April 30, 2009

           Here’s a better photo of Lola’s, home of the $5.25 beer in brands you never heard of. It is directly on my ride home so I’ve been watching. They have a following of sorts but they don’t look like they live around here. They do have music on some weeknights. Then again, so do most places just until they build up a steady clientele.
           Everyone has had to tighten the belt a little. That’s not supposed to mean me. It’s all those people who put everything on credit that have to haul back. Cowboy Mike came by the shop today. Who remembers a few years back when I was looking at all those mini-campers that fit on a utility trailer? Mike is in the market for a camper and what I’m about to write shows you how lack of communication can cost.
           He leaned back from the computer sighing that even used campers were so expensive. I stated if I had his tools and skill, I’d build my own, and showed him some of the offerings on-line. The cheapest reasonable unit was $6,000 meaning probably a third of that to build it yourself. Mike never thought about building his own and I never thought that he was unaware of the excellent designs available. Lack of communication at its finest.
           For the record I checked into the operation that was hiring airboat drivers. No go. They are mainly shut down until September and their lease to operate the airboats runs out in 18 months with an unlikelihood of renewal. Plus, as hiring conditions they were insisting on several documents that have nothing to do with job skills and that I have never bothered to acquire. Why would anybody who operates out of a swamp need to know your political leanings or how many motor vehicles are in your name?
           I met up with Sammy, the bartender that originally got me into Jimbo’s. He needs some tapes put onto DVD. This means I was in the club in the late afternoon, which never happens but I’m glad it did because it brought back memories. There were around six women and myself, and they thought I was working a crossword puzzle. The point here is that they were discussing relationships and I was listening. For two hours.
           It was like being back at the phone company on evening shift. Such talk is therapy that most men could stand to hear. Don’t ever think you are the worst off for making bad decisions until you’ve heard women who’ve repeatedly made the same bad ones. And keep doing so all their lives without any apparent self-correction mechanism. It takes me years to get over a relationship, but I eventually do. (Only to find there is nobody left worth having another relationship with, but that’s a different point.)
           There is a hint I could pass on to older women that helps if you ever meet a nice guy. Like yourself, he will have a past, but don’t be quick to conclude everything you don’t like is a result of that. All women I’ve dated in the last ten years have had something negative to say about Robyn despite the fact I could not tell you the name of any of their exes. Not my business. That is the hint. You want to keep his picture on your mantelpiece? If we get married, you can take it down, but until that fateful day, it’s your picture and your house.

April 29, 2009

           The topic for today is economics, jobs, that kind of thing. Even the naysayers know this recession is different, as in past the point of no return. Here is the boarded up club at the corner of Federal and Dania Beach Blvd. Dickenson’s thrift was just up the road. I was past this club many times over the years but admit to never going in. The roof of this hotel over the club was the famous last stand of the giant “Jai Alai” sign, a landmark the city finally killed.
           There have been bad times before without seeing pubs go under. I view them only as potential places to get paid but the reality is these are some of the oldest and most established businesses in the area. This is where you are likely to find locals. Like Club M, this was one of the larger joints. I have no idea if the closing coincided with the end of tourist season this year. I do know the local landlords are using CAM (Common Area Maintenance) scams to get around rental increase limitations in leases.
           We’ve always been told that entertainment remains big during bad times. I was told things like even in the Great Depression, the movie industry grew because people still needed distraction. I view auto dealerships and pubs differently, that they represent the second round of outfits to fold when business stays slow. My reasoning is that these are the places that can sometimes increase profits by lowering prices. But they never do.
           Unlike Hollywood, most small south Florida cities don’t have a real “downtown”, so businesses are strung along the arteries. Causing even worse congestion. You must have a car to get anything done. Or at least a damn good bicycle. There was another festival in Hollywood. I’m very interested in these things because they hurt my income. Billed as an expo, there were a few dozen tent displays crammed with presentationware. A portable stage was set up, which is odd because the city built a permanent arena in the park just 300 feet way. The band was best described as the middle-age married-guy Blues. A trio.
           I gave them a listen and moved on when I could not recognize the difference between songs. I made a quick tour past all the restaurants and clubs on Harrison. Busier than usual. I’ve found Harrison, a block south of Hollywood, to be a better barometer of the neighborhood. I was passed Lola’s to see not one person in the place. It is a food place, something I was not sure of last day.
           That’s it for today. I’m even short any trivia for you. Mind you, I did see a television clip on the “How It’s Made” channel showing the manufacture of aircraft landing gear. I recognize super-complication when I see it. What I was surprised is to learn making one gear requires six months. Maybe I’ll price them out. I worked at an aircraft spare parts place once. They never told us the prices. Why would a show on landing gear get my attention?
           I’ll tell you. By fluke, I was creating a bass line to the song, “Too Old to Cut the Mustard”. The second verse mentions landing gear and did so just as I glanced up to look at the Pudding-Tat. Her favorite toy is a valve cap. You know, that plastic tip you screw onto the air stem on your car tires. She had one cornered in front of the television and there you go.

April 28, 2009

           Say, isn’t this the same car lot featured recently? I’ll make it easy. Yes, that’s Kelly Chev-Olds on Federal. Or used to be, ha-ha. More proof that American business will do anything to stay in business except lower their prices. That makes sense. If you sell five cars a month at a $10,000 markup, you would have to sell ten cars at a $5,000 markup to make the same money. You’d have to work twice as hard and that is plain un-American.
           The seasonal heat is back, and already lingering after sunset. Iced tea I make by the gallon and sip by the half-gallon. Seriously, I plunk a straw into my big measuring cup so I don’t make four trips. I’d still rather be riding my bicycle than either walking or driving. Skip today if you want fireworks, it was a boringly quiet Tuesday. Nothing happened, so from here on it is filler. First of all, some computer talk because I had an extra hour to review the blogs with high ratings and other general stuff.
           The top blogs are becoming very professional. Add in high-budget, some of them are produced by degreed photo-journalists with $15,000 cameras. I judge blogs strictly on content and presentation (except categories that belong elsewhere) and what’s left over has come into its own as astonishingly well done. I heard that--you want to know which the categories I eliminate. Okay, blogs are public, but that does not mean I want to read about “missing” children (get a milk carton), on-line businesses (use eBay), and politics (which should be outlawed).
           My blog is primarily prose because I know people will rarely look at a picture a second time unless it lands in front of them. I’ve only included pictures for effect in recent years. (I have thousands of pictures, just not here.) This blog descended from a larger than normal email, meant to be printed up and read later. You may have noticed each blog is the right size for a 15-minute coffee break. For that email, in turn, came from an earlier newsletter format designed to eliminate repetition back when the Internet was pay by the minute. How about that?
           Symantec is the anti-virus I’ve been recommending and that is about to change. It seems that Symantec has taken upon itself to install its own brand of spyware on your computer whenever you use their anti-virus application. Furthermore, the company CEO has stated that he considers it necessary for Symantec to judge whether a given user is or is not “dangerous”, and sell this information to other parties so that they can take measures to “protect” themselves. I don’t know about you, but I expect my anti-virus company to prevent such activity, including from their own.
           I have been testing [a product called] AVIRA with good results. It does a deep, if slow, search and produces refreshingly clear reports. The basic product is free; the full version is twenty bucks. I’ll be testing the basic for several days. So far, it seems fine. It is a rare anti-virus application because it does not alter your system registry the way others do. Others like Kapersky, AVG, and of course, Symantec.
           Summer is upon us, so I applied for an indoor job. Nothing fancy, just working in a small crafts office that advertises on the Internet. My letter to MyFlorida [a complaint against phony job listings] last year may have borne fruit. Their on-line postings have cleaned up the work-at-home scams to the point of one or two per day instead of scores. How many millions of people must lose their money before the government steps in? Sigh. Even Avon is cranking up their campaign to prey on the recently unemployed. Which is okay by me because I own stock, but you get my drift.
           Have you seen that oft-re-run documentary on the History Channel about how they make sausages? I finally watched it and the segment on bologna in particular. I don’t hate bologna but nor have I eaten it for an incredibly long spell. I bought a pound to give it another chance. When slathered with mustard, mayo and lettuce, it can actually pass for food. Did you know Elvis Presley loved fried bologna sandwiches? Not that you could tell by looking.
           Let’s close with some trivia. Most people know Carrie Nation as the woman who liked to bust up Kansas saloons with a hatchet. What you don’t know is that she also wanted to “eliminate” short skirts, foreign food, and all Masons. If she ever comes back, the anatomically male population of Key West will drop 110%. She as well had this thing against nude paintings and girdles. So do most people who resemble Carrie.

