DAY
It warmed up enough to stop by the beach to check for gigs. Most of the busineses closed down for three days this week. I have permission to park the scooter behind HWB when in the area, and Barry reports there is a new problem nearby. Squatters. There are many abandoned properties on the beachfront besides the foreclosures. No head count, but there is plenty of room for hundreds of them just in Dania and Hallandale.
There was an East Indian wedding happening on the shoreline. You can see the little blue booth set up on the sand. It was a strange ceremony, the priest or whatever they call him was citing that the ceremony originated “in this country” 1,400 years ago. This perked up the ears of strollers on the Broadwalk. The priest further said that in marriage, the bride was “split into two” and now a possession of the husband and could not own any property. It didn’t take long for this baloney to start drawing guffaws from the nearby drinking establishments.[Author's note 2019: this country was not made great by either the original inhabitants or immigrants, but by settlers who came here to abandon their old customs and become citizens of a new land. Most Americans frown on the concept that immigrants who come here to preserve their old ways belong in this society. The popular feeling is that if their customs were worth anything, why is not the world sneaking over their borders. I don't mean nuttin', I'm just sayin'.]
Jag has checked in, he’s got a cold. Too bad, I wanted to do a session at the club tonight since there is nothing, absolutely nothing, else going on. The high point of the day was telling off a jerk at the library for making noise, and, later changing the oil on the scooter. That’s why I was out at the shore, testing the gears and crankcase for any noises. I wanted a schedule from the Kolb park but took the wrong boulevard. I’m still estimating it taking longer than needed to travel a mile.
Later I learn the blubber boy at the library is nicknamed “Fat Bastard” since he does kind of look like the one in Austin Powers. I was at the library checking the bestseller list and noticed several of the authors I’ve mentioned recently have books in the running. Grisham, Patterson, etc. These writers are new to me, try to remember that the second last reason I’d ever read a book is just because a certain author wrote it. The bestseller list is no guaranty of quality, it is based totally on sales. Authors burn out eventually. Even my days are numbered.
What? Yes, I said second last. No, I won’t say what the worst reason I can think of for reading a book. Why offend people with low IQs, especially when they are in the majority and temporarily have more money than I do.Speaking of money, the Japanese government has again lowered the interest rate to 0% and still nobody wants it. These are the people who brought you the Sony service contract, and from what I gather the Japanese language has 400 ancient words for free but none of them readily translate into English.
When I got home, the half the neighborhood was beside the utility room. The place next door finally sold. It took the owner almost a year to evict the welfare cases. They left the owner with $560 in unpaid utility bills plus the rent. These are the same people that told Wallace they’d pay him $1,000 a month rent. Yeah, until his back was turned. Then they moved in across the street to Eric’s place and have been a nuisance since, fighting loudly until three in the morning.
NIGHT
Well, the new people moved in and plugged the toilet pipe. We took turns digging up the tee since it was now also plugging everybody else’s toilet. I don’t know how many times we had to go tell the lady to quit pissing and flushing the toilet until we were finished. Finally, somebody called a plumber with a snake and he dug out what looked like an old Kotex. Then she flushed the toilet on his hands.
In a not too unexpected turn of events, Madoff’s son is dead. Madoff is the guy who stole the $50 billion right under the fed’s noses. The official ruling is the death was a suicide. My eye. He knew too much. In technical news, the US Navy(?) has successfully tested a rail gun. We’ve looked at this before. This is the gun that uses an electromagnetic pulse to accelerate a projectile. In this case, the “bullet” was timed at Mach 7. Theoretically, Mach 20 is just around the corner. At those speeds when the target is visible one does not have to allow for deflection.
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