Gahan Wilson brought us cat fud. El Presidente now has just fud. It costs the same as food, comes packaged like food, and even has a list of ingredients, a few of which I recognized. Since I’m a former fan of real hot dogs from back when real hot dogs existed, I declined this chicken-pork byproduct. But for many Americans who will soon only be able to afford fud, this could be a last resort. At least that bunch can read the label. Sorry, no mercy.
There is are no bargains left now that I’m looking to buy that sidecar. I’ve checked all of Florida and the environs of Denver and Seattle. Nothing. Lots of ads for incredibly overpriced Harleys and Urals, the rest is mostly junk. I find the sidecar inherently safer than a motorcycle, even one with an airbag. Happily, as time goes by my budget goes up.I watched robot videos from Norway, whose user count is many times that of Florida despite having only 25% as great a population. (5 million vs. 20 million). It sounds like you could buy robot parts at the equivalent of the corner store in Oslo. The coding, especially for hexapods, must have a fascinating, if repetitious, structure. But somebody should tell the Norwegian punks we want to watch the robot, not listen to their ghastly electronic music.
As you wish, the combination of cameras recorded a black dude brazenly waltzing along the street with a pair of wire cutters, trying to steal every bicycle down the whole block in broad daylight. It’s sh*t like this, America, they let him go because he claimed he was “waiting for somebody”. Like, somebody who was cutting my security cable? He got as far as my place when the alarms brought the police. But since he had not stolen anything yet, they let him go. I didn’t find out until I got home.
That’s because I was on a callout, hooray. I learned that publishing an eBook on Kindle is easy, once again over at the professor’s office. Fill out the fact page and upload the file. (Kindle is Amazon.) Not so with Barnes & Noble and their e-reader called “Nook”. Their web pages suffer from the old malady of a pre-existing business trying to “go computer”. We, I should say “I”, could not get it to work. What many programmers don’t allow for is that to most people, everything that appears on the computer screen is a “web page”. I’ve found the average person does not know or care if it is a blog or a link or a search engine but that is how the instructions read.
Next, I followed up by getting the facts on some potential gigs. Artie’s doesn’t pay, but they finally have bands on a tips-only basis. Jimbos is allowed to have bands on weekends until 11:00 PM only, and the back door has to be shut. I put in our offer for Willy’s and got the business card from Sweeney’s. The best location would be Artie’s which is also the worst designed, in that the only place a band can be set up is not directly visible from the bar.
Artie’s is a blast from the past. They have a unique atmosphere in this town, for example, no female servers. This makes sense in an area where all other places are full of married middle-age men hitting on the servers and that inevitably causes trouble. That’s the pub where Big Jim’s band played once and made $91 each in tips. Stay tuned, as I will be checking at Jake’s on the beach in the next day or two. Right now, I’m taking it easy for the rest of the day. I deserve it. I’m sitting down sipping milk with sugar and vanilla because I like it like that. This next picture is here just to break up today's long text entry.
It’s true. Canada has a new law you must pay fees to play recorded music to an audience. Starting at $9.25 per day, the price goes up for bigger groups or if anybody dances. The law is retroactive back four years, meaning you may yet get a bill for that pool party back in ’08. What’s scary is how Ottawa intends to enforce this law. How is payment to the musician/composer determined? If they pay without counting the music, I’d like to register right now and get my free money. Oh, Canada.
Trivia. During the Kindle operation today, booksellers will rapidly learn that international means the USA and select European countries only. Be warned it is easy to screw up the euro-dollar exchange rate. It seems not many people know what a pound sterling is. The British pound is (reputedly) backed up by sterling silver, so what is it that makes silver into sterling? That’s the trivia today.
It turns out fine or .999 silver, the type I collect, is too soft for coins. So the mint adds something to the silver to make it sterling or .925 silver. You may be curious to learn the pound sterling is one of the oldest and most studied currencies in history. I’ve personally never seen the coin. The answer is copper. Ordinary copper is added to silver to make it into sterling.
Which leads to a little more trivia. In the 1980s, two billionaires tried to “corner” the silver market (by purchasing all the silver production contracts, about 100,000,000 oz.). They wound up in court, but my question is does anybody know why? It is not illegal to corner, so of what crime were the Hunt brothers charged?
Well, they bought silver on margin, meaning they only put up part of the cash. When they couldn’t pay the balance, major brokerage firms were teetering. This was avoided when the huge banks stepped in and propped things up in a non-government bailout. The crime was the Hunt brothers failed to disclose they owned a chunk (about 6%) of those brokerage firms and pocketed their share of the free money. That’s dirty pool. But only because they got caught.
Cucumber
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Salty Licorice
ADDENDUM
My goodness! Is silver a popular topic or what? Listen, I’m no expert so confirm anything I say in this general synopsis before investing. Silver has fallen out of favor as currency for a lot of reasons, one being a lack of a trustworthy brand name. The mints in South Africa and Canada are government regulated but that’s about it.
There are other grades of silver recognized in the marketplace. For example, Mexican silver used to be .980, making it more valuable than sterling silver, but that ended in 1945. Silver from the Royal Canadian Mint is .999 which means it is meant for collectors, not for circulation. Such a soft coin would quickly wear out. I find these coins cost so much they are not as good value as silver bars of the same weight.
The tarnish seen on silver is due to sulfur floating around in the air you breathe. It comes out of tailpipes. In 1989, the billionaire Buffet bought 125,000,000 ounces of silver. That’s more than the Hunt brothers. Since Buffet bought real silver instead of commodity contracts, and paid for it with his own money, he was hoping to be called the good guy. He bought at $4 and sold at $13, and asked repeatedly, “Who wouldn’t?”
The whole affair carries the Hunt opprobrium. Let me get this straight, Warren. You dump most of the silver in the western world onto the market and overnight the price starts climbing? The alibi is that he was tricked into selling. That makes him the good guy again, right?
Most people have never seen a US silver certificate, so one is reproduced here. The important words are at top and bottom center. Currency manipulation did not begin when the US went off the gold standard. I say that because how many of you spotted the rip-off? Look at this “silver certificate” again and see if you can find the scam.
Nothing? Okay, I’ll help out. Most people would conclude this dollar is real money because it is redeemable, or backed, by silver. Wrong. If it was backed by silver, it would specify how much silver by weight. This bill does not do that. It states only that you get a “dollar in silver”. Wow.
Ah, so much history. Let’s talk about the future. Do you know how to lose money? It’s easy, follow your instincts. Let me go check something, I’ll be right back. Hi again. Yes, I’ve been dabbling in silver just under a year now (since June 27, 2011). No, I did not say how much or how little, but if I sold today I’d lose money. But I won’t lose money, will I?
Silver prices are being manipulated. To me, there can be no doubt. The usual experts are dead silent on that issue, not a peep. Silver should be selling for $100 per ounce and I’m biding my time. My best guess is that if it goes to $100, there will be a rush to buy and people will suddenly realize how little silver there really is, driving the price to $400. Few things would make me happier this year.
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