I took the batbike out for the day. It isn’t the easiest machine to zip around town with and it does not like railway tracks. At least not the Broward kind which are never paved smooth and flat. On the return leg, I got my reminder that in Florida they will give a driver’s license to anyone and there is still a worse than aggravating rush hour on Biscayne Blvd. The brilliant Florida planners built the freeways 9 to 15 miles inland, so there are no shortcuts.
Linger, I like to linger over morning coffee. To the bakery, and I believe in the past 45 days I’ve become tolerant of black coffee, with artificial sweetener. I miss the trump breakfast, in fact I miss breakfast period. The usual crew was present, we now have a small lotto pool with agreements to share any winnings. I’ve often run an office pool so I tend to forget how confusing the lottery is for most people. They tend to buy the one type of ticket they first bought, I noticed. I buy mine because it is the oldest form of lottery, pick six numbers out of 54.
My oath, I checked my dating club and I’ve seen the twin of Heather, that army brat from Vancouver, Canada, that could out-drink any five men. I had to read the profile a few times to make sure it wasn’t just Heather lying about her age. She claims to be 46 but Heather would be late 50’s by now. Everything else the same, her claims to be working from home, to like reading, right down to the pet rat. Totally domineering, she expects a relationship with “no secrets”, which means since she doesn’t do anything except watch TV, you will have to explain everything you do to death. That’s Heather.
I won’t look it up, but back in 1980, I got all the braggart drinkers from my construction crew to pool their cash and take her out on payday. Five cases of beer later, they gave up buying for her. I didn’t stick around to watch, but the next day, they all reported she drank a full 60 bottles of beer and wanted more. She liked her men monkey-shaped.
Back to my dating club. That was a waste of money. The women there are dweebs, the usuals who were born individuals but will die copies. They won’t come out and say it, but they want the stereotyped “TV husband” who makes big money but comes home and does what they say. I added an update stating I did not have camel patches on my elbows and swore I would never smoke a pipe, because I know that’s what these mousey women think constitutes an educated man. I’m convinced educated women are no better and no different than you’ll meet in some crowded bar. I read 152 of their profiles and was struck by what they don’t say. For instance, if anybody was a true musician like me, they could not avoid mentioning it. Get my point? Here is a list of what I consider odd about these women.
a) all are in the medical or bio-science field, no other sciences represented
b) they don’t read non-fiction, never, for any reason
c) no mention of any musical talent of any kind
d) few hobbies except expensive sports or remodeling houses
e) never any solitary pursuits, even crossword puzzles
The membership is so droll I only check in every other month. The very few women with a little spark to their personalities consistently kill the moment with some offsetting tidbit. I’ll bet you ten bucks most of them have seen a therapist. Then again, I once saw a therapist. Didn’t I ever tell you about that? Well, this is your lucky day.
Back at the phone company, I did not find all the women equally attractive, which seemed to bother one in particular. Don’t get me wrong, I never mistreat anyone, but I didn’t fawn over her like the married men. She thought any man who wasn’t after her big fat ass must be crazy, and she took to telling this to one of the evening shift supervisor types. Just let me say it takes a certain type of individual to take that job at the phone company. He believed her, that I must be loco not to want her, so I was paid on company time to see the company therapist.
That guy was crazy. Call him Mr. Obvious. I fed him a long line of what he wanted to hear until basically he gave up trying to find any problems. But trust me, that was one weird dude. You know what happens to people who read too many psychiatry textbooks? Yeah, that’s the guy. He needed to see a shrink because he didn’t have a clue how to behave around people smarter than himself. His name was “Norm”. Years later, I met another company therapist in the audience at one of my gigs. He said Norm went on to become such an alcoholic, the company fired him. And the phone company does not fire alcoholics.
ADDENDUM
Windows 8 arrives chock full of that douchebag invention of the computer industry: the 30-day “free” trial. Lame advertising is not something we want for “free”. Windows 8 sets a new low standard in their already disgusting trickery to make you install their crap in error. A wrong click activated a Norton install, which didn’t ask for money until the last possible moment. They used to be a reputable company. Took twenty minutes to get their software off a brand new computer.
Win 8 comes with Internet Explorer, the same old virus-prone piece of crap with it’s penis envy for Opera. The desktop is gone on boot up, you get this “Metro” screen that is as useless as the Android and iPad it looks like. Even turning the computer off has to be completely relearned by people who thought they knew Windows. The start button is gone unless you drag the mouse onto the lowest pixel in the left corner. Windows shamelessly tries to emulate the Safari dash by displaying “charms” which are pretty much most of the things you don’t want. Like Share.
The entire interface has to be relearned. Be careful as all browsers now tend to look and act like Opera, but they ain’t opera. You have to be continually on the lookout to avoid installing the ornery Google Chrome, which never was anything but a piece of shit. Also, beware of some weird new Microsoft junk called the Delta browser and dozens of other spy-ware-like apps that have to be prevented from becoming defaults.
Windows 8 is proof that Microsoft is on its way out. At long last.
