When I went to watch the China Olympics video, Wallace was astonished by the show. Mainly it was mass demonstrations of people power. The choreography was fantastically imaginative. Couple that with an unlimited budget and you can really put on a show. I was unaware that China had 56 different ethnic groups. I’m not a sports fan but I love a good party. One of the things I dislike about sports events is that they are paid for with public funds but the profits made are by private vendors and interests. I was hoping to see footage about the MagLev train which would impress me more than any half-time ceremony. Patience, I’ve only watch half the disks so far. I did find one aspect of the China performances a little eerie. This is the precision of the files of people without any conductor. Thousands of people managing to line themselves up in perfect rows and circles without any references except the other people around them. Scary.
The weather is approaching perfection again so it was a quiet day at home. I’ve found a couple of problems with my PA system. It seems there is a major input level difference between the first and last set of four channels, with no setting to equalize them. This is built into the design and is something I’ve never seen before. I did not notice it for over year, because like most musicians, I plug into the left-most channels.
Later, I went for a five mile bike ride, around Hollywood downtown. There are far more people on bicycles than ever before, although I still mean less than twenty riders. They are new riders, I have to laugh because I probably looked like that when I was getting back into riding. Waddling and overcorrecting, knees splayed out. Nowadays the bicycle is like second nature, I don’t even think about how I ride and often don’t even remember riding after I arrive somewhere. It was a totally enjoyable trip because I wasn’t going anywhere.
The Megabyte Café was deserted. I always look in when I’m around and I have never seen a crowd there. The most you see is a few scattered people on weekends but that corner location must rent for $3,000 a month at least. That means I cannot figure out how they stay in business. Something over there does not add up, although I am sure there is a simple explanation. They also close randomly during the day.
There is a channel 65 documentary on Ft. Knox. You know, that place with all those lead bars painted to look like gold. They say the US “mounted” (an armoured vehicle force) protects the premises. Ha, that is your weak spot right there. The reputed gold is valued at $100 billion, more than enough for a group of “volunteers” to plan an assault years in advance. Give me an Abrams [Main Battle Tank] and you are just supplying the perfect getaway car. Remind me to look up the towing capacity of that sucker. The vault? What about it? A high explosive fin-stabilised discarding-sabot depleted uranium core 120-mm smoothbore shell, I believe, makes an excellent can opener.
Later, I spent a couple of hours pondering the idea of looting Ft. Knox. This was an alluring armchair exercise. It has a fence, which means you go over it, under it, or through it. My assault would get in from above or below, but a tank is needed to get out with any gold. A tank, for all its merits, is still a steel can that can only move in two dimensions. The contingent at Ft. Knox is three hundred tanks that look pretty much alike. Ollie North proves that army officers are easily corruptible and lightly punished, and my guess is at any given time 1% of the tanks are in the shop. Would the army fire on one of its own tanks hiding in plain sight?
Now, have I got you thinking? Good. Because I’m not stealing the gold. I’m stealing the tank. It is worth $67 million and the army is going to want it back undamaged. I’ll let you figure out where I would hide a 70 ton tank, worth $30 per ounce. Hint, I say in all the excitement, nobody is going to notice it now weighs 71 tons. The extra is avoirdupois, worth merely $14 million. Knocking over Ft. Knox is a most interesting thought experiment, which I code-name “El Kavorite”.
