Proof it never happened.
DOES NOT
represent the way the average American lives life.
Tales From The Trailer Court™
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
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Proof it never happened.
DOES NOT
represent the way the average American lives life.
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
April 23, 2024
One year ago today: April 23, 2023, WIP
Five years ago today: April 23, 019, WIP
Nine years ago today: April 23, 2015, WIP
Random years ago today: April 23, xxxx, WIP
I’m taking the day off. I won’t even set the rat traps, so whatever made that noise in my attic last night gets a 24-hour reprieve. I’m going to drive to the old club in Bartow and write two letters, maybe more. Upon discovering an unopened letter two days past, JZ now gets reverted to my old-style “picture letters”. The Prez I I have agreed to support the Monday show to wee where it leads, but we need that gig. I’ll suggest we begin wearing shirts and ties and I have a set of speakers they can use. The manager knew nothing of great setup, and it was also plain he was not used to getting a lot of help around there. Don’t hesitate a moment to turn this into an opportunity.
Here’s the birdfeed jar, so far proven rat and squirrel-proof when stored inside the shed. Note the diet is at least somewhat varied. The top is mostly red cardinal feed but the seeds are a favorite, infused with oil squeezed from orange peels. It sure smells nice. But I never could afford to feed squirrels on the scale they appear around here.
Scrap my plans to work on the silo today, I have some gear to test out for the Kava show. Reality is, there is no cargo door at that club and the equipment has to be lugged through the front door. Thus, I’m going to find all my small gear The plan is the two small speakers donated by Agt. M. They are no longer a matching set and not that much lighter than the Yamahas. I’m doing some deeper planning for if the kava gig turns into something more. Moving the gear has finally gotten the better of me. I can do it if I have to, an ominous sign, for it is no longer just part of the deal. The time is approaching when I’ll have to refuse any gigs that involve stairs or any larger parking lots.
None of my kava gig videos turned out well. Again, the camera microphones are over sensitive to bass tones, and my show is around 15% louder on bass than you’d get in most mixes. That’s relative volume, as I’ve never been a loud bass player, but then most recording devices have to strain a bit. The result is every other bass note is a mite distorted, like a singer sounds getting too close to the microphone. I have some clips.
Famous Russian single mother.
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I checked the sheds and put screens on the new silo window frame. That was the highlight of the afternoon, folks. A siesta put me out until 6:00PM, may your retirement be the same. The window makes the silo radio easy to hear but it still only picks up Tampa Tard-radio. Joe Biden’s fan club, they are so obviously being paid to root for him but not a word that at his last rally in Tampa not one person showed up. The TV cameras showed eight policemen standing around sidewalk barricades, then giving up and walking across the street to sit on the park benches. An hour later, even that video was taken off the air. Turns out the station thought the video was taken before, not during, the rally.
Y’know what I wish? That somebody would tell these uneducated millennials that a magnet is an external power source. Every couple years since 2000 we get these gimptard hairlips claiming they’ve invented a perpetual motion machine. You could set your clock by their regular bleating that they’ve discovered free energy, the blimp, a miracle berry in the Amazon, and cars that run on water. It was bad enough when it was just PopSci, but now the Internet? These bastards are never going to quit now.
Monday, April 22, 2024
April 22, 2024
One year ago today: April 22, 2023, remember the 10lb payload?
Five years ago today: April 22, 2019, nothin’ good grows.
Nine years ago today: April 22, 2015, Broward Transit sucks.
Random years ago today: April 22, 2017, on carbon dating.
Earth Day, and I didn’t make it to Harbor Heights. I don’t even know if JZ is still there. But it he was home, he’d be calling by now about the situation because I’m the one who’ll tell it like it is. For me, I’ll spend a quiet morning working on my shed, drinking coffee, and other ordinary stuff around here. Calibrating a sextant, testing some vacuum tubes, making peanut butter cookies with coconut flour, and laying out Golden Ratio box dimensions. The average ind kind of thing around here before playing at a kava bar.
Here’s the Golden Ratio box and there is something “right” about it. Even this junk box, with glued joints and not squared exact has an extra appeal. Before I cut the pieces to maximize the use of lumber but we have an awful lot of lumber these days. I won’t get to the silo until this afternoon due to this perfect working weather, which encourages puttering. I can deliver the yard report which first notes that squirrels also love the climate. I’ve not seen how, but one of them emptied my cardinal feeder to the last seed. We’ll figure him out. We have an adolescent female cardinal patron of the birdbath. She’s the first I’ve seen get right under the running drip hose and get soaked, plainly having some version of birdie fun.
Ah, there is the squirrel now, what a brazen imp. Basking on the hose feed in the cool of the mister. Time to time, washing his little squirrel face, but not showing me how he gets to the feeder. Let’s put out some bait and watch the action. The banks move in, almost doubling the volume of silver trades to 34 million ounces. Now that we know what to watch for, I don’t see silver skyrocketing with this level of manipulation going on. Statement like hitting a “ten year high” would merely bring the price to $30. I would expect the banks to hammer the price down to $24 because that’s where they seem comfortable, but today it’s still trading at $27.50.
So, if you can’t watch silver, watch gold or watch the people instead. They still base a lot on historical rations. If the demand stays there for long we might see a pressure cooker condition. Either way, I’m not planning on selling a thing unless we see $50 per ounce. Let me look up the ratio for that. For $50 on silver, gold would have to reach $2200. Where is it right now, hang on. There, gold is $2,035 and climbing. Just like the rich, if you don’t have to sell, eventually you will get a spike.
Autobahn traffic jam.
