MORNING
I never set foot out of the house. Hey, it was comfortable here and I had plenty of coffee and unread books. I clicked on the TV to see if I could find the Simpsons, the only worthwhile program I’ve seen in twenty years. That's the TV I got for free. I occasionally try to watch something but have never succeeded. It was also curious to see these other shows that wrap-up the last year, mainly by making me incredulous at what others think is important.
Like this 24 year old football player who got shot after and “altercation” at a night club. Hey, I’d rather hear about the altercation. I cancelled my 9:30 [lesson] until Wednesday and spent the day with a book on PHP programming. It is one of those “Microsoft” style manuals that never actually gives you examples of good functional code. PHP is indeed a badly contrived language that creates nothing that could not have been done just as well with existing languages. Plus it has a convoluted set of rules for using quotation marks. My rule number one of an idiot is using a punctuation mark to indicate a variable. It seals off the regular use of that mark, and “object-oriented” programmers are stupid to an uncommon degree on this point.
Now that is not the only thing I read. How about a book on Hopi cookery? You take ¾ of a 25 lb bag of flour, add a handful of sugar and a quarter handful of salt and so on. You put all of this in a washtub and generally sit back till it rises. This makes enough bread for the village for a day. They have a recipe for bannock, which they call “fry bread”. I didn’t know that native Americans had any wheat fields to produce the ingredients, but maybe I missed something in history class.
This motivated me to make a batch of my own, it is rising in the galley. I’m going to make an evening of that, and catching up on old projects. Not all that exciting a launch into 2007, although I have nothing to compare it to. New Year’s Days have not been that big in my life. For some reason, I remember 1979 the best. I spent it in a parking lot helping my buddy move. Moogie. I wonder whatever happened to him. He was a monkey-shaped guy that some women just loved. Generally, it was middle-aged women who had just gotten out of jail.
NOON
A comment on progress. To get the neighbor’s Pavilions (a model of HP coputer) to boot, I had to dig out my old Windows 98 disks. (It will boot from the 3.5” floppy drive.) JZ was home, they had a pig-out at his dad’s for New Year’s and JZ loves his food. This time even he admits to overdoing it. I’m trying to figure out what he could have eaten that filled him up? A whale? I invited him out for the weekend, he may actually do it because of the gambling casino. Ha, I’ll wind up driving over there, a sixty mile round trip just to get him to go two blocks from here. People tell me that the place is called “Mardi Gras”, another example of Floridian originality at its best.
Remember the Mars project [a customer wanted a CD burned]? The customer who has a recording of a meeting that I have failed to copy in over a week. I’m still at it. If it fails again, I’m going to pursue it, for even if it is an error or glitch, it is preventing copy, even with Sound Capture (a program that records anything played on a computer). Many discoveries are made by someone thinking through an error.
I’m listening to the speech. It is your average seminar, where they don’t really tell you anything. They quote “amazing” statistics that mean nothing. (One of my pet seminar phrases is “This is an X billion dollar industry.”) It has something to do with a gene that causes your system to digest fat instead of blood sugar. He mentions that America is collectively five billion pounds overweight. Where’s my pencil? Okay, that means each of us is 16.6 pounds overweight. In reality, flakey musicians who wear Hawaiian shirts throw that formula way off kilter, not to mention the stage when they step up on it.
Here’s an item, the neighbor who owns the nail and hair salon next door got cleaned out by identity theft. Had to cancel all her cards and ID after both her business and personal checking accounts got raided. (Hey, don’t look to me for sympathy, I’ve been warning people against giving out their info for forty years.) It seems her name, address and phone number were printed on her checks. All that was missing was her mother’s maiden name.
So she was late with the shop rent. She explained this to the landlady. Guess what? Even though she paid the rent a little late for said reasons, the landlady socked her to the tune of $145 late charges. What I think is neat is that there always comes a time when such people need help themselves. I’ve just decided what the price is for help from me.
This [paragraph or two] is a little out of sequence because I’m writing it tomorrow. The whole business of trying to get information out of China has become preposterous. It seems the only way they’ll do business is if you tell them your net worth and let them conclude what you can afford. Even the Chinese embassy wants to know your staffing and annual sales, something you don’t tell anyone until you know why and how it makes a difference.
The whole pack of them are adopting the worst practices of outdated American pressure tactics. Give us your number and we’ll call you back, after we’ve run a credit check on you. Even though you only want information, we “have a right” to know what kind of target our salesman can set you up for. It all reminds me of the Urban Legend about the chocolate chip cookie. You know, the one where a lady got charged $250 for the recipe, so she published it on the Internet. Or whatever they published things on back when that crock first came out.
NIGHT
How about I publish what I find out about importing Chinese goods? Would you read it? Meaning, would you pay me to do it? Dumb question because anybody whose got this far is probably a fan of my style already. Anyway, since not one of the authorities I contacted would give me a straightforward step-by-step set of instructions on what was involved, I jump in with both feet. The idea is to find out all about the importing process, from the customs people who want to photocopy your ID to the shipper who forgets to tell new customers about the $50 “fuel surcharge”. Forget those gimp books at the bizop counter, they don’t tell you anything useful, unless you are interested in the history of English trade protectionism.
Part of this process will involve a set of books, remember the rule “Follow the money”. I will put up $500, which I consider tuition, not investment. I’m here to learn the ropes. I’ve easily wasted 120 hours trying to wring facts out of some of the slipperiest scum on the planet, so a few dollars is nothing. I’ll decide later whether to make any of the facts available on-line. I mean, if the import business is really nothing but governmental nonsense, I have no trouble charging to do that for others. I arbitrarily chose a Web advertiser called “Chinavasion”. (China -invasion?) At least it is not the pervasive “Ali-baba” based in Peking, it apparently has nothing to do with anything Arabian. That outfit (Ali-baba) has done a thorough study of what things cost here and have adjusted all prices accordingly.
