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Saturday, March 31, 2007
March 31, 2007
This is a placemarker. The post for this day has gone missing. Here's a pretty picture. It is Jacques Costeau's favorite wreck.
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Friday, March 30, 2007
March 30, 2007
Ha, last evening I clicked on the MP3 and listened to one of the tunes Sportsgoo sent me. Something about Chatahoochie, who cares, but what a riot of a tune. Totally country spam so I learned it and then customized a dance bass line (by throwing the turnaround eighth notes off the backbeat). Now this morning, guess what tune I’ve got stuck in my head?
Ha, last evening I clicked on the MP3 and listened to one of the tunes Sportsgoof sent me. Something about Chatahoochie, who cares, but what a riot of a tune. Totally country spam so I learned it and then customized a dance bass line (by throwing the turnaround eighth notes off the backbeat). Now this morning, guess what tune I’ve got stuck in my head? He owes me.
The whole day was at the shop, mainly because Fred had to zip around town. On his $45,000 Harley-Davidson. See the Eagle talon kick-stand? Fred does not get out of the shop enough, he should just close the doors when it is not busy and sail down the freeway.
Jay-Jay called to say that the address he gave me to the ball park (y’day) was wrong. It was another park around five blocks away. He went there, and did not return my phone calls because he was a base ump at the time. He also doesn’t understand why I didn’t start looking around the Ft. Lauderdale sewer plant for a different baseball game.
Dickens called, he wants to leave town until Wednesday next week. I can swing that, but I really don’t have the exact freedom. I need to know what happens at the dog shop before I commit at the last minute, since my bills are paid by the sure things. Beyond that, a series of idiots were in today. We have not named the scam yet, but it involves the false accusation that you messed up. You can spot this scam by how they want an overly-detailed explanation of how you “fixed” it.
In the case of Skrbc, we hooked his unit up and it works absolutely fine, as predicted. He will expect an explanation of why that is before he will pay up. Fat chance. This time I warned him against said behavior, but he is one of those deadbeats who thinks the system works that way (us constantly proving he is wrong by showing him how to run a computer for free). He is claiming he cannot log on to the Internet, but that he could log on before we fixed his printer. I have just grown so weary of that useless angle that I believe we will kick him out of the shop permanently this time.
I biked all through the downtown district, taking note of crowds and drinking establishments. There are around a dozen, all in long narrow locations. There was an average crowd in each, no favorites being in evidence. It was, however, the clientele I target for my music and I’ve mentally selected a few places that seemed likely. Myself, I decided not to participate and instead to spend the evening reading detective stories. Sounds exciting, but since I don’t know what you will be doing at my age, I won’t comment on it.
Oh, the cat. No name yet, but I can pick her up and she doesn’t dive for cover as soon as I open the door. She seems to prefer sitting up on my file cabinet, in the shade of my office. I’ve seen her walk around the entire Florida room across cabinets and the backs of chairs without touching the floor. I noticed this because I fell asleep in the easy chair again and the cat wakes me up.
I stopped in at the Wiley St. Pub earlier to see if Rob the Hillbilly was there, to give him the song list. He was but he was too busy. On the way out a toothless old lady flashed me. Weird, but she did have a perfect set of knockers. Since I was leaving and she was too old to be a hooker, I have no idea what her motive could have been. Maybe she thought I was drinking?
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Thursday, March 29, 2007
March 29, 2007
I got a late start, but that can happen when you don’t listen to a boss and an alarm clock. For no reason, I decided to make some extra toast and coffee, and read a book for an extra hour. This is about as exciting as the day is going to get, but I was all over town, and yes, I did make it to the ball game. It was Mr. Jay-Jay who didn’t.
At the wig store, there were a large number of statistical and logistical problems to deal with, but mostly the predictable stuff that has to be done as you go along. Example, who would have thought the Asian factory would have trouble finding boxes to ship the product? Yet the fact is, the search was so unsuccessful, they phoned and it was finally agreed to send the hairpieces in poly bags. Pardon me for thinking everything came in a plastic box these days.
nbsp; Which landed the packaging problem back Stateside. The marketing guy, Brian, and I have essentially told Ruth we would take a day off and pack at least the initial few thousand items here. Then he did something I truly have to admire, because I have no artistic eye – he noticed that the correct size of container matched a Chinese food take-out box. I threw my full support behind it as an idea that should be taken to its logical limits. A novel box for a novel product. At half the price. [Later, so you know, the PVC boxes were between 50 and 60 cents each, the takeout boxes are 28 cents.]
Then, the database produced a report that some of the items had been double-ordered. The impact was just under $1,000 but it shows a trap if I don’t close it up right away. It had to do with different sizes and prices appearing after the orders were placed. It is duly noted that this problem would have slipped right by, so it is thus the first “pure” problem solved by the database. That is a little misleading, because many other problems were warded off well in advance. The database is miles ahead of anything they have at the factory [in Indonesia]. The decision was to leave the [duplicate] orders as is to avoid any confusion.
Dickens called and he wants to get out of Dodge for the weekend. So I’ll be minding the store this Saturday. Good, I need a VCR and he’s got several. I mentioned the $98 security camera, since the higher priced items appearing on the racks have proven too tempting for some of our customers. Mind you, I have to hook up a computer early that same morning. Before I forget, some blonde babe on a cell-phone driving a brand new white Jag cut me off this morning. Yeah, I know what she looked like, but my point is that never happened to me when I lived in Hialeah.
Never get directions from Jay-Jay. He’ll tell you the ballpark is “next to the Sanitation Department”, like I came to town and memorized such locations. I got there after asking for directions four times, only to get reminded that the game is not any more entertaining to me than it was when I was eight. Ho-hum, although I guess it is exciting if you are the one person in the vicinity who hits a home-run. The rest of it, I never could identify with. Junior league baseball. Even the parents did not show.
So I went over to Archives, the used book coffee shop. Except it is not there any more. It has gone the way of all things in Florida that have any intellectual component. There is an antique furniture store in the premises. I went to Borders on Sunrise and spent a few hours browsing. Some religion group was holding a Bible reading in the Northwest corner. I said hello to two pretty gals but they were not quite responsive (or pretty) enough to press my case.
Before I forget, I’ve been getting regular responses from the “Sportsgoof”. This is the dude who does not strum guitar, but used to. That is probably good enough for me. I sent him the blurb and song list, with a plea to reconsider the offer. It was too obvious he felt he had to be an expert guitarist, when in fact too much guitar is a career-limiting move (CLM) around me. I even listened to KISS, a local radio channel with a steady diet of modern country music. Cannot tell the tunes apart, no matter how hard I try.
Sportsgoof sent me a picture, he looks like a slimmed down Eddie Albert [the bad actor from “Green Acres”]. Unlike the G, this one has a great sense of humor. He is also adaptable, another big difference. I place him at around 45, although he could be older than the picture. His choice of words shows education and he knows after 40, you only stay in this business if it is fun. The G does not even realize his musical career peaked long ago, and he is now circling the drain.
I’ll give Sportsgoof the benefit of the doubt. Since he called about something different the first time, I am not suspicious of ulterior motives. Also, he sent me some music as attachments, which is a skill too many “musicians” have not yet mastered. I’ll download his picture and give you a version of it shortly. You have already figured out that JP did not make it out here y’day. Too bad, the Internet rentals have already paid for over half the TV he sold me and the cash is sitting here.
nbsp; Which landed the packaging problem back Stateside. The marketing guy, Brian, and I have essentially told Ruth we would take a day off and pack at least the initial few thousand items here. Then he did something I truly have to admire, because I have no artistic eye – he noticed that the correct size of container matched a Chinese food take-out box. I threw my full support behind it as an idea that should be taken to its logical limits. A novel box for a novel product. At half the price. [Later, so you know, the PVC boxes were between 50 and 60 cents each, the takeout boxes are 28 cents.]
Then, the database produced a report that some of the items had been double-ordered. The impact was just under $1,000 but it shows a trap if I don’t close it up right away. It had to do with different sizes and prices appearing after the orders were placed. It is duly noted that this problem would have slipped right by, so it is thus the first “pure” problem solved by the database. That is a little misleading, because many other problems were warded off well in advance. The database is miles ahead of anything they have at the factory [in Indonesia]. The decision was to leave the [duplicate] orders as is to avoid any confusion.
Dickens called and he wants to get out of Dodge for the weekend. So I’ll be minding the store this Saturday. Good, I need a VCR and he’s got several. I mentioned the $98 security camera, since the higher priced items appearing on the racks have proven too tempting for some of our customers. Mind you, I have to hook up a computer early that same morning. Before I forget, some blonde babe on a cell-phone driving a brand new white Jag cut me off this morning. Yeah, I know what she looked like, but my point is that never happened to me when I lived in Hialeah.
Never get directions from Jay-Jay. He’ll tell you the ballpark is “next to the Sanitation Department”, like I came to town and memorized such locations. I got there after asking for directions four times, only to get reminded that the game is not any more entertaining to me than it was when I was eight. Ho-hum, although I guess it is exciting if you are the one person in the vicinity who hits a home-run. The rest of it, I never could identify with. Junior league baseball. Even the parents did not show.