April 27, 2009

           Today’s photo is the DBG (Dania Beach Bar & Grill) and you can see the stage in the background. There was a duo playing yuppie-era pop rock for the afternoon. A few people stood in. Note the set of drums on the left. This crowd, easily averaging 40 years old, is still one of the most “youthful” audiences on the beach. There are no clubs that cater to a younger crowd anywhere near here.
           It is sad, but I’ve heard more than a few people lament on the lack of, well, anything for those aged from late teens to late thirties. There is nothing to do in that age span except what, a cruise maybe? Today’s teenagers know exactly that they are heading for those doldrums. That could partially explain the addictive nature of the Internet. Maybe I should be glad I was a teenager before social life was replaced by social networking.
           I spent this evening contacting musicians I met last weekend. There are several opportunities including the reopening of the Club X lounge (finally). As luck would have it, one of the musicians is a country singer who reports he “just can’t learn guitar”. This may be ideal for I know exactly what the problem is. He took “lessons” and that is not what you do if you want to have fun with music. This is a situation I can work with, so we are exchanging song lists tomorrow.
           Another contact was Laura, the Karaoke lady from the bowling alley. She has a ton of CDG disks. I’m advised that these disks behave quite differently when played on a Karaoke machine than on a regular or compatible CD player. Rumor has it they are idealized for Karaoke presentation. Laura has some of the best versions of popular tunes I have ever heard. Many are realistic enough to pass for the original covers.
           Of all the. I can’t find Cowboy Mike’s phone number. It was on the old cell phone. I was serious about asking him to look into that airboat pilot job. You see, I know they must have trained him. That is important because until this point, I thought you had to be a qualified airboat captain. Yes, that is a course you take which includes man overboard drills and memorizing Florida flora. I’ll make a trip to Jimbos soon since they must have his number around somewhere.
           I also emailed Nokia telling them if my phone, a model 1606, cannot be made to work like a regular cell phone, that they can have it back. Of course, it would not end there, as I am the true identity of one of the more popular product reviews on the Internet. At this point I do not know if it is Nokia or MetroPCS at fault, but I do know that MetroPCS has lied to me before and the low caliber of their staff is legendary.
           An extra hour this afternoon found me on the Internet examining the job situation from a beginner’s angle. What are the jobs that pay these days and who is doing them? It would seem that $25 per hour is currently considered high-paying. That’s a pity. In purchasing power, that is probably less than thirty years ago. Worse, most of the good jobs are not to be considered careers any more. They are dominantly service industries, the ones most likely to be replaced in the short run.
           Take the surge in jobs for graphic artists. That is an occupation where you probably need 10,000 plebes to support each practitioner. Since the art is not sold directly to these people, it is likely paid for by media who influence the buying decisions of said masses. It would seem to me a dead end, as survival depends on selling products that can be sold for enough to recover the costs of that advertising. Such products are dwindling in number and I can attest that I have not witnessed any real improvement in overall graphic artistry since the trend began.
           If that is hard to follow, let me restate my own career experience. I switched to accounting largely because it was touted to be immune from automation. Big mistake, but not a mistake due to incorrect thinking. It was an error in prediction. I admit I am as lousy at prediction as you probably are. As computers advanced, more and more companies found it was cheaper to adapt business practices to what the computer could do rather than vice versa. Between getting into the field late and not having my own practice, I was one of the first to be let go. I have been out of work 4-1/2 years on May 23. Then again, define “out of work”. “Enjoying life” is more accurate.
           [Author’s note: I have become aware of a consistent punctuation error in this blog. My defense is I have a rulebook that is unclear. It seems the punctuation always goes inside the closing quotation mark. However, that just has to be wrong in cases where the final part of a sentence must be clear. Consider these two sentences.
           A. Define “out of work”.
           B. Define “out of work.”
           The first version is wrong, but it seems correct to me because the quotes enclose only what is to be defined. There is no need to define the period, and indeed its inclusion could lead to misinterpretation. For that reason, this blog will continue to make this “error”. ]

April 26, 2009

           Music. I wonder how some people can tell I’m a musician as soon as I walk in the door? Could be the shirt. I drove over to DBG expecting to jam for some benefit, but Arnel was not there. Nor was it a benefit. I turned around to leave, then ding! What if the other musicians also thought it was a benefit? Good move for I mingled with the crowd and found several prospective guitarists interested in a country duo. I am keen on musicians who are not in it for the money, more so because they have day jobs than good motives. (I am definitely after the money.)
           I see my free computer advice posts are at least as popular as discussing the weather. So stick around, and later I’ll chat about spyware and what you can do to control it. Meanwhile, never shy to offer ideas on thesis topics for the iPod generation, I’ve discovered a new phenomena just begging investigation. I’ve informally tagged it “alumina anemia”, you know, loss of iron.
           Alumina anemia is where certain frying pans, over time, become lighter on the business end. When new, the empty pan sat flat on your burner, right? Over time, it became lighter and lighter, see? Now it slowly begins to tip up and rest on the handle. (This always happens when you are turned away slicing the onion.) Have you been a victim? There is no cure, although you could hang a counterweight on the rim. Or you could hire the neighborhood whiz kid to conclude the handle is getting heavier and trim off part of it. Using his iSaw.
           Later, have him drop by and fix my wireless microphones. It turns out the two spares I had were impossible to adjust to 206.35 MHz. They were a tricky (like ingenious) design to dismantle. The problem was the tuning pots could not be adjusted unless the microphone was assembled but it had to be disassembled to get at the pots. I even drilled a pilot hole to no avail. Don’t you hate it when that happens?
           Instead of throwing the parts out, I decided to reverse engineer. I’m looking at the diaphragm of an expertly designed “Teng Fei” microphone. If they can build this to retail for $16, peeps, we have not merely lost a race. That means it was manufactured for 60 cents by unskilled labor. We’ve been wiped off the map and Kingdom come, too. I hear over my shoulder the US government spent $130 million on a study that an earthquake in California during the next few years would kill thousands and cause big damage. I believe that same information has been available for free in grade schools since 1950. This study will presumably do for San Francisco what the flood studies did for New Orleans. We are in a heap o’ trouble, folks.
           As promised, here is your computer mini-lecture. You’ve heard of spyware, which is not the same thing as a virus. Keep that in mind. Spyware is legal “advertising” software implanted on your computer. They collect details of your usage and sell the information to marketing companies. Don’t you just love them already? There are currently 568,000 brands of this spyware (including mutations) trying to profile you. You should regularly sweep your computer, and the best product out there is called “Spybot Search & Destroy”. (Don’t fall for bogus programs with names like “Spybot Search and Destroy” and “SpyBot Search & Destroy”.)
           Spyware programs are insidious. They load themselves when you visit almost any site, no matter how reputable. Spyware files have names like “Zlob”, “Smitfraud”, “coolWebSearch” and the ubiquitous “Virtumonde”. Most of them work the same. They accumulate a log of your keystrokes until (for reasons not yet understood) they have the equivalent of 84 pages of typed material, whereupon the spyware emails this data back to the “advertiser”. Who presumably has not one person on staff who would recognize your PIN numbers instantly. Be aware, there are plug-in versions the size of an AA battery that your boss can rightfully plug into the back of your work terminal.
           The makers of spyware have won court cases saying they have the right to spy on you (after all, the Internet is a public domain where you have no “expectation of privacy”). Besides the unauthorized theft of your usage data, there is an emerging pattern that is even more sinister. A new generation of nasty viruses have learned to piggy-back on spyware, sailing right past your anti-virus protection. Either way, it is wise to regularly remove all spyware from your computer.
           The question gets asked, why don’t anti-virus programs also get rid of spyware? I told you viruses and spyware are two different animals. Remember that spyware is legal, viruses are illegal. Take heart, some of the anti-virus companies are slowly clueing in and are beginning to include basic anti-spyware. It friggen took them long enough. As always, be leery of companies like AVG whose trial versions are non-functional.
           Last. I will tell you the easiest sure way to get the real Spybot freeware. http://www.safer-networking.org/en/home/index.html. If that doesn't work, go to www.download.com (no, not www.downloads.com, which is a music site) and do an internal search on Spybot. You will have to look hard, if you find it right away, you’ve probably been spoofed. Keep scrolling down until you find the only Spybot that has been downloaded more than 100 million times. That is correct, a hundred million plus. Download that one. Then get off the Internet and install it. In that order.
           Another $200 please. Computers are one more I’m into for the money.

