It’s on today’s menu
Boring People Go Directly to ADDENDUM
I really meant what I said y’day about buying the license to play cover tunes. Most of the “musicians” in this town could not afford it and a license is, I find, one alluring way to cut down on the surplus of pig-headed guitarists around here. It would not bother me to never hear another middle-aged fat-boy’s rendition of “Hotel California”. Know what I’m sayin’?
In fact, it takes hard work to create a panel. You can spot the erasable grid lines I had to draw. I have not begun the wiring but you can see the ten switches and fourteen light emitting diodes (LEDs). The power supply and chip are also still missing. This throw-together has already guzzled up $35 in parts. And I’m into studying electronics, not carpentry.
Can you spot the patterns? Upper photo, upper left are the switches whose 16 off-on combinations can select the memory locations. To the right are the switches to set the data. Below are four blank drill-holes (I’m out of LEDs) that display the memory contents. Displays don't require switches.
Below that, still in the upper photo, are a yellow chip select indicator and a green read/write switch which either enters or displays information. Flip it down to "enter" information, and up to "read". The bottom photo shows the same panel prior to the wiring job. There is no kit or pattern, this panel created from scratch. I'm having fun with it.
Next on the agenda, all my oil-soaked clothes from the trip. Nothing seems to work on the stains, so there are two options remaining. One, I could send them to the dry cleaners but that could be a waste of money. Have you seen their prices lately? Or, the Honda produces a very characteristic color of used oil. Since the stains are slightly brownish-black but faint, why not soak the entire lot in more oil to see if they come out the same color? Hey, otherwise that’s a lot of expensive jeans I stand to lose.
Xmas dinner? Nope, instead a quiet afternoon stop at the club and home where I can watch the calories. The traffic has been outright dangerous the past few days so don’t blame me for getting home before dark. Besides, there are never any new faces in the clubs in this town and every place has its own fixed clientele. One of the best apartments I ever had, in a town that will remain nameless, was across the street from a transportation hub. There was a coffee shop there and you could count on meeting a different woman every day, some grateful for a place to stay. Don’t try this nowadays, stations are no longer in the safe parts of town and nice people take the airplane.
Or maybe the train. In retrospect the ride on the “City of New Orleans” was somewhat humdrum, but that has a certain charm in itself. I mean, I can drive ten hours a day without the radio on because my thoughts are loud enough. JZ is feeling a little broke and needs time to stock up, so I’m shooting for a train trip in January. First glance at the map says I’d like to spend a few days touring Wilmington, NC. I was there but a matter of hours. It was a college town, which is an attraction in itself, at least compared to Dunkin Donuts.
The bakery has been discovered by the working class. This is good for business but bad for the quiet coffee crowd. That’s me. In fact, my monthly coffee budget is entirely spent outside the house now. (At home, I drink tea.) The bakery lineups are now constant and it is European style where each transaction takes five to twenty minutes while they gossip. Like Senor Café, it started with a home town atmosphere but once business is booming, I’m afraid that will change.
Didn’t I promise you some controversy? Yes, I did. Try this.
You know, one of the misconceptions that grinds my gears is the supposed sexual superiority of older women. Bull crap. Sweaty older women with extra pounds don’t even like to go on top much. Superior, indeed. They do love to tease, continually, about how you “can’t keep up” with them, but in reality they mostly lie there and sog. I’m talking about the situation where me, a man pushing 60 listens to some broad pushing 40 joking she is too much for me to handle. Is that a fact? Well, lady, when it comes to the real deal, I got news for you. And your kid sister.
Lastly, the Miami Herald says housing sales are dropping. It’s so uncommon for them to declare anything except the end of the housing depression. That newspaper is the self-appointed cheerleading squad of the real estate industry. True, prices have climbed in the past two years, but those who live in south Florida know that is due to the relative ease with which the authorities have been allowing in South American drug money. People in exclusive white communities are waking up to find themselves next door to Portueuese-speaking strangers with zero economic ties (or responsibilities) to the neighborhood. In reality, Florida is teetering on another housing collapse.
ADDENDUM
Am I writing about electronics again? Yep, and if you find it boring, remember this blog contains a lot of new and recently studied information, which has the gratifying side effect of weeding out the types who should not be here. Those who can’t follow my casual studies and basic experiments wouldn’t have the alacrity to make valid judgments here anyway. And it is not like we don’t know those who find this blog boring aren’t themselves boring. This blog is not idiot-friendly. Here are some links for the benefit of the intellectually unfortunate.
Zombie Blog (another dead link 2017)
The Yawn Blog
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