So I went over to Archives, the used book coffee shop. Except it is not there any more. It has gone the way of all things in Florida that have any intellectual component. There is an antique furniture store in the premises. I went to Borders on Sunrise and spent a few hours browsing. Some religion group was holding a Bible reading in the Northwest corner. I said hello to two pretty gals but they were not quite responsive (or pretty) enough to press my case.
Before I forget, I’ve been getting regular responses from the “Sportsgoof”. This is the dude who does not strum guitar, but used to. That is probably good enough for me. I sent him the blurb and song list, with a plea to reconsider the offer. It was too obvious he felt he had to be an expert guitarist, when in fact too much guitar is a career-limiting move (CLM) around me. I even listened to KISS, a local radio channel with a steady diet of modern country music. Cannot tell the tunes apart, no matter how hard I try.
Sportsgoof sent me a picture, he looks like a slimmed down Eddie Albert [the bad actor from “Green Acres”]. Unlike the G, this one has a great sense of humor. He is also adaptable, another big difference. I place him at around 45, although he could be older than the picture. His choice of words shows education and he knows after 40, you only stay in this business if it is fun. The G does not even realize his musical career peaked long ago, and he is now circling the drain.
I’ll give Sportsgoof the benefit of the doubt. Since he called about something different the first time, I am not suspicious of ulterior motives. Also, he sent me some music as attachments, which is a skill too many “musicians” have not yet mastered. I’ll download his picture and give you a version of it shortly. You have already figured out that JP did not make it out here y’day. Too bad, the Internet rentals have already paid for over half the TV he sold me and the cash is sitting here.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
March 28, 2007
I was in the shop all day, and again the usual parade of people came in. That is not always good news, read on to see. A singer who plays guitar did drop by, we talked for twenty minutes, and decided to give it a whirl. She is a somewhat overweight 28 year old black girl. I fit flies, we’ll call ourselves the “Johnson Brothers”, separated at birth. I zipped over to the music store to pick up teaching aids (drumsticks) and check out the bulletin board.
This begins the process of scouting around the open mics. The Internet again proves useless, when even highly selective Boolean searches kept turning up dining clubs in Nebraska that charge an $18 admission fees. The Internet needs an indexing system, not more search engines. Of course, I know of at least one garbonzo that would fight that concept to the death. I finally zeroed in on clubs with a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday lineup, including the grand-daddy of local bars, Club M. (Aka “Club MT” as in “empty”.) It must be getting harder every year to find good-looking waitresses.
It is a further waste of time trying to read the web pages or call these places for the start times. They either don’t know or won’t say, but always want you to come in and find out for yourself. It is sickening the degree to which Florida carries on this behavior. Anyway, so that you won’t think I’m plugging Club M, I’ll tell you the background that justifies placing their business card in this great blog.
Club M refused to pay the G for a gig because he played too loud and annoyed the Thai restaurant next door. They finally went on Judge Judy up in New York and the ruling was for the G. He got paid. Of course, he attributes this to his legal skills and that justice has triumphed.
Want the skinny? Okay. I was in the club and he really was too loud, and had been warned several times to turn down. Further, all courts tend to favor the person who did the work, similar to a “Mechanic’s Lien”, and the G would not last a minute in a real courtroom. I’m actually surprised that Club M let it go that far, because the outcomes of these cases are quite predictable. Last, the G never did pay me my cut.
So I rode over to the club at 7:00 PM to look around. I discovered that the open mic does not start until 9:30 PM. See the scam? It explains why they suddenly forgot the time when I called three hours earlier. Florida is proof that dishonesty is the second best policy.
Who remembers Zeke? He was in today to do a Dr. Skrbc, who was also in today. The entire shop backs up when these two yahoos walk in. Zeke feels that he does not have to pay for Internet time if he arrives when I am not there. I corrected him on that plus the money he owed me from last year. Zeke is off the bottom [of the scale previously agreed upon] on that one.
Skrbc is another matter. This is the guy who will spend an hour trying to talk you into doing five minutes of work for him for free. He is constantly trying to get something for nothing, along the lines that we messed up a system that formerly worked fine for him. (Then why did he bring it in for repair?) It is simple, he does not have clue about computers and is trying to pin his ignorance on others. I told him if he brings the computer in and it works when we plug it in, he has to pay. Fred mentioned that he dreads when that Skrbc walks in the door, for Skrbc has often argued that we did not really fix it.
Luke, a new guy on the scene. He has designed a complicated spreadsheet that also doubles as an order form. Precisely the type of thing I don’t do and advise others not to do. Maintaining those sheets is a nightmare. It is practically impossible if they are also linked to VB (Visual Basic) code. Luke e-mailed me a link to Picasa, an application that organizes pictures for display on the Internet. I first saw it with Blogger but did not follow up.
Now I will look at Picasa, for I have 2,600 pictures ready for publishing. Except, I could not find the CD-R. It is around, not lost. In the process I did find the backup copies of all the journal entries for 2004 and 2005. There is one boatload of material there, folks. All in a more “documentary” style [than this], so expect a thousand new pages as soon as I have time to wade into that. I was still working for a living back in ’04.
By having time, I mean that the material has to be edited. The quantity is roughly one page per day, with an occasional gap where the backup copies didn’t “take”. I have to edit out the real names, but yes, beyond that you would, if you so desired, be able to go back through it and find most of the threads that lead up to current issues. The records were cataloged by weeks, another thing I’ll have to change. What was I thinking?
The drumsticks cost me $25.00.
This begins the process of scouting around the open mics. The Internet again proves useless, when even highly selective Boolean searches kept turning up dining clubs in Nebraska that charge an $18 admission fees. The Internet needs an indexing system, not more search engines. Of course, I know of at least one garbonzo that would fight that concept to the death. I finally zeroed in on clubs with a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday lineup, including the grand-daddy of local bars, Club M. (Aka “Club MT” as in “empty”.) It must be getting harder every year to find good-looking waitresses.It is a further waste of time trying to read the web pages or call these places for the start times. They either don’t know or won’t say, but always want you to come in and find out for yourself. It is sickening the degree to which Florida carries on this behavior. Anyway, so that you won’t think I’m plugging Club M, I’ll tell you the background that justifies placing their business card in this great blog.
Club M refused to pay the G for a gig because he played too loud and annoyed the Thai restaurant next door. They finally went on Judge Judy up in New York and the ruling was for the G. He got paid. Of course, he attributes this to his legal skills and that justice has triumphed.
Want the skinny? Okay. I was in the club and he really was too loud, and had been warned several times to turn down. Further, all courts tend to favor the person who did the work, similar to a “Mechanic’s Lien”, and the G would not last a minute in a real courtroom. I’m actually surprised that Club M let it go that far, because the outcomes of these cases are quite predictable. Last, the G never did pay me my cut.
So I rode over to the club at 7:00 PM to look around. I discovered that the open mic does not start until 9:30 PM. See the scam? It explains why they suddenly forgot the time when I called three hours earlier. Florida is proof that dishonesty is the second best policy.
Who remembers Zeke? He was in today to do a Dr. Skrbc, who was also in today. The entire shop backs up when these two yahoos walk in. Zeke feels that he does not have to pay for Internet time if he arrives when I am not there. I corrected him on that plus the money he owed me from last year. Zeke is off the bottom [of the scale previously agreed upon] on that one.
Skrbc is another matter. This is the guy who will spend an hour trying to talk you into doing five minutes of work for him for free. He is constantly trying to get something for nothing, along the lines that we messed up a system that formerly worked fine for him. (Then why did he bring it in for repair?) It is simple, he does not have clue about computers and is trying to pin his ignorance on others. I told him if he brings the computer in and it works when we plug it in, he has to pay. Fred mentioned that he dreads when that Skrbc walks in the door, for Skrbc has often argued that we did not really fix it.
Luke, a new guy on the scene. He has designed a complicated spreadsheet that also doubles as an order form. Precisely the type of thing I don’t do and advise others not to do. Maintaining those sheets is a nightmare. It is practically impossible if they are also linked to VB (Visual Basic) code. Luke e-mailed me a link to Picasa, an application that organizes pictures for display on the Internet. I first saw it with Blogger but did not follow up.
Now I will look at Picasa, for I have 2,600 pictures ready for publishing. Except, I could not find the CD-R. It is around, not lost. In the process I did find the backup copies of all the journal entries for 2004 and 2005. There is one boatload of material there, folks. All in a more “documentary” style [than this], so expect a thousand new pages as soon as I have time to wade into that. I was still working for a living back in ’04.
By having time, I mean that the material has to be edited. The quantity is roughly one page per day, with an occasional gap where the backup copies didn’t “take”. I have to edit out the real names, but yes, beyond that you would, if you so desired, be able to go back through it and find most of the threads that lead up to current issues. The records were cataloged by weeks, another thing I’ll have to change. What was I thinking?
The drumsticks cost me $25.00.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
March 27, 2007
In the useless skills department, I report that I can now tell dogs wigs apart. Most of the time, anyway. I finally insisted that an inventory had to be done of things besides what we had on file, for example the only difference between some of the wigs is the type of chin strap. Take a peek at this exclusive shot of a doggie wig storeroom and remember, you saw it here first.
Jim, the chiropractor, called. He wants lessons and he has a group of six people together. We meet at his house as soon as he confirms the day. He also says that he wants to join in the lessons, which I suppose is okay. Believe it or not, adults learn much faster than children, and barring civil servants, generally have longer attention spans.
