oops, I messed up this photo. I'll have to go get it from the archives.
What can I tell you about today? I did a major shopping trip to bring things back to base and earlier saw Carlos off to his new contracting job. Blog rules say I have to tell you that Millie and Pudding-Tat have reached a standoff. They will often stare each other down at less than a foot away, where last year it was half-way across the room.
There was not even time for trivia, although I could not help to see all the commotion about Michael Jackson’s estate and children. The fact anybody wants both means a lot of cash is involved. I am appalled by the tasteless behavior of the media, same as ever. It is one thing to think somebody meant something; quite another to broadcast your opinion on the matter. If I was in power, news would lose the element of gossip mighty quickly.
During the morning, I ran through most of what I can possibly play from Eddie’s song list. It isn’t much, other than his liking for old Creedance Clearwater, and that has been so long I doubt I spelled it right. I played a round of Cash Cab. All of this is pointing out how dull the days have been lately. The wise among you will know it is temporary, but still, even I wish I could make all this interesting. You know the old logic that since I have not read your blog, I have nothing to rate my own by.
The [computer] shop is really hurting for business and the vacant properties all over town testify to the depression in the area. Depression? Yeah, in a recession, things get slow, they don’t close down. It could be me, but I consider it far more serious when a one-man shop closes than when another man loses his job.
Although I have both Twitter and FaceBook accounts, I’m still having difficulty figuring out what good they are. I’ve got people I’ve never met and have very little in common with who have signed on as my friends. But what for? What is the purpose of all this activity? The 140 letter answers to the question “What are you doing right now?” are so cryptic they are almost spastic. If, in fact, you are doing something that even can be described in 140 letters, trust me, the real world does not want to hear about it. My interim conclusion is that these things have to make the rounds every few generations so some types can consider themselves cool. Or kewl as the case may be.
Note: the CIA were to later say if you had told them ten years ago that millions of people would willingly create personal files of their private lives and voluntarily make them public, they would not have believed you.
I watched a documentary on Samurai sword-making. The metallurgy was done completely by experience, no scientific method whatsoever. The so-called expert craftsmen had no idea what made the steel good or bad, and judged the quality by the color it turned when heated. This haphazard approach reputedly breaks or ruins 25% of the total.
When I was in college, my buddy pointed out the swords had a million layers of steel, which I like to point out can be accomplished simply by folding the metal over 16 times. A computerized spectral analyzer can product perfect swords 100% of the time. The reason I watched the program was not an interest in swords, but the apprenticeship system (something I have always been against).
Sure enough, the Japanese apprenticeship is a wasteful as the European. The commentator stated it took years to learn the trade. But right there was footage of all the students raking stones, washing clothes and serving food to the “master”. It seems to me servant duties have more in common with indentured slavery than becoming a tradesman. I would like to know how long it takes to learn the skill without all the horsh. I’d guess six months, tops.
One of the things I have against apprenticeship is the wasteful activity built in to the procedure. I’d always wanted a trade when I was younger, but not the “barber” nonsense my parents tried to push on me. So I took a job as a carpenter’s helper when he told me he would teach me the trade. I quit after three months of emptying his trash and pouring his concrete. I did not dare take a trade because it would disqualify me further from what I had been promised by my own family. “Well if all you are going to do with your life is be a barber, why should we help you?”
You know, I feel like explaining that. Years after my parents had promised to pay for my university education, they began to “advise” me that barbers made good money, something I never doubted. It was my parents I doubted, for openers it is not like they were offering to pay for barber school, hell no, they meant apprentice. Here is where two sides of the same story emerge. Their cover story is that I was ignoring their good counsel. My side was that their plan was to appear less deceitful if they didn’t pay me to become a barber than if they didn’t pay me to become a doctor. You see, I was by then already 12 and used to that particular brand of treacherous, ruthless doubletalk.
You think I'm making this shit up?
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