Wow, talk about positive feedback! My incoming mail over the car lot comments [of previous days] are in complete agreement with the points I wrote. Most [respondents] were annoyed about the obviously fake and misleading “parts content” that the manufacturers are stilting to disguise the true foreign stuffing of these one-lung putt-putters. But first, a picture I inserted here a few days later. This is the kind street I get to ride down to work. Montana, eat your heart out.
I have a completely unconnected point to make. I take my author’s privilege to clear up an old misunderstanding by publishing the facts here. To most of you, this is meaningless in topic, but might interest you by way of how it developed. In the late 1980s I had an office in SE Venezuela, along the Orinoco. I was explaining to some visitors from Caracas who wanted to know what a certain word meant in English. I said “hoonglay” and they instantly got my meaning. The difficulty appears to be that some overly-clever people have noted that there is no such word in either language [Spanish or English]. Therefore, the video must be a fake because “nobody is that smart”. I’ll explain and let you decide. Early in the morning outside my office, there was sometimes a “clomp-clomp” sound in the streets. I know what it is, but my company ran to the window to look. It was the “Brigada Quinta Silva” jogging the soldiers through town. My people asked me to translate “Silva”.
At that time I did not know or have the vocabulary to explain such things. I had just learned the Spanish alphabet, however. The soldiers were part of the “Fifth Jungle Brigade”. Reckoning that most of my audience had seen Tarzan movies, and using my new alphabet, I pronounced the word exactly as a Spanish-educated person would phonetically say it in English. Thus, “jungle” became “hoonglay”. No genius required.
Some intelligence will be required for database, mind you. Every time I tackle one, I have to relearn that idiotic MS Access method for printing out the file structure. It is never called anything meaningful in the index or glossary. But what do you expect from a company that has never provided an easy way to print out the directories of their own hard drives? (That is correct, you can look at your lists of files, but you cannot print out those lists, with all their attributes.)
I also ran through the song list as it exists on MP3. Every thirty tunes is 1:20:00 minutes of music, on average. Even allowing for extreme time-wasting on stage I will need twice the number of items I now have. I remember, I ran into this same problem back in 1986 with “Not Half Bad”.
The hitch is that it can take up to 90 seconds for a couple to recognize a tune they’d like to dance to and get out on the dance floor. That leaves less than another 90 seconds of dance time and they may not like the next song. If you ask me, that situation is the origin of the singer saying, “One more time”. Back then, I retrained the band to automatically do the one more time on every song.
To top off the day, at 5:30 PM I gave Jose the ride to the airport [Miami International]. It was a disaster. There was no way at all to find one’s way about the “new airport” without paying somebody for directions. We got there at 5:30 PM and finally gave up at 8:10 PM. He took a taxi back, estimated cost of $35.00, but it was cheaper than trying to find each other in that terminal.
There are no signs to indicate where you are if you drive through, which we did. The terminals are lettered A through E, probably the most retarded system for this bilingual area, and no way can one guy “watch” the car while the other goes inside for directions. A Miami cop, not an airport security type, pulls right up beside your car and gives you the “I’m on to you” look. A particularly ugly cop. I watched him do this to a dozen bewildered people, but hey, he’s just doing his job, right? Must-not-allow-lost-people-to-park-here-or-system-cannot-survive.
Jose plainly got turned around once he was inside terminal, aka the “Concourse”. (Don’t expect any cops, guides, taxi drivers or porters to help you with that.) There are no signs anywhere to guide you on that one. Jose called me on the cell, you may want to note that terminals A through C are “underground” so cell phones don’t work unless you walk outside, around ¾ of a block from where your contact is looking for you. Tell me this is not on purpose.
The fun part was asking for help. The outside staff do not speak English and the inside staff will not help you in any way. The worst offenders? American Airlines. They will not even tell you what “Concourse” you are on, but insist on giving you directions to the signs, which obviously did not help out or you would not be inside asking. I went through several times, “Is this Terminal/Concourse C?” without any useful reply from American Airlines. The colored woman behind the counter kept giving me “directions” to where the sign was [something about in front of the pole left of the pillar and right of the post] but “politely as she had been trained” refusing to tell me if this was Terminal C or not. Keep them margins up, American Airlines.
Later, when we finally figured it out, we had been less than forty feet from each other and everyone we asked probably knew that. He wound up at baggage checkout 24, which was exactly between Terminals C and D. To complicate and aggravate matters, there was an official airport type in uniform, with a walkie-talkie, standing outside the middle area (Terminals B, C and D) randomly yelling, not a name [every few minutes], but “Hey!” This caused everybody to repeatedly look up just in case.
He was not directing traffic, just standing here yelling, “Hey!” I saw him for nearly an hour, but I think he’d been there much longer. This reminded me of the Runt, whose sole purpose in life seems to be to confuse unsuspecting new people by pretending to know what’s going on. Incidentally, at the Panera afterward, we noticed the Runt was rotten drunk on the Internet again and posting his usual malicious attacks.
Actually, that is all he ever does, for he cannot think of anything original. It is sinister the way he sees himself as normal when in fact he is one seriously disturbed little old man stewing in his own juice. We posted a couple of baiting replies on Mike’s laptop. (As helpful therapy, of course. When the Runt is on the Internet, at least he is not trying to run down people in the car his parents bought him.) It is awesome the way the system is looming up to put him away for his own good, yet he thinks he has argued the entire world to a standstill by calling them names. Megalomana (1890), the insanity of self-exaltation. He is an average example, he can’t even do that right.
Back to the airport. In order of least helpful, the runners-up are Thrifty Rental, National Rental and City of Miami Police Force. What does your silly-ass problem of finding your people have to do with renting a car, anyway? What, do you think this is a public information counter just because the sign says “Information”? It means information on how to rent a car, you dumb-ass. The car agencies even refused to tell me what [unmarked] level I was on. I had to walk outside five or six times to call Jose, a ten minute round trip each time. By then, we agreed he should take a taxi. Let’s hear it for Miami International Airport!
On the way home, I was so close to Frank’s, I knocked on his door. He was out and not at any of the haunts, so I left a biz card in his mail slot. (Frank is the dude who helped us get to California in 2003, where we made ten grand and broke even.) The area around his place has changed dramatically since I was last there in late 2005. Look at all the tall buildings. He will likely be in that area for life.
Oh, if I get time, I’ll photograph Miami’s counterpart to that often reproduced picture of the word “SOTP” in the pavement. The airport here has “TRHU”. Nobody is complaining, for it is practically the only sign at the new terminal. There are some bulletins in the taxi area that spell out the fares, such as $52 to West Palm Beach. That, and the fact that only Yellow Cabs are lined up should give you a good idea of the type of problems they have over there. Why not spend the extra $52 and take a connecting flight to the West Palm Beach airport? You won’t have to tip the pilot.
Now, if only Wallace would come back so I have somebody to play crib against. When I play against anyone else, I win every game.
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