September 30, 2008

           Wallace’s trees are growing berries. I had to trim back some branches and found the little green flowers had turned into the tiny berries you see here. The forest is doing fine without any extra attention after four months.
           In one of the more idiotic Internet applications, a student was in the shop today required to do a 4-hour “driving skills” test on-line. If not completed, the student gets 3 “points” on his driver’s license over a speeding ticket. These points accumulate and at 12, you lose your license for a year. It turns out as in far too often, these tests are from a non-government for-profit outfit that you have to locate by yourself. From the nature of the Internet, nobody could find an “authorized” test site. I found one within the minute.
           So I watched. My oath, what is to become of us? The test was one of those pettifogging, insipid travesties we all just love. One question asked about the relative levels of alcohol between a Long Island Ice Tea and a Gin & Tonic. What, are you supposed to be a bartender now? Tons of trick questions, as in worded funny. The candidate was required to take a break of ten minutes every hour. To ensure the break was at the machine, meaningless random questions popped up, such as, “Have you ever been to Mexico.” (Always answer “No.”)
           You can skip the rest of today if you are not curious about karaoke, the business part. I was in the shop 13 hours over this one. I believe I asked several questions y’day. For one, housewives love karaoke because what other kind of part time job can you set up for less than $20,000? I am convinced the average setup costs the user around that amount.
           My recollection of karaoke was a stack of those album-sized laser disks. They were heavy and labor-intensive, and fragile. What I’ve discovered is they are replaced by a format called MP3+G. The “G” stands for “graphics”, which means the lyrics. The audio is an ordinary MP3, but it is played back through a karaoke player, not the regular MP3 player I have been using. I see now that Arnel is using a karaoke playback for his MP3 backing tracks. He never uses the graphics part except to remind himself of the words.
           I also learned that all karaoke is second-party, that is, no performer releases his material in that format. That is, all karaoke is faked. I’ve heard some pretty accurate fakes. The karaoke machine must have two video outputs. One, to display themaster controls, the other to show the lyrics for the singer. You know, the words that change color as things go along. Turns out this is a very complicated and expensive.
           In passing, I kept encountering a new term, “hardsubbing”. This is where the subtitles appear on the screen like closed captioning. However, closed captioning can be turned off. When the wording is permanently burned onto the original, that is “hardsubbing”.
Arnel was interested in software that converts MP3s to MIDI. I will investigate this technology because it seems to me (at this point) that only the MIDI version can change the tempo and key. I’ve always had trouble changing keys with MP3s. You may ask why since I don’t sing. It is because a lot of the original recordings are off key,(Elvis, Cash, Beach Boys).
           Additionally of interest is the vocal eliminator. It would be ideal to convert the original tune to MIDI, remove the vocals and disable the bass line. But ideal never happens. The eliminators don’t work 25% of the time. Reason: in most stereo recording, the vocals are equally split between the channels to give the impression the sound is coming from the center. You simply invert one channel and the vocals cancel.
           Trivia. England hung pirates “until dead”. This implies there was another option. Beheading was reserved only for the upper class.

September 29, 2008

           This is a different perspective on the nearby gambling casino. If it looks like a stadium, that is because it is. Formerly the greyhound race track, this view is only possible by walking around out onto the street west of the house. Notice the virtually empty parking lot, and you can only see about a tenth of the area. This makes for very quiet neighbors – a vacant lot. That is where I am considering placing my advertising.
           There is an implication here. This casino was supposed to bring prosperity back to the downtown area. Nonsense, it is doing so poorly they have cut back on the security staff. That is why I know I can be in and out of there on my bike faster than their can ride their golf carts. Again, I do not know if advertising is permitted, but in Florida you present them with a fait accompli. I get ads on my car no matter where I park.
           We’re busy, not rich. September was a disaster this year. But hey, compared to all the jackasses losing their houses and those 85 million people who don’t yet realize they are going to lose theirs, we are okay. That seems cruel, calling a huge chunk of the population down, but listen, they are only getting what they bargained for. One of the expressions they used for decades used to grind on me, “Do the math.” Well, they drove prices up buying from each other, now let’s see them sell to each other.
           My big concern today was the video computer. There are a series of difficult problems, the net of which stops me from practicing my music. The situation is worsened by my “karaoke” experience last Saturday. Be prepared for some reports on nothing else. I have to follow up and if I fail, it will not be from lack of research. You already know that. I will certainly get back to you with plenty of information about the technical side of karaoke.
           First, that video computer. We stripped it to the skeleton. On the shop computers I use drives of 20 GB or less. This deliberate restriction is to prevent abuse, particularly from AOL and IM users who don’t comprehend they are messing the system up for the next guy. It turns out that while XP requires 3.5 GB, the newest hacks (which contain amazing) features gobble well over 10 GB. I planned out the entire conversion for tomorrow.
           Also, with the remainder of the day, I looked at the whole karaoke business from the aspect of a technician. I have several hundred pounds of unanswered questions. I will, if you return, supply you with as best an explanation as I can. For example, why is it that karaoke is dominated by middle-aged housewives who are above average vocalists? Why do the karaoke acts [have to] haul in at least twice the gear I need? I don’t know. Let me continue asking questions.
           What is the trick to having the lyrics show up on a small TV? How much does the karaoke equipment cost? Why does it take so long between songs? Why does the DJ always have to ask, “Who’s next”. Most of all, why do they seem to haul around those laser disks when I know I have heard good results from ordinary CD-Rs? Karaoke Ron had to use a handcart to get his gear in place. As usual, I don’t expect any real help but if you return soon, I’ll tell you what I’ve discovered.
           I made a boo-boo. I’ve already told you about the fast popularity of “Spiders and Snakes”. I underestimated the way that tune has become synonymous with Jimbo’s. It is THE theme song. The regulars request it too often wherefore I ignore them so as not to bore the staff. It seems a lady kept putting dollars in the tip jar last weekend, requesting the song. But I could not hear her and just nodded my thanks. This is justification that if I do any karaoke, I cannot allow it to command my total attention on stage as happens now playing live. I swear, I saw her but never knew what she wanted. Then I got told.
           To end on a happier thought, all the new vinyl signs survived the monsoon weather we’ve had for days on end.

September 28, 2008

           How’s your Hungarian? Good? Then read this label. I did an easy call-out this morning with one of my favorite students. He says computers are so complicated, but the fact is he is at the stage of doing complicated things. He donated this jar of apricot brandy, which Wallace and I found goes great with fresh coffee. The computer trouble was spyware. Those of you adequately protecting your computers may have noticed that Spybot went from 160,000 to 278,000 infections around a month back. (The rest of you haven’t learned enough.)
           The culprit is named virtumonde.sci and its 100,000 mutations. That makes it a major outbreak but the good news is only a dozen or so varieties will hit your computer at any given time. In two months, it will be history again. For a while. As long as the US government does not act against them, these intrusions will survive. Like viruses, until the government goes after the people paying the money rather than those making it, we are stuck with the attendant evils.
           The comfort level of this place means Sunday at home. I did stop at the book store on the way back, the Barn near Aventura. The place was packed. Since I don’t usually buy books, I customarily have a coffee and cookie. Today some trendy jerk was tying up the lineup so long, I just sat down and read for free. Of course, the minimum wage clerks play along with the idiot. They get paid by the hour. Oh, how I hate people that drag along at the cashier.
           Most of the day was here, so no spectacular news. Other than a big breakfast of buckwheat pancakes (I’m getting okay with the new frying pan), we snacked all day. This reminds me there was a fight at Jimbo’s last night. These happen in the very best of places. I recalled that meeting between Churchill and Stalin, where the statement was made, “Go away mad, but don’t go away hungry”. There was a ton of food at the party last night. I thought, “Go away with a black eye, but don’t go away hungry.”
           Eric was over, looking distraught. His cat got out again. This time I could assure him to wait Holly out. A cat and a food dish are a matching set. Who knows, one day he’ll notice how I let Pudding-Tat out anytime she wants. Later, he came by to say thanks, the cat had returned. He wanted us to bring the cat back if we found it. Ha, try that. A cat can tell from ten feet away when you want to catch her.
           Wallace wanted to go to the Hard Rock. I passed. It can be an okay place on Saturday. I’ve learned the pleasure of not going, so he and his lady friend took off. In the pouring rain. Besides, I’ve got my elbow bandaged up to restrict movement. Lots of incidentals took place over this weekend, such as more signs at the shop and a strange squeaking noise in the car. But unless somebody asks for more, that’s it for today.