April 25, 2009

           In case anyone underestimates the difficulties of building your own Karaoke system, examine this photo of modifying a wireless microphone. Keep reading today for some excellent advice on protecting your computer from virus attacks. I’ll be mentioning specific products and procedures. This could be your biggest money-saver of the year, so get on your thinking caps. Listen hard and fast because I normally charge big money for computer coaching, and there are not that many true freebies out there.
           I had to throw a lady out of the shop this morning. She used to be one of the census takers, but that operation completely shut down eight months ago. She came in to drop some junk off and proceeded to lift the gate and walk behind the counter. Whoa, lady, get outta there, no unauthorized personnel. I don’t care what you used to do, rules are rules. She got lippy, so I instructed her to leave the building. She got even more lippy, so I dialed 911. Trespassing. (She wisely left before the police showed.)
           Strange, some women. You have to be something really special before you get away with giving me any smart talk. You know the type, thinking because she’s a she, that gives her some kind of power over all men. Wrong. Just the weakest specimens, the ones they deserve. I suspect she had been drinking. It was 9:30 AM.
           While all this was going on, I was testing my live Karaoke equipment. How I cobbled it together from spare parts is beginning to tell. Components never designed for such usage are now requiring constant attention. Anybody else would have just gone out a bought a Karaoke system. But they would not have anything like the understanding I’ve got of how it all works together. This knowledge will pay off soon. Meanwhile, I’ve got a burned out monitor, a third laptop and a missing flash drive I set down in front of my own eyes ten minutes earlier.
           I was hired for an afternoon show and had to use my old set. This is the first thing I have to change, for sometimes I get people asking for bands and music I’ve never heard of. I need new material and there seems to be no getting around the capital outlay for a 26” monitor. Those puppies are heavy. I’m hoping to offset the weight by trimming down other gear, as you know.
           The gig was a wake for some man I never met. I was hard pressed to play several hours of slow, quiet music. Things picked up later. It was a nice ceremony and toast to the fellow and they had a small alter with pictures and flowers set up by the stage. What can I say? This was a first for me. Makes you wonder how you will be remembered. Me? Oh, I’ve got a blog.
           Wallace called last evening about a computer virus. Folks, let me tell you again, you must learn to manually operate your antivirus software. It is not good enough to just have it installed on your computer because it will sit there getting outdated. Anybody who got married too young knows exactly what I mean. Wallace’s case is common where the owner of the computer thought they had antivirus protection from their portal company.
           Fact: the places that “assure” you anti-virus protection mean only when you are on their home site. Got that? Again, got that? Chances are you visit such sites (AOL, Shaw, etc.) solely to get your email, then you move off the site. You are not protected from other sites unless you have your own private anti-virus program and you know how to use it. Both conditions must be met.
           The popular SOHO (small office home office) brands of anti-virus ware are, in any order: AVG (Anti-Virus Group), Trend, Norton and Symantec. (Norton is owned by Symantec.) The best of these is currently Symantec, and it only catches 63% of the viruses. The good news is it catches the vicious ones. The bad news is don’t go thinking because you have one of the applications you are protected. When was your last scan? When was your last update? If you are trusting the answers to some whiz kid who told you he set it on automatic, you are not protected. Scans should be done manually at least once a week.
           Another thing to beware of is these companies often advertise “free” versions. Nothing is free. The fact is, these free scans do only that. They scan. They report the viruses but do not remove them. It only looks that way. At this time AVG is the worst offender, as their trial version (AVG Free 8.0) looks identical to the real thing. It fooled me for a week until I noticed some fine print in one of their obscure log menus. You: quit being a cheapskate, go out and buy a real anti-virus application and read the instructions.
           $200 please. And don’t go behind my counter.

April 24, 2009

           This is 19th Avenue, the road I bike to the office in the mornings. Sometimes I look down a scene like this and remember the cold and frozen streets of my youth. But not very often. You don’t know this, but I lived in Inuvik before it was Inuvik (it was called “East 3”) and on frozen islands near the Arctic circle. I do not consider cold either pure nor invigorating. I’ve also lived in Thailand and once spent six months in Hawaii. Give me the warm sunshine every time.
           But don’t give me “Lola’s on Harrison”. This is the café I dropped by last evening to see the sidewalk musician. Not wanting to listen for free, I asked for a cold Budweiser. The snooty pimple-faced dropout behind the counter noticed I was riding a bike, therefore I must be homeless. He hands me the “we don’t have anything like that” treatment. First, buddy, stick your attitude where it feels good. If you had any brains, you would notice my bicycle is worth more than your car. But then, you are a food service worker, aren’t you. That is the one occupation I look down upon, not because of the work, but because of the grade of people who do it.
           He was also the drama queen, pretending he was doing me a personal favor by breaking his busy routine and going all the way to the back to dig me out a bottle of “Native” lager beer. Foul tasting stuff. I brought the bottle home, still ¾ full. Clean up your act, Lola’s, unless you have some non-standard (Columbian) funding sources, you won’t be long in this town.
           The tourists left in a hurry this year and my crowd tonight reflects that. I had fun without making any money but it gives me time to reflect on the big picture. For instance, I’ve been moving in several directions at once between my show, the live Karaoke work, and practicing my vocals. This caused some of my song lists to get out of date, a problem which just does not occur around here. I went to play my newest and best solo “Secret Agent Man” and it was not there. Tonight was the unplanned windup to another successful season. Now, the real work begins. The biggest change is that although I’m still a lousy singer, I’ve quit worrying about it.
           Technically, my season ends May 26. Without specifying a figure, I am making money thirty times faster than when I had a guitar player. I played 42 gigs during the year, although certain people still maintain I can’t do this. It cost me $465 including gas to perform and I estimate since the majority of the gigs were on a Friday, I saved $2,100 by not going out on my own. I am pleased with the situation.
           The city inspector came by for the first time in 15 years and made us take town all but two of our window signs. That means my “Million Toothpick” banner is gone. No more than 30% of display window space can be taken up by signage. The nasty thing about these bylaws is that they are so unevenly enforced. Worse, there are far more serious things they should be tending to, like cafes that block the sidewalks with furniture. They even tried again to make Fred remove his neon signs (the city has a real hatred for inert gas) but they ought to know his are grandfathered.
           Normally, I monitor the event calendar for Hollywood. That’s why I was surprised to see another street fair blocking 19th beside SunTrust this evening on the way in. I’ve learned to avoid playing whenever the city is giving away free entertainment. This is the third Friday in a row they’ve caught me unawares. I really hurt when they do that.
           Let me end with some trivia. I’ve often misquoted that a pound of tea makes 200 cups. Today, I discovered it is 300. Tea is popular in England mainly due to the way it was originally taxed. Thus, you don’t get as many coffeehouses in London as in other Euro cities. You can look up the facts, but I admit I got them wrong for at least 20 years. This tells you I may very well not remember every piece of trivia recorded here, but nor it that my purpose. Look at it this way--because I write them out, my chances of remembering them are vastly increased. So there.