He is associated with the school board. I’ve already figured out this is the pilot case, so I quoted him my 1993 figure of $75 per hour. Group classes tend to move a lot slower and I pair them off depending on ability, so I can work with that. To teach formally, the price is $120,000 per school year. That’s eight months, folks. Oh, and I don’t do meetings.
That reminds me of the G. He recognized he does not stand a chance and pretended he “quit” posting his lame rebuttals. The crew tells me that he was bluffing when he said he knew who we were. I can explain that. The crew assumes everybody is stupid, while I only assume they are stupider than I am. According to them, it is entirely possible that the G really has no idea how to trace identities on CL. Is anybody that stupid? That would mean that all along, he really did not know it was us, and dug himself in too deep.
Good, one day I’ll tell the G that I make three times as much per hour teaching music that he does. The guy honestly thinks he is some kind of expert on the topic. Of course, I let him think it so long he likely considers it fact. Anyway, I’m gearing up for the group lesson in a week, so I’m canceling other lessons until that time. Get me in with that school board and I’ll move to Boca Raton.
Jay-Jay also called. We may get out to a ball game on Thursday. I have not even seen one in probably thirty years. The weather report is more exciting. He needs a ride and I can use the break. It is also school board activity, so who knows? It is up in Ft. Lauderdale, on Oakland Park Blvd. That means I put new tires on the soon, if not tomorrow. Hey, to me even that is more exciting than most sports.
The cat is driving me crazy. Do female cats get “that way”? She is 100% healthy, frisky and well-fed. But some kind of weird nature is in progress that I do not understand, except that I know it is Spring. No way am I letting her out the door for even a moment acting like she is. Strutting around with everything up in the air, meowing like crazy. I sure hope Steve didn’t get five years or something.
This doing business half-way around the world is still not as automated as the free trade talk would have us believe. There are many delays and barriers besides the sheer obstacles of language and tradition. A chunk of today had to be focused on the definitional differences between small, medium and large. As predicted, we have a database and the factory does not. When I scan the meta-information, I see that we have maintained a 100% level of replies and every file we have is up to date.
The people overseas are falling behind. They have just begun to realize that sending us an email with a complicated question does not buy them any time. Not that this is wrong, in fact, it is normal. It is just that the tactic will not work in this case. An example of potentially bad divergence was the sizes, for the terms are relative.
I hauled out the majority of the counter-samples and measured. Small is now defined as 5,0 cm or less, and so on. No, that is not a typo, MS. Asia uses a decimal comma. Left alone, the medium size of one model could have been the same size as the large of another. Remind me to find a metric ruler since nobody else seems to understand the conversion formulas.
There are also strange delays over ways of communicating. We do get, as just said, the odd question that has an element of stalling in it. Instead, they get more information than requested. This is intentional. I once sent them a 14 column report to show how and why we had reached a specific figure. No such exactitudes come back this way. Another thing I’ve learned is that they will often assume telling you something means you will automatically do the next thing in sequence.
This is not to imply if you don’t do it, you don’t know how, but the effect is there. We don’t do it because telling me something is just and only that. Action is different, and if I’m not paid to take the action, I need authorization. The operation is overall quite smooth considering these type of factors. I reported to the boss that we were on or slightly ahead of schedule in all departments. I might add that she was in her prime with at least five things going on at once all day. I tend to arrange things to be the opposite, but Ruth plainly thrives on deadlines and the busy hum of headquarters.
Jim, the chiropractor, called. He wants lessons and he has a group of six people together. We meet at his house as soon as he confirms the day. He also says that he wants to join in the lessons, which I suppose is okay. Believe it or not, adults learn much faster than children, and barring civil servants, generally have longer attention spans.He is associated with the school board. I’ve already figured out this is the pilot case, so I quoted him my 1993 figure of $75 per hour. Group classes tend to move a lot slower and I pair them off depending on ability, so I can work with that. To teach formally, the price is $120,000 per school year. That’s eight months, folks. Oh, and I don’t do meetings.
That reminds me of the G. He recognized he does not stand a chance and pretended he “quit” posting his lame rebuttals. The crew tells me that he was bluffing when he said he knew who we were. I can explain that. The crew assumes everybody is stupid, while I only assume they are stupider than I am. According to them, it is entirely possible that the G really has no idea how to trace identities on CL. Is anybody that stupid? That would mean that all along, he really did not know it was us, and dug himself in too deep.
Good, one day I’ll tell the G that I make three times as much per hour teaching music that he does. The guy honestly thinks he is some kind of expert on the topic. Of course, I let him think it so long he likely considers it fact. Anyway, I’m gearing up for the group lesson in a week, so I’m canceling other lessons until that time. Get me in with that school board and I’ll move to Boca Raton.
Jay-Jay also called. We may get out to a ball game on Thursday. I have not even seen one in probably thirty years. The weather report is more exciting. He needs a ride and I can use the break. It is also school board activity, so who knows? It is up in Ft. Lauderdale, on Oakland Park Blvd. That means I put new tires on the soon, if not tomorrow. Hey, to me even that is more exciting than most sports.
The cat is driving me crazy. Do female cats get “that way”? She is 100% healthy, frisky and well-fed. But some kind of weird nature is in progress that I do not understand, except that I know it is Spring. No way am I letting her out the door for even a moment acting like she is. Strutting around with everything up in the air, meowing like crazy. I sure hope Steve didn’t get five years or something.
This doing business half-way around the world is still not as automated as the free trade talk would have us believe. There are many delays and barriers besides the sheer obstacles of language and tradition. A chunk of today had to be focused on the definitional differences between small, medium and large. As predicted, we have a database and the factory does not. When I scan the meta-information, I see that we have maintained a 100% level of replies and every file we have is up to date.
The people overseas are falling behind. They have just begun to realize that sending us an email with a complicated question does not buy them any time. Not that this is wrong, in fact, it is normal. It is just that the tactic will not work in this case. An example of potentially bad divergence was the sizes, for the terms are relative.
I hauled out the majority of the counter-samples and measured. Small is now defined as 5,0 cm or less, and so on. No, that is not a typo, MS. Asia uses a decimal comma. Left alone, the medium size of one model could have been the same size as the large of another. Remind me to find a metric ruler since nobody else seems to understand the conversion formulas.
There are also strange delays over ways of communicating. We do get, as just said, the odd question that has an element of stalling in it. Instead, they get more information than requested. This is intentional. I once sent them a 14 column report to show how and why we had reached a specific figure. No such exactitudes come back this way. Another thing I’ve learned is that they will often assume telling you something means you will automatically do the next thing in sequence.
This is not to imply if you don’t do it, you don’t know how, but the effect is there. We don’t do it because telling me something is just and only that. Action is different, and if I’m not paid to take the action, I need authorization. The operation is overall quite smooth considering these type of factors. I reported to the boss that we were on or slightly ahead of schedule in all departments. I might add that she was in her prime with at least five things going on at once all day. I tend to arrange things to be the opposite, but Ruth plainly thrives on deadlines and the busy hum of headquarters.
Monday, March 26, 2007
March 26, 2007
Ha, Florida, the moron State. Here is a picture of the Miami-Dade County Fair attended y’day. The remarkable thing about this entryway was how it reflects the attitudes and aptitudes of the local people. This was the start of an 800 person lineup. Nothing odd about that, it was for the free Circus. Then, enter the Miami Mentality.
You see, the Circus gate was closed. All the seats were taken. So they had four Miami types standing there with the gate roped off. All four of them with their bright red Miami-Dade Fair short-sleeve shirts. Staring at that 800 person lineup. As each small group approached the rope, they would make them wait a while and then whisper that the Circus was full.
Now, it takes more than one Miami type to really be anal. Each of these groups would grimace, then walk away. They had to wait in line uselessly, so all the others should have to as well. I was near the front, and as soon as this happened to me, I walked down the entire line yelling that the Circus was full, please come back for the next show in two hours.
The four Miami Morons stood there in stunned disbelief, like I had just taken away their jobs. More than a dozen people gave all four the finger, one with both hands. The four had looks of disbelief on their faces for they could not see any connection as to why all those people were angry. How rude! Could it have something to do with standing in the Miami sunshine for a half-hour for nothing?
Back to the singer problem, well not a problem as I could find a singer any time. It is finding a singer who will strum. Same thing on the west coast, so I will solve it the same way. Out here they call a jam session an “open mic”, which where I’m from is connotative of stand-up comedy. I’ve combed these places before, just not in this part of the world. It takes a lot of time, and you kind of get ripped off on drinks. It is still cheaper than wasting time with non-starters.
It makes sense to call it an open mic, I guess, because the house band does not play with the newbie, and in fact often gets off the stage and walks away. To me, this strongly discourages many people from getting up there – instead you get the almost good and the pretty bad. Then, since the guest [or whatever they call them here] rarely brings charts and music for the other musicians, he is really on his own. Yes, I know that all of these add up to one bad scene that could be fixed if each person was just a little less lazy, but then it would not be Florida.
I just had the most interesting chat with Cowboy Mike (not to be confused with Cowboy Jeff). This is the man that The G claims ripped him off for a $400 PA system. The other side of the story is that it was only $250. Of which $200 changed hands when the G said the PA did not work and refused to pay the last $50. That makes more sense.
