My most successful day in the computer industry so far. $195. Definitely not my best day ever, but an excellent start. It shows what I can do if I am busy all day long. That includes $70 in private repairs, making it also my most successful week. Hey, everybody started somewhere.
Daniel was in, being a real brat. I figured that would be the case on occasion since he is, after all, just seven. The trick there is to make the work interesting. It is hard to compete with Spank the Monkey ( video “game” where you use a white mitt to smack a cartoon monkey and the computer measures your speed in mph). Go to Tekzoned dot com.
A couple of real foxes were in today, one of whom I am going over Saturday to see what can be eBayed out of her mother’s estate. Apparently there are a ton of African carvings. I guess it makes ironic sense, her mother was black, traveled the whole world and left her a fortune and mine was the exact opposite. The other had a funny face but a body that would not quit.
Here is a sad scene. There was actually a third fox in the office. She came in and we took one look at each other. If her father had not been there with her, it would have been all over in the next ten minutes. What an absolutely gorgeous babe, but we could hardly do much with her dad in the room. It is always reassuring to see that they are still making them that slim and pretty, in Florida that is easy to forget.
I may have another student lined up, an accountant that wants to learn spreadsheets. No laugh, I know that it is still possible to become a CPA without ever touching a computer because I know people who pulled it off. This guy is a senior accountant. They say word of mouth is the best advertising, but actually lower prices works way better. The real advantage of word of mouth is you don’t have to pay for advertising so it apparently works better to the untrained eye. That is politely saying to actually believe it is sub-intelligent, almost phone company grade brainfarts.
After work I installed a PDA on a laptop. The hotsynch feature was totally messed up, it does always work as advertised and yet it is an extremely simple device. I don’t care for them much, I’ve had plenty of similar units in the distant past that did the same without hotsynch. They have come a long way but do not, in my opinion, exploit the potential of computerization. For example, the calculator is, well, it is a calculator. For cryingout loud, this thing is a computer, so use it like one. Add an on screen ribbon, fifty automatic functions, a graph (no, not a sine wave thingee) and formula generator.
Speak of new ideas, of course I cannot be any more sure than the next guy without doing an exhaustive search. I use “new” to mean relative to not recalling that I’ve ever heard of any such thing before. One idea is a calculator, but it is built into the keyboard and has the screen just above the keypad. Somebody likely has this idea where my point is that I thought of it on my own.
The other is stranger. That little game I invented of color filling in Paint. I see it has great instant appeal to six year-olds, but I saw a twelve year-old playing it today. Maybe I am on to something. Time to contact a manufacturer or programmer. There is nothing to it and simpler things have succeeded. I think the appeal is that the user creates a new playing field each time using the spray can tool.
Andrea, that is the name of that black lady with the traveling mother. Here is a sample of the art that she wants to eBay. It is fine artwork but I advised her not to be too enthusiastic about the buying public. If you ever want to convince yourself that it is not just your bad attitude that 98% of America is full of dumb bastards, try to sell something on eBay. This is also the lady with that collection of Jet magazines that were selling for a dollar a copy. She has an apartment (nicer than any apartment I ever had) and has got to get a lot of gear out of the way.