September 27, 2008

           See Wallace’s Hawaiian shirt? Too bad my camera does not show fluorescent color, or you’d have to stand clear. That is one ugly shirt. When Wallace learned it was an “Island” party, he dug this shirt up. At first I thought he should throw it back and dig someplace else. In the end, I borrowed it for the gig tonight. Read on for more details, but Wallace finally got over to Jimbo’s.
           Back at the shop, I had to scramble badly to get the CD finished. The only equipment I have in working condition is the computers set up over there. I downloaded most of the music and approximately every third Limewire tune has either a virus or a spyware attachment. Most common it the Zlob “downloader” virus.

           Here’s a cheery thought. I volunteer to be the first one to dance on Microsoft’s grave when they finally go under. It is hard to fathom what they get away with, and one of the worst contraptions is the dreaded “Media Player”. It keeps screwing around with “Playlists” which is fine if you know what they are and use them, but I don’t. I want it to play the one song I want. Of course, there are no directs of any kind how to operate this playlist. I know it is easy, but like easy women, I really don’t want to screw around with it.
           Yes, I used my Win98 laptop. On such short notice, I could not get that damn Media Player to quit taking over. Even deleting it does not stop that piece of junk. It always was a annoying thing. I installed DVD player 5, but could not find the Win98 command to make it the default. Another dumb Win98 feature is how it opens new instances of folders whenever you navigate between those folders. I just left them alone and by gig’s end had four hundred open folders. I just pulled the plug. Where do MS people get so twisted? The good news is I pulled it off.

           Great gig. Six and a half hours long, and it brought a few things to the surface. One good one is that although the juke box has a better sound (stereo vs my mono), it was only when I played they were packing the dance floor. I was disk jockey around half the time and yes, they did the conga and the limbo. Even the regulars had a particularly good time and you know, that is a credit because I’ve played the same venue so long and still can pull that off.
           Wallace showed up to get hit on by a babe about thirty years younger. No kidding, and from up on stage I could see she was not necessisarily kidding. She was buying him drinks. During a break I showed Wallace the birthday cakes. (There were two birthdays.) One cake was a female upper and the other a male lower. Only Wallace would instantly ask, “Where’s the important part?”

           I played until midnight. One thing about disk-jockeying is you never get a break. Back-to-back music all night. It was enlightening to note how much I could get away with when playing music I was not sure would fly over there. As long as it isn’t punk rock, it seems to work. I even played a lot of Neil Diamond. Everybody who is anybody was in for the show, including a babe who reminded me of what Crazy Liz would look like today. Let’s see, has it been 15 years? Yes. The full name is Elizabeth Jane Brookston, a Canadian girl from British Columbia, up in Canada.
           Asking around, I discovered she [the lady today] was a) happily married, b) widowed 8 months ago, and c) a rich real estate lady with a twenty-something boyfriend. I would have moved, except she managed to completely ignore me while I was on stage and the twice she brushed past me at breaks she did not respond to my receptive mannerism. For rating me the “common entertainer”, she gets this week’s award for character judgment.

           For the record (and it probably is a record), Wallace did a head count and we had 12 women to 14 men in the place at 8:00 P.M. All blonde women. Wallace mentioned he was the oldest person there, but that didn’t seem to stop the women from massaging his shoulders. Ahem. Maybe he does not realize what a catch he would be in South Florida. He has to quit hanging out at those family restaurants and donut shops.
           I’m now flush with a pocket full of jingle-jangle It is not all gravy, for I have developed bass-player’s elbow and it was my fault. A week ago, I walked from the coffee shop all the way to Panera with arm load of heavy groceries. It was a little too heavy, now I have the after-effects.

September 26, 2008

           Another one of those early fall days full of work but not making any money. So you get a picture of a big-butt Florida truck. This is the kind of thing that kind of brings a tear to my eye, but not out of jealousy. One could wonder why they let these monstrosities on the street, but for all I know it belongs to a cop. Who else makes enough money in Florida these days? Don’t answer that.
           Since business was non-existent, I delved into more research on my Internet system. The printer monitor I finally chose quit working after the first week of the 30 day free trial. Once again, what should be a rote operation has dragged on into a major effort. I’ve spent at least four days on it. I seek a simple application that tells me how many pages were printed from a given computer on a network.
           And like so many times before in my life, I conclude the very software I want is out there, but every ass-hat in the country wants his cut. It is unfortunate the inherent design of software promotes this type of “unbundling”. Ask anybody who thought they could get a web page happening for $99.95 what they wound up paying before it worked. I would not mind paying a premium price, if only somebody would guarantee it is what I want, and without me having to chase them down for a refund.
           What is new. Okay, I once dismembered one of those metallic foil tags you find inside the pages of new books. My assumption is that it was an anti-shoplifting device. That is only partially true. I did not know it was an RFID “chip”. Well, hit me with a noodle. I also did not know that it may be possible to repurpose these tags and the coding does not look all that complicated. These days I’m too busy to pursue it. Funny, I thought RFIDs looked like grains of rice.
           The CD for first party booking took several hours to put together. I need two players on state, as the client wants a mixture of live and recordings. So I took apart the old Haier (DVD player) and it is beyond repair. It also contain something else I’ve not seen. A series of connectors that are designed to be used only once. If you disconnect them, like I did, they cannot be reconnected. Interesting in a sick kind of way. Unless I want to shell out big bucks for another player, I have to use my old Win98 laptop. How do I know that will be problematical? Two reasons. First, I have not used Win98 for years and last, it was designed by Microsoft not to work right.
           The rebuilt video super computer is not ready. When it will not load your operating system, regardless of what message shows on screen, it is a memory incompatibility problem. Heads up, all you techs. In this case, it was the same RAM but the replacement motherboard was different enough to need a re-install. Don’t go throwing that old RAM out, it may work perfectly well in the next 50 computers.
           It was a successful evening at Jimbo’s. My equipment is beginning to show its age. That’s another gripe because my equipment is less than a couple years old in most cases. Nobody has yet designed a phono (guitar) plug that doesn’t eventually wear loose. I will repeat that my music gear is not heavy duty and does get banged around a lot. Stuff just does not hold up like it used to.
           One of the better kept secrets in town is that there is a surplus of women at Jimbo’s. They are all blondes. However, they are also taken, something that becomes a fact of life after 30. Let me restate that. The one or two that are not taken will never be taken. Yet, for a town where men usually outnumber women ten or twelve to one, Jimbo’s can be a surprise.
           Ethnic joke time. From the New York Cities cab driver joke manual, how do they know that Jesus was Jewish? (Yeah, its also old joke time.) Well, because he lived at home till he was 30, went into his father’s business, he thought his mother was a virgin and his mother thought he was god.
           Next!

