February 24, 2015
Yesteryear
One year ago today: February 24, 2014, successful Qbasic run.
Five years ago today: February 24, 2010, me vs. HP7700.
MORNING
Here’s the Dania Beach Grill, it’s really a pub. Every musician in town knows this place because it is here that the open mic as free entertainment was perfected. Any band can go play there for free and it has become a standard stepping stone toward the circuit. Well, such as the circuit exists any more in South Florida. The location is miles from the beach area that attracts tourists, so expect to see the locals propping up the bar.
I’ve played here four or five times, mostly stand-in gigs or invitationals. It is miles north of the Broadwalk and the tourist congestion. Even this far out of town, the City of Hollywood still squeezes you for parking. The pub also holds outdoor concerts on some holidays, I never go there as audience. I haven’t been there in years. It’s where I took my beach sextant readings y’day morning.
So, we are all in agreement then—the twerp who invented the cash register receipt as advertising needs to be shot. Florida was bad enough giving you your change in a stack, but now even the lotto tickets print out a foot long. We all love the cruise ship advertising and fake offers every time we buy a pack of gum.
And how do you like those “3D” QR scan codes? There are actually people dumb enough to think they are scanning the codes into their telephones rather than the other way around. Folks, good advice: don’t put anything on your phone that you don’t understand. What? Okay, I’ve just been informed the X and Y Generations can’t take that advice or they wouldn’t have any phones.
Pardon my edginess, but tomorrow is blood test day and I’m already famished. So I'm grumpy. Although I should be happy, I’m also very hungry. Happy? Yes. This is that program they pay me for that I told you was wholly successful in my situation. My cholesterol level has been that of a twenty-year-old for some time now. Background: my physical at age 40 began to show an identical buildup associated with all adult males of similar age. We were assured that this, despite being dangerous, was an inevitable condition of modern life. You were supposed to accept it.
However, I should also add that
other than that single test result, the study is careful not to let out any other details. This is the regimen where I take a shot every two weeks (you get used to it) and daily statin something pills. You must return the unused pills every 90 days and they count them. In return, they get a guinea pig who never misses a day and absolutely no interfering complications from, say, drugs or bad diet. I think that’s a fair trade.
NOON
“People do think that if they avoid the truth, it might change into something better before they have to hear it.” --Marsha Norman.
I borrow this one freely from Dan Lewis, this is a photo from his newsletter. It shows a piece of land missed by the survey that grabbed the land under eminent domain. That’s where the government takes away a piece of property, usually land, for a public works project that the owner does not want to sell. The operative word is “sell”.
You see, the government must compensate the owner and that is where I have an opinion. I don’t feel it anywhere good enough for the government to go in there and make offers based on the value of such land based on such criteria as the going rate for similar properties. In other words, the property should
not be subject to “fair price” offers. This is not a normal “sell”.
My reasoning is simple. The underlying justification for eminent domain is that the property has more value to the public. And, beyond doubt if the public needs that particular land so immeasurably badly as to force a sale, let the public, or its so-called representative government, pay a price based on that value. Those who undoubtedly disagree with my logic are, I feel, likely part of that “public” which feels the overwhelming need for property belonging to others on a regular basis. You know the type.
I have a theory that the reason Win 8.1 is lousy is because it requires so much of your computer to run the op sys that there is nothing left over to use the Internet. That’s why an XP computer behaves so much better on the same connection. This afternoon, I write another song, another backing track, this time with a light piano lilt. Did I mention it’s destiny was a backing track? Because this weekend the music goes behind a class reunion video. Maybe.
That’s maybe because it isn’t my class reunion. I stay away from them because they are nothing but gossip-mongering sessions in my town. However the celebration this weekend is Coconut Grove. I might think differently if all my old classmates were from a swank quarter like that. But in fact, where I come from the reunion is little more than an excuse for the rich kids to lord their “success” over the poor.
When I went through the meat grinder, there was a wide, wide gulf between two classes. My highest marks counted for nothing when it came to who got chosen or accepted. I personally know often what it is like to see the award go so some rich kid whose marks were ten and fifteen percent lower than mine. The thing that choked me worst was the attitude of the rich kids, that things were that way because they were personally more deserving. Where I grew up, rich kids did not go to jail. Most of them never went anywhere else, either, but so what? They still got the money. See what a pissy mood I’m in?
Then, I read in the Fag Rag that some soldier who deserted in Iran is to be, among other penalties, dishonorably discharged. The article goes on to say that this might disqualify him from future veteran's benefits. Might? Might? What manner of politically-correct wimp has this nation become? A poteau!
Not just the soldier, but the politicians as well. Two-bit cowards and traitors, the lot of them, for not doing the job they swore to do.
AFTERNOON
Already I get ack-ack for not mentioning food? I’m on a diet over here, y’know. But, food and my discussions on women are the number three and four positions on the search criteria for this blog, so okay, first the food. This is part of my afternoon, making meatloaf with Hungarian goulash spice mixture from the Euro market. Aha, you thought I’d wait until after it was cooked, didn’t ya? I told you about the diet.
