Internet begging. Is Indiegogo a new high or a new low? Here is a couple asking for money to buy land in Montana, and for fifty smackeroos, they’ll name a lamb after you. Indiegogo, presumably a take on go independent, is a site that says they assist in raising capital. There have been some very severe criticisms, but they aren’t doing anything Amazon didn’t. And we all love those in-your-face book ads every time we are seeking free information.Too bad, bingo was a bust. No fancy breakfast tomorrow. Just the special somewhere with free refills. The spirit is there, but the crowds aren’t. The gate has declined steadily since January 2012 to about half its heyday. A reminder, the house cannot advertise the game unless they get a license, which gets rather expensive. I’m afraid I may have to put bingo on notice.
Even after bingo is changing. Usually on the way home I can stop wherever I please and that probably means Karaoke. The strip along Dixie is as working class as you get and Buddy’s Place is a fixture on the corner of Washington. Since a year ago, there is an increasing presence of Latinos on the weekends. And tonight, they completely outnumbered everyone else. Taken over, as some say. I’m okay with it and besides, my music is appealing to any working crowd. Others are not okay with it. This is a real change in the neighborhood.
Next time you think your luck is bad, read today’s Herald. That poor guy in Hillsboro who went down the sinkhole, now that is bad luck. These holes rarely happen fast enough to engulf anyone but this one did. Even bad karma isn’t that bad, poor guy. He was asleep in his bed when his brother heard something and it was game over.
Yes, I did mention the new Bed & Breakfast rip-off sweeping America. The name itself suggests a mom and pop operation as the alternative to an expensive hotel, a light breakfast to get you up and out of the house for the day, a great concept. But it has undergone the Starbucks transformation. Wipe out the solo operations, remove all the extras that made it a great idea, crank up the prices. A search brings up few small households and a lot more custom-renovated “heritage” houses whose hidden prices are generally as high as the rip-off hotel industry.
My opinion is that there are too many hotels. Part of the horrendous room cost is the need to overcharge to cover off season and vacant periods. The sky-high prices are also a result of business travel. We can’t have itinerant vacuum salesmen staying in motels and ironing their own shirts. We need lobbies with potted palms for European spies to pretend to read newspapers behind. And international arms dealers like to keep a very low profile at the roof-top pool. After the helicopter has left, I mean.
Theory. Don’t throw out old CRT monitors because they contain a lot of valuable copper wiring. Practice. Yep, and it is covered with years of dust and a type of grease that will not wash off. The wire is thin, maybe 30 gauge, so unwrapping it breaks it, and it cannot be bent either. Plus it is wound in behind all kinds of razor-sharp flanges. I say find a buddy with a copper wire stripping machine and buy some you can use.My shoulder fracture is on the mend and was bothering me all night and today. I get a churning pain deep in the socket but I’m too stubborn to take pills for the pain. But for sure, I stop at nothing to let my readers know I’ll endure it for their sake. Maybe I should advertise for money to get a secretary on Indiegogo? I’ve already said for the right amount, I’ll mention anyone’s name at blog’s end.
And just occasionally, you get good advice off the Internet. Here’s a poster I found on Craigslist.