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The afternoon was all silo windows and electric wiring, kept me busy. The big story is, the kava bar, so get comfortable. This is not the place if you only want to hear about the fun part of the music, but today was mostly a great good time. I was first to arrive at 7:20PM and as I kind of figured, there is no house PA. Just one powered speaker with four inputs, probably some repurposed Karaoke apparatus. I also found the place did not formally open until six weeks ago. None of the operation, including the music show, has any real mileage. This meant that the Prez & I mostly were the show. We played 8:00PM to 11:00PM and we aced it.
What went right, what went wrong? This blog probes the underbelly and backstreets of the music trade. I hauled in my old 2006 gear, this is our first gig with the full setup. Up to now we never had a chance to test the entire routine from set up to tear down. I am simply going to have to get some lighter gear, even with the Prez helping, I finally admit it has finally become too much work. It also meant their stage rarely looked so great for jam night, though it ran more like a music drop-in. This was also the first gig for the band that put a lot of our hard work to the test. I rate the night a very good success. Some of my reasons are not obvious, but they are important.
Instead of three songs, we played three hours before I called it quits. After an hour all the single women in the place were a ring around the stage area and for everything some envious malcontents will say about that, there is a satisfaction to interacting with pretty women on a friendly level that makes other men creeps when they do it. Eat your hearts out, lechers, it makes all the difference in the world that I did not do the approaching, and you know it.
Two of my management trademarks were prominent. Do not play any slow music, let somebody else make that mistake. Put mildly, while our music is duo arrangements, my bass lines are solos and that can rivet nay-saying guitar players to the spot. I think it is possible this may be the first time some of the younger people present ever saw this form of music, it just is not taught any more. Remember the troubles I had finding a guitar player who would even try? Well I also said once the concept was proven, we’d have all the guitar players we could shake a mic stand at. Our show was a clincher, yet the Guitar-Center-Think is so pervasive, some of the guitarists present still thought we were “missing” a lead player. Amusing.
And who recalls how I insisted we favor presentations and techniques that were difficult to imitate? Damn smart move, that one. This can have an overpowering effect, and why should it not? Imagine a professionally managed band with months of tough conditioning in the harshest of hungry environments suddenly showing up at a musical church picnic. The show was, overall, that of experienced amateurs doing their best, it’s just that this time the big boys came out to play. I went out of my way to encourage them and offer to help if they ask—except for the guitarists who asked if we wanted to join their acts. Fat chance.
My guess there were at the busiest, ten single women present. Don’t dare lecture me on motives when I report that the three youngest and best-looking were at my table the instant we took a break. Beauty brings a tear to anyone’s eye after a certain spell. The youngest, the redhead, is somebody’s dream come true. See photo, that’s her on the left. All three shown one song each. It was fun, but between you and I, none of them are going to have much more than fun. In case there are any jealous bastards reading, yes, the gals all nuzzled up to me and you know why? Because time spent playing bass is not deducted from your lifespan, so they were up close and friendly.
Of course, there were plenty of musical considerations still needing some thought, but that can wait The show itself and what it took to get there was strongly connected to the directed way we conducted our rehearsals. I make no pretense that my first motive to play in a band sixty years ago was meeting women with slim waists—how was I to know that was to become an endangered condition? Don’t blame me for getting distracted. I don’t care that other men fail so miserably at this and I’m not into divorced housewives. Single women, that is truly single, unattached, no baggage, unencumbered women have a different manner and I happen to like it a lot.
Synopsis. it was a super gig by the standard it should be rated. We handily adapted our music list to match venue, the crowd was clustered about the stage, the sound balance was smooth for such a large echoey room, and overall the music was not outdated by easy listening standards. This was planned, so if we get either of the pending Legion gigs, our immediate worries are over. The basic expenses would be covered and you cannot find a better pastime. And I’m fully aware of the improved outlook of musicians who are not in it for the money when they realize they no longer have to spend their own money on gas and groceries. Instead of a short set, we played three full hours with two curtain calls and that means we played all our core tunes. What a treat!
Sunday, April 21, 2024
April 21, 2024
Yesteryear
One year ago today: April 21, 2023, the 40 min. shower.
Five years ago today: April 21, 2019, what a spree that was.
Nine years ago today: April 21, 2015, 4,510 islands.
Random years ago today: April 21, 2021, Ruska unmasked
Silver stays above $29 without a peep from the media. But we know there is likely a frantic bank action to keep it below $30. I’m watching, I’ve waited a long time already, so long I have nothing to lose. I’ll take out my small stash, maybe get you a photo of it for luck. Lots of Ukraininan flags being waved in DC, the last time American flags were waved, 600 people went to jail. This is Apple Sunday, so it was a big breakfast and a good book. The book being my sight reduction tables. I was after a persistent error and I found it. One of those quirks whereby one set of instructions could be taken wrong every time from every source. (You are using a table to look up a value that isn’t there because they had you round off the same number earlier and they assume you had forgotten that, and I did not forget.)
How about this photo of seven B-2 Stealth bombers? Today’s US military calls it a show of force. The Chinese military calls it a fat juicy target. They know the defense system is staffed by queers and diversity hires.. You are looking at more than a third of our entire fleet lined ups so they could be taken out by a single 500-pound canister. That’s as stupid as lining up all our battleships in Pearl Harbor. Bunched up targets and a GPS system that nobody understands beyond reading their computer monitor. And if that does not make sense, consider the latest technology to make smart phone batteries last longer—build the cell towers closer together. Golly, some millennial may soon come up with the idea of running wires to the phone, d’y’think?
