Now today’s top story: band rehearsal. I’ll do a before and after, this is before. We talked briefly this morning and I got the directions for 6:00 PM get together. I downloaded most of the list he quoted. It sounds like a loose and informal structure, which is only a plus in a country music group. Everybody seems to have their own money and transpo, another good sign. Return here later for a report on how it goes. My stance remains the same, that any band is better than no band. Anything is preferable to being a schmeeb in the audience, a bystander, a wannabe. But I’ve never seen such bad odds of success as this town. The fact this band already plays out means I go the extra mile. On average, the guys are ten years younger than me, but I won’t hold youth and inexperience against them.
Two news items to chew on. Facebook is again being sued for the same thing: continuing to track users after they are logged off. It should be plain they are never going stop this illegal activity and neither will the fines they get when caught. (Facebook claims the persistent tracking cookie problem is caused by “third parties”.) Next, Japan has successfully transmitted an “8K” television signal through the air as most people say “so what?” It means don’t throw out antenna technology just yet. It means they can do high def TV without the cables or the satellites. And that is sweet music to those who dislike Comcast and Rogers (who consistently claim they must raise prices because of the cables and satellites).
I mentioned a few days ago that I had never worked for so little as $49,000 in today’s money. For fun, I went back and adjusted my salary at the phone place to 2012 dollars. My best year was 1992, when my base salary was $81,300.53. On top of that I had my overtime, bonuses, investments, music, and a rich girlfriend. Sad to say that is entirely not possible today in Florida at street level. Oh, and you open minded Yuppies should know that the number of white births in the USA just fell below 50%. By 2040, your children will be a minority. Are you happy now? How do you suppose that majority will vote on the use of public funds? A majority who has always considered their privileges more important than their obligations.
[Author’s note: this dollar amount is not meant to contradict item F in the Jan. 24/12 post. Index calculations are not a science and my income contains more variables than usual. The next sentence is just to make sure you are wide awake. As long as someone like me in the room can see or hear you type, you have no such thing as a secret password.]
Cancel rehearsal. The rain started twenty minutes before I could start driving. It’s a bad one during a bad rainy season already. Guitar Bill called to cancel due to same at his end. They practice out on old Sheridan, which are small acreages just west of the Everglades and at the limit of my driving max for a band. I’m learning their material hear and a lot of it is fun to play. It’s dance music which always gets my upvote.
Thus, I watched a movie called “The Fountain”. Nope, don’t pay for it. Some scenes about Spain and conquistadors are interesting and would be more so if they were not filmed in the dark. Otherwise, it is some bald guy floating around in a space bubble pretending to know Buddhist poses and rituals. Keeps flipping back to the weary plot of the doctor trying to cure death. Nothing original or hard-hitting. Might interest those who believe in Mayans were connected to distant galaxies. Like that empire, this movie just up and ends.
The explanation of the Burger King ad is shown here. The clue in the original picture is that the man’s hand would have had to been on backwards.“If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake.”
—Frank Wilczek
