September 4, 2007

          Up the road from Jimbo’s is a newly re-opened pub that is advertising live entertainment on weekends. It is called Johnnys (no apostrophe). I had looked at it when I found Jimbo’s, but it had closed down a day or two earlier, which I wrote off as my typical luck. Now I have the story, and a picture of the Harley Davidson logo. It had been an ugly drug bar, now under new management and completely renovated. Expensively renovated.
          The atmosphere is still “tough” and prices are sky-high, but we shall see. Their special is five beers for $12, ahem. I’ll take a personal look at the bands on the upcoming weekend. They advertise a group called “The Woodies”. I’ve never heard of them, but I predict middle-aged white guys playing the blues. Let’s see if I’m a genius or just familiar with the territory. I wish them luck although not at my expense, of course.
          It is getting harder to achieve over at the office because of interruptions, but at least I get paid for them these days. I’m charging $10 for 15 minutes of advice. The down side is that anybody nearby gets the advice for free, but I had one guy give me five bucks for listening.
          I was trying to find an answering machine with no limit on outgoing time and this could get expensive. For example, I found machines in the $200 range, but what is it they do that costs so much? I lambasted the GE unit on Epinions, both for the message restriction and the separate transformer. I maintain that Americans have had it with power transformers and they should be built in to the chassis or abolished.
          The VFW missed the boat, because I now have a paying gig downtown on Tuesdays. It may not work out but that ain’t the point. From nothing to a real gig on the circle in four months is an accomplishment by any standard. Sure, I worked a few connections but I created those connections. I’ll be at the Duck Inn on Tuesday (September 11) mainly because otherwise they would not have any entertainment in the area. Music affordable on a Tuesday is a novel concept in this town.
          Here is an unchecked Florida Lotto ticket. The jackpot was $33 million and nobody won it. The odds in this game are incredibly small, think of it as Lotto 6/53. For that reason, it has regularly ballooned up past $50 million. When I ran the office pool, we would regularly get batches of a hundred tickets and half would not contain even a single hit. The only sure thing on this ticket is that if I win big, Florida won’t see one penny of it beyond the gas money it takes to get me to Beaumont.
          I’ve come up with another one. How do you like this, “How did those 40-year marriages ever last without a TV in the bedroom?”