I’m likely to cancel the long awaited Earth Day meetup with Alaine. If JZ is still there, no way her and I would get a visit in during her one-hour lunch break. Triple that because JZ & I tend to make fun of everything and others think we are not being serious, all of which we can do in Miami. Alaine is far more laid back and I’d prefer we have lunch at the waterfront again or something. This morning I wrote another short chapter in my booklet, centering on the need to avoid drawing bureaucratic attention to oneself after retirement. There are numerous on-line source but they all involve technical knowledge of the system. What about ordinary low-tech George? What can he do? The first step is to understand how the bureaucrat hive-mind works.
To top off the morning, I watched some footage on the latest photos from Jupiter’s moon, Io. Is it really a molten core covered with ice? Evidence of a meteor strike found in Australia might be 3.5 billion years old and they have unearthed a 50-foot fossil snake in, where else, India. And don’t forget, another anti-Hillary critic is dead, this one was just 36. A pending law makes anyone who sells a gun, even to a family member, a gun dealer who can be imprisoned if they don’t get a license. Missouri has ruled it is legal to call a queer by any name you choose and question if they have AIDS. What a pity such a thing requires a ruling. Have you seen the big family meal from KFC? Only $57.99. The MicroSoft A.I. Twitter bot on a fact-based trial run denied the Holocaust, endorsed Trump, and praised Hitler.
They know the Air Force defense system is full of queers and diverisity hires..
Bush house, Salem, OR.
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Summer’s barely here and it’s too hot already. Past noon it clouded over, so I have work to report. Three and a half hours again, the amount of time it takes me to install a duplex outlet. This was a struggle which took most of the afternoon because I could not work on just one phase. It is the silo window, which I marked wrong by a stud width and had to relocate the box. Ah, says my kava-fired brain, instead of cutting the wire, use it to add the north work outlet I’d planned, then just drop a wire to a new interior outlet located beside the window. It worked but doubled the effort. So, in that sense, I did get more done. Here is the progress on the vent window.
Meanwhile Tampa played top hits of the 60s. I was expecting Spencer Davis Group and some Stones, being that was the onset of the ear of Rock. Instead, crap. The top song, they said was “Sinnerman”. Hey, I was there and wide awake and never heard of that song until today. So I looked at the rest of the list. Around 20% of the top hits were unknown to me. Let me try the 70s. There, I did much better. But—I mistook most of those songs for the 60s hits. This was during my longest music doldrum period, and as I emerged from that funk, I hit the Guitar-Center boondocks where I could not find a decent guitarist for half the 1980s. Even then, the guy that played the most had this metal plate in his head and could drink for three days non-stop.
Then came 1987 which changed everything. At the beginning, it was one Patsy Cline song. Just one, what could come of that? By 1996, my list was two-thirds country music. I went total country by 2002, but around that time I began accompanying the Hippie. His list was heavily 1980s, so I could easily play it but even he began to admit our best songs were country duos. This pointed to a connection he was never able to absorb. It’s that since he could not play the country chops he was filling in with the very strums that he would refuse to play if I asked him directly. That long and eventually non-productive stretch is well-documented at the time. The only better guitarist of the day was Ray-B, another tale from the trailer court.
For the record, I’ve invited Ray-B to join or attend the kava session tomorrow. Honestly, I’m worried about the guy, he’s bit a bad patch. One of the best tunes him & I ever jammed was with a random lady singer at the Jacaranda, or at least I never knew her. We played “Rose Garden” in Ab. To date that is the only band I’ve ever played Buffet’s “Volcano” song.
ADDENDUM
Staying wide awake had me go back over the navigation process. What a difference today made. It’s been years that I stalled at the stage of calculating geographic position. That’s the single point on the Earth’s surface that the Sun is directly above at any moment in time. At some point I have done each of the four major steps in determining a line of position (LOP). This is not a complete fix, as at least one more LOP is needed so the lines cross. Also, I have forgotten some of the rules for dealing with these lines, though I recall they are easy. At this time it would require two people for me to produce timely results.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
April 20, 2024
One year ago today: April 20, 2023, no Whites were involved.
Five years ago today: April 20, 2019,turtle warm-up.
Nine years ago today: April 20, 2015, a nasty version.
Random years ago today: April 20, 2007, Wallace in the Everglades.
Double my porridge ration this morning, I’m up early. Britain announces a new one-year maximum on government benefits—to White people only. Why do I like porridge? Good question, we hardly ever ate it when I was a kid and not much before I turned 50. I suppose I’m sold on the claims it is heart-healthy. Today we have no plans, let’s see what a no-plan day entails around these parts. Here’s some more chow, pasta and butter. People put butter on bread, and what is that made of? (Relax, the butter shown in this photo is just there to thaw.) The media continues to insist Biden’s approval rating is way up at 38% and wonder why nobody trusts them.
Maybe I’ll get something accomplished today yet. No, I don’t go around asking other people my age what they got done—but I could. It’s been weeks since I put in a full shift. That’s not saying I neglect my hobbies. It’s work to change the keys on some of the tunes, bass lines can rarely be changed from E to D to sound right and I’m still reading a lot on sight reduction. I took a shortcut years ago and memorized the northwestern hemisphere. Now I must backtrack to learn the theory so I can use sight reduction anywhere on the globe. What, with Biden about to launch World War III and the Chinese with the latest anti-satellite hardware. Gee, who’da thunk it twelve years ago when I made the decision?
