I’m out of the video conversion business. My last good VCR finally gave out and I still have 20 unwatched VHS tapes. Like “Rooster Cogburn” still in the wrapper. It had to happen as my equipment is almost 12 years old and I’ve not replaced the player. The pity is that I’ve got the doldrums from my prescriptions, which can last up to two weeks, and that’s when I watch old videos. Remember, I’ve never seen most of them before. I wasn’t raised on TV and Poptarts. I’ve read every book I own at least three times.
The library sells books cheaply on some weekdays. I’ll have to stock up as the hardcovers are $1.00, the rest $0.50. I’ve got the flu, meaning time at home, in turn meaning more technical material creeps into the posts. I call it trivia. Did you know the Concorde’s payload was only 9% compared to the average airplane with 20%? No wonder the tickets cost seven times as much.
I did some serious searching for matrix and array information on-line y’day, but it seems all my learned colleagues don’t like building their own prototypes. They go for the integrated circuits and the pre-made 8x8 kits. I’m seeking a little more solid foundation than that. I also junked my FLV Player and loaded RealPlayer onto this computer so I can watch whatever I can download without the foibles. To do this, I had to strap the entire computer on the scooter and take it into the shop for a half-day. But it works. Sadly these days, there are ever more downloads that won’t install unless you are connected to the Internet.
By early morning, my flu was totally taken over. Fortunately, I’ve got everything from chicken soup to hot lemonade, and this also means time to read things not on my priority list. Like the Help Wanted ads. Man, is it dire out there. The majority of jobs are sales, which is zero security. Beyond that, there are what the California unions call “leaf-raking” jobs. I pay closer attention to the accounting positions.
The accounting ads are just as suspicious as ten years ago. If it really is an accounting job, why does the employer want to know your typing speed and whether you have a Florida driver’s license? Or insist you know Quickbooks? There are just plain that many dumb people out there, I suppose. To the thin-minded, accounting does superficially look like clerical work.
To change the subject, I don’t like Eric Clapton’s music. Clapton is probably okay, although as a guitarist he tends to noodle instead of strum. What I don’t like about his music is that he was part of that entire generation that missed the sexual revolution by around ten years and won’t shut up about it. Teens want to hear, “Yeah, yeah, yeah”, not droning ballads about unrequited love life that never was.
You know the music I mean. “Young Girl” (get outta my life), “She’s a Lady (whoa-oh-oh) or “She’s Always A Woman To Me”. These are old men crying the blues and not the subject matter for people who are just out for a good time. Really, if you missed those good times by ten years, can’t you keep it to yourself? I understand that millions of failed guitarists like that music because it represents their circumstance. But it also explains why most teens today know of the Beatles, but have never heard of Clapton.
That was the first half of the day. Then Dave-O came over and we sat round shootin’ the breeze till after dark, listening to real southern fried rock (Black Oak Arkansas, RedNex, Charlie Daniels) and deciding the rest of the world is screwed up. I’m no doc, but Dave-O has liver problems which didn’t stop him from drinking wine and deciding he could play the maracas.
You see, Dave-O and I are from the same area, just different upbringings. We talk the same language, where numbers have the correct two syllables “wa-un”, “too-oo”, “three-eh”, “foh-uh”, “fie-uv”. We ate real Texas fried potatoes in butter and German meatloaf, till we were Texas full. Servin’ dish, my eye, right sizzlin’out of the pan on onto the plate. Neither of us ever ate no artichoke either, so he’s going to buy some and I’m going to cook them.
And we both caught the same flu this week so no problem with the sneezing fits. He’s going to give me his old VCR tomorrow. We decided the rest of the world has an accent, not us. In the end I wound up playing my entire classic solo bass act in my new Florida room. In concert, plus a few new items of “bar music” I’ve been working on. Dave-O thinks I should take the show on the road, but I know the bass isn’t an expressive enough instrument for that.
Here’s a still from the RedNex video “Cotton Eye Joe”. That’s Cotton Eye, not Cotton-Eyed, like them damn Yankees and easterners say. Cotton Eye is a condition from drinking cheap (and poisonous) home-made wood alcohol which clouds over the cornea. RedNex is good southern music and whoever doesn’t like it can go pay taxes. And when they get tired of that they can go preserve the union, but as far as showing up around here, how’s about never? Is never a good time?
