This is a box of grain-food. It is a mystery [to me] why grain is expensive, I mean we’ve got it by the boatload, don’t we? Maybe for the same reasons fish is expensive along the seacoast? This pilaf contains buckwheat, which I used to eat by the bowlful back on the farm. Trivia, according to the box, buckwheat is “actually a seed-like fruit, closely related to rhubarb”. (Shows you how accurate DNA testing can be.) So I have some on the burner right now and it surely does smell good. It takes, like most grains, 25 minutes to cook.
Voip. It’s been a year since I last hooked up a voip phone, but it seems it has not gotten any easier for some people. I’m waiting for the call to go over and see what the hold up is. For any of you who wonder why I sometimes write in two parts of the day, being on call in the mornings explains it. When I have a free ten minutes, I write exactly where some people would go click on the TV, that is, when they do not write.Vonage. I credit this company with making the Internet phones work seamlessly with regular phones. I have a slight issue with their advertising, where they claim they can transfer your existing land line or cell phone number to their service. Careful, while that may be strictly true, they are not a cell phone company. Do not mistakenly think you can transfer your cell service to Vonage for $24.99 per month. You would still have to go home to make a phone call, since they only take over your cell phone number, not the service.
Vonage is advertising a wireless phone that works in hotspots. I’ll look into it, but you would then have to go to a hotspot to make a phone call. It is an interesting concept, but how long before the hotspots begin to limit access, like the so-called “free” service in downtown Hollywood or Starbucks? Vonage makes sense for businesses that make a lot of toll (outgoing long-distance) calls.
One novel feature is remote area codes. I described this years ago, so I won’t get into detail, but basically you could open a branch office in Alaska. The catch? Well, you would first have to establish a high-speed internet service in Alaska to connect up. The phone and cable companies are very touchy about such activities. Mind you, if you knew somebody out there that had an existing high-speed account, that would be different. Hmm. To Alaska callers, it would be a local call, although I can think of dozens of alternative reasons one might want a phone number someplace other than where they live. (How long before 911 is compulsory?)
Blast it! My ignition switch broke again (this happened in 2005). The part is cheap but it sets me back a half-day. True, I’ll get some extra bicycle mileage but Wednesdays are prime time for me. I have to pick up things I can’t delay, such as cat food. While shopping on foot (bicycle actually), I walked down the diet pill aisle and paused to read a few of the labels.
These diet pills cost $25 per bottle and up. The list of ingredients shows mostly vitamins, but also chromium and biotin. I’ll make it a point to read up how these cause weight loss. I looked carefully at “Hydralux” (don’t quote me on that, but it is a heavily advertised brand) which claims it causes your body to burn calories rather than convert any to fat. My interest is that quite a number of other brands that said the same thing had the same list and proportions of contents. For example, exactly 417% RDA of something I already forget, but it is the formula that intrigues me.
Unplanned bike trips are great, I had time for a coffee at the Panera. They wisely leave discarded newspapers on a small rack so others can read them. I see the CIA is owning up to dastardly deeds. Their spokesman said they were skeletons from a different era, but the leader of another group that I’ve never heard of lambasted him with what I consider an extremely cunning comeback. “Some of those skeletons, like wiretaps without a warrant, are still walking around.”
Excellent point. I will find out who this group is and what they do for a living. They are against government intrusions and so am I, regardless of whether that intrusion is authorized, condoned, permitted or if the law is silent on the point, nobody should be allowed to do it except under very rigid circumstances. That there is a group organized to watchdog the situation makes it odd why they are so obscure, at least to me.
High point of the day was my music lesson. The family band was able to fake an entire Blues jam and basic fills to rock ballads. New musical points and innovations are taking over from rote memorization, although there is nothing I can teach that diminishes the requirement for dozens of hours of independent private practice. One thing, I am personally feeling the effects of information overload so I’ll haul back on anything new in the next week or so that interferes with the Blues.
Cowboy Mike’s new choice, “Keys to the Highway” is a winner if only because it is yet another of our tunes that does not have a twelve-bar pattern. This one has eight. There is just too much new information arriving at once to process, so I made a big pot of tea and drank it while staring at the walls. This is definitely one of the most relaxing places I’ve ever hung out – the trailer in “Tales from the Trailer Court”.
Later, I dropped in at Jimbo’s to check for developments. Nothing, and it was too dead to set up, although Charles, the sax player showed up and said we were far too good to be playing there [at Jimbo’s]. I disagree. I didn’t break his heart and tell him it was our first gig. He’s invited me to stand in with them tomorrow at “Booz” on the beach. Isn’t that the place my last guitar player got thrown out of for skipping on a two dollar tab? The same guitar player who says he knows more about running a band than I do? Hello?
More trivia. I’m not sure, but I heard that carbonated soda (“pop” in Canada) is so acidic that if it was not already an accepted food, it would require warning labels not to drink it or let it splash on your hands. I’ll have another swig. I drink three to four cans of it per day in the hot weather. Today, it was 93 inside, now down to 86. F.
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