Early this AM I took the red scooter in for new brake pads on the back, missing my bakery brunch. So stay out of my way, peeps. Here is a shot of the uneven brake wear. You are looking at the piece I am holding where the pad has worn at an angle. Nobody panic over the other pad, it is upside down and you are looking at the bare metal of the mounting side, not the brake side. Geez. I tried that new coffee shop on Dixie while waiting. Unlike the bakery, they make nothing on premises. [Photo & address missing.] Not really up to par, friends, I'll stick with my old place.Next, since Estelle has not called (causing much worry at the bakery) I went over to the library. I do believe I’ve read all the text books on interesting topics in that place. After an hour I left when I could not find anything new in the research section. Cool spells like today are just as bad as hot summer days to get the noisy locals into the libraries. Cheap-ass people are exactly the same wherever you travel on this planet. They senselessly try to save money in the silliest ways. But herding into government buildings to save on home electricity has got to be about the lowest.
The novel “Project Cyclops”, after a promising start, has settled down to another terrorist-nuclear-hostage let’s get the president on the red phone made-for-Hollywood fairy tale. There are so many special ops types out there they are starting to not seem so special any more. Is that Delta Force, the SEALS, the Mossad, or yet another freelancing group of their disgruntled former loose cannons? Are we still supposed to act shocked when ambassadors lie? (See below, I later finished the book.)
Can I cheer up a bit? Sure, here is the boiled roast from the slow-cooker. I like stringy pork sandwiches with baby-poop mustard. When only the softest cut with your fork meat will do, why bother with a fancy recipe? Water, and a few diced veggies for aroma more than taste. It even made me forget about that Erector/Meccano kit box of junk that skinned me for $25 y’day. I got everywhere late, even the bakery, and I found most people had the same cranky day as I did. Myself, at month’s end I have $7.02 left in account 6011 “Spending Money”, but hey, at least that I never go negative. Like some people I know.The quadcopter quit. Stopped working just like that. The shop is replacing it under warranty. Here is a skateboard camera. It works wirelessly but is that cell phone or Internet? For a $300 camera, they should say. I am no expert of these devices, but I know they are all short-range radios. I gave up trying to get some explanations on how to set these up and the technical differences between the systems. For that matter, I still cannot get two wireless routers to communicate. The camera has a 32 gigabyte remote card, but nobody can find the menu on the remote to activate it. Ahem, I heard that and I’m saying most everybody over here knows what they are doing.
Take Virgin Mobile. I want to change back to my old plan, so I read the fine print. Unless you switch exactly on the due date (the 25th for me), you lose your balance for the old plan when you switch. Please, God, just fifteen minutes in a room with the guy who came up with that and a cattle prod. Outfits like Virgin Mobile (and cell phone plans in general) typify to me the punk generation, where becoming a small-scale con artist is an acceptable career choice. They believe screwing a hundred million people for five cents apiece makes them the next Bill Gates. I got news for those punks. You never invented that kind of thinking. In my day, all your little scams existed. But until you came along, nobody was scum enough to touch them. So what if you went to the Harvard School of Bragging Rights, you cannot hang around here unless between your whole gang you come up with an actual original idea. Just one would do. We are damn certain that requirement will keep our club exclusive in your lifetimes.
Later, it got chilly again so I climbed into the armchair and finished “Operation Cyclops”. And a stereotype ending it was. The terrorists were (we are told several times) motivated by the ransom and start assassinating each other. The president got to thank everyone on behalf of democracy. The 35-ish woman with the body of a teenager falls in love with Mr. Tough guy. The Swiss banks turned over their financial records to the authorities. It nearly brought tears to my eyes.
Don’t bother with this book. Half the characters are useless, it breaks no new ground, and strains toward the end as the author wraps everything up. While informative about the mechanics and politics of nuclear devices, the story lacks believability. Missiles and radar sites are particularly fragile devices. A single bullet can disable a rocket. There is no need to dangle a man from a helicopter to unbolt the warhead.
