I really did lose a book. That’s a first. And I am missing New Year's celebration (musically) this year for the first time also. That means I am neither playing out or going to see somebody else play. I had planned to go see BB King at the Jackie Gleason theater. It would be almost thirty years to the month that I saw him with Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, out on the Pacific coast. He’s about 10 miles from here in downtown Miami or Miami Beach, but I cannot possibly stay awake until midnight and then drive home afterward. He’s 18 years older than me, so that may have been my last chance.
[Author's note 2015-12-31: I missed the concert because I was house-bound from a recent medical condition, which left me drained of the gumption to go out. This is contrary to my old policy of not spending either my birthday or New Year's in the same town where I live and work. I've gone as far as Hawaii and Japan just to observe that self-imposed rule. I knew I'd eventually settle down, but I wanted to have some real memories when I finally did. I was right.]
I’ve slowed down to nothing in the last week. This evening I went to “Paycheck”, an interesting work, with another blonde actress in a lead role. The actors were far too good looking to be shooting and beating each other up, but she had just a slight harshness about her features to make it believable. The plan was to have the whole theater to myself, but there were actually other people in there. Also, my big ad for a date goes out on the Internet today. I know I should get a picture in there, but let me see who responds first. I’ve gotten lucky before.
The microwave at work was an instant hit. (I donated part of my Xmas bonus to a microwave.) The original consensus was no popcorn. But Rhonda outvoted the majority, again. However, believe it or not, the popcorn seems to be a much more well-behaved food when done in a unit that powerful. Even, fast heating and the aroma is tolerable. Interesting. I’m sad and sorry I won’t go out tonight, but the bright side is I always manage to save a grand or two every time I get ill. I just don’t go out and spend it and I’m up the bucks.
My big prediction for 2004? Something is going to come along and wipe out the Internet as we know it. We know it to be slow, tricky to use, expensive, and absolute full of garbage. The original premise, the free exchange of information, is a joke. Also, the commercialized sights that are left over can’t be filtered. I think it will be some simple little thing, like the idea behind digital radio, you pay a flat fee and tell them what you don’t want. There’s a few places that claim they offer this service, but I don’t see how they could work when almost every search eventually goes to eBay, Amazon or porno. I personally detest Amazon because I think they nipped off the chance for real net publishing. That, and their ads clutter up everything. I want info, not ads for books for sale that may or may not have the info I seek. Another minus is that many searches eventually lead back to the same group of articles.
{Author's note 2015-12-31: I was partially right in one sense. What's replaced the Internet "as we know it" is smart phones, Google profiling, and subversive government tracking systems. The Internet has degenerated into primarily a toy for the idle-minded. Information is no longer free. You pay for it with what used to be your private, personal concerns. During 2004, the number of free sites dropped to somewhere between insignificance and nothingness as the dot com sites proliferated to the hundreds of millions. Thanks to eBay and Amazon, everybody is after a dollar and that swamped everything else in the system. Some call this progress]
The new system will have a search criteria based on layers of search and search within search. Ask Jeeves sort of tries this, but it is still a one layer search, and never asks you for alternatives based on what has been found so far. The few “search similar” algorithms I’ve seen were designed by nerds, the logic is embarassing. Part of the problem is leaving the client cook up his search criteria. The new system will search on actual content, and hopefully be able to understand compound words and expressions.
Oh, I regularly search for my own info on the net because it is not supposed to be there. Seems there are two matches now, both in Florida. And on pay sites. I may pay just to see who divulged, I do not like it when people give out my information second hand, and that is why I code it.
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