Canada’s household debt has finally surpassed 100% of GDP. There are not enough hours in the morning, says the guy who will have been retired 28 years next month. That’s correct, on May 23rd, I became the youngest person ever to take early retirement at the company, a record that will likely never be broken. That’s because after I caught them on the legality which permitted it, they changed the rules. The point is, anybody who thinks retirement involved mostly sitting around or playing cards at Panera hasn’t been paying attention.
It wasn’t 10:00AM before I decided to go do some wiring in the shed and then run through my song list. The Prez scheduled for 3:00PM so I had time only for chores. I strung out the extension and roughed in more of the silo window. Yet, we got a family of some vermin in there. Time to finish the interior and seal it up good. The silo is sided with pallet slats leaving a zillion ways to be invaded. And finally, I drilled and cut wire and wood for a permanent power supply to the north work area. While the tools were out, I cut new boxes to sort the tubes and filled three of them. Empty juice cartons from the dollar store are darn near the correct size. This is the blog that keeps you abreast of these important issues.
I then stopped at the money order store to return the ten bucks, which seems to have made a profound impression on the staff. Yes, the clerk, Sophia, was short the money on cash-out, so I made it very clear ti was not her fault. On these monthly found-money deposits, there can be a mix of bills and unrolled coins.
Largest dinky toy ever.
(WWII tank recovery truck.)
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How many people just knew this was going to be a hectic day after all? Show of hands. That’s what I thought. I said you get the events and here they are. It was Cassie’s wedding day and it was the biggest party at the club in years, but that was later tonight. Jus now, I sealed up the silo and drove to rehearsal, an option provided by good planning. (Later, I forgot what I meant by that last sentence, but it stays.) We worked on some of our more challenging material. Good move. Right afterward, I dropped into the kava bar. It’s a much bigger operation than met my eye. It’s part of an overtly well-funded chain. I met the owner/manager and we talked business for roughly half an hour. Yes, I noticed the place had a healthy helping of single White women with that hippie look I do not mind at all, just don’t stick it into crazy. And I learned the Polynesian word for “cheers” is “boolah”. Don’t quote me on that, I’d been drinking complimentary kava.
The manager gave me the tour, there is an outside stage area and he sometimes pays for weekend bands. I now gather it is nearly impossible to find a decent band for this venue. It would be wise for me to pay extra attention here because this is uncharted territory. A week ago it never crossed my mind that a specialty restaurant type operation would have the same entertainment challenges as the local watering hole. Why would it [cross my mind]?
I made some quick assessments. If I had not talked to the owner, I would have thought that guitar player on stage was wrong for the location. (He was also not very good, allowing for his age which was similar to back when I played the Metropole.) While you can choose the point where you feel band management makes a difference, the fact is even a solo act requires a degree of organization that can easily sap away energy that belongs on stage. Trust me, it only looks like the band just dropped by and plugged in. Should you make the comparison, our little duo is by far (and I mean by far) the most organized in these parts, just you keep in mind I I said that is a comparison.
Thus, I stopped all plans for my Saturday night downtown, although I did get out for a beer much later. Over to the coffee shop with pencil and pad to map out a song list (of 8 tunes) comprised of “non-bar” music, what you might call kava-friendly (don’t hit me). Like, cool it with the Willie Nelson and up it with the Jimmy Buffet. Having noted the house equipment, I plan to take along my big PA system. The guy on stage had his own small amp but the rest of the gear was mismatched and set wrong.
When it rains, it pours, when I arrived back in Mulberry, I found two responses. One was a reply from the Legion over on 17th, the one where I admit not having visited in probably five years. They have a quiet Saturday Karaoke show. I had long ago mentioned to Cher, the manager, that if I ever got a band happening, I would like be in touch. I put out some feelers a few weeks ago and just found out why no reply. Remember Abe? He would have been an ardent supporter, but lately I’ve been hearing of many cases of sudden dementia, a condition that used to creep up on people. Now it seems to strike. Sadly, both Abe and his wife fell with it apparently in the same week around a year and a half ago. I mean, I knew something was wrong but this startled me.
I drove over to the club and Cher recognized me instantly, signing me in. I stuck around for a beer and sang two tunes. Most of the room recognized me but I confess other than the gal who once was a Taylor lookalike, I’m at a loss for every name. I met the DJ and talked to several patrons. They confirm the rapid onset with Abe and his wife, now both in nursing homes. Music simply has to make sure that never happens to me It was still light outside when I left and I fully expect we will be booked there shortly. That’s judging by the rousing cheers as I left the stage.
The second response is another Legion in Winter Haven. It’s a circuit that represents steady work if you can get in. What differentiates that Legion is their emphasis on dancing. I’ve only heard they emphasize dancing, never having been there in person. However, there’s my fan club and I gather they know somebody over there who has the say-so. I have a phone number and a note of referral. Expect that to happen fast, as that’s a location half-way for the Prez & I to drive.
On the way back, I saw a sell-out crowd at the old club. Dang, I forgot today is the wedding. I got there just in time to get the last empty chair. The happy couple are, like myself, from a city who chose a smaller town to live in. She’s the barmaid, he’s the Karaoke guy, both are talented singers, and that makes them beyond popular. I got near enough to say congrats, the place was packed. There you go. I’m the one that wanted an active retirement. But may I now take the rest of the day off? Duly noted, if we get one gig a month at each of these prospects, that a full calendar for this band. Boolah.
ADDENDUM
I’m also considering changing one of my blog parameters. Until now, you get on the superlatjust like golf on TV. But it also means I only mention a fraction of my gigs and I would like that to change. This duo seems to endure and I would like to keep more of a tally on these events. I could guess around now in my life I’m near my 2,500th stage. (Spanning over 60 years if you include piano recitals.) That’s got to provide some form of unique perspective.