April 23, 2009

           “Good morning, this is your captain speaking. We will be flying at an altitude of zero feet.” Am I joking, or do I know somebody who pilots an airboat? Yes, but first, here is a receipt from the Savannah Candy Kitchen, GA. I would have toured the whole downtown if Greyhound had been honest and told us up front the connecting bus was going to be two hours late. Instead, I got a ten minute coffee break at this establishment, a real treat. Wallace called and reminded me of (the time he visited) North Carolina. Good news, he should be in Florida within a couple of weeks.
           Many years back, he was in Charleston and saw all the old mansions. I didn’t see much, but I was impressed by what I saw. Depending on how things go, I would love to tour such places in some detail, as in bike up and down every street in town. Wallace is feeling chipper.
           Pudding-Tat is back in the news. I told you that cat was smart and now she amazes again. I took a while to catch on but that cat acts differently when I cook chicken soup. Do not confuse this with how cats instinctually rub up when it is feeding time. She does this exclusively with chicken soup, not any other preparation of chicken or any other product. I have taken into consideration that cats have superior senses, but that would apply to food period, not just chicken soup. Nor is chicken her favorite, so it must be the aroma. If this is common with cats, I was unaware of it. (I make chicken soup twice a week, it just took me three years to notice the pattern.)
           It’s a good thing you like to read, for I have news from long lost people. When this happens, I’m reminded of “Doonesbury”, the comic strip. If you skip a single day, you forget one of the 35 characters. In reality, the number of people mentioned in this blog is not up to me, rather the physical limit of what I can type. It is more up to people than me how often they get mentioned. Did you know that?
           Who should waltz into the shop today but Cowboy Mike. Disappearing over five months ago, he has been driving a tourist airboat ride in the Everglades. Eleven hours a day for $7.21 per hour (Florida minimum wage) plus tips. Therefore the tips must be great. I asked if he could get me on. He brought in his laptop and unlike some people, Mike admitted it was because he didn’t know how to operate it. I won’t say a word about the Hippie getting evicted because that has not happened to anyone I know for so many centuries that I forgot it even could.
           I also bumped into Heather, the 28 year-old babe who likes Wallace (see pictures last year). She was in the audience of a standard Thursday Karaoke show. Took me a while to place her. She asked more about Millie than Wallace. Right after that I stopped at a club on Harrison (local night spot) and heard an excellent guitarist. Face it, anybody worth anything these days is doing a single with tracks. He was so good that I spent $5.25 on a bottle of beer with a terrible flavor, though, I’m no connoisseur. (It is called Lola's on Harrison. More information later this week.)
           Last, I’ve got to mention the proliferation of auto insurance ads, the ones that state you “may be paying too much”. If so the difference must be totally in what the fine print doesn’t cover, meaning if there was ever cause for suspicion, that is it. Each outfit determines the other is overcharging by around $500 per year. They portray that as such a huge sum of money. Gee, with all that cash, you can afford to go back to college.
           [Author’s note: my solution to high insurances is to address the problem, not the symptoms. Raise the driving age to 22, make the driver’s test super tough, stop using Driver’s Licenses as identification (to reduce criminal motivation for having one), total enforcement of existing driving laws and the singling out of the truly bad drivers by name. Publish them in the paper. I am for traffic cops, police that do nothing, repeat nothing, except hand out traffic tickets. By the thousands. Plus escalating fines, that is, each time you turn without using your signal light, your fine goes up by $100 until you learn.
           Also, increased jail time for any negligent behavior. You hit a pedestrian, or a parked vehicle, you go to jail for a month. Hit a bicyclist and it is life without parole. Just kidding on that last one. You would get parole. Eventually.]

April 22, 2009

           This is a temporary photo, I’m certain something of greater importance will happen on a beautiful and rare cloudless day like today. But meanwhile let this remind anyone who thinks our yard is small that the trimmings just filled up this dumpster mighty quickly. There’s more and you are welcome to put it to the test. And the back room is still for rent. (Later, the picture stays. It is a nice dumpster.)
           More music, but this is technical if you want to skip this paragraph. I’ve made an unpleasant discovery. Lyric editing programs can destroy the lyric track you have of any file containing any portion of the same file name. There are dozens of versions of “Folsom Prison Blues” on the Internet. I had them labeled sequentially trying to find the best sound. I changed one word, and now none of them have any lyrics. This is more evidence that finding true lyric software is going to be another uphill battle.
           “Rhapsody in Blue” is famous. Gershwin is famous. So I finally sat down and listened to three versions of this piece, alert for the “wailing sax”. Sorry if I offend anyone but this is not my idea of good music. Every soloist in the band takes a kick at the can. Running up and down atonal scales but never settling into a melody. They are all over the place, god sakes, can’t those people find a good note and play it for a moment or two? Rhapsody means roughly “great joy”, which is what I felt when they finally stopped torturing their instruments.
           I could be grouchy because my coffee maker is on the fritz. Time to invest in a good one, and that is today’s trivia. What is the largest factor in whether your drip coffee maker can produce a consistent brew? It has to do with water temperature. The nemesis of good coffee is variable water temperature and home drip coffee machines are considered the worst. The water-heating coil runs under the burner part, then up a stem to the bucket, causing uneven output. That just made me think, I wonder if that is why truck stop machines have separate “brew” and “warm” buttons. Could be.
           Still, I find drip coffee superior to any other method, barring a few complicated gadgets with springs. I’ll help myself to a second cup and comment on the “Sopranos”, which I’ve finished viewing. According to Mike, the “Sopranos” does leave everything hanging. He was really into that series and almost threw his shoe at the TV. My prediction is that Meadow (the daughter) walks into the cafe late and sees the gunmen, she screams, and in the ensuing fracas, everybody gets whacked except Tony (the godfather).
           Several hours later, I listened to “Rhapsody in Blue” once more. Same conclusion: it is not music to my ears. I could slink in there and tune a set of bagpipes without anyone noticing. No wonder the Nazis thought they had nothing to fear from America. I got twenty bucks says whoever used to dance to that jazz cacophony never learned a new dance since.
           I dropped into G’s Place, where the only personality of note is Alex. Ah, but what a personality! Reminds me a lot of myself. She mentioned she was 19, which is good as I could easily have mistaken her for 20, even 21. I was scouting the place for atmosphere. I’m cautious of playing empty rooms but Alex assures me it was an unusually quiet evening. Still, there were a few people there who wanted to sing. I picked up on that. The selections on the juke box show a blues-rock clientele.
           News from North Carolina. Teresa says there are available jobs for Quickbooks people, indicating they still have an economy in Wilmiewood. If you know what I mean. I’ve noticed recent advertising for cheap furniture from North Carolina listed as “cancelled orders”. That is odd, since the big places don’t start building anything until it is paid for. Learn Quickboolks. Trust me, if you stayed awake in high school, you already know much more about Quickbooks than you think. (On the other hand, if any of you slept through class, and since we are talking your careers, let’s pretend there was no recent mention of a dumpster.)
           News from Wallace. He reports good health with a few nagging symptoms, all of which would disappear in the warm Florida weather. Across the thousands of miles, I remind Wallace that I have lived in both places and I know it is difficult to leave certain things behind. I also know it is an illusion that it is cheap to live where it is cold in the winter. Here, you can go out every day without a car. If a person was frugal, you can live well in Florida for $15 a day. Wallace, get down to Florida.

April 21, 2009

           Here is a new game called “Find the Wheelbarrow”. That is the first of six loads to the dumpster. I wrote Wallace about when he’s going to arrive. This place is really too big for just one person, it is like walking into a cavern. I have not really cooked many full meals since he left, but then I’ve been awfully busy with the music. I am relying on music more and more for daily things. It is the most productive hobby I’ve ever had, meaning music will remain a constant. The west wing is synonymous with Wallace, and nobody knows where he is. Well, I’m the one that wanted a bigger house and now I have to walk across it how many times every day.
           There was an ad for an “experienced blogger” to write travel articles online today. Travel writing is fun, unless they expect you to actually visit these tourist traps. If you have aspirations of actually getting paid for writing anything more creative than an Internet business plan, look into blogging. I wrote them the link to this blog and asked the rate of pay. Internships are for no-minds and the self-infatuated.
           In some cases, so is trivia. (Especially game-show trivia where they only know who wrote the book and never what it was about.) Here’s some potentially useful travel trivia. You are circumnavigating [the globe], but you find according to Ursa Major, your compass is always pointing east-west. This could happen, as I learned today. You are on the Earth’s magnetic equator. Listen up, for like its geographic partner, you are probably not anywhere you could ask for help. The magnetic poles are not on the planet axis and fluctuations make the magnetic equator a wavy line of no practical use. That leaves an opening for a dumb question: you look out your porthole and you see a bear. What color is it not?
           As luck would have it, today a customer in the shop came in to learn to rip CD tracks. He has a complete midi system with all the goodies, and in return for free computer know-how, he is to show me the ropes. His Canadian accent is below the pain threshold and his musical progression over 30 years mimics mine in the recent past. He began replacing recalcitrant band members with technology. He plays super realistic guitar breaks, adding that if I lay down the midi he will fill in the riffs.
           I am still struggling with equipment malfunctions. The Dell laptop cannot operate in the correct screen mode for my act. I have an ulterior motive to forge ahead, in that I may have an invitation to play at G’s place. Normally I don’t play any place that is always full of men, but the owner’s daughter assures me Wednesdays are “family night”. And she is the spittin’ image of Angelface (Beverly Twila Gillingham), the first “older” woman I had ever dated. (Angelface was 19 when I was 17.)
           Returning my cell phone to the store was a waste. It turns out unless I purchase a bundle of features I do not want, my phone cannot be made to ring loudly when I’m called from “private numbers”. MetroPCS could not define the difference between “private” and “call blocked” in plain English, meaning they probably don’t know themselves. When I asked them to set the phone so it would ring whenever I’m called, they stated that was “no longer the way cell phones worked”. Also, the phones have an indoor/outdoor setting where, in Nokia logic, the phone rings quieter when you are outside. (Must be those long winters in Finland. You know why their parkas have bone buttons? The sound of a zipper stampedes the reindeer.)
           Another thing MetroPCS don’t tell you (but I did), is when you change phones, your number is stricken from the no-call list. Only public school dropouts would see any logic in that. The solution is to quit fining the telemarketers, but to fine the companies that hire them. My position is that no reputable companies, including political and charitable outfits, use telemarketing any more. They should all pack up and leave.
           I admit today was not my cheeriest blog. There’s more. It seems the homosexual community was able to destroy the prime Miss America candidate for stating she preferred to marry a man. Not the Gay Miss America show, the regular one. You bleeding hearts wanted tolerance, now you’ve got one of the most intolerant gangs in town rigging your beauty contests. Shame on you, America.
           Oh, and the color of the bear? It was white after all. The albino panda, ha, ha.

