The Howdygram 2: North Korea’s “Dear Leader” has implemented another clever public policy.

Hi-de-ho, people. This will have to be brief because it’s 3:15 Tuesday morning and I haven’t been to bed yet, a situation that I’ll have to remedy rather soon because pulling an all-nighter doesn’t appeal to me any more. Also, Monday was a rather trying day for me, the details of which appear below for your possible interest.

A VERY LONG SESSION WITH HALF-PRICE GEEKS. A friendly and exceptionally knowledgeable Macintosh nerd named Oliver came over yesterday afternoon to clean the viruses from my hard drive. This probably should have taken no more than 45 minutes EXCEPT I’ve got an eight-year-old iMac with an old operating system ... so first Oliver had to upgrade my OS to Apple’s “Maverick” 10.9.5. Then he installed Webroot anti-virus software, discovered 25 “infections” and eventually rebooted my computer at least ten times. He was here for THREE HOURS but the total bill for today’s visit was only $159.95 (a flat fee) plus a $19 trip charge. They really ARE half-price!

MY NEW OPERATING SYSTEM IS CREATING A LOT OF EXTRA WORK. It’s only temporary, of course, but for the last couple of hours I’ve had to: 1) re-set preferences, retype passwords, turn off spell-check and choose default fonts for all of Apple’s native applications; 2) adjust to a new “look” in Apple’s email software; 3) re-set practically every preference in Firefox and Blogger; and 4) re-set every toolbar and window in InDesign. And I’m probably not done yet!

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. When I told Oliver I wanted to buy a new iMac in 2017 he verified that my beloved Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 software — InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator — will NOT run on the Mac’s latest operating system. Therefore, because I refuse to pay Adobe’s outrageous prices to rent Creative Suite on “the cloud,” I’ll have to upgrade to CS6, which is the last version that Adobe sold on CD. Oliver told me to start shopping around for a deal on CS6 from Amazon or eBay because Adobe doesn’t sell it any more! So far I’ve discovered that Amazon only has CS6 books and tutorials; eBay has the actual software from three or four sellers, of which two have “buy now” buttons and two are in a bidding war for the next nine days. (I have zero patience for bidding and I don’t like eBay’s seller-focused rules.) CS6 sells for about $1,300.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE (PART TWO). At Sam’s suggestion I also reached out to my friend Betty, who used to be a Mac geek like Oliver (but a lot more expensive), to see if she has a free copy of CS6 she can install for me. I sent her an email yesterday at dinner time but haven’t heard back from her yet. Please stay tuned ... but feel free to resume your normal routine in the meantime.

Kim Jong Un — North Korea’s “Dear Leader” — has implemented another clever public policy to give his starving hermit kingdom a face lift. He’s hand-picking glamorous police girls to direct traffic in Pyongyang. WHAT A GREAT IDEA! They’re known as Pyongyang Traffic Girls, and they’re so intensely popular* they’ve even got a cult following and their own fan site with photos and videos ... plus an exciting Pyongyang “Traffic Girl of the Month” award. And their fans get to vote! Holy crap, IT’S PRACTICALLY THE SAME AS DEMOCRACY! THANK YOU, DEAR LEADER!

*North Korea is a country of idiotic bullshit superlatives.

One last thought. Since the citizens of North Korea have no money, can’t buy cars and there’s no gasoline, anyway, maybe somebody can tell me exactly what kind of traffic these girls are “directing.” Possibly exercycles?

Closer to home, last Thursday a judge temporarily halted a shiny new Texas regulation, originally due to take effect later this month, requiring abortion providers, hospitals and other medical facilities to — ready? — dispose of aborted or miscarried tissue either by burial or cremation.

Yes, you read that right. FETUS FUNERALS!

Instead, the judge will hold hearings just after the first of the year, thereby allowing a bunch of ridiculous white Christian men in the Texas legislature to legalize one more new way to humiliate women even further about a teaspoon of dead cells from a legal medical procedure. Out of curiosity ... how the fuck do you bury a clump of cells? Maybe on a maxi pad? Is there a tombstone? A gravesite service? Do you need mourners? Who brings the extra card chairs? If the maxi pad is Jewish do relatives fly in from out of town to sit shiva with you? IS EVERYBODY EXPECTING A DELI TRAY WITH RYE BREAD?! (We have no delicatessens in the Dallas area and it’s also not very easy to find rye bread.) Frankly, until all of these questions receive adequate answers I reserve the right to call members of the Texas legislature RAGING ASSHOLES at every available opportunity. Thank you.

Zsa Zsa Gabor, the Hungarian socialite best known for her gaudy glamour and revolving-door millionaire marriages, died on Sunday in Los Angeles at age 99. Her publicist said the cause was heart failure, but that’s just silly ... EVERYBODY dies from heart failure, right?

Gabor was married at least nine times, showed off an over-the-top diamonds-and-furs lifestyle and occasionally played a femme fatale in movies, usually in brief cameos as herself. Her career began when she won the title Miss Hungary in 1936 and continued into the 1990s. Zsa Zsa Gabor was probably the original “Kim Kardashian” ... famous just for being herself with no apparent talent. She spent a lot of time circulating as a guest on talk shows.

Zsa Zsa’s marriages included a Turkish diplomat, hotel heir Conrad Hilton, the actor George Sanders, an industrialist, an oil magnate, a toy designer, a divorce lawyer and a German social climber named Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt who changed his birth name and bought a phony title after paying Princess Marie-Auguste of Anhalt to adopt him as an adult. (Seriously!) One bonus marriage was a case of bigamy-at-sea with a has-been Mexican actor. (It was annulled.)

In 1989 Gabor was arrested for slapping a Beverly Hills police officer who had pulled her over for a traffic violation and spotted an open vodka bottle in her car ... a Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible. In court, Gabor took the stand, acted like an idiot and whined about Gestapo tactics in Beverly Hills. The judge gave her three days in jail.

I probably don’t need to say too much about today’s batch of FREE FONTS. We’ve got a couple of nice scripts, several interesting display fonts, three cute “dingbat” fonts, and one layering font — “London” — that has a lot of possibilities. Hot tip: “Loveletters” lets you underscore text automatically. After you type three or four letters tap the “_” key and you’ll get an underscore below the previous keystrokes. Also try typing the “_” key at the end of a word. This can be huge fun and very amusing for the entire family. Also it’s a lot cheaper than a round of miniature golf!

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