Friday, April 19, 2024
April 19, 2024
One year ago today: April 19, 2023, that’s my Taylor.
Five years ago today: April 19, 2019, I decide Mt. Juliet.
Nine years ago today: April 19, 2015, strange Swiss woman.
Random years ago today: April 19, 2013, 7 hours by sidecar.
Have you seen the fake polls showing Biden neck-in-neck with Trump? What a laugh. Especially in light of other surveys that show another devastating fact to the Left—that nothing appears to be changing the loyalties of the Trump supporters. Every liberal scam is exposed on the spot and every dirty trick is called out in real time. The Left doesn’t seem to grasp they no longer have their traditional lag time where they were able to lie just long enough to get elected before folks caught on. You get to check out the thermometer on this totally Florida morning.
Examples would be “Seminole Wind”, parts of “Turn The Page”, and “Rocky Top”. Generally, we don’t play these tunes. But if you play them, we will make you sound like a recording star. The fast-changing chords coupled with our duo tactics (especially piano-like runs and avoiding unison) makes this music sound delightful. So the Prez & I took time to customize our parts, by now a routine for us. He learned to fingerpick the rhythm and I filled in the implied back-melody that matches where he sings the doo-doo-doo part. End result? A great instrumental sound for a tune neither of us can sing. Too much syncopation. I mean, we’ll probably get it, but for now, we’re stuck. Next, logisitics.
Band management has it’s moments, in that to get it right one often has to take the non-standard viewpoint. That raises the question of why? Can’t one just go with the flow? Sure, but be prepared for plenty of disappointments. One aspect of keeping a show together that can be wildly different with bands is the need to avoid being taken by surprise, and no, I don’t mean the Happy Birthday kind. Before COVID, there were around 26 more active bands in Polk County than today. Only part of that is explainable by music considerations alone. There are few things as fragile as band loyalties and you can triple the danger if things keep going wrong.
My style is to let everybody know in advance what to look for, but not telling them what to make of it. I find it is enough when they realize something has already been “patterned”—because conclusions can be adopted more readily than reached. What brought this on? The convo with Trent about how so many recall the good old times when, in fact, it was always a tottery ride. He reminded me of the shows at the Walkabout and the Riptide. Those were outstanding performances by Hollywood’s top locals. And the best shows were duos with Ray-B handily taking first prize, but a close second from the Hippie. (The Hippie tended to invite strangers who were not popular with me we who had taken time to rehearse our material. These were regular gigs, not jam sessions.)
Everybody is having a better day than old Joe. Have you seen the videos of his motorcades? Everywhere he goes, not one supporter. Everyone swearing at him and giving him the finger by the thousands, including children. The old fart is not getting the message. Like many of his ilk, he cannot imagine why he isn’t their hero. And neither is John Mellencamp who walked off the stage after being booed for talking instead of playing. Worse for him it was probably due to his liberal politics, which nobody wants to hears since beyond playing guitar, the guy is a near total good write-off. Always has been, but hey, this is one reason most guitarists look alike to me.
Oh, and for the record, Gab has restored the ability for non-paid viewers to post pictures. Torba goofed and lost the majority of his posters as well as his lead in a complicated game with no rule book. One thing he should not have screwed with is anonymous posting, and his retracti
ons show that he has still not learned his lesson. He goes on about his “parallel economy” but has made no effort to let people pay in cash. Oh, I know it is a tough call, but hey, he is the one who made the challenge.
One million dead mosquitoes.
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This just in, some AOL set himself on fire in front of the Trump trial. Whatever his affiliation, the Democrats will say Trump lit the match. Folks, do no judge patriotic Americans over the behavior of these lunatics and misfits. It was the Democrats who shut the mental hospitals and set these psychos loose in society, the taxpayers were never asked. As for the crazy, it’s already dubbed the “Biden Barbeque”. The first video posted had a view of the event across an empty plaza. Nobody around, but sure enough, one lady walks into the scene and sits down exactly where she blocks the view. No clue, not helping, just blocking the camera she is not even aware of. Now how, I ask you, how do I know she must be Canadian?
How goober was I? I’d heard of “fast food” but thought it was cheap food that people ate fast because they were in a hurry. It’s true, the first time I planned and went to a McDonald’s was well after I turned 20. I was not there even by accident, because I never had a car until I was 21 I would have instantly noticed the cheap plastic décor that was proliferating by then had I walked in. Even when I did, usually the only thing I went there for were the triple-thick shakes. I recall the last time I had a strawberry shake for some reason. It was at the monastery in 1978. That’s another tale from the trailer court. Later, I just found out the Sanford Big Boy has been shut down.
How about the plan to genetically alter humans to be allergic to red meat? It’s part of the C40 plan, along with plans to breed smaller humans who consume less. You will be restricted to one airplane trip every three years of less than 1500 miles. There is a lot more resting on Trump this November than most people realize. After devastating floods caused by cloud seeding, Dubai will no fine citizens one million in local currency for posting any storm pictures on-line. And today the Iranians got the West to fire off $1.3 billion in missiles to knock down its plywood drones.
ADDENDUM
On sheer willpower, I took most of the day off. Making a sextant reading for fun (compared to, say, using a TV remote), I followed the longitude down to an island in the Caribbean you probably never heard of. Isla de Providencia, which is ill-named since it is regularly flattened by hurricanes, the last one in 2020. Politically part of Columbia, it bills itself as one of the last undiscovered islands, by which they mean tourism. It must have an economy because 5,000 people live there. There were no photos to distinguish the place, so here is a view of a perfect body from nearby San Andres Island. For those who say she is too skinny, I like it when I hear that.
