One year ago today: May 7, 2014, quadcopters & Craigslist.
Five years ago today: May 7, 2010, eHow: all work & no pay.
Six years ago today: May 7, 2009, more Craigslist-bashing.
MORNING
This, folks, is an empty oil can. There was a time when oil was sold in these neat, modern, and recyclable containers. Not no more. Why are these notable? Well, they are empty and they cost ten bucks apiece. It appears to be a novelty item at the battery store. They look like they are recent manufacture, though there is no reason they would not be authentic. Nicest part? The can is not plastered with warnings for stupid people. The ten bucks for an empty can fulfills that purpose.
More trivia. Most building materials of mankind up to 1850 were known before 2,000 BC. And I still can’t find a decent movie for the day, see addendum. And so you’ll know, I still cannot find a suitable camera for your daily blog pics. It has taken up to 28 photos in one day to provide the few you eventually see.
It is now 5:30 AM and I’m making cod fritters for breakfast. May 7 has special meaning to me, a type of half-anniversary. Let’s see where the day leads us. Within reason, I mean. It’s not like I’m going to suddenly learn to like ugly people who think they are just as good as the rest of us. Speaking of pests, what happened to all the termites this spring? One. We saw only one, and it was outside. Hmmm, it’s when you don’t see them . . . . I’ve seen those Bugs Bunny cartoons.
NOON
“You can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you’d better know something.” –Farm wisdom. Exception, my ex. When you look like her, charm is plenty.
It’s a glorious day. I can’t decide if I have a quandary or a dilemma. It might even be a predicament or a plight. I want to go to a library and I’ve read all the good books at the local branches. That leaves a trip all the way to Ft. Lauderdale where you have to pay for parking. There is a subtle difference between all these words, but nothing official. I’ll be nice and point them out.
What is the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning? It turns out, the average person has no idea. The popular perception is that they are opposites, but that is not so. They are more like parallels in a vast number of different types of logic. So, I’ll define them
Inductive is the form most people do naturally and fancy themselves really good at. This is where you observe a number of instances and draw conclusions about the outcome of similar situations. You throw a stone in the water, it gets wet. You do this many times. You conclude if you throw any stone in any water, it gets wet. What’s the problem? It is that fools think alike. For 1500 years, every person on the planet though heavy objects fell faster than light objects. The fact is, most people are lousy at inductive reasoning.
Deductive reasoning is where you accept certain facts as true and infer other relationships. This type of logic is alien to most people because they do not accept the correct facts. Bass players cannot sing. I am a bass player. Therefore, I cannot sing. Most people who say they are “thinking” are in fact having a stab at deductive reasoning. It rarely works well for the slightly educated. Like most people, I prefer inductive over deductive. It is popular but it is not a good teacher.
Author's note: Ah, some say, the non-singing bassist is an observable fact. That makes it inductive rather than deductive. Answer: yes there is an overlap, which is perfectly permissible. The point in question is the acceptance of the non-singing bassist as a fact. What they usually mean is not that the bassist cannot sing, but that he cannot both play bass and sing at the same time without either talent being compromised. Otherwise, anybody who has seen The Beatles has seen a singing bassist.
This is where careful attention to the facts is important. In deductive reasoning, the conclusions are always qualified by the premise. Hence, a more logical conclusion would be that a musician cannot sing and play an instrument simultaneously as well as either task by itself. If you've ever listen to "folk guitar" players, you'll believe it.
Okay, you twisted my arm. I’ll tell you the oldest joke west of the Mississippi. This Canadian gets on the plane to Miami and sits next to this kid with a big textbook. He asks the kid what he’s studying, and the kid says, “Deductive reasoning”.
The Canuck asks what that is, and the kid says rather than explain, he’ll give an example. He asks if the Canadian owns a lawnmower. Yes, he does.
So the kid goes on. If you own a lawnmower, therefore you own a lawn. If you own a lawn, therefore you own a house. If you own a house, therefore you are married. If you are married, therefore you have a wife. If you have a wife, therefore you are not a queer.
The Canadian is impressed and asks again what that is called. "Deductive reasoning."
Anyway, a few hours later he gets off the plane and it is hot. So he sees this bar and walks in for a cold beer. The only other people in the place are these three bikers. He leans over and asks them if they own a lawnmower.
The first biker says, “Nope”.
The second biker says, “Uh-uh.”
The third biker says, “Not me.”
The Canadian jumps up and points at them and yells, “Faggots!”
AFTERNOON
This section is mainly rehashed band and music topics. Which reveals the foundations of this blog as a daily journal. All journals tend to dwell on consistent views of ongoing events. To me, music is ongoing. There is no destination. Here’s a pedal pub designed specially for Ken Sanchuk, who never paid me back my $1,400. After swearing on his honor, even if we had a falling out, he would pay it back. You know Ken, I hardly miss so little money but I wonder if you miss your reputation. Probably not. Dumb is dumb.
