One year ago today: March 7, 2016, the chocolate ration.
Five years ago today: March 7, 2012, hospital admission, my eye.
Nine years ago today: March 7, 2008, nothing but the waterfall.
Random years ago today: March 7, 2009, delivering the wow.
Good morning with the DOW slipping to 21,933 and Standard & Poor at 2,370. Near record highs that do nothing to create jobs at the bottom. It’s a totally manipulated zero-sum game. Back at street level, here’s a yard light on sale at the local hardware store. Better get two. And the real estate lady was on the radio giving a factual report, but without realizing she had some of us rolling the [hardwood] floor laughing. She was detailing the difference in buying habits, and she knows her stuff. The average buyer is significantly older these days, more like in their 30s, but it’s how she came across.
First, you must not have appliances that are black, white, or colored. That might offend somebody. To hell with whether it does the job, you go for the equality (and expense) of stainless steel. And get rid of those Formica countertops. Everyone knows that’s from when families had maids, which is a servant, which in Millennial-think is the same as s-l-a-v-e. Aunt Bea, you go girl. And wall-to-wall bathroom mirrors are a no-no in the selfie age when they all-too-often divulge unsavory background spectacles. What a laugh, as she listed off an accurate roll of changed buyer requirements without a clue she was sticking it to the hipsters.
Here it is, unadorned. The prep time, roasting time, and flavor are identical to a bigger bird. At three bucks, that’s cheap enough to consider one each for everybody. The thing is hard to carve, so let me research if there’s a right way to do that. Mmmm, rice and chicken. It’s not just for breakfast any more.
Having gotten up way too early for somebody supposed to be taking it easy, I decided to tackle that intro to Yearwood’s “Blame It On Your Heart”. I always did fake it but I thought why not see if I can emulate that steel guitar? The answer is no, it isn’t physically possible even on the short scale bass. What I did do was emulate the lower harmonic of each pair of notes. On the bass, this actually sounds better than the melody note, as the groupings are more familiar to the listener. So, I’m onto something because a guitarist would not play that riff. By adding the regular bass notes where the high end is “missing”, you can hear the steel guitar pattern without the shrill tones, a sort of “how did you do that” effect. Naturally that means I will polish it up and use it.
Later, I knew that recording was something fishy. I finally took the speed down 30% to learn the riff note for note and as I usually do, I made a second recording slowed by 50%. There’s the studio trick. The two channels are slightly offset to one another, which gives that playback at regular speed a fatter tone. Once I know this, it’s a matter of grouping the notes so that I can hold each one just a slight more than usual. Listen to the intro if you have a copy, the first 12 seconds of the song. You may notice it sounds like the notes are marginally “behind” the beat. Now that I know that, I can fake it, and by the way, 12 seconds is a sizeable intro so no way I’m leaving it out.
Argentina.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
From here on, it wasn’t a great day. I wired in that switch with the pilot light, the one that indicates if the outside back yard light has been left on. It didn’t work, but the wiring is correct. Suggesting I wired it wrong, well, that’s for people who can’t build their own ROM. And who like to pick fights. I diagrammed it out and it is one of those nasty compound problems. I know that the diagram that accompanied the package is wrong. There must be a small tab that needs to be broken off. It’s one of those asinine you’re-supposed-to-know scenarios written by people who should, but never, disqualify themselves.
Without finding the tab (it was on the wrong side of the diagram), I’ve isolated the part of the circuit it must be in, yet that should cause a short. It doesn’t, meaning there is another load further down that wire. I called off the search and went to the library. I shouldn’t do that in the afternoons because the dismal prick is on duty.
The one who always insists I haul out the ID, which he as seen around four times already. So it isn’t about the ID any more. When the other staff is there, by the time I walk in the door they have my coffee cup on the counter and my computer ticket printed up. They all know my ID does not expire until 2024.
Then you get this prick wasting time. It’s not like he’s an upstart, he’s far too old to have any library career intentions. He knows he’s a prick because he could easily stand aside when I enter and let one of the other staff take over. However, being polite isn’t part of the prick lifestyle, I know, I’ve got two brothers. He always acts as if you are up to something and he’s on to you. He keeps asking baiting questions and keeps getting the same non-committal answers, but pricks never learn.
