First, this is a good day already although I am late over to the wig shop. You see, my neighbor with Quebec plates had a flat tire. I stopped to patch it and fill him up with air. I just screwed some Florida dickhead tire shop out of $35-$50. Yes, that is what they’ll soak you for a repair if they see your out of state plates. Plus, you have to show them your credit card and ID even if you pay cash. You may also have to make an appointment and wait, even if they are idle. For flats, they always make you wait, so when they finally show, you are "glad" to get ripped off.
If sheer insane idiocy bothers you more than I, don’t go into the importing business. The greasy feel of the whole thing extends even to the remotest factors that even touch the subject. Even when you pay the money, that is not the end of it. You are required to put up a bond so that if, in the future it is decided you did not pay enough, they come after you for more. What are the odds that the amount in question would exactly match the bond? This was a business designed by lawyers.[Author's note 2021: for clarity, I'm saying by fixing the guy's tire, I saved him the potential $50 a tire shop would gouge him. I quickly learned to avoid the tire shops that demanded ID. Turns out it was a Carfax thing. I don't need the opinion of strangers on how often I change my tires and posting it on-line for profit--without giving me a cut, that is. Seriously, it takes my time to fill out forms and I should be paid for it if the into is sold.]
This arrangement can have no purpose except to punish people unequally depending on the mood of the accusers. Five minutes reading will convince any realistic man that the system is designed to prevent anyone from claiming they were singled out, when in fact, they were. Several clauses border on punishment for “excess profits” although except for industry giants, there can be no such thing.
Thus, one of the first things anyone can do to save money is cut out the middleman, which appear to be Hong Kong based “source finders”. I noticed that craigslist had sites in four cities. Hong Kong, Gangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. I plastered them with ads seeking a toy manufacturer who would deal directly. Specifically, I said no agents, salesmen, Alibaba or Chinavasion. This Alibaba is something else, they seem to have seeped into every transaction in the country. I’m beginning to suspect it is a Saudi outfit with a single office in Beijing and a re-exporting warehouse in Puerto Rico. I’ve not the time to research it now.
I got a call today for exactly the thing I am studying – how to use PHP to get info off the Internet. So, I’m not the only one who has trouble with that. It turns out to be one of those contrived "languages" that doesn't really stand on its own--you have to know a ton of related material to get it to work on the Internet. I predict we will see more and more of this nonsense. Yeah, I know, others should have such problems but hey, I didn’t see them next to me a night school while times were good.
It is late but I just got back from practice. I am getting most concerned because Brian’s finger is not healing. In fact, he can’t play more that a couple of minutes at a time. This was explained clearly to me before we started a month ago and I alone decided to take the chance. Therefore I used this lesson to walk him through most of what I know about rhythm guitar. He is still power-chording and did not appear to know how to stop doing that. It's as if he considers farmer chords to be a shortcut.
For two hours I showed him four of the six basic beats and how to string them together into innovative patterns. Interestingly, although he took professional lessons, he did not appear to have ever known about these patterns. Yet they are a standard trick of the trade. He was unaware even of the natural places to play up and down strokes.
The entire practice was taken up showing him the ropes, which was probably successful because he quite often got the “so that’s why they do that” look. Well, successful for teaching, but that is not what I'm here to accomplish. I feel it was time well invested because on his own he may not have figured out how to break the [power-chording] habit. If that was what was stalling things, this may let him leapfrog forward and help us catch up. The homework I gave this week was for him to practice making it look like his playing was totally mismatched to his vocals. It is actually quite easy and an effective stage technique. Let’s see if the sharper among you can figure out the real reason I suddenly sprung it on him to learn this method right now. (Read tomorrow’s entry and I’ll tell you.)
He also did not try to print up the song words I’ve given him because he has a Mac. This got me to thinking. Since most computers can play an MP3 or display a JPEG, should they also not be able to read an ASCII file? You know, I never learned about that and now I’m curious. If you write me a note in a simple processor, like Notepad, why shouldn’t a Mac read it – the file structure?
[Photo delayed]
Why, if it wasn’t already past 11:00 PM, I’d start practicing that Shondell’s song. Later, since I was not tired (you guessed it) I started reading and what’s this? A freight forwarder is not, as I thought earlier, a shipper. No, freight forwarding may turn out to have nothing to do with forwarding freight. That is apparently done by a “carrier”. Mind you, don’t take my word for it because you know what we are dealing with here.
Later, here is a picture of the Gulfstream horse track, I’ll give you more details some day soon. [Later, the picture won't upload, so I'll try later once I figure this blog out.] You know that gate where they yell “They’re off!” It is located so far away on the far side of the track that I could not get any photos. Without binoculars it is almost impossible to see the gate. Instead, this is where they lead the horses to the saddle area and those are not the jockeys riding them.
