Quite a day.

The mailman was very generous. Two packages! One turned out to be a surprise Christmas gift in the form of a Mosquito Drone from the M family in AZ; the other package was the Arduino kit I ordered. (Wiki: Arduino is an open-source computer hardware and software company, project and user community that designs and manufactures microcontroller-based kits for building digital devices and interactive objects that can sense and control objects in the physical world.) I had planned to play with the kit to kill the hours over the holidays. Now I also have the drone to experiment with to see if there is potential in it being used in some sort of new exercise program for Buddy the cat. (I should tell you of our new game: Irish Roundabout. Another day, perhaps.

As if getting two great items in the mail wasn't enough to make a very good day, the first thing to jump off the news Net is that Martin Shkreli resigned his CEO job at Turing. Things are looking pretty serious for him, but as one writer pointed out, he's likely to suffer relatively little "hard time" for whatever he's charged with. He'll have lawyers; $2 million worth if he sells that Wu-Tang Clan album for what he paid. I think this saga is just beginning. If I was more paranoid, I'd wonder if Shkreli has had the 1% slam the doors shut on his upward-clawing fingers. (He's unfit for membership so let's make him a lightning rod of privilege? Allowing him to be crisped will give us a little more time?) Are the emperors tossing a victim to the lions for entertainment as a distraction? From what?

Already pleased as punch over Shkreli's predicament, I then come upon Google’s Quantum Dream Machine by Tom Simonite in MIT Technology Review. It tells of quantum computing within a few years as possible. (Guys like John Martinis are inspiring. They make their lives matter in man's historic advancement through technical achievement.) A technical shift in in the near future. Again. It's a little scary. Some of the doors about to be opened by quantum computing (whether within an optimistic two years or a frustrating ten years) will be very big, very fast, and possibly one-way steps to a whole new existence. Sounds like a bifurcation to me.

About to call it a day when I bump into:

Donald Trump Doesn't Seem To Be Concerned That Vladimir Putin Kills Journalists

"I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe."

 12/18/2015 09:46 am ET | Updated 7 hours ago

• Sam LevineAssociate Politics Editor, The Huffington Post
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This is one of the reasons I don't like Mr. Trump. His big mouth. (Declaration without substantiation is simply blowing smoke up rectums.) To declare (as GOP frontrunner) that the leader of America's greatest foe is better than the one we currently have is a giant WTF! A couple of days ago Trump and Putin blowing kisses to one another! Both admirers of astute leadership in the other. What a crock of shit. Putin would LOVE to see Trump as president. But not because he thinks Trump would be a great leader. See how he smiles at discussion of a Trump presidency? He would eat Trump whole on toast for breakfast. Trump's idea of tough is yelling "You're Fired!" or perhaps participating in Twitter sniping after being wounded by some disrespectful reporter; Putin's idea of tough is injecting radioactive substance into you to kill you while you are in a foreign capital city. (That way he doesn't ever have to hear you again. Ever. How many friends you got willing to stand up to express outrage at your death knowing you were murdered?)

Put those two in a room alone (with iPhones to translate) for a half hour and when the door opens I predict we would see either: them shaking hands with both men smiling and Trump declaring "that I'll be making Vladimir some GREAT deals"; OR, Putin will be smiling and Trump will have blank look, a slight twitch and wet pants. We can assume these "deals" will  be even better than the just GREAT deals. (Note: Remember to buy stock in Preparation H.)