Now the G is doubly stupid, because first of all he has not figured out the computer postings were a lampoon, and secondly, he may lose me as the only friend he’s ever really had, at least in the seven years I’ve known him.
Sure, he’s got the Small Man Sickness, but I never thought he’d pull that act on me. He did. Threatened to come over here with a gang and something or other. That’s because he’s too short to do anything on his own. Did I tell you the little bastard was only 5 foot 4? No? Well, then I won’t because he is so embarrassed about it. That and the fact that he has no gang. Who’d let him join? And what for?
Anyway, the plan is to tour the open mics in the area, starting later this week. I cannot recall the name of the local paper that advertises these events. First to the music store, then I’m going out for coffee. This day was excellent bicycle weather, if a tad windy. In case I don’t get back until late, I report I can now pick the cat up and pat her. It is a female, so she stays in the house 24/7. It is still a strange cat that now lives under my swivel chair and meows at me. Her ribs don’t show any more, and her fur is shiny.
How was business? Interesting. One client wound up in the hospital over a car accident and the other needed by help to download an email attachment. It was a movie file, of all things, a Jewish baby being circumcised. You cannot stop parents from thinking everyone else is as interested in their kids as they are. However, this video was just rockin’. They had made a story to the tune of, I forget already, it was some ancient tune like the G would play. The point is, it was very well made.
Beware that in the State of Florida, you can be jailed up to sixty days for burning railway ties without a permit. However, it is not illegal to waste people’s time at a Fair.
You see, the Circus gate was closed. All the seats were taken. So they had four Miami types standing there with the gate roped off. All four of them with their bright red Miami-Dade Fair short-sleeve shirts. Staring at that 800 person lineup. As each small group approached the rope, they would make them wait a while and then whisper that the Circus was full.
Now, it takes more than one Miami type to really be anal. Each of these groups would grimace, then walk away. They had to wait in line uselessly, so all the others should have to as well. I was near the front, and as soon as this happened to me, I walked down the entire line yelling that the Circus was full, please come back for the next show in two hours.
The four Miami Morons stood there in stunned disbelief, like I had just taken away their jobs. More than a dozen people gave all four the finger, one with both hands. The four had looks of disbelief on their faces for they could not see any connection as to why all those people were angry. How rude! Could it have something to do with standing in the Miami sunshine for a half-hour for nothing?
Back to the singer problem, well not a problem as I could find a singer any time. It is finding a singer who will strum. Same thing on the west coast, so I will solve it the same way. Out here they call a jam session an “open mic”, which where I’m from is connotative of stand-up comedy. I’ve combed these places before, just not in this part of the world. It takes a lot of time, and you kind of get ripped off on drinks. It is still cheaper than wasting time with non-starters.
It makes sense to call it an open mic, I guess, because the house band does not play with the newbie, and in fact often gets off the stage and walks away. To me, this strongly discourages many people from getting up there – instead you get the almost good and the pretty bad. Then, since the guest [or whatever they call them here] rarely brings charts and music for the other musicians, he is really on his own. Yes, I know that all of these add up to one bad scene that could be fixed if each person was just a little less lazy, but then it would not be Florida.
I just had the most interesting chat with Cowboy Mike (not to be confused with Cowboy Jeff). This is the man that The G claims ripped him off for a $400 PA system. The other side of the story is that it was only $250. Of which $200 changed hands when the G said the PA did not work and refused to pay the last $50. That makes more sense.
Now the G is doubly stupid, because first of all he has not figured out the computer postings were a lampoon, and secondly, he may lose me as the only friend he’s ever really had, at least in the seven years I’ve known him.
Sure, he’s got the Small Man Sickness, but I never thought he’d pull that act on me. He did. Threatened to come over here with a gang and something or other. That’s because he’s too short to do anything on his own. Did I tell you the little bastard was only 5 foot 4? No? Well, then I won’t because he is so embarrassed about it. That and the fact that he has no gang. Who’d let him join? And what for?
Anyway, the plan is to tour the open mics in the area, starting later this week. I cannot recall the name of the local paper that advertises these events. First to the music store, then I’m going out for coffee. This day was excellent bicycle weather, if a tad windy. In case I don’t get back until late, I report I can now pick the cat up and pat her. It is a female, so she stays in the house 24/7. It is still a strange cat that now lives under my swivel chair and meows at me. Her ribs don’t show any more, and her fur is shiny.
How was business? Interesting. One client wound up in the hospital over a car accident and the other needed by help to download an email attachment. It was a movie file, of all things, a Jewish baby being circumcised. You cannot stop parents from thinking everyone else is as interested in their kids as they are. However, this video was just rockin’. They had made a story to the tune of, I forget already, it was some ancient tune like the G would play. The point is, it was very well made.
Beware that in the State of Florida, you can be jailed up to sixty days for burning railway ties without a permit. However, it is not illegal to waste people’s time at a Fair.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
March 25, 2007
JP and I went to the Youth Fair, a nearly annual tradition for us. Not much longer, though, since it has become nearly monotonous. Except for the free shows, such as a musician doing the standards, and this year we were smart enough to smuggle in some real food for the animals. JP nearly started a stampede. The goats get a steady diet of that corn matter in the fifty-pound sacks. So they go wild for ordinary peanuts.
The Fair is dying in degrees. We didn’t even bother driving over there until after a huge breakfast (JP is an excellent cook, so it was spinach omelets with pork steaks, I guess you’d call them. We usually watch movies on his big screen, but the one we had talked about is not in the rental outlets yet. “300”, which is the tale of the Battle of Thermopylae in what, 26 AD, I don’t remember. Or was that Marathon? To me, ancient Greek battles are as confusing as ancient Greek battles.
Thus we decided on the Fair. The exhibit hall seemed to contain more ribbons and awards than there were kids to give them to. I insisted on the walk through the art gallery, where there is often surprising talent, although we’ve long since spotted the patterns to what is good. Maybe the kids all have the same art teacher?
Anything new? No, I can’t say there was. The crowd was not there. You know what happens to Fairs when they lose their clientele. The high prices were there, a small diet soda was $3.00. Even though JP has learned my lessons about having fun for less, we still spent $50 between us. I had a corn dog. Imagine the cost of a stroll down that Midway with the wife and three kids. There was one booth called “Water Wars” in which kids launch small water balloons at each other.
The two twelve-year-old girls were plastering the nine-year-old girls. I stopped the younger ones momentarily and showed them how to heave backward on the launchers with their whole weight rather than try to pull, that is, to use gravity instead of muscle. Wham! They plastered the competition, to the roar of the crowd, who had seen the one-sided battle turned around. See, I told you that Physics degree would come in handy.
There were many, if not too many, vendors with booths set up in the exhibit area. One was the recently mentioned foam rubber “memory mattress”. You can see JP flaked out on one. I was right, it costs $2,000. It was on sale for $1,500. With permission, we hefted up one end to determine it is really no heavier than an ordinary mattress of the same size.
We saw an excellent skating show, although that could be because we stayed inside the tent where it was cooled by the artificial ice. It was a little warm, exacerbated by that strange Florida reluctance to provide any shade or places to sit. It was quite difficult to find a cup of coffee. One show, called “Visions” was so stale we walked out. It was some touring ballet or modern dance group doing some weird interpretation stuff. Dancing flowers and a singing fairy on twenty-foot stilts.
We missed the circus by a few minutes. It is the same outfit as the last two years, so we didn’t worry about it. Instead, we piled in his truck and picked up some shrimp and liverwurst, and headed over to his place. Another bad plan, because despite his cable hookup, there was not one interesting show on the television. So I used his dial-up modem to surf the Internet.
Yes, I found out something new. Samuel Morse, the telegraph guy, cleverly decided to assign the shortest codes to the most frequently used letters [of the alphabet]. This was not easy to do in the pre-codebreaking and computer days. So he went to the newspaper office where the typesetters worked, and looked into the cases where they kept the letters. He correctly figured that supply and demand applied here, and thus the letter E has the shortest Morse code, and so forth. Look at the length of Q and Z.
Next in line, is the reason why we call “big” letters (capitals) and “small” letters by the different terms of “upper case” and “lower case”. Although Morse code does not have these “cases”, the name is derived from the arrangement of the typesetters bins, or cases. As you have surmised, the capital letters were in the upper cases.
Last, you may recall how the inner circle has been toying with the idea of blacklisting local “musicians” who are way off track with their priorities. It turns out quite a few of our people have had their time wasted by the same dozen or so peckerheads who answer every ad, seemingly regardless of what is asked for. These goofs seem to have pulled virtually the identical stunt on every person they have “auditioned” with.
This is well-documented here, including the “Mustang Sally” jerk, another guy who tries to guess chord changes by watching you, and the jackasses who don’t learn anything on your song list. Don’t underestimate that last item, not every one by any means is computer literate and can fire off a list quick and dirty. Alas, trying to sound out the bad apples is tough because the chronics are pretty slick bastards. You have to meet up with them, which costs time and money.
There was one particularly ignorant poster who was screaming “Nazi” and other paranoid terms about the [proposed] list. I was asked to take a look, and within moments I spotted that is was none other than the G. The lion is known by his claw. That man cannot spell, has one simple sentence structure in both his speech and writing, and of course, is against any type of organization because he fancies himself able to dodge anything in a random system.
