Up again until 4:00 AM and you should know this often represents my most productive time. It also lets me keep an eye on the whole neighborhood to see who else is puttering around at that ungodly hour. One project I'm poking into is publishing this blog at more than one source, say Wordpress. I've reviewed several hundred pages of my writings from the times I spend in Thailand and most of it is suitable for posting. Here’s a photo of emptying the trash using the scooter, my best vehicle in ages.
I regret that I am unable to locate around 800 slides taken with my expensive Pentax camera from the same era. I suspect I forgot them in a box in Seattle. While I was in Phuket, I avoided the drunks the druggies and visited temples, caves, seashores and forests on my rented motorcycle. I was in Thailand when it was still Thailand, and even back then, 99% of the tourists were white males. I dated a Thai woman, nicknamed Nom Chuck Tau, which I much later found out was slang for large breasts. I also dated an older woman, Tom Moondon. My adventures were centered on the southern coast, for I did not care for Bangkok where the women are harsher. Nom and I wound up traveling through the south sea area but don't go back, it isn't there. I saw more of the country than any of the party crowd and the whole area has since degenerated into an AIDS factory. As Gump would put it, peace of mind is better than piece of ass.
Another factor is that not only are the nights and early mornings quieter, they are cool enough to work by the fan alone. The fact of the matter is my austerity measures over the previous few years have proven so effective, I don't even think about returning to my old lifestyle. The reason I could not work at night before was straightforward—I had to stay awake in the day in case I got a callout. Now that things are secure, I'm “living like Harry”.
But I did get a callout. Instead of 8:00 AM, I scheduled it for 1:00 PM. Ah, the good life. It was that replacement Canon printer. I commend Canon for top-notch handling of the entire situation, including English-speaking employees in the United States. Tech support was reachable in the daytime within two or three minutes, showing they are adequately staffed. I didn't have to get through “customer support” to reach a knowledgeable person, and on all three occasions, that person solved the problem without any errors or guesswork. And, they even sent a complementary package of photo paper with the replacement printer. Hewlett-Packard, Brother, be very afraid.
Furthermore, the Canon installation process does not seem to put the loads of junkware on your computer like the others. In fact, a portion of each problem for which I contacted Canon was my own bad experiences with other printers causing me to over-think the situation. I have decided for whatever differences may exist in performance or specifications, my new printer will hands down be a Canon.
My new computer is ready, and it is a $50 Sony Viao with 256 MB of RAM. It will be temporary as I begin to weigh the thoughts of upgrading once and for all to an Apple. This is approximately the thirtieth IBM/MicroSoft computer that has crashed on me in my life and I am fed up with it. There was no Apple in this year's budget, but that shows my opinion of cheap computers and glitchy operating systems could hardly be lower. One Apple would last me the rest of my life.
They killed Bin Laden, a bullet to the head. Please World, make the very clear distinction that it was the politicians in DC and not the American people who killed anybody overseas. Americans are not bad people and there are no politicians alove today in America that truly represent them. The politicians are already censoring the photo as gruesome, duh. The Pentagon cover story is they tracked Bin Laden down by following his couriers. Even if true, they certainly took their bloody time about it. The CIA is claiming it shows there is no place to hide. Yeah, so where is Hoffa? Instead of a single anonymous sniper, they sent SEAL teams in by helicopter, turning Bin Laden into a martyr and television for the next year into cloned press conferences, endless interviews, and boring spectacularism
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I understand the need not to mess up, to get a clean kill. But I would have suppressed the news for a month, then casually mentioned it in passing on some other big news day. Completely downplayed and after the fact would have been better. There was no need to make him the underdog. Or send the message that we need millions of dollars and crack troops to kill a single Arab and shoot his wife in the leg. The projection that it took us billion-dollar army to get him means there will be a a lineup to step into his shoes.
That Patsy Cline tune, “Walking After Midnight”, is a lot of extra hard work. The original recording, even when remastered, are so bad the bass lines are indistinct at full volume. It seems she may have sold more than one version of this hit at the same time, but they share the characteristic that all Internet music charts show the wrong chords. There is no D minor in this tune, boys.
ADDENDUM
The mice have disappeared. There were two of them. They ate well, as in any kitchen where real cooking carries on. I wonder, did the Burmese python living under the trailer have them for a snack? I did sprinkle chemicals around the perimeter around the same time, but all insect stuff. Plus, I coated all exterior seams of the premises with 12-month anti-ant spray. The mice are gone, and no, I don't buy the theory they are hiding in a cave across the border in a neighboring country.
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