September 25, 2008

           With each drop in daily temperature, I ride my bicycle just that little bit faster. Now I’m eyeing that massive but often mostly empty parking lot at the casino next door. [Author's note: for clarity, I am considering placing my advertising on the cars in that location.] Don’t get me wrong, it is really a nice place and all fixed up. I just don’t gamble. Wallace was somewhat jolted by seeing penny slots for the first time. Yes, they are for broke old people to get totally addicted to, to gouge pennies out of senior citizens. You don’t realize what a trance it puts them into until you see it first hand.
           Well, I figure what gamblers need is a place to email home for more money. That is why I have the lowest prices in Florida. The blank spot on my sign is for the price, but I haven’t figured out a way to make it easily changeable. I will. Both sides of the sign are different, I rotate them daily. This is a small sign, somewhat less then two feet tall.
           Interesting news. My old credit union is now the 17th largest private bank in the west. I am all for private (non-government-regulated) banking. For those unfamiliar with FDIC, remember that it is insurance, not a real financial backing of your deposit. A private bank can opt not to have that insurance if they have the resources to guarantee your deposit—and only the finest banks have such resources. Mine does.
           We may be in luck with the ceiling fan. Wallace found that the switch had been disconnected. That jives with the way the previous owners ran things. They would turn off the A/C if leaving the room for just a minute. Soon as we get a cool morning, I’ll do my bit by trimming back Forest Wally. It is again starting to inch out over the public roadway. Eric and the previous owners did go on about watering but we have not watered the area in all the time we’ve been here. It grows just fine by itself.
           I do have a booking Saturday, and it is the Island theme I likely mentioned. I’ve got the disk ready to master. My main computer is still in the shop, so I have to go in there all day Friday to take care of the mixing. The shop is where the interruptions are. We are not a help desk, but you would get a laugh out of the things people call us for. “No ma’am, a fatal error does not mean your sister in New Jersey has died.”
           For the record, I downloaded most of the music and found almost every second tune was laced with viruses and spyware. Unless you have an incredible firewall and software protection, don’t visit these sites. (P2P or peer-to-peer music sharing sites where you download unlicensed music.) Worst offender is Zlob “downloader” virus. It says it is spyware, but it is worse than that. I wonder if there is any truth to the saying that music producers hire or intentionally place viruses in the share programs to combat pirating.

September 24, 2008

           The bicycle is proving ideal for getting at those parking lots. I can place 100 cards in just a few moments. My reasoning is the cards are better than flyers because (I figure) 99% of people open the driver’s door with their left hand. I tuck the card into the glass but overlapping the door frame, where the right hand naturally picks it up. And where it can’t fall down the glass. Don’t you hate that?
           I hope placing these cards is legal. If it isn’t, it will take a very healthy cop with his own bicycle to get near me, ha! There is a tale about the parking lot in today’s picture. It is empty. This is the very same property expropriated by the city using Emminent Domain law. (Did I spell that right? It isn’t in the Big Dictionary.) This is where the owner didn’t want to sell, but the city proved the land was needed for the public good. Well, a lot of good a vacant three storey building does anyone.
           As you expect, I have all the parking lots from downtown out to Park Avenue [just over one mile] mapped out in a route. That takes in 200 cars. Including the huge city parking lot, where the library gives free Internet service. That’s “free”, American style. You have to be a member, wait until a terminal is free, and you get one hour. During the last 15 minutes, a counter appears on screen that you cannot disable. It is the only part of the library packed all day and I just need a few people as dissatisfied with that system as I am. I have the only true “office atmosphere” in town.
           It is doubtful I can make today into anything interesting. I worked on the sign, which demanded extra thought to make sure there were enough letters. Parking became “in behind” and “at back” due to a shortage of the letter “r”. Worse yet, I forgot it was already Wednesday since I was so far behind on everything. The sign goes out on the sidewalk tomorrow, ready or not. In the past, I’ve put out unfinished signs and gotten even more attention. You are promised a picture, probably tomorrow. Later today, I did place the sign outside and it easily survived the rainstorm. Seven layers of paint, you know.
           When I ordered, the business cards, they contained only advertising, not the standard contact information. These raised a few brows at the print shop. The staff was astounded when I explained. None of them had ever heard of using business cards for such a purpose. That, folks, is what working for a living does to your brain. When you work in a box, you think in one.
           Wallace is looking into the master bathroom fan. The vent, wiring, and parts seem to be there, but it does not work. He’ll find and fix the thing which is great. I would never get around to it. The computer repair I needed set me back $103 in total. More than I spend on my car, and I get computer parts wholesale. I’m getting to be quite good at retro-fitting XP into Win98 machines, of which we are again seeing another surge. Within a few restrictions (such as a Pentium chip), the upgrade can be done and is worth the effort in terms of performance.

September 23, 2008

           I’d say this seller is “motivated” (see pic). What say you? The real estate situation is so far beyond a joke that I rarely mention it anymore. But jerks like this who over-spent on those cracks, water damage and broken fixtures seen here just don’t rate any sympathy. As they used to tell each other, “Do the math.” (It was later discovered this property was being flipped because the entire plumbing had been condemned.)
           Myra came by while I was at the shop. She has apparently been off work for a number of weeks due to some injury. The afternoon was spent with Fred and I trying to squeeze XP into a computer designed for Win95. You’d have to watch us go at it to appreciate the two opposite approaches. Fred, who is all hardware and professionally trained, I am software and never had a day of lessons. You are getting lots of computer talk these days because that is the top events in my world for now.
           One thing I studied today was assigning IP addresses. Turns out nobody at the shop had ever done this, although the concept is easy. Normally, you let your computer system automatically assign an available IP address, but I found that this (so-called) Dynamic arrangement does not work well with my monitoring system. I need to be able to trigger events from the command console, which in turn requires fixed IP addresses Fortunately, I was able to get the system to work without much ado.
           The water problem of y’day is gone. But as Wallace and I conclude, we have not seen the last of that yet. Face it, the Florida utility grid is not the newest in the land and was originally thrown in as cheaply as possible. Wallace got some info that Florida is rated an expensive place to rent. First, let me say that this is a tourist economy and we are less than a mile from the beach. Second, the condo rents are high and force up the averages, as people who over-spent on pre-construction speculation are trying to rent out for ridiculous amounts to cover their mortgages. Third, anybody who lives here can find a decent place for half what the media is saying.

           That is statistics for you. Stick to the facts, and the facts are that Wallace and I are spending approximately 23% as much money for “rent” as we were a year ago between us. This is a serious savings and it will begin to make a real difference as time goes by. I believe I fried my video computer. That was a boo-boo. It’s the motherboard. Today was logistics time. I put together the little A-frame sign, at least until I ran out of letters. You know those vinyl letters you peel and stick? They work fine except I think the letter distribution is outdated for any Internet vocabulary. I kept running out of “E” and “S”.
           Plus, I got the business cards ordered. Except they are more like advertising cards. The plan is just to get more people in the door as cheaply as I can. Bear in mind the whole thing at the shop is still a hobby that costs me money, but less money than I would have to spend to duplicate all that situation here. The shop is where all the tools, spare parts, and good people are at. How’s that for ending a sentence with a preposition?

