Pat-B played there tonight, meaning I’ve missed an opportunity to crank it up. The soonest I will have new wheels is November 28th. Every day I leave it after that means more luxury for me, so I’m in no hurry to buy now. The logical place for opening night with Jag is thus Jimbos, where I don’t have to lug equipment. The tips are always decent and that is an incentive right now. Pat-B got me into that Buffet tune, “Volcano”. That jingle-like reggae melody is a fun play with a ton of lyrics. Pat-B reports he sings, so I’m free to customize the bass line both to my leisure and my standards. The two strongest voicings are steel drums and bass, plenty to work with.
Y’day evening I laughed my ass off. Don’t worry, I found it later under the piano. The irony is that what I saw was not supposed to be funny at all. It was a celebrity version of Jeopardy, where the already dripping wealthy contestants were playing for their fave charities. Except, here’s what happened.
One of the players was Sajak, the host of Wheel of Fortune. The other two were from, er, more modern schools where everybody’s IQ stands over 120. They were a woman and a man who played a soap opera character. They stood there dumbfounded as Sajak waltzed away with over $53,000 to the guy’s $4,000 and the woman’s $0. Even then, Sajak was severely (and I mean transparently) holding back for the second half of the broadcast, trying to give them a chance to ring up something.
Now don’t go excusing the losers because Sajak had a head full of trivia. Not so, the cards were actually stacked against him in that the answers were contemporary subjects that had to be figured out, not merely remembered. He trounced them anyway. I suppose they are nice people. Yet when it got down to raw intelligence, the final scores were, how can I put this nicely, the final scores?
For the record, Sajak is not quite as good as myself at remaining unembarrassed by such situations, for he several times glanced over at them in disbelief. I would never do that, even subconsciously. Then again, when it comes to flagrant stupidity, I’ve had, between my family and the phone company, far more practice. What? I said I don’t glance over, not that I don’t stare. In fact, that is the only time a stupid person has my undivided attention, so most beware if I’m looking at you in a courtroom and not blinking.
Deflation is back in focus as I plan for 2011. This is the supposedly terrible conditions caused by falling prices, the opposite of inflation. It seems Japan is undergoing a long period of this event, but so gradual that nobody noticed. Still, I point to the fact that they did not instantly collapse and last I heard, no factories are closing up. I have yet to hear a convincing argument against deflation, and that includes the so-called problem of surplus capacity (you can look that up). Most businesses can’t handle peak periods without surplus capacity, so why is it so evil at one time but not another?
Anyway, I’m watching Japan, and so had better all you civil servants whose pension funds are sunk deep in Treasury Bonds or anything else about to become so much wallpaper. It is possible for jobs to be surplus, too. Ask the people who used to work at Zenith.