I first heard of Tiburon because Walt Disney painted a picture of it and I figured it was somewhere in the Pacific. Maybe he considered it for a theme park before he discovered there was no fresh water. Although tied to the mainland by a spit of land at low tide, it is technically Mexico’s largest island at around 460 square miles. They filmed a few survivor type shows there, but the only airstrip was blown up in ‘95 by the Federales to curb smuggling. The only wildlife is goats and coyotes, but keep an eye on the local Seri Indians. They’re cannibals. Or at least that is the rumor and I wouldn’t take chances.
The prevailing theory is that the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs impacted to create the Gulf of Mexico. I say it was really three asteroids or one that broke into three. Maps show two more large crater shaped bodies of water. If you look at the coastlines of Nicaragua to Columbia, there’s an outline south of Jamaica. Further east, you have the entire chain of islands north of Venezuela. And if you drained the water, you would see the surface of the planet has been deeply fractured by something.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
April 18, 2024
One year ago today: April 18, 2023, biggest offenders:
Five years ago today: April 18, 2019some television guy.
Nine years ago today: April 18, 2015, the ultimate female fantasy.
Random years ago today: April 18, 2016, $14 a foot.
Is it good news? My most ancient investment, my employee pension plan, as announced a raise due to inflation. A massive $20.49 per month, hooray, now we can go on holidays again. Seriously, it is good news and bad news. Sure, it is only a pittance, but it is also solid as one of the two fully-funded pensions left in the western world. The other good news is Mitch has left for a month in Mexico with a 46-year-old girlfriend. No, wait! This just in. It is two 23-year-old girlfriends. American women can shove that “age-appropriate” dating up their shigeekals. He’s got the right idea.
This photo added later, it is the cutout where I will put a vent window for the silo.
Next, we browse the Interpol most-wanted list. It is a location service, they don’t arrest people. I disapprove of Interpol for a number of reasons, but mostly because they overstep the role. One would expect that maybe 300 master international criminals might be on the list, you know, Lex Luthor types. But when numbers reach over 10,000 you know they are sticking their noses where it does not belong. They are simply going after the wrong type of people. I draw the line at non-violent or victimless crimes.
The sheer volume of people being tracked is your classic tale of bureaucratic bullshit. Some Interpol flunky wants ever more money and power, so the lists continue to billow. It would help their reputation to go after violent types. I have no solutions, but I further don’t like the way the list focuses on Americans or people who are not formally charged with anything. Yes, our most famous fugitive, Jason Derek Brown, appears. There is also the matter of non-violent sex crimes. It would appear there are still a lot of crazy people who think teenage women don’t.
Here is a novelty item we know was going to exist before ever seeing on this morning on Etsy. A vacuum tube night light. This informs us that an Etsy account is on the way. I’m still looking but straight away I like their simpler bulling structure. I’m sttill running spreadsheets and already my own accounting system is better than theirs, called A2X. When you add in that A2X wants $50 a month, my system is even better, since I don’t plan to sell every month. The snag with accounting programs is they are less designed to provide information (which is their purpose) and angled more to comply with tax regulations (which they are not).
Oh, and before I forget, on the first day of his New York trial, Trump’s campaign fund-raised over a million dollars. Myself, give me a good book on navigation and a quiet afternoon. This isn’t really a matter for discussion, but the money has not yet arrived for the Civic, and let’s just say I don’t trust the insurance company as much as others. I think they are still trying to play for where they have the car before we have the money. This is a risk, and I would not care if you know them or trust them. Nice people don’t constantly try to get you over a barrel.
The Honda Civic is one of the highest sought-after vehicles for parts and I’ve never felt that unit was totaled. The only damage was the frnt passenger fender. I only agreed to a settlement because I was not personally nearby, but it was on the verge of going to court. And let me tell you, by that time, there is a marked difference in my experience than most. When you are the victim of unprovoked attack, it is not enough to merely win. You must destroy the enemy’s ability to attack, or you will wind up fighting the same battles over and over. This has nothing to do with who is right or wrong, it is a lesson in cold, ard fact. Just ask Israel.
The cat-and-mouse with youTube adblockers continues. I’ve found a partial solution by tweaking the settings on two apps which won’t do the job independently. I won’t say which for now, but I’ve got it to stall the ads as follows. There is a stretch between the onset of the ad and the appearance of the “Skip” button. What I’ve got is a setting that freezes the last frame of the movie until the time the button appears, whereupon the movie starts up again. So you never see the ad itself. Let’s see if this works well enough for now. One hour later, nope, it is only a partial solution for some of the ads. This parallels the situation in America, one party wants to be left alone, the other constantly trying to push their greedy money agenda on others.
So, I am not a minority when it comes to [dislike of] paywalls. (My main objection is that they cannot be filtered.) The Atlantic reports 80% of on-line readers, upon seeing a paywall, will attempt to get the news for free. This makes sense if you ask me, I was there to see the Internet take off because of the terrible and expensive way other media were behaving. I never pay for news and I don’t use products or services that are advertised intrusively, no matter how good they are.
Sleeping elephant family.
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That was Trent on the phone, he’s got some contacts for selling the vacuum tubes. But neither of us know which tubes are used in amps and other guitar gear. His eldest, now 6-foot-four, is breezing into college on a full scholarship. We mostly talked semi-legal stuff and would really rather be out there playing music. He recalls Rab-B very well from the dynamite duo sessions out on Hollywood Beach in the 2005 – 2014 stretch. Ray-B, Broward’s top guitarist and teacher, and moi, the consummate local bassist, those were some sessions indeed.
