[Author's note 2021: Finally I found this picture, it was missing in the masses. Here is the bicycle that saved my life. I was a goner, I bought this Jamis. It is the bicycle I rode seven miles a day for 1,000 days until I could walk again. Most of that was to the shop and back, but also to nearby Aventura Mall. This is the "famous Jamis" I will always associate with the trailer court.
For the record, what is behind the bicycle is something you likely never saw before. One million toothpicks. But that is a different story.]
I worked on the books for a few hours this morning, then moved on to the shop to check my email. While I was there, I fired off a set of photos to Cahoots. I got the reply within minutes, Mr. Hansen likes my material. He suggests we could sell a lot of newspaper advertising and said he wanted to broaden the paper. I’m not familiar with that terminology.
That’s the good news in that department. It was a busy week and my submission arrived one day too late for the deadline. So if he publishes, it will not be until 2007. He left a voicemail stating he was pleased and used an unusual adjective. I foolishly “saved” it on my Metro PCS phone and now cannot locate it again. Metro is nasty in that regard. The few people I know who use that voice mail lead very simple lives.
Difficult it was, but I finally devised a series of formulas that extract all the hyphens out of the ISBNs and replaces them in a standard format. The formula is 104 characters long. The theory there is that the ISBN has only one way to be written correctly (but in differing formats), thus as crazy as that system is, I had to go with it. Those numbers, and that moronic Dewey decimal system, are totally the product of an uneducated mind. That is flattery for I do not distinguish between uneducated and not capable of being educated in the first place.
One day I should find that skit I wrote about the warped thinking of the person who devised the Dewey thing. It is not a system worthy of the name, and the period does not represent a decimal point. That alone gives you some insight into why Dewey became a librarian.
I also took a few stills with the DXG. They did not turn out, but I will give it many more chances. There is no viewfinder and the display is impossible to see in bright sunlight. The autofocus did not work; I took a picture of my utility trailer that looks worse those fakes of Bigfoot.
It is much later, I did drive out to Davie but it was another waste of time. I said that turd-brain jerk that runs the coffee place was a loser the moment he opened his mouth, and I was right. Fifty-mile round trip down the drain thanks to “new” American marketing – where if you don’t buy something you are being impolite. Let me explain just a bit more. The new owner is, well, just that, a new owner. However, he is no youngster and should know better. He’s one of those people who, like my brothers, can copy anything they see you do first, but are operating with only 64K.
The goof has recently been to some kind of sales seminar like the old “Dare to be Great” crap they used to feed salesmen back in the 70s. They actually advised salesmen to be pig-headed stupid about only having one thing on the brain – selling. We’ve all had unfortunate encounters with these jackasses. Great, my eye. I could name you five greats of just about any field – except salesmanship. So I am in there trying to get the number of the guitar player and the sumbitch is trying to sell me a damn sandwich by twisting everything I say around.
Finally, his partner walked in, a more reasonable type. The guitar player is Phil, who is babysitting in Orlando (518) 542-7265. Phil knows of Brian and will try to get us hooked up when he next sees him. Back home, I had to call Marion just to talk to somebody sane for a while. She was in and out of the hospital for the last week; she requires blood-thinners that don’t have predictable effects on her system. She is exhausted from all this, right when she needs extra energy for the move.
Two smaller topics. One, I saw a new show advertised, so I watched it on TV. I think it is called One Against a Hundred. A contestant goes up against a crowd of 100 experts, who drop out for wrong answers. Winnings are based on the dropouts, but one wrong answer from the contestant and the remaining experts, called “The Mob” split his winnings. A great premise, but all the questions were couch potato. I would gladly go against any 100 on most any other type of questions. As it stands, the show sucks.
“What name did so-and-so call out when the bandage was ripped off his chest in such-and-such a movie.” Real academic material. The first contestant was a bald bouncer who was insecure enough to mention his upcoming wedding at least four times, which tips you off they are not after the cerebral crowd.
Two, I picked up a memory card for the camcorder. Nice, it was only $30 for 512 MB, and unlike others I’ve tried, did not require any formatting. So the camera has real computer memory. By that, I mean that I can use if for transport and storage. As opposed to my other cameras which will only store pictures in native format. I can’t even go in and move pictures around on my other cameras.
Not clear? Put it this way. I should be able to use a cable and my computer to go into any camera’s memory. I should be able to take a picture, alter it with any available software, then put it back in the camera. I was able to drag and drop a spreadsheet onto this new card. Good deal. It spiked the recording time up to just over an hour. The low-light performance is bad. I had tried to record the freeway traffic at night. Overall, the camera is still a good deal for the money. So far, it only works in perfect lighting conditions. Pun omitted here.
