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.