April 20, 2009

           Look, it is me bragging about the dent in the quarter panel. Back in ’06, I backed into the corner of an architect office. It was painted the same yellow as the morning sun which turns the sky and your rear window the same shade, so I heard the scrunch before I saw it. That paint color could double as urban camouflage. Could that be why they call them “architects”?
           Get your thinking caps on today. Last evening I spent a couple hours in Borders. They’ve got bad times, too, considering the amount of sale-priced material and the lack of customers. As for the rest of the store, who wouldn’t balk at spending $18 on a magazine? Other than yet more programming languages, the information section has vanished. Judging by shelf-space, we may already be a nation of wannabe photographers in need of salad recipes and calendars. A coffee and cookie set me back $4.00.
           This relates to my predictions about deflation. I do not believe falling prices would be as bad as the pundits say. Those theories are based on a cycle of credit and inflation, a way of doing business that has to change anyway. For example, they predict stores will hesitate to replace inventory today because it might be available at a lower price tomorrow. This tips us off the stores are ordering greater quantities than they know they can sell. What did I just say about change? I’m all for anything that puts the brakes on pressure to buy for the wrong reasons, which is possibly the reason I dislike salespeople. Consumers don’t haggle the price enough when they’re using a credit card, making things more expensive for us who pay cash.
           Browsing the music section, I flipped through a magazine for bassists, wondering what’s new. Nothing. These publications suffer badly from the guitarist hero worship mind-set. Other musicians have stars, but rarely do you find, say, a piano player who wants to be a clone of that star. I did see an invention, a new bass concept. It has no strings, but is not to be confused with those kid’s air guitars. This unit had full size wooden furniture and the strings were replaced by a permanent metal rod that the maker states feels and acts like a string at the points where you depress the note. Must give that a try.
           For those who remember I predicted it 15 years ago, there is a surge in small business startups. With that is a parallel rise in rip-off schemes. Make millions, no skill required, send for kit. I have a grim satisfaction with people losing their shirts because they who answer such ads are the morons who assume they know it all. They represent the largest remaining untapped national resource. What is it to me how they get edu-ma-kated? Sorry, no mercy. Particularly since most of them are yuppies losing their $45 per hour jobs. I read several articles on the “best” small businesses to start. I have more bad news for you a little later.
           What I am about to tell you comes from the only person you may ever know who has spent the last five years purposely practicing for retirement. I speak with authority. [Author’s note: The following is in addition to my fifteen standard rules which include my five rules as published in the New Times, 2003, see “Mr. Toothpicks”.] Commandment Number One: Only start a business where you do a fast, skilled and complete job. The customer walks in, pays, leaves, whereupon it becomes very difficult to ask for his money back. Commandment Number Two: Avoid any business practice that is primarily service industry or relies on repeat customers.
           This advice may fly in the collective yuppie face, but ignore me at your own peril. The bad news I promised is this: First of all, you yuppies, with the exception of dentists, probably don’t have any such skills to offer. You were cogs in a machine that has been declared obsolete. Second, when it comes to true customer service (fix it or replace it right this moment), not one of you was anywhere near as good at it as you liked to think you were. After all, that is why you lost your job. Third, you will quickly be driven out of business by other yuppies with the identical game plan. There’s 85 million of them.
           Still with the bad news, as I scanned the small business articles for a pattern, it emerges that all semi-skilled positions (or lower in the case of tow truck drivers) are full or franchised. Think again if you are planning on repairing bicycles or selling hotdogs. Even the 5,000 MicroSoft employees being canned this year better think twice about those charities they were planning to start. I even stay away from tutoring because the customer has to be resold with every lesson. You get what’s left over.
           I admit I have not been able to strictly follow my own rules, but renting Internet computers is close. Try asking for your money back. Just don’t ask me what is right or I might get snarky and suggest you start learning to play bass. That would be mean, so I won’t. I recently looked at mailboxes, then decided I don’t want to be open 24 hours a day. Your mileage may vary. Send for kit.
           [Author’s note: No, I have not forgotten that I still have the only true Internet work at home business plan ever invented. One day, I will get around to selling it. The business card network idea.]

April 19, 2009

           Another photo from the past, this is “Debbie113”, so the file says. She was a customer at the shop back in ’06 who, as you see, loved to have her picture taken. That is Fred, obliging. She was a cutie, although the picture is altered. Policy. I recall she was hot, but also that something about her kept setting off my perimeter alarm. (If curious, you could probably research the matter by using this blog alone.) Note in the right background part of a display of 1,000,000 toothpicks. I deserve an honorary doctorate just for that.
           Today, I call the entry the “Economics Lesson”. Read on, you’ll see why. Some frustrated driver abandoned an undeliverable box beside Wallace’s car last month. I did a major shop this morning, everything from cat food to granola. Thank you, Jimbo’s. This was also my first opportunity to do the rounds since Wallace left. I rarely go over to the Panera any more, and the same with Senor Café since they doubled their prices. I saw something new [for sale at Big Lots]. It is a plastic pool sixteen feet in diameter, but narrow around the rim. The rim, when inflated, floats so that the pool rises as it is filled. Ingenious. Somebody had more than water on the brain.
           Neighbor Carlos lost his wallet. With all his papers and $37. I gave him ten bucks. He says it was a pair of pants that he knew there was a hole in the pocket but took a chance. I finished the “Sopranos” DVDs at end of season six. I see they clipped off the ending, meaning unless you watch further, you’ll never know if they get whacked in the diner. Mike at the shop says there are a series of alternative endings. By coincidence, there are reruns of the series on Channel 62 or so. But I have no practice watching TV by schedule so I doubt I could remember when to be there.
           The summer weather is here, broiling by mid-morning every day. The Canadians have left and the area is quiet again. That means I can dump the yard trimmings Wallace left two months ago. Now, about the carton on the north doorstep. By the time I noticed it, all tags and labels had washed off. It was Herbalife products. I phoned their office. All I got was the robotic runaround.
           There was a card stating the shipment had been insured for $497.59, meaning nobody lost anything, so I threw it out except for the soap (which smells great). I find it shocking some people spend nearly $500 on dietary supplements whose effectiveness “has not been determined”. It caused me to reflect my own life. I should have kept the whole shipment and sold it. Let me explain why I feel that way.
           In today’s money, my parents raised me on $6.49 per day at a time when the cost was $114.15 per day. That is correct; the average person my age got twenty times more spent on their upbringing than I did. That explains why millions of them are cheery, non-addicted, artistically-motivated, debt-free and so happily married to their first spouses. (Of course, if that were true, we’d be reading their blogs, am I right?)
           Those figures might surprise a few of you who complained your allowance was too little. What the statistic does not reveal is that food alone was around $6.00 per day, leaving 49 cents for everything else in my life. Food is the one thing you cannot take along when you leave the nest. I speak from experience. But most of you took something besides education, attitudes, and fashionable clothes; you also took for granted you were worth it.
           Don’t whine if you have kids, because adjusted for inflation it is today slightly cheaper at $91.00 per child every 24 hours. Just put it on your credit card. Let the kid pay it back through taxes and inflation. If he figures out you just spent his tuition on vitamins, tell him to shut up. Doesn’t he know you’ve got problems enough of your own?
           Analysis of the gig y’day shows it was the most productive use of my show time yet. This reinforces the idea that less is more, that I should be playing only bigger parties less often. What’s more, it was one of the best times I’ve personally ever had on stage, and certainly the best time as a soloist (possibly because I’m so new at it). My sound is now fleshed out and there is no mistaking bass is the featured instrument. As with all music, there is still a long way to go, but I’ve been saying that since I was 10. I saw new people in the audience. Some were impressed by the atmosphere I can create (but not yet always and everywhere, the way Arnel does).
           I would hesitate to do a blues bar full of middle-aged white guitarists. The type who took lessons along with their vitamins. Gone are my days of starting with standard tunes hoping for a crowd reaction. Let you-know-who keep doing that forever. I’ve learned to hit the room running with a series of extremely popular covers to establish the pace, which once captured, cannot be let go. One lapse and some lackey will play Nirvana on the jukebox. Further, my act requires a minimum volume before the effect takes bite. I may develop a policy against joints that should be playing a radio. I am not a coffeehouse musician and neither are my compadres.
           Which leads me to invite you to a benefit show next Sunday, the 26th. See us later in the afternoon at the Dania Beach Bar & Grill. Arnel is the feature act and it will be the first time I’ve actually played at that establishment. “I’ll hang around as long as they will let me.” That’s a reminder that my material is still predominantly country classics.