No relevant picture was available, so here is your view of the Pilsbury millennial packaging, where the wrapping cannot be torn open without obliterating part of the instructions. Way to go, Tyler, Dough-boy of the Month.
Trent had some suggestions on moving these vacuum tubes. I’ll follow up having learned there are places who make distortion pedals and other guitar gear with tubes. There are so many tubes that if they could give me an idea of what they want, I’m willing to pick them out. Strange, innit, that on the illustrious Internet, there is no single set of instructions how to set up an Etsy account that is covenient, up-to-date, and spells out exactly what you need and what steps. There is no incentive for an independent party to maintain such a page and that has emerged as the single biggest defect of the modern era. Everybody is a systems creator expert, not some damn maintenance man.
Stress. I avoid it at all costs, to the point of cutting people off, breaking promises, and permanent avoidance. Stress almost killed me and I’m not interested in a repeat. Today I received news of a delay that should not have been. I’ll sort it out, but I can assure you it will not be to the satisfaction of the people that sprung this on us (the Reb & I). So, I’m taking the rest of today off to unstress and asked the Reb to do the same. She has the pets for company, for me the best solution is to read or play music. I choose reading.
Persia. I think that is a much better name than Iran. Modernization is rarely a smooth metamorphosis and thus it must have not been fun for Pahlavi. He was hated by the hard-line tradtionalists and probably could not have acted without a ruthless police force and the odd execution. Once again, it was over money, I read the history of British Petroleum during the period when the Royal Navy switched from coal to oil. Persia had been a nothing-burger for close to a thousand years at that point.
Like Khadaffi, Pahlavi brought in railroads, modern cities, universities, and cultural reform. And he was equally hated for it by some. Much of the Persian infrastructure was German designed and operated during World War II, so I’m aware of the military moves by the Soviets and British. That’s only because it was a dumping ground for bad weapons. Ancient Brit armored cars and droves of Soviet T-26 tanks were space-age compared to the Arabs. Any action by 1,000 tanks gets my attention.
Not much new was in the documentaries, but I did learn that one of the issues was BP, then known as the Anglo-Iranian oil company, was paying Persia 16% of the profits. Even a Beduoin gnawing on a camel bone knows that doesn’t sound like much for “his” oil. Duly noted is that although the Persians hated the British, the hardest battles were against the Soviets. Seems they hated communists even more.
I lost most interest in the whole circumstance after 1979 when the Islamics took over. Nothing good happens after that step back into the Dark Ages and it’s been nothing but trouble since. If you think that is evil, what about the Canadian doctors who’s vaccine paralyzed that lady. To make up for it, they volunteered to euthanize her. And two-thirds of US colleges, no matter what your field of study, require you take and pass DEI courses or they won’t graduate you.
ADDENDUM
This morning the Democrats voted that felony is not impeachable. This is to protect their border security director from becoming a felon. Just you watch, the Democrats will scream when the same law is used against them. In 2020, these same people voted to impeach Trump before any crime was even specified. America hates the Democrats, but suffers from 40 years of Balkanization. You can’t fight against the Democrats without supporting other issues you do not like. Think about it.
Quietly, or as much so as possible, the scared shitless Democrat clone judges in DC are letting J6 people out of jail after mere months into their sentences. They are releasing the worst enemies a political party has even made themselves in American history. Even if they become only indirectly involved, they will be a rallying point. Tucker is going th have a field day.
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
April 17. 2024
One year ago today: April 17, 2023, another generation.
Five years ago today: April 17, 2019, daffodils barely grew.
Nine years ago today: April 17, 2015, maybe once a year.
Random years ago today: April 17, 2008, no more sausage.
What’s this, Brazil is wiping the floor with their journalists, as in seizing passports and assets? Something doesn’t tall, few people in America would have any objection to the entire staff at CNN or NYT being run out of town. For that matter, many want the lot to be hanged, so what if the nation loses the 3 or 4 good ones in the process. Silver stays over $28, will this be the one? Millennial marketing, you search on today’s silver prices and the top ten responses are shit. (Sign up here for daily silver prices, sucker, free membership.)
Nor can beginners be informed that metals are a bad first investment. Buying is easy, selling is fraught with hardships and danger. Do not believe sellers who “promise” they will buy back anything they sell you. (Sure, they will. By check, six weeks later, after your ID goes on a watchlist.) In fact, I advise you to not buy and sell at the same place. Stick with gold and silver. Trying to unload even an ounce of palladium will get your name on a watchlist. Never sell more than 100 oz of anything at once. Buy my book on investing if I ever get it written.
How [without advertising] will they make money? Easy, go get a job. Seriously, there should be either a separate youTube for people who want to watch ads or catalog shopping only for those who want to see it. And as you know, I do not approve of statistics that presume every last person who views something without watching the commercials is a lost customer. I purposely do not purchase products that use intrusive advertising and I believe there are millions like me. Advertise all you want—elsewhere. How about PETA holding that big anti-red meat protest in Wyoming. Nobody showed up. Did you know most Hindus are unaware that Christians are allowed to read the Bible for themselves?
The one that’s tough to judge nowadays is the on-line “sexploitation” scams. This is where boys are blackmailed after being conned into exposing their privates. To me, anybody stupid enough to do that are the same stupid grunts who laugh when old people are taken by telemarket operators. If you are that retarded to start with, you deserve to be taken for all you got. It’s how the roughly bottom half of Amercan society ever learns their lessons.
