One year ago today: January 12, 2015, whatever turns your gears.
Five years ago today: January 12, 2011, I loathe SEO.
Nine years ago today: January 12, 2007, they smell like poodles.
Random years ago today: January 12, 2008, Florida sidewalk art.
And the sad, sad, tale of California Johnny.
MORNING
The model blimp at the railway display was coincidence, but there have been dozens of airships floating around for a week now. I saw a group of them in the open at the airfield on Pembroke and University. They are flying over the Gables often enough that there must be something going on. I did not use these airships as a model, rather the Hindenburg frame that was visible as it burned at Lakehurst.
Trivia. These blimps were barely lighter than air, it was the forward motion of the engines that gave them lift. If the engines stop, the ship will gradually settle to the ground. I’ve always wondered why somebody doesn’t mount a really powerful engine on these things.
To date, all I’ve seen is small piston “airplane” motors that cause these beasts to crawl along at a shameful pace. And yes, aluminum “foil” skins have long since made an appearance. Before I was “Zeppelin-Scmeppelin”, but now I recognize the Hindenburg and Zeppelin as two distinct designs.
Here’s an Australian airship documentary so full of errors, it is great entertainment for ten-year-olds.
It took four hours to get the chasing around done, I cannot warn people enough that Florida has inefficiency worn into the system. That means you cannot show up very efficient and immediately begin taking advantage. It is the system itself against you, not the individual driving 40 mph in the passing lane. See how that works? There is no law here that says he can’t drive that way, so screw you.
What took four hours? Because of the ongoing cold spell, I have time to answer that. I bought the morning paper, drove over for my prescriptions, then on to get a few groceries. Then up to Big Lots for some light bulbs and wild bird food. Next Wal*mart for the rat trap, then downtown to take out the rent. In the real world, this would take probably 25 minutes, including travel time. But Florida? Each lineup was ten minutes long. Note, Big Lots was out of 60 watt bulbs and Wal*Mart was out of rat traps.
NOON
For a short while, I will be presenting noon-hour quotations from the only great American philospher of the 20th century. George Carlin.
“One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.” – George Carlin
Interesting, that bus driver’s strike in Phoenix. Not the usual wage and working condition disputes, but the insistence by the union that the drivers regain the right to be paid by check. That’s as opposed to compulsory direct deposit. That’s amazing, because that should NOT surprise anyone who has been reading this blog long term. I was the last person at my old Florida company to not have direct deposit. Why? Because I predicted that direct deposit would follow the old abuse pattern.
First, things like direct deposit are convenient. They’ve done this before. Then the rules start changing. And the abuse is allowing other people control of your deposit before you get the money yourself. C’mon, was I right or was I right? Louder, you Libtards, I can’t hear you. So, it turns out plenty of people do, after all, have something to hide. Think about it, why do they want paychecks back?
I know that if you owe money on your credit card and you cash a check, even at some other bank, you’ll get a call from a collection agency within the hour. (This would not affect smart people who don’t use credit cards, but how long before the system goes after them, too?)
Folks, it plain does not make sense to have another entity knowing in advance when and where to expect your paycheck to show up. And those bus drivers? Stoopid. Once you give up a right without a whimper, there is hell to pay before you get it back. And they have not yet begun to pay hell, just you watch how violently the system will oppose going back to manual paychecks.
I’m still reading “The Devil’s Teeth”, it does tend to drag out one single thing. What? Heck no, this blog drags out dozens of things in a given month. That book is always on the city people getting back to nature, away from the smog, into the wilderness. I can agree, because I knew long ago what it is like to return to the rat race after several months in the jungle. But the book will miss the point for you if you don’t identify with that circumstance.
One remarkable thing is that for a book published in America this century, it only mentions lesbians and queers once each. And even more remarkable, just in a single sentence. Pretty amazing.
EVENING
“Herbert, the Electrical Mouse”. (No link, because I do not support Amazon.) It’s a children’s book that was stolen from me. Want to hear that tale from the trailer court? Sure, that’s why you are here. To set the mood, remember that one of my primary dislikes is having to watch one’s own valuables where you live. Because, when I grew up, my family would steal anything if they even suspected you were using it to get ahead. In my house, you leave anything, even in plain view, it is protected as if you were standing right there.
Enter, “Herbert”. In grade school, we were allowed to order three paperback books a year at a discount through the school board. These books were chosen from an “approved” catalog, and what your paid for in September might arrive next May. Can you guess where this led? Well, I’ll tell you. All the “rich” kids in the class, which was essentially everyone except me, would show up the next day with daddy’s money and an order for the three books which were parentally determined to make the kids look good, or studious, or whatever. (Moby Dick, Charlotte’s Web, Wuthering Heights). Books that never got read.
On the other hand, I had my own money from my paper route. I ordered “Herbert”, a children’s book. I was 12 years of age. This caused an audible snicker in the classroom as the teacher unpacked the books, calling out the title for the student to walk to the front to pick up. You see, I ordered the book because it was “written and published” (the blurb said) by a nine-year-old author, Marie Bloch. Why, if she could do it, so could I.
Anyway, I went over that book fifty different ways to figure out how a kid did it. How can a child make money as an author? The fact is, of course, that you can’t, but I didn’t know that. I even delved into whether I could bind a book myself, that’s how desperately mean life was. Such attention to a simple book rapidly got detected instantly by the hoodlums and one day, when I was 13, I came home after work (the paper route) to find the book had “accidentally” fell in the wood stove.
Fell, that is, out my dresser drawer at the far end of the house, down two flights of stairs, and across the living room. You might suspect foul play, but not me. Why this kind of marvel happened around our place all the time, it was true phenomena. The family would deny all of it even when shown the charred remnants of the book spine. It must have been the twin book.
Imagine my surprise today to learn this 1953 book is still in circulation. All 63 pages. What? You want a book review? Okay, this kid helps her dad demolish some electrical conduit to find a mouse living in one of the pipes. She puts it in a cage and tries to train it to eat by ringing a dinner bell. That’s your premise. The conflict is that mice feed at night and she rings the bell during the day.
Don’t ask me where she got money for mouse food, a cage, and a bell, unless she was lucky enough to live somewhere that such things were lying around, unused, and in working order. Because that would be somewhere else than from where I was raised. But I can tell you fast enough you better not get caught around that house feeding no stupid mouse, or you’d get a sore head. Now go fill the god-damn woodbox if you know what’s good for you.
ADDENDUM
Even the gloves were de-scented by handing an onion first. Which by the way, cost me $1.19. They used to be that much for the bag, now it is by the onion. Woe to those who are not paying attention to how this is going. I think the term “fixed income” is about to take on a whole new meaning to the very people who have been ignoring the warnings.
Okay, here’s a question for you. Do you ever suffer from slow Internet service? Happens here all the time, but the question concerns when the page finally begins to appear. Why is it that the advertisements along the edges always appear before the article that you want to read? Prime example are Outlook and Bing, both Microsoft products. The ads appear even if the article eventually doesn’t. (And please, don’t bother telling us is the template, because the ads that come through are different every other time.)
Last Laugh
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