April 18, 2009

           For the next few days I lack uncopyrighted new photos, so here is a zip into the recent past. Who remembers Legs, the Russian lady with the dynamite legs at the coffee shop on Federal? She, like most good-looking women, disappeared by the age of twenty. But don’t worry, she will re-emerge on the market minus her charms and plus an attitude. That's what you get for "age appropriate" dating in Florida. This photo was of the coffee shop when it was for sale and I didn’t realize she was in the background. The photo is heavily cropped.
           A few minor breakthroughs today with Karaoke. I do know that finding the right person to help me would mean learning all this in an hour, but damn, you try to find such a person in this vicinity. Although I have not yet succeeded in finding the software that embeds lyrics into the original midi files, I was able to isolate a midi event list. That may be too technical, so I will explain. Right now, I have any number of programs that let me add lyrics to a music file. The problem is, the lyrics can only be read by the program that created them, and what I need is a format that can be read by any commercial karaoke application. Like vanBascoe.
           Toward that end, I know that a midi file is really just a list of “event” instructions. Your karaoke software then reads those events in order and creates music. The most important event is the timer, that is, the list that controls when all these events take place. If I can find the timer list, I can attach the lyrics to the timing events instead of the melody line. That’s because anyone who listens to Karaoke can tell you some people’s idea of a melody line can get pretty weird and go Zydeco on you.
           Teresa called from Wilmiewood to assure everything is fine. The Winnebago her dad gave her is huge, and has been dubbed “The Chalet”. They’ve been doing a lot of family things, like barbeques and such. My family never did such things because any group gathering of them was just an excuse to pick fights and criticize, but I do understand the concept of face time. I told her I’d like to visit again when there is more time. I won’t be taking the Greyhound.
           Two of the other travelers have emailed with their names and details of the Greyhound fiasco in Savannah/Jackson. The worst part of the delay was how Greyhound would not guarantee they’d hold the bus if any of us left to go get some real food. Several people could not even get a soda because they were afraid to put their last $5 bill into a machine that might not give change. Greyhound has a “zero tolerance” policy for “rude” behavior, but in a sick twist, they are using it to strong-arm customers who complain about poor service. If they lose your baggage and you dare to complain, they throw you off their property as a “trespasser” despite the fact you have a ticket.
           Since Friday morning, I have been putting my new pseudo-Karaoke system through the paces. One thing I did not check was the function of the extended video card, the feature that displays the words on one screen and the menu on another. That was the first mistake, the second was using a Dell laptop. At my “Island Party” gig today, the Karaoke feature would not work. I had to fake the seven-hour gig.
           Which I did, playing 126 different tunes. If you heard my show, you would instantly notice how distinct the bass lines are compared (by comparison to normal). They are loud, but very smooth. It is what I do. Despite the missing display, I had a packed house and a packed dance floor. I performed two three-hour sets with some recorded music during the lunch and cake. Five regulars were celebrating their birthdays this week and invited me to perform.
           Which was a wise move financially, as in the rent is paid. My custom bass line to “I Believe In Miracles” had the ladies dancing five deep in the aisles. That makes sense, who else would there be to dance with? There was one tall and attractive blonde new lady watching the show. I would have chatted her up, but she mysteriously left just a few songs before I was going to finish for the evening. Guess we’ll never know.
To sum up, almost everything went wrong with my music gear today, but the show was still a big success. One of the better parties ever, number around 40 people, which is really packing that room. The food was really incredible, with Patrick doing the cooking again. Ham, sausages, meatballs, chili, potato salad, mac salad, and a cold cheese dish resembling lasagna that you won’t find in any diet books. I’ve long since noticed they always have more than twice as much food as ever gets eaten. But I did my share.
           Not Pudding-Tat. Rigging up the video cam verifies my notion that she will not eat unless I’m nearby. She has so ill-effects and may find alternative food out in the yard. This feline instinct stuff I do not understand but this is the first I’ve known of a cat who will leave food on her plate unless she has human company. I was going to lecture Pudding-Tat about cats in China that don’t get enough to eat, but that would be inviting cheap shots. Cat food, get it? Tasteless, get it? Time to quit.

April 17, 2009

           An early morning callout had me in Miami by 8:00 AM. Folks, the best advice I can give to anyone learning computers past the age of forty is to just slow down. They had to catch a flight to England at noon and their computer would not print out the ticket confirmations. Turns out they were using the global print command instead of finding the tiny “print this page” icon on the vendor’s web page. I got them back on schedule and they tipped me more bottles of wine.
           It is sad in the sense that neither Wallace nor I drink wine, so it sits. I really can’t tell good wine brands from the rest, no more than some men can tell good women. (Ask Mel Gibson.) Wallace checked with his daughter about the prices and that’s how we learned these wines are far too expensive to use for cooking. Both Wallace and I associate going out for a drink with socializing, so we don’t even keep beer in the fridge at home. The last bottle of liquor I bought was in 2002 and it was still here when JP drank it last year. So the good wine will, hopefully, age well. The good women, too, but my money is on the wine.
           Today’s trivia is a splashmeter. It looks like a pole in the ground and it measures splashes. It is not a boon to mothers who have to give their nine-year old boys a bath on Monday nights, but rather a device that trips when raindrops cause splatter above a certain height. The reason? There is a family of plant fungus that can only spread when bounced high enough to reach the lower leaves of the crop. The farmer need only apply expensive fungicide after storms that set off the alarms. Now you know.
           My car was on TV last month. A second person saw it, not just Teresa. Yes, I did stop at the Burger King for coffee that morning. Yes, I did back into the parking space. Yes, I then walked across the parking lot into the book store. No, I did not see anything unusual when I came out and left an hour later. They had a big police incident meanwhile, and there was my Taurus in a background shot on the 6:00 o’clock. Some loony caused a ruckus at the Burger King. My car was unharmed.
           In the “I Never Knew That Department”, I always thought any bridge that hung from cables was a suspension bridge. Nope, only bridges which have big cables drooping downward qualify. The ones that have the straight cables are called, logically, “cable-stayed span” bridges. Aren’t you glad I do all this research for you? I make a mean pot of coffee, too. Which is what I am doing tonight. I’ve got the gig tomorrow and have decided to spend a rare Friday at home.
           Later, yes I know this meant I would take the night off. But, but, I, er, ran out of popcorn. So I tackled the Cakewalk sequence to edit the lyrics. That important attempt was unsuccessful, but I can now patch in tracks using the on-board synthesizer and man, what a sound! (Also, what a lot of work.) Still, anything is easier than finding a backup band that could do what I just did on my own. Now I am fired up to get the sounds off that Yamaha keyboard I gave myself for Xmas back in ’95.
           You should hear Not Half Bad (my band) do Chapman’s “Gimme One Reason” now. I’m careful with adjectives when saying I finally have some truly incredible boogie piano lines to flesh out my specialty (the boogie bass) in a way just not possible by a guitarist. I tested it twenty different ways before I could believe it myself. As luck would have it, I have a ton of excellent non-guitar music awaiting this treatment.
           Mind you, I am still tackling the lyric editing function. There are at least three ways to enter the lyrics (with Cakewalk), but only two of them will display (the other prints them between the clefs of staff music). Each syllable has to be associated with a Cakewalk musical event, which is tricky because Cakewalk lacks the capability to display the words like a Karaoke player. Arnel tends to attach his lyrics to a melody line because he only needs the occasional reminder. In my case, the audience will see what I type, so I must consider the entire presentation, not just the melody. The next time certain people hear my show, they will be whistling a different tune themselves.
           Last, I’ve got to hand it to the retards who work at Nokia. Sometines my phone would not ring. Sometimes hours later, I’d notice a “missed call” message although I had the phone on me all along. Today I discover the phone has a deeply submerged default setting that turns the ringer off if the calling party’s phone number doesn’t display. This fooled me double, because the phone will ring if I have the calling party’s number programmed into my contact list and they call from that phone. How many calls have I missed? Only convention prevents me from telling you what I think of Nokia at this point. I mean, what kind of total ass would do that to a phone and not warn the purchaser about it?