I sent him a note hinting he should back off, he is way out of his league trying to appear logical to us. He flew into yet another of his bizarre rages. So I sent another note that I disputed his claim to have a college degree, pointing out that he really has no sense of rhythm, and has inordinate difficulties learning new material. He reciprocates that I should learn some “Hendrix, Eagles, Clapton” and basically other material where he can grandstand on stage instead of giving the other musicians a chance to work. The G is not getting the hint that he is not wanted on the musician’s list.
The G makes less money playing music than any other working musician I know. He is also extremely sensitive to the fact that his IQ is around ten points lower than mine, and that no amount of musical talent will ever close that gap. So I posted a listing that will really get his goat – it revealed how he is on the shit list for pretending to form a band, when in reality (and this was first pointed out here nearly five years ago) he is selling guitar lessons. He also has a nasty trick of inviting musicians to play, but when you show up at the appointed time, you find he is already doing a solo.
It turns out he has been faking people with this for years, for he uses you to pretend to the club owner that he has a following. It fools no-one. That is precisely the type of time-wasting that has nothing to do with music, and which we are considering documenting.
Meanwhile, a newcomer called “sportsgoof” has been responding to my own ad for a vocalist/guitarist. He says he barely strums although he is willing to try it again. He understands when I mean an amateur band, I don’t mean lousy music. I will follow that up this week.
The Fair is dying in degrees. We didn’t even bother driving over there until after a huge breakfast (JP is an excellent cook, so it was spinach omelets with pork steaks, I guess you’d call them. We usually watch movies on his big screen, but the one we had talked about is not in the rental outlets yet. “300”, which is the tale of the Battle of Thermopylae in what, 26 AD, I don’t remember. Or was that Marathon? To me, ancient Greek battles are as confusing as ancient Greek battles.Thus we decided on the Fair. The exhibit hall seemed to contain more ribbons and awards than there were kids to give them to. I insisted on the walk through the art gallery, where there is often surprising talent, although we’ve long since spotted the patterns to what is good. Maybe the kids all have the same art teacher?
Anything new? No, I can’t say there was. The crowd was not there. You know what happens to Fairs when they lose their clientele. The high prices were there, a small diet soda was $3.00. Even though JP has learned my lessons about having fun for less, we still spent $50 between us. I had a corn dog. Imagine the cost of a stroll down that Midway with the wife and three kids. There was one booth called “Water Wars” in which kids launch small water balloons at each other.
The two twelve-year-old girls were plastering the nine-year-old girls. I stopped the younger ones momentarily and showed them how to heave backward on the launchers with their whole weight rather than try to pull, that is, to use gravity instead of muscle. Wham! They plastered the competition, to the roar of the crowd, who had seen the one-sided battle turned around. See, I told you that Physics degree would come in handy.
There were many, if not too many, vendors with booths set up in the exhibit area. One was the recently mentioned foam rubber “memory mattress”. You can see JP flaked out on one. I was right, it costs $2,000. It was on sale for $1,500. With permission, we hefted up one end to determine it is really no heavier than an ordinary mattress of the same size.
We saw an excellent skating show, although that could be because we stayed inside the tent where it was cooled by the artificial ice. It was a little warm, exacerbated by that strange Florida reluctance to provide any shade or places to sit. It was quite difficult to find a cup of coffee. One show, called “Visions” was so stale we walked out. It was some touring ballet or modern dance group doing some weird interpretation stuff. Dancing flowers and a singing fairy on twenty-foot stilts.
We missed the circus by a few minutes. It is the same outfit as the last two years, so we didn’t worry about it. Instead, we piled in his truck and picked up some shrimp and liverwurst, and headed over to his place. Another bad plan, because despite his cable hookup, there was not one interesting show on the television. So I used his dial-up modem to surf the Internet.
Yes, I found out something new. Samuel Morse, the telegraph guy, cleverly decided to assign the shortest codes to the most frequently used letters [of the alphabet]. This was not easy to do in the pre-codebreaking and computer days. So he went to the newspaper office where the typesetters worked, and looked into the cases where they kept the letters. He correctly figured that supply and demand applied here, and thus the letter E has the shortest Morse code, and so forth. Look at the length of Q and Z.
Next in line, is the reason why we call “big” letters (capitals) and “small” letters by the different terms of “upper case” and “lower case”. Although Morse code does not have these “cases”, the name is derived from the arrangement of the typesetters bins, or cases. As you have surmised, the capital letters were in the upper cases.
Last, you may recall how the inner circle has been toying with the idea of blacklisting local “musicians” who are way off track with their priorities. It turns out quite a few of our people have had their time wasted by the same dozen or so peckerheads who answer every ad, seemingly regardless of what is asked for. These goofs seem to have pulled virtually the identical stunt on every person they have “auditioned” with.
This is well-documented here, including the “Mustang Sally” jerk, another guy who tries to guess chord changes by watching you, and the jackasses who don’t learn anything on your song list. Don’t underestimate that last item, not every one by any means is computer literate and can fire off a list quick and dirty. Alas, trying to sound out the bad apples is tough because the chronics are pretty slick bastards. You have to meet up with them, which costs time and money.
There was one particularly ignorant poster who was screaming “Nazi” and other paranoid terms about the [proposed] list. I was asked to take a look, and within moments I spotted that is was none other than the G. The lion is known by his claw. That man cannot spell, has one simple sentence structure in both his speech and writing, and of course, is against any type of organization because he fancies himself able to dodge anything in a random system.
I sent him a note hinting he should back off, he is way out of his league trying to appear logical to us. He flew into yet another of his bizarre rages. So I sent another note that I disputed his claim to have a college degree, pointing out that he really has no sense of rhythm, and has inordinate difficulties learning new material. He reciprocates that I should learn some “Hendrix, Eagles, Clapton” and basically other material where he can grandstand on stage instead of giving the other musicians a chance to work. The G is not getting the hint that he is not wanted on the musician’s list.
The G makes less money playing music than any other working musician I know. He is also extremely sensitive to the fact that his IQ is around ten points lower than mine, and that no amount of musical talent will ever close that gap. So I posted a listing that will really get his goat – it revealed how he is on the shit list for pretending to form a band, when in reality (and this was first pointed out here nearly five years ago) he is selling guitar lessons. He also has a nasty trick of inviting musicians to play, but when you show up at the appointed time, you find he is already doing a solo.
It turns out he has been faking people with this for years, for he uses you to pretend to the club owner that he has a following. It fools no-one. That is precisely the type of time-wasting that has nothing to do with music, and which we are considering documenting.
Meanwhile, a newcomer called “sportsgoof” has been responding to my own ad for a vocalist/guitarist. He says he barely strums although he is willing to try it again. He understands when I mean an amateur band, I don’t mean lousy music. I will follow that up this week.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
March 24, 2007
Remember when you bought a bag of apples? How many were in the bag? You didn’t count, a bag was a bag. Even when you bought apples by the pound, you could always weigh the bags and buy the heaviest one, but you never thought about how many apples were there. Take a look at what some “efficiency expert” has come up with. A dozen apples, like you would buy eggs. Exactly twelve and no more.
This had an extremely important side-effect, no pun intended. Many consumers perceived the individually wrapped pills to be more valuable. They could pay the same price for twelve pills on a card as for 100 of the same pills in a bottle. It did not take long before even the cheapest ASA and cold medicines cost 8 times as much.
I do not view this as progress or as anything new. Anyone at any time could have come up with the plan, but it was understood that nobody would stoop that low. This is one instance where I do blame the schools for not teaching values [where elsewhere I think schools should be prevented from doing so]. I was taught that efficiency was an increase in productivity using fewer inputs, these low-grade mentalities have resorted to counting the apples in your bag.
Trouble in Toshiba-land. We have begun getting a stream of brand new Toshiba laptops into the shop. Don’t look to me for sympathy, I’ve been warning people against Vista for over a year. It turns out the motherboard architecture has been modified to only work with Vista. How many times do I have to tell you Sony, Toshiba and MicroSoft are in bed together? The laptops run super slow, even with 2 gigs of RAM, so you’d think that the solution is to revert to Win XP, which just screams with that much memory.
But it clobbers your sound, and there is no compatible driver, fix or workaround. A quick glance shows 1500+ people nationwide having the same problem. No sound. One poor sap was told by Toshiba help-desk that he “should have bought an XP”. (See http://techrepublic.com for details.) You could always use the Toshiba laptop to hang your socks out to dry, I suppose. It gets hot enough.
Please, let this be the long-awaited incident that brings these irresponsible corporations to their knees. Let somebody else take over. Somebody with brains, mind you, not an apple-counter.
After work, I biked around town and put up a singer-wanted ad in some of the more likely locations, including Trader John’s. I went next door for a coffee, and the youngest waitress, maybe 25, took an immediate shine to me. She’s young, immature, snot-ring, and tattoo. I had to chuckle because it was electric and I felt it too. I finished my coffee and left, but not before she gave me a shoulder rub and informed me of the hours she would be there in the next few days. Sure, okay.
I’ve got the new PA here, but still no speakers. I’m going to scrounge for some before I shell out. If not, I’ve gotten great sound out of mediocre speakers using a good PA. Even Radio Shack speakers work fine if you know what you are up to. I ran a few notes through my Ampeg and the sound is crystal clear. The brand is “Gigrac”, model 600. I am again attracted to the idea of MIDI, although it seems to me that rhythm guitar is something it still cannot do right. For now, I’m tweaking the knobs on my Gigrac 600.
