One year ago today: April 2, 2015, 61 mph for food.
Five years ago today: April 2, 2011, my last official pizza.
Nine years ago today: April 2, 2007, picking up sexy things.
Random years ago today: April 2, 2012, watch me speed-solder!
(rare embedded video)
MORNING
Saturday already? Good, I’m going over to the Panera for a change. Sometimes there are okay women there, but always buried in a laptop or cellphone conversation. Even the common mashers won’t approach them. And right off the bat, allow me to say something to my detractors. If I spent as much time “obsessed” with this blog as you say must be the case, whenever would I find time to do all the interesting things that I write about? What? Of course they are interesting or you would not keep coming back. I’m beginning to like the “Broward Haircut”. (See y’day’s post.)
In fact this Australian video is so accurate and informative, I recommend that you view it. It left me with the impression that Australia, due to its remoteness, was a natural for flying boat service and development.
I have a long-standing fascination with flying boats, though I’ve never had the privilege of a flight. Have been on several pontoon planes, but these are a different aircraft concept. You know, where the airplane sits on a carriage that floats on the water. One thing I can assure you is that there was a time when air travel was glamorous even for the passengers. I was among the first in the world to ride a 747, which is why I report that was the end of the classy era of air travel. Very few people knew it at the time.
Since then, it has been a slow decline to the “cattle car” version of air travel you get today. There’s no going back, but yes, I have fond memories of the people coming out to the airport to greet the airplane that flew just twice a month. When the stewardess had to be single nurses and the food was cooked on-board. Yes, I’ve been on flights where the menu was typed up by the navigator each flight. And I was once on a flight where the staffed baked fresh breadrolls as a surprise for breakfast. (Wardair.)
Hence, I lived through the transition from the era of “fun” flying to the bureaucratic mess and lineups of today’s operations. I rather liked the days when only the reasonable well-to-do could fly and there was far less of the “assembly line” aspect to the whole affair. The 747 ushered in the age of mass travel for the proletariat. I tried flying first class only for a decade, but credit cards made that a meaningless way to avoid the rabble. I quit flying domestically in 2000 and doubt I will fly again unless I head overseas.
You may miss it in the histories, but flying boats are totally a military development. It was England that pushed their development as scouts for the navy and anti-submarine patrols. To anyone who still thinks the Germans started World War Two, maybe question what England was doing during the 1930s when they realized their Empire was bankrupt. There are still people around who believe that crazy story about the Germans dressing convicts in Polish uniforms and attacking a radio station. Folks, that lie has been debunked so many times you don’t know. The Germans didn’t need any excuse, the Polish army was about to cut off East Prussia.
Now, a tale from the trailer court. Once the Frenchies leave, there are nine vacant RV spots in this court. Five are on the street, three in the interior and one hard-to-find spot right next door to my place. The lane is one way, so it is a real feat of driving skill to back anything in there. As soon as they clear out, I can park my sidecar back there where it is somewhat sheltered and cannot be seen from the street. Due to a planter that belongs to the office, the clearance does not allow an RV and the sidecar to park at the same time. The lane is 8” too narrow.
Now, occasionally a latecomer from the Keys will want to rent a spot for a few days before the long haul back to Quebec. So, guess which of the nine spots the office rents them? Come on, guess. So I have to move the sidecar, but that’s not my question. My question is how on God’s green Earth did the office know that this one time my starter was broken?
That’s the same office that pulls stunts like that on everybody around here and yet expects that nobody will notice they are the religion everybody loves to hate.
Utah.
As far as I’m concerned, anyway.
NOON
The budget says something has to change. I have to cut something out or cut back on some category. Don’t wait for them to announce inflation on the news, it is here and this time the primary culprit is food. Look at this, $20 in groceries. Milk, bread, cereal, and the smallest package of cookies in the store. That’s 40% inflation in 2 years, 100% inflation in 5 years. Which brings up the subject of nutrition.