April 16, 2009

           This is your update of the local Chev-Olds lot getting mighty empty. The lane you see used to be $30,000 SUV parked two deep. Now I see $20,000 cars in a sparse row with many gaps (look close). Since I bike through this lot twice a day, you’d think I’d spot the occasional buyer, but no. I have no mercy for these operations because the one thing they will not do is lower their prices, yet that is the only option left to stay in business. There is an economic theory that “deflation” is worse than “inflation”, but I say that has all too rarely been put to the test. Seriously, what would bother me about prices dropping?
           Whenever I find myself having to make decisions with imperfect information, I re-read “Hell in a Very Small Place”, a poorly-written book which gives me inspiration for the wrong reasons. I’ve kept a copy handy for ten years. It perpetually assures us that no matter how badly we may screw up, we can never be the most bungling, hopeless incompetents on Earth. That award is already taken. Read it yourself, and discover what happens when war is conducted by New Age thinkers on the “superior” side.
           [Author’s note: the above book concerns the 1954 siege at Dien Bien Phu, a district in North Vietnam. There, an unsuccessful history professor kicked the highest-ranking generals available out of that valley, out of the war, out of Indo-China and all the way back to the Arc de Triomphe (or whatever). He whupped ‘em so bad to this day they still sit around Paris penning contradictory accounts and pointing fingers. He did much the same to the Americans sixteen years later, except America will not confess to losing that war. “Hell, we don’t even admit to misplacing it.”]
           Since I was a kid, I always wondered what laminar flow meant, when talking about airplane wings. As the wing flies into the air, it caused turbulence, which “tumbles” backward over the rear half of the wing. By opening little holes in the wing to draw in the air just over the surface, the flow becomes smooth again. A tiny amount of air is ducted into the wing and these pores must be continually kept clean of dust and insects. I find that very interesting.
           How about that Mel Gibson? No prenuptial, and that oversight is going to cost him nearly a billion dollars. I support both theories. One, that she was his supportive wife and without sacrificing her own career, he would never have made it on his own. (Ahem.) If so, she should get it all, not just half. Two, that he was already successful when they married, she had a life of comfort and ease and if her career suffered, that was her own willing choice. Therefore she deserves nothing more than she already got. I say, put it to the test. If, as claimed, her “services” are worth that much, give her twelve months after the divorce to prove she can marry another billionaire before she gets another dime. That’s fair, considering she now has experience, right?
           I spent two hours downloading around a hundred midi files. The problem is that these versions are often too poor to be used at all, and at times are too great a departure from the original to even be upgraded. Therefore, I went to the Karaoke show at Jimbo’s and watched the operation. She lugs around two binders with 512 disks. The code on the request form tells her which disk to load next. I see they are CDs, meaning she has around 7,000 tunes.
           The next step is those binders. She says she’d like to redo them, but cannot afford it. I thumbed through and almost a quarter of the list is redundant. Seven versions of “Me and Bobby McGee”. It follows that I guess the format she is using is the CDG, but she is so protective of the disks she won’t let me even hold one. I proposed a trade. Since her Karaoke player will read DVDs, I’ll show her how to copy all her music onto 54 disks, if in return she allows me to copy the entire collection onto a single hard drive.
           The CDG format is digitalized wave forms. Unless software exists to reverse engineer midi channels (completely different than recording tracks), I won’t have much use for most of the material except as a novelty. Her music is more realistic sounding, but presents the problem of no bass channel. No bass channel means the bass line cannot be removed, meaning I’m right back where I started. How do you like that?

April 15, 2009

           Here’s a lucky kid. He’s not just rollin’, he’s delivering groceries. Look close. These electric toys are amazing. This little guy is Romanian (his mother was in tow). If he was American, he’s be training for the only “yob” he’ll get with his MBA sixteen years from now (2025) when Social Security goes pfzzzzt and coffee is $12 a cup. Plus tax.
           It looks like my competition, Megabite Café, has come bouncing back, an amazing performance on their behalf (since they folded last year). Given the state of the economy, we know this outfit is not being financed by any source covered in Economics 101. They are right on Hollywood Blvd, in the section that leases for $4K per month. I’m not terribly worried now that I know their primary goal is to sell small sandwiches and bubble tea at twice the going rate.
           When I went to welcome them at the last location, their 30-something waitress decided I was spying on them. Maybe this time I will. I was in there looking for music work, not checking out the atmosphere. Some people look at a bar and wish they owned it. I look at it and want to be the highest paid person who works there.
           There are a couple of bars along Hollywood that have a single computer available for free. They don’t count. If you’ll buy beer from me at $5 each, I’ll gladly set you up a chat line, too. I put in many hours downloading and checking the beginnings of the Karaoke music I’m going to need. This is tedious, considering that the command filter to only find tunes with lyrics is easily defeated by the nobodies on mySpace. (They have nothing to offer but nearly every search leads to one of their droning profiles.)
           I was also able to gain some ground with midi by finding the kind of information about how it works. Midi people still talk in circles to the ridiculous extent that if you knew what they meant, you would not need them. A midi channel is an address which is a box which is a patch which is an instrument. And so on. The significant new fact is that midi is not a good editing medium. You are supposed to convert your material to midi after it is composed. That explains why Arnel uses it only to change instruments.
           This will keep me busy. My show gobbles up to 20 songs per set. Arnel is probably close to that. (In telling contrast to the locals who tend to play maybe that many songs in an entire evening.) Last weekend Arnel mentioned something that confirms my own reasoning. He said that there are times you just cannot afford to let the audience lose momentum by taking a break or slowing down the pace. What have I been saying in isolation for the past ten years? I can think of a few people who need to be seriously informed of that fact. Play your slow tunes at the recording studio, not in a live club.
           On the way home, I heard a guitarist at the Octopus. I listened but barely long enough to reject any potential. He was doing originals only, rarely a wise move for it does not give the non-playing audience anything to gauge and compare. By original, I mean he had strung the elements together by himself. Verse-chorus-verse-chorus. The amusing part was that he was mediocre in both guitar and voice, but everything was technically exact. It must be nice to possess just enough talent and money to have a stab at following the pack. There were ten guys doing that in every town when I was growing up. It was like listening to flea market tapes on your lunch break.
           Is anyone here familiar with screenwriting? Not intimately, I see. It has evolved from the hack writing of last century into a very lucrative career, with some scripts bringing in $5 million. That slapped me wide awake. Formerly considered a low-grade occupation in Los Angeles, I was curious to see that Seattle has become the new hot spot. This suits a lot of people who never cared for the formulaic Los Angeles way of doing things, with every script oozing single parents, homosexuals and overweight teenagers. Screenwriting is a lot like writing a play, but with far more scene descriptions and instructions as to what is happening around the actors and their speaking parts.
           When I was in grade ten, the literature teacher assigned us to read a play, a similar type of script. I found it boring, but wonder how I would have paid attention had Mrs. Blaskovits told me it paid the big bucks. In logical progression, I checked to see if there was anything new in screenwriting software and tried to get a sample of some current work. In the first instance, despite the fact that the software is nothing but a glorified word processor, the applications sell for hundreds of dollars. And as far as samples, there is nothing but bad fragments on the Internet.
           For that I blame the WGA, who frown on spec scripts. (WGA is Writers Guild of America, and spec means speculation, not specification.) Yet it is spec scripts that are bringing in the big money. They are written in the hope of being discovered, like my “El Kavorite”. This is a welcome trend away from the schlock being vomited out of Hollywood (CA) for the past twenty years. You see the WGA in action every time you go to the movies. They are the people who control what scrolls past on the screen making sure it contains the name of every flunky on the team. For instance, “Written by” is limited to one or two authors, for three or more the wording changes.
           Today’s real trivia is for you to look up who George Spelvin really is. Two hints. He is an actor whose first role was in 1906 and his last one far into the future even now.