Another thing I’m not buying is that the rich want all this immigration to supply them with cheap maids and garderners. That would be a maid or something for every ten Americans and I don’t know of any one who has a maid. There are only four landscapers in this city with a total of maybe 20 employees. There’s no doubt a way to figure out the ratios differently, I’m just saying we don’t need and we don’t have 30 million immigrants doing those jobs. So I’m tired of hearing it.
“My neighbors listen to great music
whether they like it or not.”
Wait, there’s more. It was after dark when I left the library, so I went downtown to mail some letters. I’d forgotten Tuesdays are Karaoke, so I ducked across the alley to the club. Here’s where I get to report something that weak men will never believe, even when they see it they call it luck. Read my lips—I hit on every gal that I find sexy, circumstances permitting. I have no fear of rejection whatsoever and I know exactly how young women think about sex, so I can approach them in a completely unoffensive manner. This understandably can upset other women, particularly the mother hen types, since the women I find sexy tend to be 30 years younger than me.
That’s how I get to meet the cock-blockers. I must make one thing perfectly clear: There is nothing, repeat nothing, wrong with the way I treat older women, which is best described as respectful with selective indifference. It’s obvious I’m inert, but there is nothing wrong with inert. When I complain I can’t find a decent woman, it has nothing to do with the availability of women, they are all over the place. But after a certain age, so few of them show up at the places where I go. There was one in there last night, absolute dynamite body but not the perfection I really like. Still, those white jeans, and she can sort of sing. I was over there introducing myself in a flash.
Enter the pig-woman, sitting at the same table, but not her mother. Now remember, I don’t use pickup lines or anything that indicates I’m on the prowl. What gets these older women is usually not the fact I’m there, for I am nothing but polite and courteous. It’s how easily I can solicit the correct response from these young women. In fact, as a treat for reading this far, I’ll give you the transcript of the conversation at the point where the old lady jumped in. (Remember Cathy Wells from the phone company?)
Me: “Well, young lady, I was just asking if you played guitar because I need someone.”
Her: “I don’t play but I’ll learn if you teach me.”
Me: “That would involve us spending hours of private time together, so I’m not sure.”
Her: “I don’t mind, really, I don’t mind.
These are pretty much the exact words, so you will notice how I’m verbally backing away, I’m the one saying no, and I’m not pretending to be disappointed. I really am. At the same time, see how the young lady is now the one pushing for a continuation. This can only happen when you genuinely have something to offer and the pretty ones know the difference. In jumps the old lady, not to stop me, but to stop the young one.
Pig-woman: “Before you go any further, you’ll have to meet her husband.”
Me: “Why ma’am, I would insist on it.”
Notice how she predicated “before you go any further”. I get her back by calling her ma’am, the way the courteous little boy addresses the matronly grandmother, but the spell is broken. The babe sort of wanted to keep talking. I could see the old lady was going to run interference, so I made my exit. But what an exit, with perfect timing. I was next up on Karaoke, I dedicated the song to the young lady and had the whole room singing along within seconds. Oh, for the record, and this wasn’t planned, the regular bartender didn’t show up, so the bar owner saw me work the room. Like it’s not been worked before. My show may not be the best, but it is original.
As for the old lady, ma’am, you can take your zebra outfit back to the zoo, lose fifty pounds, and ditch the butch haircut. And I still wouldn’t hit on you. I noticed, ahem, nobody else did, either. Like the guy at the library, it’s easy to understand why shit-heads hate positive people, but not at all easy to fathom what they ever hope to gain by it. If they hope to gain nothing, that’s even worse.
ADDENDUM
I’m finally getting domesticated, though I’m certain to the observer my personality shows through every step of the way. I was out there watering my non-existent flower garden and surveying the property. I’m moving those purple flowers to the front yard and making a spot for the birdbath. I’ve been boning up on how those work and it seems randomly filling them with fresh water is plenty. Good, I’ll save a step and put it under the sprinkler. And being the first Tuesday of the month, I spread some mousetraps. I haven’t any mice that I know of, but think of it as a pre-emptive strike.
And the original 13 sunflower plants are down to 9 survivors. One got hit last evening by an errant soccer ball from the church yard next door.
Last Laugh
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