Something new, canned meat from Lithuania. At the Russian market, I found a can of buckwheat. Always interested in products that wiill keep, I opened it today it was a mixtrure of ground pork and buckwheat. Cooked to perfection, I instantly tagged it “K-rations”, it would make excellent survival fare. If you ignore the price tag, that is, four bucks a tin. The receipt said “tushenka”. This morning found me still flagged, I crawled back into the sack until late afternoon. I highly recommend it, after you fill the birdfeeders, that is.
Beepers are back in the news. A few smart people spot the advantages over a smart phone, but rest assured some millennial will turn it into a $500 device that accepts spam. The article, from the Pessimist’s Archive accurately recounts the “beeper scare”. At the time, most people knew it was not a took of the drug trade, but the loosening of society did let it cause an upsurge in early teen prostitution. I had one for years after cell phones arrived, they could not be traced.
The staff at Tucows.
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This will not do, another day down the drain. The warmer damp Miami weather is sauna-like for the shoulders. Back here, it’s a disadvantage when there is work to do; I’ll get working anyway. Tampa radio, millennials are now being advised to never say the word “yes” on their phones, another indication the world they built for themselves is only beginning to come back and bite them in the ass. Here’s what I got done this afternoon. I finished cutting and installing a large temporary shelf in the red shed lean-to. This is storage for the boxes of tubes not yet sorted. It frees up space in the kitchen.
Opting to not stray far from the coffee pot, I watched such documentaries as I found interesting. One was from Business Insider by this single mother who only dates men are not fathers. It seems the ones with children are sub-par and can’t devote their lives to raising her two sons. In other words, it is okay when she does it, but not you. She also wants a man who both works full time yet stays at home so she does not have to do “the lion’s share” of raising the kids. She’s not gonna make it, is she?
Usually I don’t bother with youTube unless I find an adequate ad-blocker. And it has been a while. Today I ran some searches and has that platform ever gone downhill. Around 80% of the results were not videos, but animations, and no way to filter them out. Even the best productions were sub-par. You ask for a documentary on Rommel and you get a cartoon. Way to go there, XYZers. Now your history is as plastic as your lifestyles.
My search for ad blockers was spurred by rumors encountered last week that youTube was again on a purge. No kidding, they burned right through my ad blockers. It’s like they not only want to force their poop medicine on you, they want to make up for lost time. I’ve tried everything I know and the ads remain, for now I mean. Forget AdBlocker with its fake “free” extention. It’s only free after you pay for it, yay millennials, truth and honesty mean zip to the entitled.
[Author’s note: that last comment has a precedent that I’ll publish if I ever find the paperwork. In the 80s, around two years after starting my chosen career, over a period of weeks I wrote out my reasons for not socializing with my new co-workers. This was my first “civilized” job, prior to that I had worked in mills and factories and forestry camps. And I was unprepared for what today would be called the “entitlment” bunch.
I was a novice at the game with no experience at office politics. But I was quick to notice the way that others around me talked about the job. When you work in a crew, you’d best not consider anything your right. Where I saw that paycheck as my barrier against cold and hunger, I was surrounded by people who’s main concerns were whether it paid enough for cable TV, a riding lawnmower, and a brand new car every three years. And they behaved accordingly.
These people voting themselves $20 an hour and voting away their student loans are no surprise to me. They will get theirs.]
ADDENDUM
unmarried couples on a yacht, I would have to be suspicious that the man disappeared. But the best line is about the navigation using “only” a sextant and a watch. It’s like nobody ever told the morons of the universe that is how it is done. For her next trick she crossed the pond using only a canoe and a paddle. But what one could really wonder about is how anybody on a yacht in 1983 could possibly be “caught” by a hurricane. You know, taken totally by surprise. I read the papers, I mean, and she isn’t reallythat good-looking. Then again, I’ve noticed lots of rich guys with girfriends you just know they are stuck with.
Seems somebody wants to make a movie out of it. Just don’t expect me to have much sympathy for anybody who has the money to sail around obliviously in the empty ocean southwest of California. I got ten bucks says there is no way they earned the money to do that, and my take on income taxes is it is the earning that is being taxed, not the income.
Mental illness makes the news again. Around 1960, the USA closed the mental hospitals. Cruel, said the virtue signallers, let’s scream about the patients and forget what happens to others in society when they are let out. You can surmise I have an opinion on this. I say there are different brands of craziness. And the one the taxpayer should not be funding is anything hereditary. Fund them all you want, but don’t force your neighbor to do it. This is pretty consistent with my take on similar situations. In Nature, the ones who don’t fit are taken out of the equation and that process should not be messed with.
This time around, I see the game plan. Homeless people. If you can classify them as mental, that’s a huge voting block. Folks, it was only in the 1940-1990 era that large swathes of Americans became homeowners, and if forced house prices through the roof. Prior to that, most people did not own a house and millions of people paid room and board. What’s more, they got bey without going on welfare. America has no shortage of AOLs who will bellow about the rights of a minority while ignoring the plight of the less-visible public who they force to pay for it. Look at abortion. I’m not for or against it, that is not my decision to make. But nor should I be compelled to pay for it.
It is unlikely I’d budge on the issue when any defect is hereditary. Thus, families who produce crazy should be held fully responsible for the consequences because dumping the problem on society is a woeful disregard for the safety and hard work of others. It’s the scenario where I don’t have the solutions, but I know which solutions are unfair to people who are in no way at fault. Help anybody you want, the real problem is trying to force it on others. Say, you know who else is back in the news? Miss Moneypenny, from the 007 movies. Now over 80, she is being ragged on for ancient movie scenes with minors. Her lasting good looks are probably all the explanation needed for that.
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