           The stock market is in the headlines again. You know, I hope the thing collapses from its own weight. Companies have been cooking the books for so many years that I am sure a real market “adjustment” is on the way. A side effect of the aging baby boomers is pulling their money out of speculative stocks and into safer fixed rate investments. The companies who have been reporting record profits will soon run out of steam when those boomer dollars start to disappear.
           Last for now, I saw Millie-Belle and Pudding-Tat pass within two feet of each other without the usual territorial fuss. That was the high point of today. That, and I found at least part of a translation from March 9, 1996. I was attempting to climb "Pico Occidente" in Venezuela. I failed when some local gave me the directions to the wrong mountain. Duh. When I clean it up, look for the blog on that date in a short while.

September 22, 2008

           This is the Windows 95 computer slated for a major upgrade. Oddly, it runs faster than many Vista machines because there is less overhead. Configuring this unit is a fond memory of simpler times. I’m holding one of those old memory cards that clips in at an angle, for those who know what I’m referring to. We found three angled slots and one perpendicular slot, a totally strange arrangement. But since these memory cards eventually came in 32MBs, four of them means XP might just fit in there. If so, this could be the ultimate upgrade.
           We had a crisis, but the fact is, Florida could not stand up to Wallace and I. You knew that, but we’ll supply the details. This morning, we had but dribbling water. It trickled, but no toilet, dishwasher, sink or shower. Not one of the things required by civilized persons. After thoroughly eliminating our premises as the problem, we focused on the standpipe out back.
           By noon, we had no running water at all. Among our choices was to trust Florida would consider our necessities a priority. (For once they did, but that is not something to rely on.) Had they not done so, however, the emergency decisions we made were brilliant, so I’ll go over them.
           Enter an interesting new discipline, “Econo-Hydraulics”. Since the water over at Eric’s was fine, we conspired to run a garden hose to one of the standpipes on their side of the street, over to here. By carefully turning off and on the right spigots, we would have water. Eric says we are not supposed to touch the water taps, but hey, in an emergency I ask questions later. But how is that for rapid and effective problem-solving?
           The computer slated to replace Peggy’s is a Win98 unit. I’ll shoe-horn XP into it but that requires tomorrow morning. Peggy called to indicate the bachelor forms [that I composed] are adequate and she has some men underway. She mentioned a “bachelorette”, but I consider that to be a completely separate issue. One book, one theme. Seventy-five pages of material, plus another 10-15 of commentary and editorializing.
           I’ve been trying to get in touch with Myra, the lady who stayed here in June. She is not answering her phone. She also does not know how much we need here, or are going to need her around here. Even the cat misses her.
           Yes, I have a booking for Saturday. An island theme birthday party. The request is I bring a disk full of “island” music and my regular show. I get the big bucks plus tips. Limewire provided the Buffet, Bellafonte, Kingston Trio, Marley, Don Ho and Beach Boys. I previewed some music by a group called “Shaggy” and found it uninspiring. I’ve also been tipped off that the A/C at Jimbo’s is on the fritz. That has to be repaired before I go on. I played once before when it was out and swore never again. It gets hot in that old building fast, “Jimbo’s No Windows”.
           Trivia. Asparagus makes some people pee funny colors, as in purple and orange.

September 21, 2008

           Here is you-know-who beating the heat. You know how other cats will curl up to sleep? This one crashes out in whatever position she falls in. Note the unusual posture of her hind legs, but there she is, snoozing away. For some reason, she likes that torn piece of cardboard just behind her butt.
           I overheard that up to 90 people a day are now trying to climb Mount Everest. It must be nice to have such money and idle time while young. Then there is me, where staying inside the house for an entire day is so rare it is almost extinct. I puttered around the whole time. Wallace was the guy who did all the chasing around.
           What were the high points. Well, we had a huge pancake and sausage breakfast that put everybody back to sleep for several hours. I’m slowly getting the utility room sorted out so I can actually get work done in there. The cat is starting to foray into the living room with Millie-Belle just out of striking distance. If need be, I am sure she could hold her own against the dog.
           Arnel made a copy of a MIDI tune (Do-Wah-Diddy) to demonstrate the removal of the bass line in that format. Ha, I think it is a demo of how bass can change the entire feel of a song. I’ll spend a few hours on that tomorrow, if only to check how easy it is to find the music I already play. Nor am I that comfortable with operating a laptop computer on stage. We went over the details with Fred last day and decided Cakewalk is the best starting point for me.
           Shelves. You can never have enough shelves. I’ve put some big ones in the utility room. I finally have a place to store the less used articles around here. Once everything is put away properly, you will find this place is completely self-sufficient.
           Okay, at midnight tonight, I reach a musical anniversary. I’ve been playing in a band since I was 13, a lot of years. Come to think of it, I’m still playing some of the same music. I really would learn something more contemporary if I could find something distinctive. I listen to the top ten, of which there are a bewildering number of lists, and all the tunes sound alike. The Internet seems to have raised a bumper crop of wannabee recording artists.
           There are hundreds of thousands of bands on youTube, and they seem to have all taken the same drugs or something. They are a generation of recording technicians, not live performers. I agree rock was dying and got a jolt from the rock video. But that does not extend to making it a requirement that every band everywhere should have a weird and whacked out video. Nor would I be surprised to learn that “success” on the Internet is more dependent on thinking up a great or catcy name for your band.

September 20, 2008

           Here’s a picture you might not expect. It shows the completely empty streets of Florida during a heat wave. Like the one we’ve had for a week now. Nobody in the yards, nobody walking, the thermometer is in the muggy high 90s. You’ll see nobody for block after block. I had quite a few pictures but this is the only one that turned out.

           Portuguese. I guess if things go slowly enough, I can follow it after all. A lady was in today with some kind of networking problem. From what I figure, she needs a hub but has no clue what that is. She kept repeating a word that sounded like “franjipanni”. That’s a new one on me. I hope it wasn’t some kind of marriage proposal. I want cash.

           Arnel was over at the shop to give me a few pointers on the MIDI program. I still don’t know how what a “controller” is or how to connect any MIDI appliances. As anticipated, there are lots of sources of pre-recorded MIDI tunes on the Internet. By next week I’ll have located the best ones. We installed Cakewalk at the shop. I also had to replace Peggy’s computer with a faster unit. (Peggy’s computer was just to prove the concept, a successful experiment.)
           Wallace and I both remembered the big Bre-X scam, so we looked up the details on-line. This is the Toronto stock promoter whose team “discovered” a new gold field in Indonesia. By carefully timed press releases, the estimated size of the ore kept shooting up by millions of ounces, and the stock from two cents to two hundred dollars. I smelled a rat but lots of so-called professional fund managers, such as the Quebec Teachers Pension, did not. They lost a hundred million.

           Around ten years ago, the two “geologists” responsible for assaying the ore died mysteriously. One fell out of a helicopter, no less. The other’s body was found in the jungle “half-eaten by wild animals”. Got that? Obviously faked, and I said so at that time. It seems the “widow” of one of them immediately moved to the Cayman Islands. Where she receives an awful lot of mail.
           Then we looked up Bernie Cornfeld, who at one time had 5,000 salesmen out there scamming world-wide. He kept one step ahead of the law. As I’ve pointed out, a lot of civil law can be summed up by merely assuming the law exists to protect dumb people. It does not protect the weak or the poor and certainly not the innocent. The way it works is you cannot cheat your stupid co-workers directly, but you can do it indirectly through the stock market. Strange arrangement it is.