The better features include tone knobs that work by boosting or filtering rather than changing the tone. I had considerable doubts about a non-stereo system (this is mono), but in the end decided the difference in sound quality was not worth the extra $150. The Fender 250 I looked at was just $250 more, roughly what I’ll spend on speakers, but I dislike “matching” sets. Give me component PA every time.
There is a mighty breeze coming off the Atlantic. Closest thing to a storm so far this year. I’m going to chance reading in the swivel chair, so if you don’t hear from me until tomorrow, you’ll know what happened. For those still curious, there is absolutely no difference between the taste of Coke and Pepsi whatsoever. They are identical. And I can prove it. Those who think they can tell the difference are fit only to count apples. Apple-counters, get it?
Before I forget, I made up an MP3 of hit tunes without lead breaks and gave it to the salesman at the music store. It was a mini or pocket CD-R. Seems to have been an instant hit. This, after I had traded a few harsh words with the manager over the pricing the salesman had given me. He went Canadian on me there for a while, saying he “had no proof” I had been offered 5% off. When I turned to walk out, he said he did not mean it personally. I informed him that was not so, since we were the only two people in the room. He relented, and I now have the PA for said price.
Then, for excitement, I cleaned up my Florida room. See what happens to old musicians who don’t have a band? I’d give anything to be out there playing tonight, any crowd would do, any music would do.
Return Home
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Friday, March 23, 2007
March 23, 2007
I spent the day in the shop, amidst the usual jokes on how busy it gets while I’m there. I assure you it is totally co-incidence. I go there so randomly there is no other explanation. Still, it seems to happen. I have decided to get the PA head (amplifier) without the speakers.
It was a nice outfit, that PA 150 [[of his], but this would mean he got himself (just) two and a half year’s service before blowing a speaker. Even I won’t try to replace (repair) Fender components if you gave them to me free. The new head says engineered and designed in the UK but “produced to perfection in the People’s Republic of China”. Obviously we capitalists don’t mind others paying the same dues all over again, I mean, aren’t all Communists necessarily union members? Am I a jerk?
Deanne, no matter how I have spelled it before, is worried about CD burning. Like many, she does not understand that many different formats can be burned. While I like Nero, and Nero Express, I’ve been tempted to write to that company and explain how so few people understand exactly what the hell their “Benchmark CD-DVD Speed” feature actually does. It is undoubtedly important, but nobody knows what it means, what it does, or why it is important enough that any of us would bother.
The Holiday Bowling Lanes just explained themselves out of probably the only thing that could possibly bring back, in the short run, the crowd they lost. It was bureaucratic, sure, but regardless of what the local manager said, the decision of the so-called professional group said:
No “French” music
Play until 1:00 AM
No Guarantee
There was also a minor exchange with the management (a meaningless title) that says they basically want somebody to play for free until business picks up. Worse, business is re-defined as the total business the bar does including the bowling and restaurant next door, duh. I just picked the wrong lounge, that’s all, I must need a little more experience how to tell a saloon from a bowling alley. How could I have been so stupid for so long?
Interestingly, I talked to the manager’s bartender-daughter, hoping to get an inside angle. Not when she is too stupid to string two coherent sentences together. I pointed out the bar was “dead” based on the fact that I have personally looked in every night of the previous two weeks. Last Saturday, there was one drunk in there, and he tried [unsuccessfully] to sponge twenty bucks off me. Yet the daughter called me a liar, saying the bar was busy all night. Based not on extra bar sales, but the overall income from other sales. Slap my forehead, I thought they wanted a band in the bar.
Also, I had proposed the French band play there for three weeks. The premise was that if they worked out, we had something in reserve for the Fall, if not, they would be gone in no time. I must report that this simple concept was vastly too complicated for the Holiday Bowling Center, or any of the family members employed therein. You might as well have been talking to a troop of chimpanzees. Way, way, way, way out of their brain league.
So, I told the G he might be interested. If so, it would not be the first time two such parties have connected in South Florida. Do tell how they agree on the money part, because it is such pure coincidence that the G always wants exactly the amount they can’t muster up: $50 per night. Either way, they know what they can do with their surplus bowling pins. It would be malicious to call them inbred hayseeds, so I won’t.
It is not lost to me, I say, that a few days back when there was a sense of urgency to this, the G still insisted on doing solos and originals rather than work as a team. I must remember to return that favor. He still thinks the “musician” part is better than the “get work” part, a sure sign he is still getting free money from somewhere. He is a solid member of that Florida club that thinks they can rope you in and then redefine the parameters as things go along.
Jay-Jay called. This man is a mystery. He knows every homeless shelter in most of the lower 48, but yet he plainly knows a thing or two about selling radio advertising. In one of those dumb decisions in life, I’ve decided to simply front him $40 cash. Not a loan, just hand over the bucks. He has a big mouth, and that might be handy in this economy. Especially since I found out that a top-notch piano teacher gets $65 an hour.
I stopped by to see Johnny, a guitarist with not too many teeth. He is bartending, or helping out at the bar called “The Wiley Street Pub”. I was wearing sunglasses when I arrived, so the waitress immediately grabbed them an put them on. Oh, she says, they are smudged. So she puts them through the beer glass cleaner. Wow, they came out like brand new. She says it is a sanitizer. That is great, I like women to sanitize things before I use them, at least momentarily before I get there.
Return Home
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Thursday, March 22, 2007
March 22, 2007
Goh-yud Dah-yum, I was busy now. I logged onto Craigslist and I’m 99% certainly think my adversary is “The G”. I wrote a short missive that I had received 34 warnings about losers who infest the site, and casually mentioned I believed I knew nine of them [so far]. Suddenly I get barrages and salvoes of hate-mail. All with the identical spelling and grammar errors. You decide.
To help you do so, let me point out that my “opponent” was instantly infuriated by my [published] suggestion that some standards be applied [a blacklist]. I was stunned by the malice of the replies, but quickly noticed all was from the same source. It seems to me a smaller group than I thought may be responsible for the majority grief on the musician’s lists. Who else would so vehemently oppose even basic standards?
So I came home early and clicked on the TV. Soon, I had to click it right back off. I see there is no microwave popcorn in my pantry. How do I ever expect to get laid in this County? I put on the coffee and some rice, and got to thinking about the band. I play bass, but you know, I can also kind of pace through the rhythm parts. In fact, I have often done so to learn the bass lines, and to teach students. I need to rethink this through.
To relax and be unfettered by intellect, I put on Hemmingway’s “Kilimanjaro”, from back when producers obviously [and erroneously] figured good authors produced good footage. Talent, it seems, was already in short supply by 1950.
Dickens called, actually a couple of times. He commented on this blog, so you watch out. I’ve already been told this blog is more interesting than a Britney Spears crotch shot. (She really did just forget, honest!)
After a few hours, I have not reached any conclusions about music. Am I that bad a guitarist? Could Brian play bass? Should I lower my standards? This area is full of soloists mainly because they have failed to form partnerships of any kind in life. Even the G considers me to be money-hungry because he has personally failed to make any. This is a strangely recurring theme from that direction, from a guy too cheap to use his air conditioner.
Ah, well, unlike his guitaring, I can claim my bass playing gets better over time and people who work with me make more than $200 a year. (That is another story.) The major goal today was to examine what was available in Florida jobwise. It is not pretty. I went through the government listings as well as the major employment pages. Every retard in town must have a bachelor’s degree these days. Most of the advertised jobs seemed to be the traditionally hard to fill, such as working with the handicapped.
These jobs were also very poor-paying, although I suppose $35,000 per year might look good to some people. The US Navy lists its “jobs” under the heading of “Overseas Employment”. Insert snide remark here. There is a huge increase on background checks and intense focus on why you left your last job. Obviously employers find the Internet a blessing on that score. The job descriptions have also been altered to make it clear when it is not busy, you are expected to stick a broom up your ass so you sweep the floor while you’re walking around.
Neely O’Hara. Who remembers her? That was the lead character in “Valley of the Dolls”, played by Patty Duke. I was looking at real estate prices in Coeur d’Alene and noted a comment about Neely O’Hara. It caught my interest enough to read up the entire article. Yeah, who remembers Patty Duke? I do, she was a child actress who married a soldier she met on set. She got famous by winning $32,000 in a rigged television contest when she was twelve. The pain! Anyway, she cleared out while the going was good. She now lives in Idaho with five sons and is the butt of many bad jokes. You know, about the sergeant. How twice a week she dresses up like Iwo Jima and he invades her.
Where was I? Oh, yes, employment. It just does not look good. It is as if a lot of these places want you to actually work. Most are sales jobs that involve cold calling. I’ve also noticed an increase in Internet complaints about many of the standard ads, the ones that are “always hiring”. When there is not one job in the entire state that I don’t turn my nose up at, something is out of whack.
