Like texting, most people I know don’t have the time to fumble with it. (Did you see the news about the driver who crashed his bus while thumb-typing?) In my crowd, I was on email up to seven years before my contemporaries (and they all promptly became computer experts the very next day). I want the cheapest cell service available, which brings me to Jitterbug. An outfit called firststreetonline is plugging the Jitterbug phone for $14.95 per month. No doubt, there are extra fees but still that is $25 less than the same claim at MetroPCS. The downside is Jitterbug’s ridiculous minutes allocation. The basic service starts at 50 minutes, then up to 100 minutes for $19.99. It is American group-think that comes up with these moronic plans, the same generation that thinks valet parking is a swell idea. I’ll watch for Jitterbug to offer an unlimited local plan and get back to you.
The property owner across the way is doing a major repair/upgrade to the place he rented to Carlos. He said there was extensive damage but generally, the property needed some attention or he would not have so much work to do. He’s been sawing and moving in sheets of plywood for a few days now. Oddly, he drives a van the same brand as Carlos and almost the same color. No sign of Carlos for nearly a week.
Biodiesel Leo called. He has been a victim of ripoffreport.com. This Internet scam works by placing bad “consumer” reports about your business at the top of almost every search. The perp, one Ed Magdeson, is on the run for his life after extorting fees of up to $50,000 to remove the fake reports. At least part of the problem is the reports are very slick and realistic, padded with facts lifted from public records, especially business licenses. (People probably think at this point I’m going brag about my warnings of 1996 about business licenses going on-line, but I won’t.)
After seeing the outfits offering to fix the bad reports are just as bad as the reports, I advised Leo to just ignore the situation. Anybody dumb enough to believe the reports is probably a bad prospect to begin with. I posted a couple of contradictory passages to see how long before they are discovered and removed. Oh, and our rental scam babe, Lecticia, must have smelled a rat. She bailed before I could get anything on her.
[Author's note 2015-07-30: the affair with Magdeson (above) has a strange ending. Basically, his scam is to slander your business, then demand $2,000 to remove the fake report and another $600 per month to block it from being re-posted. If nothing else, this should tell people about the permanence of anything posted on-line. Don't do it. Magdeson has never been prosecuted due to Section 230 (of the CDA, the Communications Decency Act), which states that on-line publishers are not responsible for what others publish on their sites.
Then it was free movie time. I caught a ride over with Fred to Oakwood to see “The Collector”. Other than a horror flick, it is nothing like the original where the guy who collects butterflies tries to kidnap a girlfriend. This movie has few memorable qualities and is designed to scare children. All the scenes are dark (film noire), a technique last truly effective in the 1930s, where it belonged. Too many clichés break up the already directionless plot, such as the bad guy having superhuman strength and the women always in a panic of some sort. Wait for the video, wait a long time. Bring back Borat.
I may pick up my Friday gig at Jimbos again. I need the money, and besides, nothing else happens in this town where the average age is something like 43.6 years. I’ve got an entire new set including the just impossible bass line to “Cover of the Rolling Stone”. It is deceptively simple especially to guitarists and others who don’t understand bass as a separate musical instrument. I finally managed to capture the spirit if not the notes and you should hear the result, it is somewhere between hilarious and quite astonishing in that nobody expects the bass to play a harmony part. I picked it out on the piano first, so it does the chunky boogie. And I don’t use the word “astonishing” out of context. It sounds great and even if it has been done before, I developed my method independently.
ADDENDUM
Famous Family Quote #5: “You are all equally my children. Your brother has just as much right to run chain saws inside the house while you study for your math exam as you have the right to study for your math exam while your brother runs chain saws inside the house. I don’t play favorites.”
A lengthy quote, yes, but also the last thing I ever listened to my mother say in person. The family quote that broke the camel’s back. Actually, it was an accounting exam and I’d been studying six solid months for it. Twenty-six weeks. But the fact is, peasants do not like other people trying to get ahead. I got up ragged the next morning, wrote that exam in a daze, loaded up my truck and left, never to return. That was November 16, 1979. Years overdue.
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