           It was too damn hot to do anything. I went over to see Arnel at the Kingshead Pub. I’d never been in there before. They have a large patio that is cooled by one of those overhead spray systems. It works very well, keeping the temperature quite within the comfort levels. A pipe with spray nozzles goes around the outside ceiling. When you step outside you know instantly how hot it is, even at midnight.
           By the way, when I left, there was a lady in the parking lot checking license tag numbers. I had backed my car in, a habit I learned in Canada to prevent this brand of snooping. She would read a few plates, then walk over to a black sedan, talk, and go look at a few more. When she tried to squeeze behind to read my plate, I hauled out my camera and pretended to take her picture. She ran off.

           Sure, I know that I’ve hit a stretch of doldrums, not much is happening these days. The blog gets a little thin. Trust me, this is a period of consolidation where many details are being cleared up behind the scenes. Stay tuned and we’ll have plenty of new material for you in a short while. This photo of Pudding lying on a cool piece of cardboard was added in 2023 for interest. I'm hearing reports that older blog photos are not displaying. Google never could just leave things alone.

September 19, 2008

           Here is a sign of the times. The highest technology on the planet used to hook people who can’t type on primitive “text messaging”. A million-dollar tower built by minimum wage labor. The government announced a possible trillion dollar package to set mortgages back on track. What idiot came up with that one? They hired the money, didn’t they? I assure everyone you will see the wisdom of what Wallace and I have here in a few short years.
           I’m sipping my coffee with a spoon of vanilla ice cream. You need only do this once to realize there is no longer any cream in the formula. Way back, my girlfriend (Judy Minty) used to plunk Spumante ice cream in her coffee at the Prairie Dog Inn. I did the same today with the modern product but was so watery I had to add Carnation to smooth it out. Now I’m afraid to look up the list of ingredients, since who really knows what “milkfat” consists of these days.
           Incidentally, I Googled this blog and it makes the top of every search engine, often showing pages of sub-listings, whose purpose I’ve never bothered to learn. There was actually another blog with the same name, but I see it has been recently deleted. I wonder why is that? There is also a similarly named “Tales From The Trailer Park”, but mine is the grand-daddy, pre-dating all these other efforts who must have been aware of the unusual name here before they conspired to imitate.
           The worst seamstress in town patched my jeans. The black jeans I use on stage are a little threadbare and my keys chafed a whole in front of my pocket. That’s the last time I’ll use the $5 lady, she zig-zagged a patch but why did she use a white one? That’s a duh. Eric was over to report several things, the one that interested me was how well the zoning of this property makes it nearly impossible for anyone to build condos here.
           Sad news, Karaoke Ron passed away y’day morning at 4:00 A.M. Did I also mention California Johnny is now down in Miami, unlikely to travel out this was. If we find out where he is, we may visit. Miami is a forty mile round trip from here.
           I have practically given up trying to find the change machine. For the record, I did write to Diebold company with a description. There has been no response yet. If they suddenly come out with a new product along this line, you’ll know who they stole the idea from.
           It was an unusually good night at Jimbo’s, with a crowd of close to 25. That is really packing the place. The break of several weeks lets my music sound fresh again and I made enough for gasoline and a good weekend. I was half hoping Arnel would drop in on a night when my sound system was working properly. It isn’t sure yet, but I may have my first “booking” as in private party. It will be at Jimbo’s, a birthday. Yes, I’ve done those before, but this one is by invitation.

September 18, 2008

           Wallace opened the curtain to show me the neighbor’s tire. Yeah, looks like he put 30 miles on the rim. This is not unusual in any way in Florida. People got the credit for a $20,000 van but not the cash for a spare tire. I had to laugh, because it reminded me of my family. This is how they operated things. Put on a big show for the world, but anything that resembles basic preventative maintenance is a joke. Anything that could be ward off more serious problems in the future was ever in crippling short supply. This photo proves the peasant mentality lives on!
           Did we sleep in or what? I was up before sunrise and began reading “Ra”. How is that pronounced? I’m reading the condensed version. The tale of how Thor, the Norwegian, tried to sail a reed boat across the Atlantic. He failed, but so does everyone who gets themselves into a scenario where they have to continually outdo themselves just to maintain a lead. That’s why there are no “old bold” pilots. I went back for a nap at 6:00 A.M. and was out for another four hours. Late summer heat, I’m telling you.
           Peggy has called and we’ve slated the next stage to be compiling the list of candidates. This has to be done as efficiently as possible. Peggy points out that a percentage of these bachelors will not have even basic email service. However, since some of the women who read cookbooks won’t either, things should balance out. It will be necessary to compile and pre-edit the various inputs from what are going to turn out to be 25 difference sources and formats. I’m reminded of that book “Valleye of the Dolls” where the authoress had a different person write each chapter and all she did was amalgamate.
           The gossip. Eric was over and reminded us the Canadiens will be back in force within the month. I did a major shopping trip which took two hours and four stops. My stage costume is getting threadbare and I took it in for repairs. Arnel accidentally threw out his original disk with his editing software. He called to see if I’d be around tonight (yes, I will) and we begin a quest for new MIDI programming software. Much as I’d like to believe how necessity will cause me to begin singing, as with him, remember that he is a studio-trained musician, while I’ve never had a bass-playing lesson in my life.
           What grabbed my attention was the advertising claim by Sonar7 that it will translate ordinary wav files into MIDI files. I find that unbelievable and there must be some kind of codicil. No way can it be done with current technology. How would Sonar pick out, say, the bass drum sound and place that on a single MIDI track? I will give it a very close look soon, mind you. MIDI is not the answer to my musical backing tracks because I do not sing. However, I’d much rather be looking for a vocalist than a guitar player in this town. Any day.
           Later I went to Boston’s and we did a dynamite twenty minute set, with very few of the sound engineering problems of last week. Some the 1960’s tunes proved, I think, the superiority of early rock over what rock has become today. A new guy, Jim, showed up. What a huge dude, he is the size of Arnel and I put together and six/six easy. He sings excellent Marley.
           I’ve decided against the advertising flyers, mainly because they are just too expensive for the simple message that I have the lowest prices. Their main attraction was indelible ink, so I looked around to see what other people have done. One thing I found was a business card that had a plastic-like feel to it. I soaked it in water, alcohol and anti-freeze for twenty minutes each and it did not fade or run.
           Under the magnifier, it appears to be nothing more than ordinary rubber ink, the kind you get on business cards advertised $19.95 per thousand. If so, that is what I want. I could cover that Kinko’s parking lot twice a day as these cards cost 1/10th as much as any alternative.
           I thought about the small size of the cards. So what if some tiny fraction of the population can’t read them? I never went to management school so I have no trouble telling such people to go someplace that caters to the half-blind. I say now is the time to strike that part of town with all the advertising I can afford. Handily afford, I mean.
           I am convinced 30% of Kinko’s pricing is bloated corporate overhead. I had to think this through to make sure they are not expensive because they offer some service I do not. Other than webcams, which I don’t like, they don’t. It appears they are over-standardized and along the way lost track of reality. At $15 per hour, there is no value to the average user. If you had a job that paid you enough to afford $15 computer time, you would not be renting a computer. Even as a convenience.
           Reading “Ra”, I am up to the point where they are building the reed boat in Egypt. I found out papyrus no longer grows there, so they had to import it from Ethiopia. The boat-builders came from Chad; all the craftsmen in Egypt had forgotten the methods. There were two Ras, built along two differing designs from opposite sides of the Atlantic. Myself, I have no doubt plenty of people crossed that ocean before Columbus. It is just that the further south you go, the more the journey becomes one-way.
           Most compelling information is the report that during the entire trips, not a day passed without the crew seeing oil blobs, garbage or some other man-made pollution. In a mild disappointment, I read the crew was communicating by short wave radio and for some reason I had assumed they would use Morse code. This reminded me of trying to learn Morse as a Boy Scout. You know those charts they give you, with the dots and dashes? Useless. The charts can also give the impression the code is evenly spaced, but in fact, the dots are keyed much closer together. That is, the dots “stutter”. Ah, just go listen to some code, you’ll see what I mean.