ADDENDUM
Last, Steve’s cat. By moving the food dish a little further each day, I’ve got it eating in the kitchen and I’ve seen it a few times. Striped tabby cat, I cannot be sure if it is one I saw at his place. It lives quietly behind my entertainment shelving and looks too skinny. I guarantee you it is well-fed, if not overfed. I increased the portions each day until there was some left over. I’ll be sure to return the critter when he gets out. Then, I have no idea what or how long he [Steve] is in for.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2007
March 21, 2007
Roland, the guy next door is gone. He sure does go all out for keeping his place nice-looking. Take a look at these flowers along his trellis. That may be the only good news I have to report today. If all neighbors were like him, the world would be better, not like what I have to tell you now.
In fairness, he once wrote to me that his priorities were religion, family and then music. That seemed fine at the time, since I’m not joining his choir nor adopting his kids. But he tried to co-mingle his religion with the band, as if there was not already enough to contend with. The important part is that he waited until after he felt I was committed. You are going to love the details. (The guy should stick to singing and playing guitar.)
I drive over twenty miles to his house, tired and dusty off the trail. Then he springs on me two religion farts I really did not care to smell. One, you know how Doug Kershaw (whom nobody has accused of being unreligious) often ends a song with the major 4th chord? It sounds like he is going to sing “Amen”, but he never does sing anything, just plays the chord. Two, when the club manager pressed me for a band name, I came up with “Holiday Country” on the spot. (How dare me, who do I think I am, the band manager?)
No way was Cowboy Jeff going to play the “Amen” ending. I must have missed the chapter in the Bible that dealt with country music endings, because when I told Jeff I did not want to hear about it, he said that was his point. The old “What do you mean you don’t want to talk about it?” second grade mentality.
Nice of him to speak up before I drove out there, don’t you think? He attempted to steer the conversation into this nonsense that this was some “opportunity to defend” his religion. Maybe just putting the band together isn’t work enough, already? Besides, my religion does not need any defending, know what I’m saying?
There’s more, according to Jeff, “Holiday” used to mean something different. It is now certain that Jeff answering my ad also means something different, although I am sure he would deny that. I don’t recall asking for both a singer and a religious fanatic. Jeff says “Holiday” derives from “Holy Day”, and how that band name freaks him. He got miffed when I asked him for “a complete list of the ordinary things that he had problems with”, so that I could work around it.
Obviously, I am not very happy about this. I contacted Brian and the G, and I will replace the ad for a singer. Brian still cannot play and the G, as usual, tries to grandstand even in the situation where it is not his gig. (The G is on very shaky grounds this time, even his PA system has a blown speaker.)
[Author's note 2016-03-21: This post is kind of all over the place. What happened was as soon as this Jeff and I got a set together, I booked us at the first place that would pay, the Holiday Bowling Lanes. Since out music is predominantly country, when pressed for a band name, I told the bowling manager "Holiday Country". Like, whatever.
Then Cowboy Jeff, not to be confused with Cowboy Mike, picks this of all times to hit me with his religion bullshit. He waits until after I commit us to a gig before he pulls that on me. I guess he figured after all the effort put in practice, I was too far committed to throw his ass out the door. He was wrong.]
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Tuesday, March 20, 2007
March 20, 2007
Here is another example of my sidewalk reflection art. I’ll try anything to get famous. The only thing women like more than a rich guy is a famous guy. Makes sense, for it bears repeating that one can become “un-rich”. Sidewalk art is when a building window reflects an interesting [to me] pattern onto the sidewalk. This one, reminiscent of a tombstone, is a list of accountants on a glazed window.
[Author's note 3016-03-20: I forget what effect I was trying to get with this picture, but this was still the early days of digital blog photos. So whatever it was, for me, this was super-artistic.]
Now I find out one of them is a drummer. At the last possible moment; he is leaving tomorrow. Since I doubt now that I’ll ever practice music anywhere but here [at a trailer court], things could pick up when they return in six months. It turns out that semi-abandoned trailer courts are ideal for practicing music. Chosen for a central location, this joint has become superbly equipped for practice.
I’ve got a new student, Gayle, who was just on the phone. Wednesday mornings are prime time, folks. Lose your slot and you don’t get it back. No other calls, so I am going into the shop, then over to WorkForce, as I may have to find work over this summer. Part time, if possible. Plus, to check what is out there.
The DVD I’m trying to compile is still a no-go. Like anything to do with computers, the so-called experts disappear when you need some real advice. I would like to take the files from my digital camera, arrange them with titles and transitions, then burn them to a DVD, or a CD that will play in a DVD player. I’m no further ahead than y’day. The editing files that will create the assembled product will not output in a format that can be read by a DVD burner.
The programs that claim to encode the files correctly either will not read the original or, like the editing software, won’t output the correct format. To test the features, I have a short video I use as the benchmark, because it seems to play in any mode or combination of equipment. It is a show of Paris Hilton having sex, but back when she was young and pretty in the days when she was, well, young and pretty.
It is a mystery to me how these famous, skinny blonde babes wind up with such third-rate boyfriends. Don’t get me wrong, for I’ve gotten more than my share in this life. It is just that these women could probably not do any worse if they tried. Where do they find these uneducated, grinning, greasy-haired losers? Apparently they don’t smell trouble when the guy hauls out a video camera on the second date.
It reminds of back in my college days, because there was a very outspoken feminist on campus. She was totally against the “exploitation” of women by the media. She was in her mid-thirties and had been after the [married] philosophy professor for 17 years. Do the math. I most remember her severely plucked eyebrows and his predilection for grey turtle-neck sweaters. Her argument was always the same, that men only “think” that young women are better, or cleaner, or more exciting. According to her, I didn’t really have a good time with my girlfriend, I only thought I did. Now I realize she needed that philosophy guy more than I could possibly have imagined.
[Author's note 2016-03-20: What I'm describing here is what I saw in my philosophy class in first year college. This skinny leftover type broad was trying to put the squeeze on the college prof. She had been following him around for years, repeating his courses, sitting in the front row, and asking over-obvious questions about how his teachings applied to sex and such. Disgusting, really. She reminded me of a shriveled up raisin, with her black turtleneck sweaters, trying to look 17. She had a carrot nose and he looked like Barnie Rubble.]
Deanne, the lady who knows nothing about computers, but likes to surf the net, called up again. Her system is choked up with viruses for the second time in a year. She is a nice enough lady, living at home with mom, but that makes it difficult to do repairs. Mom sleeps until noon, and Deanne is always off to doctor’s appointments or group and therapy meetings. Can’t wake mom, so by assuring her I knew all there was to know about being quiet in a girl’s bedroom with mother asleep in the next one, I am going over there to troubleshoot things tomorrow.
ADDENDUM
The G called, it looks like he can use the gig afterall. That means I should invest in the PA head. Nobody likes packing gear. I’m overexposed to people who claim music is a hobby, but who really view it as a way of life. The G used to make a big deal of saying I could be a good bassist "if I applied myself". Who knows, by the same token, he could become a good entertainer?
[Author's note 2016-03-20: that last paragraph conveys the wrong message. What was going on is that I apply my bass skill to the limit of every song I play in a band, but it was impossible with the G because he would not commit to a set list. Thus, you never knew which 30 of his 60 songs to focus on. Why knock myself out to learn a given song when we might not play it for another six months? But what would happen is sometimes by chance he'd actually play a song several gigs in a row. Lo and behold, he proclaims you are getting better. What a moron.
Like every other musician in the world, I get better when we really play a tune we'd rehearsed--and he goes on crowing that I could become good some day. If only I'd learn his song list while he ignores mine. Wherever he is today, I'll bet I could rattle off his song list. Just like my only hope was to have found a good guitarist, his only hope was to team up with me and do it my way. The difference is, I know I'm just a hack, he thinks he's a success. Yeah, in the hotel bars.]
I taught my top student (Becky) to do a lead break tonight. This was a complicated lesson, one that brought together a variety of concepts we’ve covered over the last month. Her sister would like to start up again, if her acting lessons don’t conflict with music lessons. Forgive if I have a few notions left about music lessons versus acting lessons. Most people get all the acting lessons they’ll ever need in the first year of marriage.
It has been six [later count corrected to five] lessons with Becky. She is not putting in the required time, but that really means it is just spread over a longer period. She is remarkably alert about some points in the program, which takes the pressure off me. Yet, she lags in the sheer number of hours needed. She is always asking why it “sounds so neat” when I do it. Practice, my Dear.
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Monday, March 19, 2007
March 19, 2007
No calls, so an unexpected day off (so far). Norm is the French Canadien guitar player, and his keyboardist friend is Robert. They host a line dancing fest at the beach once a week, which happens to be today. If no work arrives by noon, I’ll go see them. It is one of those hot-cool muggy Florida winter days perfect for bike riding.
As you see, I did go to the beach, and these guys actually have a fairly large following. Around sixty people. The bad news is that Norm, the guitarist, is leaving on Easter weekend to go back to Quebec for the summer. It is a pity, I just got him half-trained to play along to the blues. He still drops chords, but not when he plays with Robert. That could be since Robert kind of drowns him out when he does.
I talked with Bernie, at the bowling alley. He has to get clearance from above, man I hate bureaucracies that pretend to give managers freedom to act. This week is out until he gets “friggin’ permission to hire a band”. Any way, I called the G, and he may be interested in a Wednesday night gig, maybe even an open mic. This was obviously before I learned you could not trust the Hippie not to cancel out at the last minute and go play a solo.