I fear that China has learned the art of bad business, and they have learned it from us. The worst invention of the European world was the middleman. It would appear we suddenly have one billion of them where none existed before. I care little of trade surpluses and economic theory, but I do despise being an employee. Stay tuned and something should turn up.
Now that is not the only thing I read. How about a book on Hopi cookery? You take ¾ of a 25 lb bag of flour, add a handful of sugar and a quarter handful of salt and so on. You put all of this in a washtub and generally sit back till it rises. This makes enough bread for the village for a day. They have a recipe for bannock, which they call “fry bread”. I didn’t know that native Americans had any wheat fields to produce the ingredients, but maybe I missed something in history class.
This motivated me to make a batch of my own, it is rising in the galley. I’m going to make an evening of that, and catching up on old projects. Not all that exciting a launch into 2007, although I have nothing to compare it to. New Year’s Days have not been that big in my life. For some reason, I remember 1979 the best. I spent it in a parking lot helping my buddy move. Moogie. I wonder whatever happened to him. He was a monkey-shaped guy that some women just loved. Generally, it was middle-aged women who had just gotten out of jail.
NOON
A comment on progress. To get the neighbor’s Pavilions (a model of HP coputer) to boot, I had to dig out my old Windows 98 disks. (It will boot from the 3.5” floppy drive.) JZ was home, they had a pig-out at his dad’s for New Year’s and JZ loves his food. This time even he admits to overdoing it. I’m trying to figure out what he could have eaten that filled him up? A whale? I invited him out for the weekend, he may actually do it because of the gambling casino. Ha, I’ll wind up driving over there, a sixty mile round trip just to get him to go two blocks from here. People tell me that the place is called “Mardi Gras”, another example of Floridian originality at its best.
Remember the Mars project [a customer wanted a CD burned]? The customer who has a recording of a meeting that I have failed to copy in over a week. I’m still at it. If it fails again, I’m going to pursue it, for even if it is an error or glitch, it is preventing copy, even with Sound Capture (a program that records anything played on a computer). Many discoveries are made by someone thinking through an error.
I’m listening to the speech. It is your average seminar, where they don’t really tell you anything. They quote “amazing” statistics that mean nothing. (One of my pet seminar phrases is “This is an X billion dollar industry.”) It has something to do with a gene that causes your system to digest fat instead of blood sugar. He mentions that America is collectively five billion pounds overweight. Where’s my pencil? Okay, that means each of us is 16.6 pounds overweight. In reality, flakey musicians who wear Hawaiian shirts throw that formula way off kilter, not to mention the stage when they step up on it.
Here’s an item, the neighbor who owns the nail and hair salon next door got cleaned out by identity theft. Had to cancel all her cards and ID after both her business and personal checking accounts got raided. (Hey, don’t look to me for sympathy, I’ve been warning people against giving out their info for forty years.) It seems her name, address and phone number were printed on her checks. All that was missing was her mother’s maiden name.
So she was late with the shop rent. She explained this to the landlady. Guess what? Even though she paid the rent a little late for said reasons, the landlady socked her to the tune of $145 late charges. What I think is neat is that there always comes a time when such people need help themselves. I’ve just decided what the price is for help from me.
This [paragraph or two] is a little out of sequence because I’m writing it tomorrow. The whole business of trying to get information out of China has become preposterous. It seems the only way they’ll do business is if you tell them your net worth and let them conclude what you can afford. Even the Chinese embassy wants to know your staffing and annual sales, something you don’t tell anyone until you know why and how it makes a difference.
The whole pack of them are adopting the worst practices of outdated American pressure tactics. Give us your number and we’ll call you back, after we’ve run a credit check on you. Even though you only want information, we “have a right” to know what kind of target our salesman can set you up for. It all reminds me of the Urban Legend about the chocolate chip cookie. You know, the one where a lady got charged $250 for the recipe, so she published it on the Internet. Or whatever they published things on back when that crock first came out.
NIGHT
How about I publish what I find out about importing Chinese goods? Would you read it? Meaning, would you pay me to do it? Dumb question because anybody whose got this far is probably a fan of my style already. Anyway, since not one of the authorities I contacted would give me a straightforward step-by-step set of instructions on what was involved, I jump in with both feet. The idea is to find out all about the importing process, from the customs people who want to photocopy your ID to the shipper who forgets to tell new customers about the $50 “fuel surcharge”. Forget those gimp books at the bizop counter, they don’t tell you anything useful, unless you are interested in the history of English trade protectionism.
Part of this process will involve a set of books, remember the rule “Follow the money”. I will put up $500, which I consider tuition, not investment. I’m here to learn the ropes. I’ve easily wasted 120 hours trying to wring facts out of some of the slipperiest scum on the planet, so a few dollars is nothing. I’ll decide later whether to make any of the facts available on-line. I mean, if the import business is really nothing but governmental nonsense, I have no trouble charging to do that for others. I arbitrarily chose a Web advertiser called “Chinavasion”. (China -invasion?) At least it is not the pervasive “Ali-baba” based in Peking, it apparently has nothing to do with anything Arabian. That outfit (Ali-baba) has done a thorough study of what things cost here and have adjusted all prices accordingly.
I fear that China has learned the art of bad business, and they have learned it from us. The worst invention of the European world was the middleman. It would appear we suddenly have one billion of them where none existed before. I care little of trade surpluses and economic theory, but I do despise being an employee. Stay tuned and something should turn up.
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