September 17, 2008

           This is how you customize a bicycle in this town. All the black paint, gold tin-foil stars and streamers needed are available in the dollar store. You can’t see the detail, but the rims are covered with gold stars. My bike, which is behind me, is customized with some saddle bags. You didn’t think that was my wheels, did you?
           The good news is Wallace gained 8 pounds. The bad news is, so did I. We each have 20 to go, in opposite directions. For a treat I bought a box of vanilla ice cream and we went to work on that. Ice cream floats, that was the idea. A good call, too, because we are having the after-storm doldrums, where it is not only too hot, the breeze off the Atlantic stays too muggy to cool anything down.
           Arnel Dayrit called up and we have some collaboration happening on the music files. He can find any song I’ve got on my list in a few moments. The idea is to use Sonar or CoolEdit software to remove the bass lines from the originals. This is as simple as a mouse click with MIDI files. If you have been following along, you’ll know the difficulty I’ve had finding anyone to just show me how the MIDI operations work. This vital information is not, for some reason, included in the MIDI manuals that do go on about how it works instead of how to work it.
           Alas, these audio editing programs he needs are not that common. Nor do I know many people who have invested in the really professional stuff, or I should say prosumer grade. In the $700 range. Arnel Dayrit says he did not originally sing. The trick is to find six or so tunes and do the best job you can with the vocals. If that’s what he’s doing, it certainly works fine. The plan is to meet up at Boston’s tomorrow and see what software we have between us.
           Still no change machine, I’ve now spent close to four hours searching for anything that works. In the process, I found a perfectly good $99 cash register, but that is not what I want. Cash registers have cash drawers and people that handle that cash. That is a dumb and outdated concept in my books if (and the operative word is “if”) a cash register can be avoided. Today, less than ten bucks came in, and both customers paid with a twenty. That’s a lot of change to keep on hand in our small shop. Most people can be trusted to pay up next time, but I’ve already lost on that deal when they never come back.
           The emachine restoral system is nice although not technician-friendly. I have no idea why the optical disk reader stopped, or why it started working again by itself. This is the computer I worked on y’day. The CD would not read anything and there was no floppy. True, floppies are outdated, but they work like a hot damn when your computer needs to be worked on.
           Everybody, including Millie-Belle wisely stayed out of the sun all day. Nothing on TV, I know, because there has to be something before I’ll watch it. Nothing includes the idiotic “Ice Road Truckers” and the equally no-mind “Sandhogs” or that series about loggers in Oregon. Hard to believe people must actually watch such things.

September 16, 2008

           This is an optical illusion, albeit not much of one. The view is to the north riding your bicycle along Federal Hwy. See the two tallest buildings in the picture? The white office building on the left horizon and the beige apartment building on the right. Which one is closer? Most people pick the beige apartment, but it is actually a quarter block further away.
           Why is the cat watching me? What can I say to you non-cookers out there? You have seven minutes to make Kraft diner into a feast. I had a call-out and did not come rolling in until midnight. Worse, I had to feed a cable through a crawl space and got covered with cat doo-doo. Don’t argue, I know cat stuff when I see it. And when I get it between my shoulder blades just before I go visit a lady friend.
           Pudding-Tat has several nicknames, one of which is difficult to pronounce correctly. The words are “That cat, that cat.” Trust me, everyone will know exactly who you mean. It is the inflection that is tricky, it is said with a tone of exasperation. Some people cannot say it right. Give it a try, the easiest way is to remember the lyrics of that song that go, “This kiss, this kiss.” Mimic that tone and you got it.
           It was (thankfully) another quiet day at the shop. I have to leave Wallace to his own diversions. The US government sent me a check for 65 cents interest. This compares fantastically with my savings account which pays about 1/10th the rate. How do I invest in late tax returns?
           These strange emachines. I’ve got one with no floppy and no CD support. You can’t boot it without Windows, which is what I need to do. It has a great restore feature, but that does not fire up the CD-ROM. There has to be a trick to it. Keep coming back and I’ll share it with you when I find out.
           Still no luck finding the change-giver machine. Something will emerge, for I’m not near smart enough to have an original idea like this. One of the failings of the English language is the difficulty of naming new things something distinct. What search criteria would you use to look for such a contraption? Nothing I can think of in close to 8 hours comes up with anything except ordinary Laundromat bill changers. Like the “printer monitor”, it will be known by some words just wrong enough to make it hard to find.
           Who remembers Patrick, the fantastic cook from Jimbo’s? He may want to put together a pool party. Well, what I call a pool party even if there is no pool. I had the same idea a year ago but as you know, one must wait for the other person to think of it. Patrick and I had been talking about music lessons for his daughter. Let me think, she’d be a teenager by now, so that is the right time to see if they take to music. But you watch, within a week, he will want lessons, too. Sigh, what a different course life would have taken had I met somebody like me when I was 13. Instead, I surrounded by bohunks for 350 miles in every direction. Not one single hero.
           Arnel has spoken about a product called Sonar 6. It is from Cakewalk, the application on the Hippie’s computer that proved too difficult for practical use. But the extensive MIDI arrangements Arnel uses shows that it can be done. He gave me some material to get me started (I’ll have to revamp my entire act). I found reference to Sonar 7 and this is expensive software. The literature mentioned it had the ability to take an ordinary piece of music and covert it to MIDI. I don’t see how that could possibly be, but now I have to check that out.
           You see, with MIDI, you just cancel out the bass part. The way I do it now is to remove frequencies below 150 Hz and turn my bass up louder. The problem is this method often damps away the lower mid-range harmonies used in many tunes. Unless my old 14 channel equalizer is custom set for each performance, my backing music sounds a little reedy.

