Newly discovered record (found 2014-10-14)
This should give you an idea that Friday's, being my day off, could often contain a lengthy record of items missed out over the entire previous week. Also, these were never meant to be blog-published and may not make sense to the casual reader.
Yay, the month is half over and no job prospects yet. Don’t get me wrong, I could prosper at $12 an hour, and if I decide to return west, watch how fast I get the cash together. Still, I have to start work Monday to have a paycheck for the August rent. The Hippie called but this morning is too busy for a power walk. He is still getting the runaround from that gal that used to attend his class. She e-mails him with promises but never shows, the classic female game. Of course, the Hippie would rather complain about all this than dump her, another thing that is totally different about us.
This concerns the extra study Don & I are undertaking because of shortcomings at the school we attended.
I updated the notes for last evening’s meeting. The consensus is that we are moving around six times as fast as going to school. This takes into account the fact that we are forced to learn only what is needed rather than what is contained on some outdated curriculum. Once the system works, then we’ll worry about memorizing charts. Computer schools are strange that way, I mean, one would think that because computers are a new discipline, they would abandon anything hide-bound. Instead, it seems most of the schools have adopted the worst characteristics of tradition and padded the courses with what is easy to teach and hard to learn. Where the opportunity had arrived to develop entirely new methods and to teach only what is truly relevant, they debauched it for the money. This is an ancient scam, for example medical schools until recently demanded students learn Latin, a language nobody has spoken for a thousand years. A+ insists students memorize I/O addresses, something they could look up in a book if, by some mischance, that information was ever needed.
At the shop, I talked to PJ (I hope I got that nickname right) about my college degree. He knows some professional places that are not as ‘nosey’ as the one I checked out. You may recall those people, I wanted an accredited place to look over my credentials, verify them, and get me an equivalent American degree. Problem, they had some ignorant idea that they had the right to go beyond that, and keep a photocopy of my marks on their files. I told them what they could do with that. There is apparently a list of other places that respect your privacy. I have yet to see a place with a privacy policy that does not reserve the right to change that policy without consulting you, which is sick in the head.
Marcela’s son has a Dell, or some Dell-like computer. It has the sound card and all games drivers deactivated. It also had Windows 2000 on it, and that is one strange system. I did a normal upgrade to XP, and all the icons and applications disappeared. When I tried to revert to 2000, it demanded a password which I could not clear even in BIOS. Fortunately, there was nothing important on the computer, so the upgrade and a few programs brought it up to snuff. There are no games, however, and that is a negative for the kid. I must somehow learn to reactivate such sound cards. I dropped in to ABC, and Thom finally has a DSL link. It is called DSL lite, and apparently is only for businesses, which sounds kind of dumb. When you activate the browser they supply, it starts AOL. I don’t know if that is a problem or intentional. Also, his system is very slow for a high-speed connection. He wants to make up some flyers, so I designed one for him tonight.
For a break, I watched the TV news. That issue of banning the video produced by homos is still clogging the airwaves. Notice how these queers have perfected infiltration tactics. First the spokesperson says he can’t see any link between sex and the children’s video. He waits 48 hours, and then says that the people on the school board who voted against the video must be homophobic. Like all pressure groups, he can only see things clearly when he can’t get his own way. Notice how he turned a democratic vote into a gay-bashing issue? They should not wonder why they are unpopular, they accuse everyone who doesn’t praise them as being intolerant, which is just not true. Now they are trying to overturn the majority vote. The issue was put to the vote for a reason. Now, the faggots are saying if you don’t vote in their favor, your vote shouldn’t count. Give me a break.
I had a forty minute break, so for the first time in my life I walked into a gambling casino. The Hard Rock Café and Hotel over on Seminole Drive. Funny, for most of my life I thought Seminole was a brand of wheat. I was once in an airport lounge in Las Vegas, but I have never seen anything like this before. Thousands of one-armed bandits, or at least very close to a thousand. Now I know where the beautiful people hang out in Florida, they are all gamblers. This was in the early afternoon of a working day, and the place was nearly full. Anybody whose wife was remotely good looking was parading her around. (Yech, some of them were really only remotely good looking.) It was 99% men. Don’t believe those movies that a casino is a classy place to hang out.
The theme is rock, and they have costumes worn by Bill Haley, and Bon Jovi. There are guitars bolted to the wall and displays of rock trivia. Nobody looks at them, everybody was gambling. I noticed how quiet it was, not a carnival atmosphere at all. In the background they had some older rock music but the whole thing seems like a failed attempt to give the place a theme other than gambling. Now to me, almost any gambling is an addiction, so I leaned on the rail and watched the goings on. A minority of the crowd were tourists. Generally, the parking lot was full of Florida plates and the crowd looked like Florida, except on average it was a far younger crowd. My guess on the average is maybe 35 years. Finally, we discover where the crowd a little too old for the beach hangs out. Like the TV shows, the security cameras are all over the place. There are ATMs every few yards, but the slots must work on a voucher system, for I saw nobody using cash. Another surprise is that obvious the local Indian tribe has very little to do with operating this place. Aside from one over-priced store full of Indian crafts made in Taiwan, the Seminoles have plainly farmed this operation out to the mafia. Let the games begin.
Here and there, a particular gambler caught my attention. These are the ones who think they have a system, but really don’t. They try to act like the gamblers on TV, but they have no talent for it. One man, with a brush cut and wearing almost a tuxedo, was playing cards with a dealer, just the two of them. He made an elaborate display of pretending he was using skill but she was slowly taking all his money. Nobody seemed to be drinking. There are lots of lounges, again full of middle-aged men but no women. Smoking seems to be allowed. Several other posers were play-acting, but if I could spot the patterns my first time, that gives you an idea how phony the whole thing was.
The casino is in the middle of a mall, mostly small stores. It seems they are trying unsuccessfully to promote the idea that it is a shopping trip as well as a gambling joint. All the stores were empty. The odd person in the walkway was plainly taking a break from gambling, for the clothes they wore would be too uncomfortable to walk out in the open. This is the place John wants to go to meet women, but I assure you there were no approachable women there. They would be outnumbered anyway. I felt no urge to gamble in the least, it does not even tempt me. There was a Hooters but remember, Florida holds the world record for old waitresses who used to have nice tits ten years ago. I did not stay long, but my God, what a droll way to spend your time off. Another thing I noticed is that not one person in the entire area was smiling. The card playing seemed an entirely mechanical activity, and the slots, well, a good pinball machine is far more exciting. I watched one lady playing three machines by herself. They don’t pull a lever anymore, they push a computer button. She was swaying back and forth on her stool playing all three from left to right. These machines cost one dollar per shot.
