I can’t spell out certain details, but the only thing that stopped this show six hours later was the evening band showed up. This “overtime” is negotiated one hour at a time. My estimate is the pub sells $880 in drinks per hour when Arnel is playing compared to $160 per hour when he isn’t. I am unlikely to make any mistakes when I calculate such things. And that pub only holds 64 people. The “other” Jimbos holds 108.Paypal. That is another screw-job outfit. It was a sad day for America when businesses can isolate themselves from consequences. I reprogrammed some shipping charges for a client, who called me this morning to report her customers weren’t seeing any shipping charges. I went in and triple checked, yes, I did it right. No, it wasn’t working. So I spent nearly two hours trying to get through to Paypal. Each time I was put on hold for “ten minutes” but the call would drop off after eight minutes. I emailed them and the expected reply is in “2 to 3 days”. Another ass-hat thing they do is turn the tech support call into a survey. Oh, and the owner of the account (my client) cannot test the system because Paypal rejects owner’s credit card. Figure that one out.
This morning some guy walked past the shop with his boyfriend, so far nothing odd for this town. But by the time everybody stopped laughing and told me to go get my camera, the couple was too far away. The guy was wearing a beige mini-skirt. Speaking of the street, another restaurant is opening across the tracks. This is hardly progress in my eyes. Sure, I don’t dine out much, but these places all serve the same food and they have displaced all the businesses that gave this town any character. As you know, gone are the bookstore, toy shop, magic shop and Internet cafés. Now all we got are tattoo parlors, cell phone outlets, and glitzy restaurants with tables blocking the sidewalk. Boo, Hollywood.
Teresa and I went to the beach to catch Arnel’s show. Then we walked around for a half-hour because nobody remembered where I’d parked the car. She is considering a job as a delivery driver, something I keep away from if you have to use your own vehicle. We sat around yakking for hours so I missed my “Sopranos” fix for Saturday night. I’m up to season three, the part where Meadow takes the basement lamp to college. You know, the lamp with the FBI bug in it.
I’m picking up that the series is a veiled dig at the FBI, although not enough cause any trouble. Just the way it subtly over-glorifies what they do and how they operate. It’s the way they see themselves as righteous gods whose hands are tied by crazy notions of personal privacy. If they aren’t up to something, why else would people object to being constantly watched? The producers throw in the odd dig at cops as well, and I agree. If someone is stopped for speeding, give him a speeding ticket and let him go, but no, it’s the old “do you know why you are being stopped” bull hooey. Because if you do, it is tantamount to a plea of guilty, something you say only to a judge, never to a cop. If you want to get really technical over such things, it is not even a cop’s business whether you are guilty or not and they have no right to that information. Never volunteer any anything because you do not know why you are being asked, but it is for sure not why you think.
Something you should know. I probably mentioned how my new cell phone somehow lets certain parties see my blocked number. I called MetroPCS and had them re-apply the feature. Now it works all the time, as it should. Isn’t that a strange one? Then a customer came in the shop, and be danged. Same problem. You know, the wrong party could draw some interesting conclusions from this obvious glitch over at the cell phone office. It’s a good thing I’m so honest.