If it says corn starch, modified or otherwise, back on the shelf it goes but that often means the lowest-priced article. That’s one part of the budget that remains. No Monsanto allowed. On my return trip from Arcadia by sidecar, I passed a Monsanto plant or experimental station out near Moore Haven. They’re everywhere.
I’ve begun asking around about the process of re-releasing some oldies with vastly updated bass lines. Like most, I tend to remember the version of the tune that became a hit in my generation. By the time I was 35, I generally learned which ones were covers. I’m often amused by Millennials who don’t know a cover tune despite the easy availability of this information. Other than Trent’s estimate that the rights owner takes 13%, I don’t know of a single person who has ever got to that stage with their music.
Yet there is no shortage of those who have sunk a fortune into producing their own CD albums to no avail. Are they afraid to pay royalties? Have they been sold a dream by the recording studios. Or by Guitar Center? Or has not one of them ever really amounted to a hill of beans?
Well I remember how Cheap Trick made it with rock, but possibly that cannot be pulled off any more. I was thinking more of individual releases of hand-picked tunes that I find are amenable to stronger bass lines or you might say weaker guitar parts. Since 2012 or so, I can see how learning to sing and failing to find an adequate guitarist has changed my bass playing. Before, I was like many guitar players for playing the tune note-for-note and getting a good sound.
That has now been superceded by presentation and unique note-attack. I now seem to have around 30 different ways I can play any given note. I tend to emulate the texture of the melody notes or during instrumental breaks, the sound of that instrument. While 30 sounds like overkill variety, not so, as many times the consecutive notes of a passage use sometimes ten of those techniques.
Primary example, “The Breeze”. That bass player half-misses the 5th below, plucking the string a split second before he’s found the fret. Then he tries to compensate and that doesn’t work either. Before, I could brag and prove I was better than that, but I’ve changed my style. I now copy the mistake like I would anything else unique I can find about a hit song. Result? Standing ovations. My kingdom for a decent guitar player.
NIGHT
An hour at the Panera, which is usually the case as they have the slowest lineups at the counter. There’s something new they are calling a kiosk, but it appears to be a small screen where you order by tap or swipe, then sit at a table with a numbered metal plaque. Why, I would have asked how it works, but the lineup was too slow. Not too long, too slow. Also, it appears you now have to ask for butter for your bagel. Duh, Panera, who eats a dry bagel?
The action is the kidnapping, the drama is the man’s family, the plot is pure Americana. You know, where Capone’s entire family swears under oath they had no idea he was into crime and never heard the screams in the basement. The only new twist is the more modern defense of claiming some unknown higher-up forced them to do it by threatening their family. How this defense every holds up is beyond me. Just ask them how they paid at entity’s cut of the ransom and watch them choke.
The trailers show the upcoming movies are another batch of Holocaust revenge themes. I’m wondering when some German will produce a full-length movie telling the other side of the story and see how many film festivals that wins. There are two sides to every story. Too many people know we are being fed only one side, but never question that policy.
Joke time. Did you hear about the politician who hired some civil servants to teach him to play poker? He reports that he is now good at it but the lessons were really, really expensive.
ADDENDUM
And Englishman friend sends me this report from the London newspapers about a “wardrobe malfunction” involving a Mexican weather forecaster. She continued, they said, oblivious to the camel toe. I wrote him back the clarification.
As for the way the entire weather report was continued, a lot of people also do not understand the mentality of Mexican TV cameramen. She was later “voted the world’s hottest weather presenter”. By whom, Oprah and Whoopi? World’s sweatiest, maybe. Real men do not like hip bulge.
What? Well, if they argue the point, they are not real men. They are little boys who like the big butt big boob child-bearing types. Reminds them of their mothers. That’s most of what I got to say about that. Read my blog, think about it, tell your friends. Tell your enemies, too. They might learn something.
Last Laugh
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