Here’s your picture. It is one of the nicest back alleys in the nation. It is in the middle of the city of Hollywood, behind a huge car lot. Somebody planted a half mile of trees, obviously for something that didn’t fly. Here is the result, years later. So, it is a little blurry but I was riding my bike over 12 mph at the time.
So much for a day off, I spent the morning waiting at Chiptech and the rest of the day over at the wig store. That poses two interesting points. One, that both Fred and I have not learned that Chiptech has gone so far downhill it is not worth bothering with them even if they have the lower price. Two, it is evident Ruth is beginning to figure out that my time is a real bargain for getting things done. Yet another clerk from the temp agency has bailed, leaving things in a mess. Thus, I was there for half a day over what was supposed to be an hour.I have rarely seen as much misplaced faith in a product as that Quicken or Quickbooks. I don’t even know if they are the same company, but both are nearly useless in real life. Most people use just the payroll module, and even then only because it prints such nice-looking checks. Speaking of nice-looking, anyone who says that I am wrong for liking skinny women should be forced to go take a look at the body on the new clerk up at Home Depot [in Oakland Plaza]. That’d learn ya.
I spent an hour trying to get a straight answer out of people over shipping charges. Plainly these bastards work together to disguise the prices. They all said the same thing, give us all your information and we’ll call you back. Like we’re going to fall for that. I even had one guy cornered into saying it could be “anywhere from $200 to $1,000” to ship a one cubic foot container weighing 45 lbs. That is the type of you-know-what-sucker you deal with all the time in this town.
Not one of them would give me a straight answer. It was always the lame “it depends” but they would not say what it depends on. Like all Florida salesthugs, they pretend they are trying to help where the fact is they are trying to trick you into revealing your ability to pay, which is none of their business. Most of them outright lied about [not knowing] the rates. But if you gave them enough information to run a credit check on you, they could call you back in an hour, type of thing. By which time they've phoned around to all their buddies in the business and agreed on how much to gouge you.
By talking to around six of these crooks, I was able to piece together that they price on the greater of weight or volume. That means if they calculate based on which criteria would cost [you] the most. There also seems to be a minimum price of around $300 for shipping anything, so work within that constraint. By luck, some 1,260 boxed doggie wigs will fit in one cubic meter, adding around $0.31 to the unit cost. That does not include customs, fuel taxes, airport fees, port fees and all kinds of charges you thought were eliminated by free trade. Wrong.
Another curious bunch is the China trade directories. When you log onto the net, which is the only place they seem to advertise except for the ones who still send faxes, they are all stuck in low gear. This one place, the China Trade Council, which advertises they will pair you up with suppliers, wants to know the name of the suppliers you want, duh. They charge $100 for this. Their form actually asks for the name and address of the people they will find for you. They are also guilty of the "ability to pay" tactic, wanting to know your number of employees and annual sales before quoting prices.
Thus, I can imagine their databases are full of some of the most creative crap that people like me can dream up. I don’t tell anything until I know what difference it makes on the price, so I just tell them what they want to hear. I’m reminded of the Japanese soldiers who made American prisoners sign confessions before they would be fed. They said after the war they never realized how many Americans were named “Donald Duck”.
I reckon it costs $7.09 per cubic foot, plus about $100 in other shipping costs. Man, is that whole system due for a massive kick in the arse. Several of these fart-heads swore the questions they were asking made no difference on the price, but refused to skip them (don’t you just love liars) or, where they admitted it made a difference, would not say what and how. I don’t give a ratzazz when people like that lose their jobs. Indeed, refusing to tell the price until they con you into saying how much money you got on you!
On the way home, I stopped at the Wiley Street Pub, a quarter-mile north of here. Old blonde waitress, ancient clientele of alcoholic fog-brains, no band for New Year’s Eve. They’ve got $150 [entertainment budget] and I have to think that over. What else is going on that night? The G would do it for a hundred and the free beer. I told them to give me a call tomorrow. I’m at odds to tell the G about such a gig because he would try to scoop it behind my back. I’ll make a deal with the owner not to do that and give him a good reason not to. The flip side is that the G already knows about that place and still prices himself out of the market. That is, I could undercut him with a duo and that is hard to compete against. He should stick to coffee houses half way across the County.I’ll take the gig for $150 if they call, plus a small beer tab for the singer, plus tips. Then watch the G like a hawk, I mean, surely he doesn’t think I buy into that story that he got three years probation over a knife blade in his tool box, double duh. This particular pub even got mentioned in several of our conversations but he still has not accepted my absolute superiority to anything he can imagine when it comes to managing a band and making the deal. Anything he does would cause interference and I need that pub until Spring.
Here is an excellent picture of my bicycle handlebars showing the fancy headbeam system and the little red speedometer. The light works and has never been stolen. Try that with any of those $15 jobbies. I even had one of these new generation of “whiz kids” walk up and ask me if I didn’t have a light. Plainly a public school attendee, who else would not know what a flashlight looks like? Then, he was also buck-toothed with a buzz-cut and overweight at eleven years old.
[Author's note: we did not get the gig. The G can be really slimy that way, he will not agree to play a gig on a given day unless you tell him where it is. Then he goes behind your back and does the gig as a solo. Then he complains that nobody in the band gets any gigs except himself. If only I could sing, I kick the guy's ass out the nearest open door.]
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