March 5, 2014

           What is it? Nope, not a custom made tray for my electronic components, but close. For those who have never seen one, this is a typesetter’s case. I got home before I realized this picture was upside down. But this is how metal (lead alloy) type was kept orderly. Here is the origin of the phase “mind your p’s and q”s” as they were near mirror images in this tray and easily confused. Also, the furthest way from the setter were the capital letters. They were along the top, or as they called them, “upper case”. [The price tag of $75 was out of my league.]

           One of the guys in the band hands me a current copy of the local lampoon quarterly, called Cahoots. Who do we see is a contributing writer? The Space Hippie. I thought the instant weed was legalized in Colorado, he’d have been on the first bus to Pueblo. Sorry, no pic, as I threw the paper out along with the rest of the trash. But I did read the article, at least I think I read it.
           It had no real beginning or end, or middle either. The usual fried-brain, rambling, nonsense common among New Agers who like to pretend they have a university education. Cahoots is the paper I originally intended to publish excerpts from this blog, but I’m certain this new development is entirely coincidence. Like about a half-dozen other things he copied from me, the little snarf.
           Speaking of fakes, when is ketchup not ketchup? When you buy it from Del Monte, that’s when. In the next phase of chucking corn out of my life, look what I find on the label. This isn’t ketchup, it is, gag me, tomato-flavored syrup. Fortunately, I found something with only what is supposed to be in the bottle. Hunt’s no corn syrup, shown here. I was dismayed at the number of "100%" oat and wheat cereals that contain corn, corn starch, or other derivatives. And you can forget about all pasta and gravy mixes, they are laced with non-food substances. Nor could I find any cookies without corn or some of the other items on my list. Why is there corn in chocolate chip cookies?

           There’s also plenty of other ingredients in cookies that probably have no business there. Soy, while not as bad as corn, is still not the natural product any more. I see I’ll have to give up margarine as well. The "heart-healthy" brand I was using was high in vegetable oils. But since when did cottonseed, rapeseed (canola), palm, and coconut become “vegetables”? I now regard margarine as one of the most misleadingly labeled industrial compounds. The label that used to say 70% vegetable oil now say, in the same spot you've been trained to look, “70% less” than other brands. Of what? Petroleum?
           How about a good old-fashioned crab session? I woke up with a neck-ache and call me grouchy, so here goes. I’m about to give up on millet. And I don’t know why they rename those shows like “Britain’s Got Talent” to just plain, “Child Singer Auditions”. That’s all they feature and I’m sick of it. Bring back those two fat Greek dancers. And the e-book publishing, can’t any of you bastards give a straight answer? You’re embarrassing us real computer people. This motorcycle riding is making my neck full of wrinkles, but I’m not about to quit. I really hate to be the one to have to say it, but you know, the world would actually be better off if everyone who works for MicroSoft would just fuck off and die. Really, I mean it.
           I mean, where do they find such retards? The new my computer screen opens the entire library, including music and videos. When I click on pictures, did I ask anyone to open the music window? No, but remember, the axxholes who work for MicroSoft know what you want better than you do. Now the chances of dropping a file into the wrong folder have increased to the maximum. So what does Win 7 do? If you spot the problem and try to drag the file into the correct folder, you can’t. They disabled the scroll feature. Again, where do they even find these people?
           And I can tell you another place to find a boat load of jackass morons. Do a search on how to use a slide rule. I mean, if there is one topic that requires clear instructions, good pictures, and plenty of examples, that would be it. eHow tries to do it without pictures. Instructables is just as stupid, plus they try to tell you how to build one, duh. Wikipedia immediately gets into k sin x bulsh you never asked for. The memorable accomplishment of the Internet was to let the world know how utterly stupid the average US citizen is. Mind you, the instructions for simple multiplication does not require photos, I'll accede to that. It still requires good skills at explanation, which is even tougher on most people.
           You see, I found a beautiful German designed slide rule designed in the US occupation zone, but manufactured in the USA. But the lady at the thrift didn’t know what it was. She took it to the back and came back with a price of 50 cents. Deal! Not so fast. When I got home, the cursor was missing. The ditzy broad took it out of the case and was too pea-brained to notice she dropped the cursor. I’ll go back tomorrow to see if they found it, but that’s a major motorcycle round trip. Until then, she just turned a beautiful antique into a piece of useless junk. Do you think she could work for MicroSoft? She was one of those total losers that you know the minute you lay eyes on her, you knew she was going to screw something up.
           What? Of course I can tell you how to use a slide rule to multiply. In case any numbskulls got here by mistake, I’ll prove it. I would not need a photo, but I’ll provide one. Most of what you do on a slide rule is multiply. That uses the C scale and the D scale, found along the bottom of the “slide” part. See them? The C scale is the part that moves, and it has a “1” at each far end. See them? I call them markers, because like, what kind of jerk multiplies by 1? Don’t answer that, Hector.
           Let’s multiply 17 x 3. Slide the left-side marker “1” of the C scale to above the 17 on the D scale. There is no 17; you have to read the scale as if there was. It is technically where the “1.7” would be, but slide rules don’t tell you where the decimal point goes. Stay on the C scale and read over to the “3”. Now read down to the D scale. Approximately 51, which is your answer.

           The way I remember it is your bottom D number times your top C number. In this case, the 17 on the bottom, under the marker “1”. The 3 is on the top above the answer. You never read two numbers in a row on the same scale or you mess up. First read your C (marker), then your D, then your C, then your D.
           QED.

ADDENDUM
           Lookie here, these are mittens. Think back to November, when I traveled the northwest trying to find a pair of mittens, and all I found were gloves and incredibly ignorant people who didn’t know the difference. Let them drive a motorcycle in cold weather, they’ll sharpen up. But I finally had to give up stopping, parking, and walking around clothing stores. I resolved to never get caught that way again, so today was a nice surprise.

           Right up here at the thrift, I found a pair so evenly stitched, I thought they were machine made. Nope, these are completely handmade, On the left in grey are the best stitches I can make and I’m comparing them to the brown mittens. It was actually socks I wanted to knit but it would seem to me if I can make mittens, I‘d be able to make socks. Isn’t a sock just a mitten with a sixty-degree bank and no thumb hole? I’m about to find out.
           I like the fancy stretchy parts of these gloves. My thinking is, other than a natural yen to learn to knit anyway, that the ability to make my own gloves in a pinch is a potential matter of survival for me. I’ve always felt I required this skill, but didn’t want to sign up for a program just to learn this one part of it all. All the schools want you to enroll to become a tailor or seamstress. That's not what I want.
           There was a lady at the store who saw the difficulty I have finding trousers that fit. I need to be able to make cuffs and hems. She informed me those are alterations best made by hand. I replied that sounded to me like it takes countless hours of practice to make it look right. She says absolutely not, and we are getting together next Wednesday whence she will show me the drill. What a boon that would be if I could make my own trouser cuffs.