One year ago today: September 27, 2013, prototype camper.
Five years ago today: September 27, 2009, rather inspired.
Ten years ago today: September 27, 2004, the Onion Store link.
MORNING
Whee! Spending money. This morning was like old times at the phone place. I went on a spree. Just go out and spend money because you know you’ll never get rich, but there’s more where that came from. It was just me and the Karaoke cash, bro. Spent it all except $20 which has to last me three whole hours until bingo. The pain. Got new matching leather belts for all my trousers, organic beef tomatoes for my blender, my popular science and mechanics issues, and all them doo-dads for around the house I’ve been putting off.
Or how about the Oklahoma food plant murder? They print the suspect is in custody. Allow me to inform the mainstream media that there is a “suspect” in a bicycle theft, not a beheading. I mean, how do you “suspect” somebody of cutting off a human head in public. See the guy in the picture? In America, he's a suspect. Is there, like, insufficient evidence? Or maybe they are not sure a crime has been committed? What a bunch of jerks.
That is why I believe I’ll have an extra siesta right now. First, a little trivia. Flamingos are unique as birds because, get this, it is their lower jaw or beak the is fixed. The upper is the one that moves. Do you believe in evolution now? And it was 20 years ago today that Linux was released. Why didn’t it take over? Because it is too freaking weird, that’s why. “Otzi” is the name of that 5,000 year old hunter they found under a melting glacier. He was carrying a flint dagger, a hunting bow, a copper axe, and 14 arrows. Either the guy was major trouble or he heard there was a job opening in Oklahoma.
I see from the reviews I’m not the only one frustrated by MicroSoft’s insistence on changing things for the worse. It seems there is no easy way to display “All Programs”. When you finally find the command (on the “charm” screen), it only displays the programs MicroSoft wants you to see. So you don’t get them mixed up, the government system “Carnivore” targets the To: and From: segments of your email. It requires a warrant. However the “Echelon” system is considered a “screening” filter, no warrant needed. Echelon just watches and listens, and then claims the bad guys were caught by a “routine patrol”.
NOON
Ah, the long afternoon with a good book and a pot of Russian tea. That’s tea from Russia, or I mean packaged in Russia. And not made really strong and then diluted. More steeped like Chinese tea, but other than that, a pot of Russian tea. I read some details about that telescope made by Galileo. We all know the tale of his quarrel with the Pope that got his ass arrested.
This is not built from the long “organ pipe” that appears on his shopping list the day he bought the parts. This picture is incredibly accurate, even the spires in the background. So this is not the same telescope the historians would have us believe. Note, this is only a small center section of a huge painting not shown here, cropped to show the telescope.
Galileo ground the glass on a cannonball. You know, the more I learn about that guy, the less I buy the tale that he was just another smart Italian. There is something else, something that doesn’t add up. I keep getting the feeling that he knew what he was looking for.
I’m a record keeper, and I can’t help seeing in his detailed writings and drawings, that he was necessarily obsessed with such detail for some other reason. People just don’t keep track of most anything unless they at least think it will come in handy. Business records were originally kept for that purpose.
One has to appreciate his daring, even if his genius isn’t all that it seems at first. What I admire most about the man is that he learned being right is very rarely enough. In some ways, medieval Europe was, in that sense, like modern-day Canada. If the authorities say the world is flat, the populace not only believes it, they turn in anyone who thinks otherwise. There is a pattern to Galileo’s work that I just have not spotted yet. But it’s there.
EVENING
To me, on a scale of one to ten, Karaoke is zero. But music is the most competitive of businesses, so don’t turn your back on any opportunity. This was, financially, my best weekend this year. Ah, but could that be because I had no expenses. The Karaoke show was staged with existing and stationary equipment. I’ll let this development play out, as music besides being competitive is also a hugely copycat business. So there is no doubt Lee-Anne, who owns the video graphics player (the type of CD player needed to display the lyrics) has by now figured out if she learns the ropes, she don’t need me.
If that is her plan, she must be left to try it.
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