This picture shows you the exact brand of klutz that infest Florida. There is an expensive fine for blocking the intersections like this, but the cavalry are never around when you need them. The worst drivers quickly see the odds are bad against a ticket and couple that with the usual dose of Florida inconsideration. These cars are parked at a crossing with fifteen horns blowing, but they don’t care. Mind you, I view it as a fault in the system. We should have traffic cops that do nothing but hand out traffic tickets by the thousands, instead city police running a few expensive and time-consuming identity checks at roadside each shift.
No, things are not looking bright for a job. For the offers I’ve been getting, I’d rather go stock shelves or work on some assembly line. It wouldn’t be forever. I never made it to the beach for the jam, which is okay because I later learned that even to stand in, the City of Hollywood wants you to sign a document. Of course, they’ll want to see ID to accept the signature, and away you go. Screw them on that one. Pretty much everyone does it, and no wonder.What is more likely is I’ll install Quickbooks on one of my computers and become an expert in a week. Then go apply at one of those temp agencies for $16 an hour until something comes along. I used Quickbooks back in the early 90s. I didn’t care for it, due to the way it handled reversals. (All these reversals were never my decision.) Who knows, they may have fixed that problem. Now I’ll have to relearn the difference between Quickbooks and Quicken. Dang!
Wow, I will never get used to that ultra-thick fog of adult ignorance. My estimate is around 15% of all people have this condition, and most of them pride themselves on having a great personality and a sense of humor. Until their stupidity is revealed, whence they go from zero to complete peckerhead in six seconds. The problem is, despite massive evidence to the contrary, they still cling to the notion they are smart. [Insert tasteless joke about my brothers here.]
You’ve just gotta hear the details on this one. Some guy calls the shop and wants free advice. As a favor to Fred, I get on the phone. The caller wants to know what “the sign is to multiply numbers”. I’m not writing the dialogue, so follow this conversation in prose. The asterisk. The what? The capital eight. The what? Look on your keyboard and find the number 8. (Fifteen seconds pass.) How about I just tell you where it is? No, no, I can find it. (Fifteen more seconds.) Sir, I am busy, please look near the top middle of the keyboard. Okay, I got it, I got it. What is just above it? It’s an asterisk. So what? That is the symbol you use to multiply numbers. You must think I’m an idiot, I don’t have to listen to your bullshit, put Fred back on the line!
Some Ft. Lauderdale dodos pulled a real boner today. They’ve got stage gear set up at a club, which is probably a more realistic setting than most studios. It was clear they felt it a fair deal to rent this gear for $50 for 15 minutes or something like that. The dunces forgot, however, that most local guitarists think their egos alone are worth more than that. Guess who got bent out of shape? They took this to mean the club wanted musicians to pay to play. While not exactly on the mark, the flak got so bad there was even talk of calling the Grammar Police.
My customers all know me, and they caught some jerk trying to get away with printing up 125 pages off the Internet when he thought I wasn’t looking. That new bicycle kickstand works so well that I may chalk out some radius measurements and see if I can figure out why. After work, I flipped through a book on statistics and probability, and although I’ve passed two advanced courses in the stuff, I see I’ve forgotten most of it. What are the chances of that?
Then, I picked up a book on shorthand. Good old Pitman stuff. While I decided that advances in software will make it obsolete, I wonder if I should still give it a whirl. Often enough I’m in a situation where it would be handy and/or I want to write something “in code”. Writing in public is a very rare and conspicuous undertaking in Florida; most people don’t even carry anything to write with or on. Also, I’m still shy about openly copying things down from books I have not paid for. I’ve toyed with the concept for decades and I wish I had learned it. But my fog was too thick.
Thinking to redeem myself, I tried to pick out the bass line to Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”. Whoops. That is, at the same time, something that can be faked easily but too much effort to play correctly. I’ll skip it for now. Don’t say anything.
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