September 15, 2008

           Why so much interest in my sign? Here is the latest. More about it later. I’ve got computer problems. For instance this material has been written on my backup computer for nearly a week. What a piece of junk computer, unlike this excellent sign coming along. Yes, there is an error in spacing, can you see it? Between the “A” and the “T”.
           General good progress all around today. Great bike-riding weather. I don’t know what else to tempt you with, because it was also a dead quiet day. Let’s see, tidbits always work well in this situation. No, not writers block, for I can think of dozens of things not to write about.
           California Johnny has disappeared to downtown. It was a matter of time, since that is where his has that government job. Wallace got out behind the forest and swept up the trash and wrappers that accumulate there in the wind. I’d like to know how customers are installing Instant Messaging on my computers when they are using only a “limited” account. One customer has done this in Cyrillic and nobody dares click on anything.
           That last topic is a perennial. I don’t care if people use Instant Messaging, although I consider it the sure mark of an air-headed yoyo. You should never install anything on a computer that does not belong to you. Only a yoyo would not understand that. But what gets me is how can they install it? My computers are locked down against installs. My guess is that it must fire itself up in RAM during the boot process. If they can do it, so can I, if you get my drift.
           The Pudding-Tat update. She is adapted to living in the west wing of the premises. Her and Millie-Belle don’t get along yet, although she can certainly hold her own against the dog who is 25 times bulkier. When the dog is out, she comes in and takes over the place. Pudding-Tat finally stopped growing at 24” with a 7” tail. The “girl operation” of May this year does not appear to have had any undesired side effects. Like all cats and several people I know, she sleeps most of the time.
           In several lengthy searches of the Internet, I am unable to find my “change-giver” machine. For that matter, I have not even seen any commentary on the subject. More proof that the Internet is a vast ocean only one inch deep. The same with vinyl lettering. I got the 4” size two blocks from here, but the 5” size I require for visibility from the street are proving hard to find. Every search comes up with commercial places that want to charge me a fortune. One question always perplexed me—why do sign shops go on about “custom” orders? By definition, most signs are different than other signs, or the whole world would only need the same sign. “Custom”, my eye.
           I removed the snack vending machine from the shop. No business. Also no loss, because they gave me that machine when I bought the soda dispenser. Generally the shop is more streamlined than ever and I’ve been able to cut down on the hours spent there. I need to find out if the increases are due to advertising, the new system, or my being present. That combination is not easy to test.
           Who remembers emachines? These were supposed to be the computer that ensured you never missed an upgrade. I keep hearing they are defunct but then another instance shows up. Today I saw a brand new unit, and it has a customized version of Windows XP. Normally I don’t touch such things. This one had the 2009 Virus so bad it was blocking all programs. That means the owner has nothing to lose, so I’ll try to disk wipe and reinstall the entire system. It was also a personal referral, although I am not convinced that is always the best advertising.
           Incidentally, the emachine has a restoral feature that completely reinstalls the operating system, wiping out everything else except a few software trial versions. I would not have found this, except the 2009 Virus triggered it, which would be a nasty surprise for anyone whose computer does not have said restoral feature. (All files that could be backed up were before I got to this stage. Way ahead of the advice-givers on that one.) Later, I am informed several manufacturers have now included a full restoral feature. I wonder how many make it clear it destroys all your files?

September 14, 2008

           It was supposed to be a quiet day at home, kind of a suburban weekend. Instead, everybody was left to their own plans and mine involved the new Internet sign. What an enormous amount of planning goes into such things, especially when you don’t know what you are doing. The sign has to look home made, but not so much so that some city inspector has a fit. Yet they are okay with some guy in a gorilla suit on the sidewalk. Say, has anybody seen Wallace today?
           The photo of the sign seen here is out of sequence (it was taken tomorrow). The idea is to show the progress. I can already tell you for the time and effort involved so far, if you have the money just go buy something ready-made. I took this on as a project and it has certainly cost more than that already. Note the letter positioning. It was an experiment to see how well the vinyl would stick. Competing theories abound of why the letter “F” but I assure you it was just a spare.
           By mid-afternoon I found there was not a single cookie on these premises, so I fired up a batch of oatmeal raisin. I like chewy cookies, and this batch was the perfect thing to keep me working on the sign. The more time because I fried my best computer. The motherboard is short-circuited and I did it. Don’t I feel like a hero? Unless you are a cookie-lover, I mean. We have an excellent batch under tinfoil as of late this afternoon.
           Arnel and I got together and went over programs and procedures. His equalization software is beyond anything I can get my hands on. He was a soundman. There is no explanation why I could get my gear sounding perfect in Jimbo’s, then memorize the settings, and the next week the settings were wrong. Sabotage? Arnel says it is a matter of experience with the equipment. I say I’ve got plenty of experience, what I need is some pointers.
           Then of all the dumb things, I stop and Jimbo’s to check my equipment (yes, the heavier gear stays there between gigs) and people buy me a drink, or two, or three. I didn’t get out of there for nearly two hours. I had raced out of here so fast, I’d left the oven and coffee on. I’ve done that before, but never with Wallace to notice, ha! One time in Coeur d”Alene I went to work and left the shower running for 13 hours.
           The artificial cool week from the faraway hurricane is over, and we are back to baking in the sun. Another month of this heat wave at least, the best gauge of the weather is watching for the Canadiens to return. Wallace did a calculation, the type of which is music to my ears. He figured out he is putting 600 miles a month on the car taking the dog out twice a day. It is three miles to the doggie park because you have to drive around the casino. You know, the smartest thing that casino could do is open up a north-south corridor and get traffic going through their parking lot on the west side.
           Get a bicycle and train the dog to trot beside you, I said. Then everybody is happy. Millie-Belle still has far too much energy to be that great a companion for Wallace, but nobody listens to me. Still, the longer you stick around here, the more sense it begins to make about the way I do things, and yes, I do like to point that out.

September 13, 2008

           I got the basic materials for the sign. It will be black letters on a white background. The paint was an “exterior enamel” water based. The report back to Wallace is this paint has poor covering characteristics. Even when applied under ideal circumstances, it has a watery texture that stirs right to the bottom. This is an outdoor sign so we’ve decided to just apply as many coats as needed to get a smooth and protective finish. You can see the progress, even if the photos are a little underexposed in the new work area in the southeast wing.
           I was there to keep shop and test the new system. It works well enough, though Peggy’s computer is too slow even with 512K of new RAM. (It takes over two minutes to boot up.) It stays for now as I have nothing else to spare. Saturdays are always a good day to spend in the store because of the variety of people you meet. To be sure, some of them are looney-toons.
           JP’s old computer saves the day again. The video computer is bricked. While all this painting and wiring was underway, I put a pot roast in the oven. As explained to Wallace, I had never done this before. Lacking an exact recipe, we used the directions for cooking beef. The rules of this blog mean I have to tell you it was the best meal produced by us yet. It could be cut with a butter knife. We do not know if this was beginner’s luck.
           What is sure is that we will attempt larger meals thanks to Peggy bolstering the kitchen confidence around here. She called this afternoon with the invite to Thanksgiving dinner. She’s the chef so that means it is not too early to begin the planning. And I surely am an advocate of planning ahead.
           Don’t we all hate people who use Starbucks to hold their phony business meetings? The ones who talk even loud enough to hear at the next table? I went to the Barn to relax, which is about the only time I patronize Starbucks anyway. I was engrossed by a book on electronics and wound up staying there five hours. What can I tell you, if this town had better libraries I’d use them.
           A favorite is books about both new inventions and novel projects from existing materials. These have replaced the repetitious Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, while still respecting those publications for coming up with enough articles to keep going after all these years. Instead, I choose newer companies. The top contender for today was a fair ride powered by men pedaling bicycle gears. The kids whip around in harnesses while the old man gets his exercise.
           Joke time. This teacher says to the class, “I know one of you stole my purse from my desk. There was $100 in it. I promise if the purse is returned, I will not get angry and I will not punish the thief. Instead I will give ten dollars reward for the purse.”
           From the back of the room, a little voice says, “I’ll make it twenty.”

