Morning coffee was at Dunkin and man, that joint attracts the crude and crusty. Nobody to talk to? Get on your cell phone and yell. Stare at any woman who walks in, even if she’s got kids. Talk to the staff when they are busy. That place is so working class it makes you wonder why none of them have day jobs. I can see the appeal it had for Wallace, to coin a phrase, the clientele is “life smart but book dumb”. You know the type.
That was JZ on the line and he is going nowhere this week. We do not have the same flu at all. JZ and I talked about how bank accounts over a certain amount were taxed in Europe, so he better start spending some of it having a good time. But he’s too cheap to travel twice in one month. I might. My clinic got busy and called to ask if I could come in a day early this week, so I have a long weekend coming up with nothing planned.
That’s not exactly logical, but have you ever tried to get that guy [JZ] to go out on the town? He can think of 50 reasons why not, then head straight for the local saloon. Like my oldest pal, RofR, JZ can spend twice as much not having a good time. RofR is pronounced Ar-uh-Var, an initialism for “Rat of Riyadh”. His real first name is nothing so unusual. He’s European, you know, just like I’m a “European-American”.
The next thing I had JZ do was get out his yearbooks and contact every girl he went to school with. The guy’s lived here his whole life so he knows a passel of ‘em. Find out, I said, which are available, type of thing. See, JZ doesn’t think like I do, particularly with money. Put nicely, he doesn’t really know how to have a good time without spending a lot. (Myself, there is no way I would re-contact the gals from my school because I’m satisfied with having been first.)
Asking JZ to phone around is actually like an admission of defeat for me. Essentially, he’s checking if any of the women are available which to me that represents a considerable drop in standards. But I’ll mellow on that point since any gals he knew were definitely from the right part of town. See, JZ, if they have a place we can stay, we’ll have enough cold cash saved from hotels to show them a night they will never forget. JZ and I are incredible house guests because it is us that entertains them.
Next, let’s do a little investigation. When I shopped for engine oil, I tried to find the best. The name that came up was Castrol, which turns out was the preferred lubricant for WWI rotary aircraft motors. Alas, for regular motors, it forms harmful varnishes inside the engine, as will any vegetable oils. Did I just say vegetable oil? Yes, Castrol is a contraction for castor oil, the laxative. It turns out Castrol, an English company, invented motor car oil. Don’t worry, the company has long since switched to petroleum products.
Another surge in blog hits. July 14, 2013. I’ve gone back how many times now to see why that post has twice as many hits as any other date that month. Can anybody tell me what is so different about that date? I’ve checked everything I know, even the keyword balance and all known ratios. What? Oh, that? I’m quite aware the period is usually not included in my links. I do it because the truly anal people of the world hate attention to detail because they don’t have what it takes.
I call these spikes a “bloom” because of the way they show up on my chart. I don’t use any of the traffic source companies or waste any money on SEO and the countless other fake-out sites that claim to enhance your viewership. All of them are bogus, since there is no substitute for consistency, choice of topic, and actually having something to say. Still, one can’t help but wonder. My second top-visited blog is the one where I first mentioned Mildred Gillars, also known as Axis Sally. Third is when I published the photo of that PVC bed frame in Colorado.
When I worked [in an office], I always chose the desk furthest from the crowd because I didn’t like people mucking around my stuff, particularly second shift people. It takes a certain mentality I don’t have to work that shift. That’s the same desk I applied psychological warfare by leaving a book in the top drawer that described how to build military booby traps. Just the book, no traps, after all, it wasn’t really my desk.
But I’ll tell you something else with an immediate practical value. I kept an old computer mouse that I left steep in a jar of sardine juice, the kind with smoke flavoring that went rancid. For two months, then I let it dry out on an ant hill to clean it of everything but the faintest bouquet. The mouse was identical to company issue and I would swap them out whenever I left town. I got the idea from a Peter Sellers movie, “The Party”, remember the scene where he sticks his hand in the ice? Tinky-poo.
