’re not going to take this house. I intend to stay in this house and maintain it as my residence until I die.” Her neighbors should be ashamed of themselves, not pitching in and helping her keep those lawyers off her property! Ms. Campbell, if you’re reading this, I think getting a reverse mortgage (just as I did) might be the answer to your problems! That maneuver would really confuse those lawyers! They’d probably have no idea how to proceed.

Until next time!

Ahoy,

The Codger

The Codger Bunks With Hiram And Invents External Combustion Engine

Ahoy, dear readers. I just got in last night, but I didn’t want to write and wake you up because it was late. I had a bit of an emergency last week, which called for emergency measures. You see, and I’ll put this as delicately as possible: The missus was having one of her moods, spreading misery everywhere she went. And since the missus frequents our house, that meant I had to escape the premises as soon as I realized her condition.

So that’s why I decided to bunk with my old pal Hiram’s place. He doesn’t have a bunk bed, but he does have a guest room, which was more than suitable. In my haste to escape my house, I neglected to take my computer, but it did not matter because Hiram doesn’t buy the Internet for his house.

Without the Internet, I wrote all my thoughts down on paper instead. My most impressive accomplishment was inventing the external combustion engine. I made the plans right on a cocktail napkin. I’m sick and tired of every engine being internal combustion. That’s why we need a change, and I came up with the idea, so I don’t want any of you stealing credit for it.

When I thought the coast might be clear, I phoned the missus. I made her assure me that she had our house fumigated before I agreed to come home. She said she did. I did not inquire as to whether they had erected a tent over the house and fumigated it that way or the other way, but I suppose it doesn’t matter as long as it was professionals that did the job.

Until next time!

Ahoy,

The Codger