Again, I am having that problem that the software I use cannot produce a CD that will play in a DVD player, yet I know that it can be done. It seems I have to figure it out again from scratch every time I do anything. I have the SVCDs, but they require a computer to play them. My newest and best computer still requires hours to render anything over ten minutes long. As usual, the MS products cannot be used to produce anything that can be read by other popular formats.
Which gives me time to read, and I found out quite a lot about the manufacture of sardine cans. Is this juicy material, or what? Then again, it probably beats what you were doing at the same time. Why don’t they just put the sardines in a regular can and forget about it? It seems people want to eat sardines whole, and they are too tender to dig out of a tall, narrow can. The can has to both contain and offer the sardines laying flat when opened. That is also why the can used to have a special roller key to open the lid – a conventional opener takes to long and piercing the can wrecks the fish.
The pull-ring used currently still leaves a lip, but small enough to remove the pieces whole. The rim remains, not just so if need be a regular can opener can be used, but also so that the can is strong enough to retain its shape when the lid is pulled off. Yes, I did have an alternate subject I could have used here – the intense frustration of my new digital wristwatch. After hours of screwing around with it, the conclusion is that either the alarm beeps randomly or the thing beeps on the hour. You cannot turn both off. How I long for a good old wind-up model.
Another thing that gets me is the DVD process. I cannot reliably burn DVDs because sometimes the disk is incompatible with my software. Yet, when I give the disks to Fred, he can burn them no problem, and he is not a software person. Somewhere, I know there is a book that explains what to do in plain English, but where is that book? It has to do with encoding, but I’ve got every encoder known to man. Usually, I convert the file to AVI, then try to use that format to burn discs.
I can add that the U lock, from a company called Bell, is of a very bad design. I hear the gnawing question, how could a bike lock be badly designed? Easy, you cut too many corners. Worst feature: the key must be inserted to both lock and unlock. This is annoying (unless you carry a separate key chain, which increases other risks), for the rest of your keys must dangle from the lock.
Yet, you must let go of the key to align the parts. Most unnerving, because the key fits loosely in the lock and often drops out by itself. Right when you are most likely to be near open sewer grates. When Bell screws up, they go all the way.
The mechanism lacks a spring, so you cannot unlock it and pocket the keys. No spring means you cannot just snap the lock shut, you must feed the prongs into the cylinder and turn the key in reverse. It is therefore kind of funny that the cylinder can turn by itself just from the weight of the keys, wouldn’t you know it, and half-lock itself. This means around a third of the time, when you go to close the lock, you have to turn the key a second time to re-open the latches all the way, which requires both hands. Bell would be hard-pressed to make it any worse, but because it costs ten bucks, you are hardly going to throw it away. All Bell saves is the five cent spring like I wouldn’t notice.
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Sunday, March 18, 2007
March 18, 2007
[Author's note: if anyone can explain to me why sometimes I cannot drag and drop my pictures in "compose" mode - please email me the solution. When I cut and paste the pictures, they will not "left clear" and I'm too busy to read the CSS. Thanks.]
Where else would I be riding my bicycle for coffee at this time of year? Here’s a pretty photo of me with my back to the sun late y’day evening. Roland, the French-Canadien neighbor, put up my hurricane shutter. I didn’t notice since I got back after dark. In return, I lend them tools so they don’t have to buy or bring them from Canada. He has a job as the manager of a golf course. Perfect seasonal work for spending half the year down here. He’s leaving in three days.
Radio programs. I have some theories – and don’t laugh, this kind of information was absolutely unavailable when I was growing up. There was not one blessed person in the entire towns I lived in that could have told you the first thing about broadcasting. If you wonder why North America is in trouble today, you need not look much further than the options presented to kids just two generations ago. They were programmed for failure. What might I have done if I’d learned it was possible to make money “owning” a radio show?
Jay-Jay, as the other Jeff is now known. He is not exactly a disc jockey [it turns out]. I listened to the station he described, but unless he’s learned to speak Turkish since last Thursday, something ain’t right. My conclusion is that radio works by someone like Jay-Jay renting a time slot from the station. The way he has been acting now makes more sense. Then, he flies around and does what he really does, which is sell radio advertising.
He has to, sooner or later, make sure he has got some content, since not many of us want to listen to an hour of diet product ads. It is beginning to melt, that is why he is constantly pumping me for ideas – he has no content. And commentary is the cheapest type of broadcast by far. I’ll wager he is a former advertising salesman and now he needs to come up with something. Or take Turkish lessons.
(Actually, I listened to the station and it is not bad. It reminds me of Canan, the Turkish gal I dated for a while in the mid-80s. It is kind of corny, however, to hear the American style voice inflections transplanted onto what, by the electronic sounds, must be contemporary Turkish hits. It comes across as childish over-acting. “Emoting” is not in the Big Dictionary.)
I’ve some interim conclusions about the new band. One is that I will ask Brian to continue practicing. Two, I must do something about that 42 mile round trip to Ft. Lauderdale. It is a problem, maybe it can be minimized. A solution is to combine both into what is not exactly easy, but is least costly in the long run. I have not done so yet, but I am thinking of producing video CDs of the material. This would consist of a video of me playing the bass line, with the original tune lightly in the background. Enough to keep things on key and in time. This does not solve the pesky problem of key transposition, but it accomplishes as much as many an uninspired rehearsal.
Pardon my laziness, but it has been that kind of day. I did bike four miles to take two coffee breaks, one at the Panera and the other at the Argentina joint. No women either place, it makes one long for country bars up in Margate. At least there you can look at the divorces and smugly say at least I never got stuck with that. Who was it came in the shop Friday and quoted us some statistics about the number of women who invited men who just got out of jail to come live with them?
Just a little later, around 7:00 PM. Dickens did not call, so I didn’t take it upon myself to go in to the Thrift today. I had other projects, and as mentioned, I recorded some of the material for practice. Ah, nothing like a little practical effort to refine some ideas, like the ones I get anyway. It is too labor (and battery) intensive to record video of the bass lines. Plus, I notice anyone could guess half the tricks I use by watching closely.
Thus, I tried to record in MP3 mode by itself. This led to two discoveries. My little DXG cannot record in MP3 mode, but didn’t I read somewhere there was a reason for that. It will record in wav mode, which I can easily convert to MP3. This takes the pressure off, for it can [and therefore will] be done. The second discovery is that the digital recording portion of the DXG is very good quality, I am truly impressed. The files will also fit on one 210 MB disk. Now, to work in that drum box. This means I get a break.
Until just later. Then I called Brian and power-explained the situation. We have 32 songs we could do without a guitar player, if he will become a singer with an attitude. I project that attitude [to be not caring a damn] about the background music in terms of presenting the tune. It can be done, proven by the Reb & I almost twenty years ago. You just have to get that audience to sit still for that first half-hour, not an easy thing in the television age. He was inspired by the MP3 music disc idea. Okay.
Is this town ready for a bass-vocal group? Not until I’m rested up. I have never, mind you, had any trouble falling asleep; I can do it on the bus, at work, the library. One of these weeks my project should be to check out one of those miracle Swede mattresses advertised without the price in PopSci. The one endorsed by NASA. All I know is that no matter how comfortable they are, they cost twenty times what I’d pay for a slab of foam rubber. (Note that I have occassional bouts of sleeplessness which I refer to as insomnia, but could have been nothing more that fear of falling asleep when people like my family are nearby.)
Saturday, March 17, 2007
March 17, 2007
A natural writer like me is just bound to be a wellspring of information. (That's a joke, Sparky.) Like just today, I’ve learned to improve the quality of the rice I make by the simple expedient of reading the package. How’s that for useful?
that it represents a real gain. You are still listening to somebody else’s idea of what you want to hear. You can only specify very wide categories, such as “rock” or “news”. The perpetual problem remains that you may only like one or two minutes of the hourly offerings.
Also, each of the books made it quite clear that you are only getting a steady diet of the same programming. Not one penny has been spent on improving the quality of content. It is the same old without the commercials. Even that [old system] was self-limiting. I would change stations after over maybe two minutes of any ads for used cars, delayed furniture payments or credit repair. A lot of money has been spent, but things like hiring Howard Stern are of questionable value without beams from outer space.
The biggest plug seemed to be that you could listen to essentially the same radio station while driving across the United States. I cannot figure out who would want to do that. Then, some people need to be entertained 24 hours a day. Seriously, I know people who sleep with the television on. They all work for the telephone company. When I could pay once [for sat-radio] and have the ability to create my own playlists, or at least a reject button when some bozo puts the Village People in the rock category, call me then.
From there, I rode downtown and stopped to hear some of the street musicians. These are not the same as out west, instead, local businesses hire them to play in the street in the hopes of getting some extra walk-ins. The going rate seems to be $50 per hour, which seems right. I called the G to let him know that he is still invited to the party if he will play different music.
Tempting as it was to take it easy, I went home early to practice. Some of the new tunes have bass lines right out the 1950s. That is probably because that is when they were hits. What do you think? I listen to Bye Bye Love by Buddy Holly and then Simon and Garfunkel. Virtually no difference except what, ten years? Most tunes on Cowboy Jeff’s list have weak bass lines – but this is not unusual, no sirree. Quick, hum the bass line out of Lodi. See what I mean? Yet that is the riff I’m using for Bye Bye Love, only backwards, kind of, and timed differently.
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