April 14, 2009

           I have no recent photo so here is a timeless scene. There is a freighter, possibly a container ship, on the horizon below the lowest arm of the palm tree. This is Hollywood or Dania Beach, Florida and Florida. It could be a repeated photo, if so email me and I’ll make the changes. There is a purpose and reason why nothing much is happening these days. But if things go well, one of my plans is to begin (slowly) publishing the totality of my written output. But I want to publish from my custom van, touring the lower 48.
           The work I had for today once more reflects one of those dismal features of computers: they just do not emulate stupid people very well. Centuries of progress have been lost by having to clean up after dolts. If half-educated people were not required to pretend bureaucracy works, you might be receiving this message from across the Milky Way. I think Capitalism may be at fault. Capitalism lets the cheapest system that works get entrenched past the point of no return. Witness VHS tapes, the way Christmas lights always tangle, and on-line dating.
           Take this hostage thing in Somalia. This ship happened to have an American crew, which emphasizes that the other ships did not, now making other US ships a high-value target. Hours ago it is reported that three US snipers took out three Somalis in a split second. Talk about your cover-up. Even if it were possible to hit a moving target from a moving target with such precision, it is idiotic to let the enemy think you even can. Applying Occam’s Razor, the Navy slipped a couple of agents over the side of the life-boat and applied the low-tech solution. This SEAL thing is for public consumption. Expect a round of movies.
           Back to computers, I am referring to the Karaoke systems that are in place (as being examples of bad programming). Nobody programming midi appears to have known that popular music and lyrics go together. I do partially fault [the situation] the way computer programming is taught, but that is asking me to believe not one of the programmers ever noticed the words between the little dots in 300-year old sheet music.
           The rush to dominate the market means nothing in Karaoke works totally right. It seems clear that the original midi format should have been adapted to include lyrics, almost as clear as the fact it was omitted, likely due to licensing fees. Maybe soon I will discover how the original Karaoke midi files are being produced. For the moment, all I’ve found are more applications that add lyrics to existing formats, producing for example, CD+G tracks. As if you don’t have enough headaches already.
           I know that applications like “Cakewalk” will add lyrics to an actual midi track, producing the kar format. What I have not found is an application that does so in a rapid, convenient fashion using available text. Each software package tested to date shows a piecemeal and short-sighted approach to the whole music/lyric combination and I lack the skill to do anything about it. Same thing with those dang Christmas lights.
           One of my regular customers asked for some advice today. He is in school on a government program and nearing the point where a career decision is critical. I can’t give such advice except in uselessly wide terms. For example, it is easy to say make sure whatever career you choose will pay off the costs of school. Or when in doubt, stay in school as long as you can. Or avoid any gaps in your schooling. However, the fact is, many people these days will never recover the costs of their own education. Jobs have been dumbed down along with the general population. The best paying work they will ever get will merely stave off defeat.
           This made me reflect on my own experiences. Years ago, before he got married, I had a business partner named Rusty. During summer breaks, he worked for the power company, I worked in construction. Don’t mistake anything I say; Rusty succeeded entirely on his own. But at least part of his success is certainly due to environment. His family knew the family of the local power company manager.
           While Rusty did not take any personal favors, the following fact cannot be ignored. During work hours and breaks, Rusty very often rubbed elbows with the upper 10% of management who actually make decisions. These were people with first-hand knowledge of the world who could give him excellent advice born of personal experience. On the other hand, in my job, all I ever heard were the losers who could only give you bad advice they must have followed themselves. Thus, while Rusty was listening people who in the flesh had made the big money in Saudi Arabia, I was hearing nothing but tripe. I recognized it, but the consequent lack of good information and immediate need for money meant I never knew what was available out there until too late to change horses.
           Since my customer is an avid athlete, I suggested he look into any type of medical career that repairs or works with muscle and bone. There are many fields short of becoming a doctor where knowledge of anatomy and health are in demand. Look at David Janss, my buddy from Los Angeles. He was a sonogram technician making three times as much money as I was at my union job. And David was still broke all the time. That was because he would do things like hire a married couple who just got out of jail to tile his spare bathroom. I remember them as Bonny and Clyde, here we go loopty-loo.
           If I had to do it over again, I would look into radiology. My aversion to needles is well known, but I also have this revulsion to getting up close and touching fat people. You know, the ones who get sick an awful, awful lot. The kind of sick that requires handling. Whereas I couldn’t give these people massage therapy without gagging, repeatedly blasting them with particle beams is something I am pretty much okay with.

April 13, 2009

           Here is a photo from three years ago. This is the concert I attended somewhere up in Boca. I got in free for directing traffic. The singer had formerly been with “The Who”. I’d call him “Who” but I heard that was already taken. Anyway, I had really wanted to see what kind of backup band he had thrown together. I was impressed by the bass player. He was a different generation, the weather was quite cold and he never missed a note. They played a lot of covers.
           Nothing exciting happened today. That’s why you get filler material, but hey, I’ll compare my filler to 99% of what is in newspapers these days. It was quiet because I went for a physical. Nothing has changed. I am half-blind (20/100 vision (uncorrected) since I was 12 years old), and except for an unexplained heart murmur, I’m as healthy as a pole vaulter. Just think, that many more blogs, gigs and trips to nowhere. I don’t smoke, do drugs, gamble and only drink the occasional Bud when a customer buys, so I’ll be around a spell longer unless I get run over by a government truck. Why, yes now that you ask, I do chase women, but only when women worth chasing can be found.
           Nobody was performing on Sunday, so I took that as another opportunity to grab a good book. If there was such a thing as a decent party in this town, I would have gone there. I read another article by Jastrow, the physicist. He gave some details about the origin of all matter heavier than hydrogen. The three competing theories are all heavy elements were created instantly during the Big Bang, that they are constantly being created in the cores of stars, and that hydrogen is manufactured out of nothing. Personally, I don’t think any of these provide an adequate explanation. People just don’t realize how much empty space there is between stars and galaxies, so no matter where it was manufactured, how did the really heavy elements get here in such abundance? I like to ponder these things. What do you ponder?
           A snag in the mailbox plan is the issue of 24-hour access. I don’t think that is really needed. How many times did you go check your mail at 3:00 AM in the past ten years? My position is that if we are very clear with the renters about hours, we will have our quota without trying to please everybody. We are talking merely 60 people, and I also think we will meet some very interesting personalities in the process. The alternative is one of those titanium grates that pull shut across the area. This would increase the security over the two panes of glass we got right how. Just ask the store owner next door (the one who used to have all those cigarettes and beer).
           Another few (unsuccessful) rounds with the playback sound problem, and I’ve decided to accept the worst case scenario of running a basic Karaoke show. I have the software and know-how, so tomorrow I’m firing up (my) three (fastest) Internet computers to start downloading every available midi or kar tune available through van Bascoe. This puts my plans to create the tracks myself on the back microwave. I’m planning on 96 man-hours of downloads and I’ll keep a progress report posted here for those interested in such operations.
           Last, to close with a thrilling passage, the cat is shedding. Pudding-Tat proceeded to spend the night on my brown dress slacks that I had left on the card table chair. The trousers that have to be dry-cleaned, the trousers now covered with static cling cat fur. Some may say, “What’s a little cat fur?” What do you mean a little? I wish my camera had good enough resolution for a jpeg. Oh, I hear the same some saying, “Why not just put it on your scanner?”
           Because I’m dumb, but not THAT dumb.
           Today’s trivia is one of those facts everybody would know if they had a reason to think about it. In the temperate zones of the world, rivers tend to flow toward the tropics. The rivers start from a point farther away from the equator and end in a delta nearer the equator, that is, a lower latitude. The exception is the Nile, which flows entirely away from the tropics. Another distinguishing feature is that it is the only river with nary a tributary.
           It is probably the straightest river as well. That is why I know there must be a theory out there that states the river originally had another course, but over time tectonic activity captured the stream. It now flows down a “failed arm”, a geographic feature whereby upthrusts in the Earth’s crust form three radial fractures. Two of these arms “fail”, the third becomes a thing like the Riff Valley or the Red Sea.
           My contingent of geologist readers could point out that changing the flow of a river in this manner is called “stream piracy”. But with the recent flap over in Somalia, I’m not touching that line.