Women, I must mention women. Where to start? Well, let me begin my stating I have never “gotten tired” of chasing women. I’ve notice this to be a theme oft-repeated in by men my age but never got tired of chasing because I never really chased women. Never had to. There is a definition due at this point. Oh, I've done it, chased, that is, but it isn't worth what you get.
I touched on this issue before, noting I was not predatory like most men. Instead, I am opportunistic. Where most men will target some hapless female and start plying her with booze and lies, I tend to do nothing until something with a little class shows up. Hence, I’m not chasing women as much as waiting. This is also where I got the false reputation for being “too picky”. I’ve walked out of many a room full of boisterous, rough-elbowed, foul-mouthed women that other men would call "party animals".
However, let’s not be hasty and say that because I am patient that I am also passive. Not so, I’ve had too many women finally walk up to me and chose me over the heroes in the crowd. My complaint is that such astute women don't exist in Florida. Anyway, I tend toward exhibiting those things that let women know that if they have a positive outlook, I’m the one that will never bore them. What? Aw c'mon, Jesus, Theresa, you’re not calling your outlook positive, are you? Of course I bore women like you. THAT is intentional.
So there, enough about women for now. Take a look at the church computer. It seems to be brand new and came with the original installation disk. Four gigabytes of DRAM, or what’s that brand that is super fast? Those’r what’s in there. Did I just say “those’r”. Good. English is an evolving language and guys like me are out to prove it. Hey, look at all the funny things that Shakespeare hombre said that became colloquialisms. Now
there was a guy who chased ugly old women.
This computer replaces the music machine which, for unknown reasons, refuses to operate a sound card. It was also the last of the last XP computer salvaged from the old shop before we closed up. The new computer, a Dell (don’t say it, I already know), was used only for operating a television screen, that is, presentation-ware. I looked inside, this puppy is spotless. Destined never to be connected to the Internet (except by proxy), it will take a day or two to configure. The on-board hard drive contains nothing but the basic operating system which is scanned for any changes twice a day.
And if there are any unauthorized changes, the entire operating system is copied anew from a separate disk or partition. No, I don’t do a new install, as that takes too long, clobbers your drivers, and accomplishes the same task, really.
All data and in fact, all files, are kept on a separate external hard drive that is physically disconnected most of the time. This has nothing to do with suspicion or conspiracy, I have always used this system out of pure common sense. One egg per basket. But now that you mention it, yes, it is a very secure arrangement. I have rarely lost any files in my life.
EVENING
Er, I, um, er, didn’t get any practice time in today like I was supposed to. All the other temptations kept me diverted and distracted. Like this new faceplate on the scrollsaw table, being custom cut for the speed controller on my disk sander. The bottom line is this process of discovery, the activity of fabricating new pieces for the unknown is far more interesting to me than finding a pattern on the Internet and following the directions. Patterns okay for dumb-bunnies.
And we are back on track with the XP computer, at least back on familiar territory. Expect an improvement or two in photos and some new features I’ve had in mind. Actually, I did have another, older XP unit but it gradually became clogged up with Internet parasites over the years until it became pretty useless. That happened despite the best of anti-virus treatments. When connected to the Internet, all MicroSoft products I have ever seen soon begin to exhibit decayed performance.
In my vast collection of adapters, I found not a single way to change a pin keyboard jack to USB. Nonetheless, I got the system up and running and it is approximately four times faster than Win 8.1 to do the same tasks. It will render a movie in minutes instead of hours. The reason, you know, is because the 64 bit Windows systems require so much CPU time for their own glorification that there is no power left for those of us who want to get some work done.
I made some videos for a small group of friends, including a side-by-side clip showing that Win XP is faster than 8.1 at transferring and downloading files. Four times faster on average. Yet, several Vista/8 users wrote back claiming the video was faked. It wasn’t. In an equally surprising revelation, most Vista/8 users could not play the video although WMV is a MicroSoft format. What a horrid revelation. That android users are reduced to a single option: clicking a button. If that does not work, the truth comes out. They are stupid as a bucket of wet hammers.
And that includes the people who call themselves “power users”. Not one of them knew how to set up their associations. So I quit helping, let them figure it out on their own. I mean, otherwise it is hopeless. When your entire computer skillset is reduced to clicking a button, how am I going to help? That’s your androids for you, they need to be spoon-fed from the word go.
For mental relaxation, I did the cerebral puzzles in the paper. That would not include the word-find, there, Patsie. I didn’t ask, but I think there may have been a group in the bakery this morning looking to buy the place. Rowena was an answer in the crossword this morning, that’s the tart in Ivanhoe. There in the bleachers sat “the lovely Lady Rowena, with the top few buttons of her blouse undone, because of the heat, which did increase with the prospects therein”.
One of my all-time favorite lines of prose, that one.
Last Laugh
This is from Imgur
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Return Home
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