It’s time to run my guitar player ad again, in the false hope I’ll find a guitar player with his head on straight. Face it, Florida has the lowest IQ and least congenial guitar players left in America. Anywhere else, I’d get snapped up instantly. For the files, there is a surplus of bassists in town at the moment. Looks like around a dozen but what’s interesting is for the first time, I see them being fussy about the bands. Picky bass players were unheard of in Broward not that long ago.
This caused me to check on the old band, the group I left eight months back. They have not found a replacement but nor have they learned their lesson. I stress that they are doing nothing consciously wrong, they honestly believe a bassist is a necessary evil. Yes, I should have quit at the first whiff of it (when they refused to play any gigs that I booked). Yet, that would have gone against my own parameters, one of which is to do my best to get on stage with the band as soon as possible—it’s the only way you can tell if the band is worthwhile. On stage, this band was an excellent backup group. But it was a 1961 formula with the wrong people trying to front the show.
The second point was when it was evident they were not the getting gigs themselves and were not willing to adapt. But that was also when the new vocalist came along, which kind of reset the timer. I thought she’d make a difference since they were accepting from her identical songs that they rejected from me mere [practice] hours earlier. Imagine my horror to discover they could not learn new material.
By this juncture, I’d learned 61 of their songs and they’d learned zero of mine. How could they not hear my bass playing was world-class? Ah, because the bassist is just a flunky and they have a policy of not giving flunkies no nevermind Of course, this gets my goat, for by now it was evident who in the band is really carrying the show. Um, it is determined 150% by the Applause-O-Meter, guys. Only the blind and deaf could deny things had changed. They were getting their asses handed to them every time they introduced the members.
So what did they do? They revert to not playing any songs that had an interesting bass line. Only crappy, “The bass is easy” junk. I swear it never crossed their minds that maybe the bass player didn’t want to play easy junk. When I spoke up, I was out of line. This band must have said that “bass is easy” line to me fifty times. Once is too many. The band was history shortly thereafter.
EVENING
What gives? A late bunch of listings came on the market after I’d spent my cash on things like motorcycle repairs. It’s encouraging since prices have not really gone up in the past year for what I want. At the same time, my down payment offer has quadrupled. I’m watching closely, as there are a couple I would consider (but only buy one) if they could be financed. However, the usual pack of bastards are at work. You know the type, won’t say if it includes the land or won’t say the lot rent. This brand of hopeless peckerhead is widespread in Florida.
There being only dull movies in town, I stayed home for a few hours of reading, including more than I wanted to know about ulcers. Mainly, I read some woodworking tips only to discover the gears I can already make are about the ultimate of what is out there for advanced projects. Except for these over-artistic artsy things, I mean.
First research item. We hear of scientists discovering planets. How? They can’t see them and their suns make them invisible. I know this one from my university so have not looked it up. The planets do not orbit the sun, rather both objects orbit their center of gravity. Which is often inside the sun. This “wobble” causes the light waves of the star to have a Doppler effect. There you go.
On woodworking. My hearing is perfect and those retards are mispronouncing it. You know how I thought “hobbing” was “hogging” until I saw it spelled out? Well, I listened to these documentaries and every one of those ass-clowns is saying “hogging”. This, folks, is why I have never been able to learn much by being an apprentice--the teacher is invariable a dull-witted slob.
Of more interest were plane wings (a natural for me), model ships, and bridge design. I have no idea why these fascinate me. If you got a minute and forty-three seconds, watch this DaVinci Bridge. I saw one in Colorado in 2012, but not being built. This video was fun to watch. DaVinci has it all over that all talk and no action Tesla, the sidekick.
ADDENDUM
One positive on the Internet is it makes researching movies easier. So I looked at “Ex Machina” and this Vikander actress. Why? Because she is typical of the move away from the total babe actress you get these days, and it is a terrible move. I like my actresses to represent an ideal, which happens to incorporate a number of features missing from the most recent batch. Swedish actresses should be blond, blue, and single and there is nothing wrong with liking that stereotype that isn’t wrong with liking, say, Kraft Dinner.
I get the feeling the trailer (fancy name for preview) gives the movie away. The same old yarn, Geeky male nerd falls for perfect female humanoid. Never the other way around. In real life, even a toaster is smarter than to date a C+ programmer.
Have you seen photos of the now-pushing-50 Aniston? Whoa, carb-face or what. Course, she never was all that much of a babe to start with. I also got through having coffee at the Walmart cafeteria where the TV was playing this awful show called “Big Bang Theory”. Like that Charlie Sheen TV show, I fully understand how some people would consider it funny. It’s just difficult for me to identify with one frustrated male sexual innuendo after another for an entire half-hour.
Worse, this “Bang” show is constantly portraying these past-their-prime females as being in total sexual control. The writing is fine, in some places it is brilliant, but as I said, nothing relevant for me. I grew up with two brothers who never got laid who were constantly trying to angle every conversation and it plain gets disgusting in a fast hurry. Sex is not something a man like me begs for, especially not to frumpy, overweight broads pushing thirty. The occasional ripe joke is fine but sooner or later everyone realizes the truth about guys that talk about it the most.
Last Laugh
Return Home
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