September 12, 2008

           See my cratered computer? It began with that crisp ozone aroma of frying motherboard electronics. Then on to a memory chip. Thanks to my triple backup system, nothing was lost. It still causes delays which I don’t like, as no system is seamless. Riches await the one who invents a truly automatic backup system. Every one I’ve seen, if it loses data, loses the most recent data. And no, that fact is not an obvious given.
           The APAL system of last day got junked. First of all, it was a complicated install. Who needs that? After that, it required expert tinkering to get basics to work, had no simple setting to count the pages, and the manufacturer’s claim that the trial version was full-featured was a falsehood. There were dozens of grayed out commands running interference with what I needed to test.
           Thus, I moved on to a Mexican product called “CyberPrinter”, also less than ideal but at least it displays a line of relevant data every time somebody prints. This still has to be manually counted up at the end. Still, the increase in revenues should more than offset this factor while I continue looking for a better solution. Again, all I want is a simple program that tallies up the number of pages each computer prints, and resets to zero when I hit the clear button.
           My left ear is still “plugged”, a condition I get every fifth year or so. For that reason, I did not perform tonight. I used the unexpected break to do some planning for my new signs and advertising. Mike reports that more people are coming in saying they saw the Internet sign. This proves more effective than newspaper ads, especially if I make the signs myself. Now that I finally have a decent workshop, I’ll start on that tomorrow.
           The dollar change-giver is a challenge. It would seem such a device would be common, but no. I’ve already described it, so you may find my reasoning more interesting than my search. (My search on “change-giver” led me to a site pushing Obama.) I timed myself at the Thrift, and the checkout lineups at Winn/Dixie. The average clerk makes change for 12 people per hour when it is busy. So no, it is not your imagination that the lines are moving slow, but that is another story.
           What surprised me was the amount of change in coins and the time needed to deal it out. Thinking this through, in the long run a cashier would give out an average of fifty cents change per transaction. Let’s generously assume the clerk is costing $12 per hour (as opposed to being paid that much). In raw terms, the clerk is adding a dollar to the cost of each transaction while dishing out fifty cents change. Are you still with me?
           If the grocery store got rid of the clerk, they could charge a dollar less per sale, but I know that is not realistic. However, there is a real but theoretical point at which I would make the same money by rounding my price down to the nearest dollar. Instead of charging you $6.15, or $6.56 or $6.98, I just charge you $6.00 and move on to the next sale. The position I’m making here is that I most definitely did not assume it was evident there would be a savings. I have not calculated that breakeven point; just knowing that it exists is enough for our purposes.
           In unrelated news, I see that a record number of subpoenas were served in 2007 upon people whose identity was established using IP addresses. What sticks in my craw is that these were civil, not criminal proceedings. It would not be too soon to begin to protect oneself from this type of intrusion. They can’t sue who they can’t find. I find it sad people are just now waking up to what a mess they’ve made of their privacy on-line. Do you know what being “dooced” is? That is when you get fired for something you blogged. Yes, blogs can be and are traced. Let me pass on a hint as a first step to keeping ahead of snoopers. Use the time option feature of your blog to post a few hours ahead, that is, into the future. Remember, one tiny techno error is enough these days to sewer your life or career.
           On the other hand, my blog needs all the attention it can get. I have noticed, without any expense or exertion on my part, this blog can be found by any search engine. The significance is that I did look into paying to get this blog into circulation via the “services”. My conclusion was that they were all rip-offs with high fees and no guarantees, and that it would be smarter to focus on one’s own content.
           What’s more, I place near the top and sometimes with multiple hits on the first page. This attests to the SOE discussion we had several months back, recall Search Engine Optimization? The smarter versions (AltaVista, Yahoo) must be parsing the html body section for relevance. Wallace got a surprise demo of this when he accidentally entered the phrase “bachelorcookingclub” into a Google search field instead of his gmail text box. Try it.

September 11, 2008

           Another day at the shop. This is the sign on the front of the building. It was originally vinyl letters but you can see how it has weathered and peeled. Fred says he likes the effect so there is no intention of getting anything newer. My sign is newer and on the side of the building. I’m making another sign myself to fit into the area above out main entrance, a transom that has been painted shut for decades.
           I’m getting closer with the various types of software needed to operate computer rentals. This has been three steady weeks of searching and sifting. I’m getting close, but let me tell you, not one iota, not one scrap of useful help has come from any source during this entire project. Every website was a rip-off, every information site was a sales pitch, every contact was a scam artist. There was not a single site that mapped out anything I needed to know, each site quoted a ridiculously low price to try to sucker me in.
           Is this what Edison meant by 90% perspiration? He also said he was not a genius, but rather that he’d just found 10,000 things that don’t work. Took him years. If he was around to day, he’d find 10,000 websites that don’t work every day, and most of them are borderline illegal. Every search flooded my screen with junk and fake offers, which I only realize now that I’ve done so much of the groundwork myself.
           Meanwhile, I scouted the new Kinko’s location on the circle. Ripe for the plucking, with their outrageous prices. I see the nearest parking lot is public and unpatrolled. Fifty-three vehicle capacity. Kinko’s is a logical stop for the unemployed because of the contrived demand for word-processed resumes. (Right, a sincere human resources department would not insist on computerized input?) Mike has reported that several new customers have been attracted by my fancy sign. I think I’ll hit that parking lot on my bicycle just to get the word out that it should not cost $15 an hour to create a resume.
           The system I’m testing now is called APAL, claiming to be a printer manager of great practicality. It installed easy but then just sits there. While waiting, I found the song list Arnel had emailed, and we have our twenty tunes already. I met up with him at Boston’s, which was quite deserted. Everybody blamed 9/11 but I have to drive through downtown to get there, and things were normal everywhere else.
           I bumped into Little Jo, cast on her left arm and all. She reports Karaoke Ron, up in the Tampa Hospice, is beyond recovery. That is such a pity, I would place him at just 50 years old.
For diversion, I’m reading the account of Admiral Nelson on his way to Trafalgar. It seems there was more than one encounter there, so I’m referring to the final battle from which he did not return. I’m not surprised to learn that the best ships in the British navy were captured from the Spanish and French. All the military shipyards in England were government operated, which says it all.

September 10, 2008

           At the shop, I can always attract more immediate repeat customers, where the repair department can’t change much. Nobody can insist you get your computer fixed when it isn’t broken, but I can always install some kind of gadget to make people hand around longer. The current gadget is the printer, and I have to report another day of total failure. It is by no means simple to get a proper accounting of the paper and ink usage.
           After making Fred’s deposit, I had to choose between spending $30 on a new [bicycle] gear changer or paying my phone bill. The phone has to wait. The mechanic said he had never seen a chain and gear changer worn out from use as much as mine over so short a time. That’s a veiled compliment and more so because he has probably heard some wild claims about mileage before. This assembly wore out after 3,763 miles.
           I did a good turn today, a customer came in and had accidentally deleted his resume information off his email. I recovered all but the final copy and showed him the process of keeping such important files on his own computer. Turns out he was a professional chef for 27 years at the same place and they fired him as soon as business turned down. This is a recession, month after month of net job losses, and we don’t mean unskilled labor. It has been bad in this area for years and now the facts are biting deep.
           The majority of job hunters we get are clerical, since a nation of unemployed people just does not require a huge secretarial pool. Another thing that makes the current economy worse than a mere recession is the loss of infrastructure. There is a name for this I once learned in economics. The situation where a skill suspended for too long is lost. So even when growth returns, it is sluggish because nobody can do the old job. For example, the US laid off all the people who could build large rockets after the Apollo program. Now it will cost infinite billions to retrain the people needed to build a Mars rocket. Or we just buy it from the Chinese. Using the Renminbis we borrowed from them.