One year ago today: January 5, 2016, checking out VR goggles.
Five years ago today: January 5, 2012, six trips to California.
Nine years ago today: January 5, 2008, adventure: can it be planned?
Random years ago today: January 5, 1981, back when Monty was funny.
MORNING
For those unfamiliar with music tabs, here’s a typical guitar lick that I play on the bass. The theory is simple. If the guitar plays the lick, then there is nobody playing rhythm. There are infinite examples of these on-line, but the quality can vary. This one is just a lick used to fill in a fast instrumental break when I don’t really know how it is supposed to go. The advantage of this one is both parts use the identical fingering pattern, except for one note, but fake it. I got off to a slow start so I was in the library until mid afternoon, capturing a dozen licks similar to this. To expand my repertoire.
I was reading up on that study that shows genetic diversity becomes lower and lower the further you get from Africa. It caught my attention because recent studied have shown that Australian aboriginals are more closely related to the Chinese ethnic group than their apparent similarities to Africans. At the end of the day, I could not find the exact study, but it’s the one that shows the greatest genetic diversity is in Africa itself. The least diverse are the Aborigines and North American Indians, that is, the furthest away across ancient land or ice bridges.
These studies also show that the group that left Africa, that first wave of migration, contained only around 150 individuals. That’s your trivia. It was one of those academic type tangents that sparked my interest. I was also updating the five-year budget, which for me is long-term. Very long term. One thing I can conclude is, if I don’t buy it this year, there’s a chance it will never happen.
Toward that end, I’ve been looking again at the Kregg system for joining wood. The basic kit is now $99, almost double the price from when I first looked. This is the joinery system that drills angle pilot holes into your lumber for you to drill the joint tight. Not only is the jig overpriced, I can’t find out of other screws will work other than the ones that match the jig, which also cost way too much. This came about because I really want that screen door on the kitchen. We have two things out here not present in Miami. Flies and mosquitoes.
Of course, I’ll shop around for a used screen door, but if not, they are a simple build. The joints can be biscuits, which I’ve seen but never done myself, or dowels. I’ve worked with dowels but nothing too fancy. Since my porch is planned to be screened in, I might as well consider picking one of these methods. A screen door is about as elaborate a project as I’d care to learn for myself. And I never could hang a door right the first time.
South Oregon coast.
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NOON
A good afternoon chill in the air got me out working in the yard again. No word from Agt. R on that 30-ton jack, which has turned into a major operation. Tomorrow, I may just find a place that stocks them and drive to get it. Last evening I heard some people talking about Dade City, the place with the high crime designation on the real estate maps. They swear it is a beautiful little city. Hmmm, maybe on the weekend.
Sugar makes mention today, so what is so unusual about sugar. Well, I haven’t bought it for so long that I forgot what it costs. I guess I assumed it would be expensive because so many people complained about its price when I was growing up. I have not bought white sugar in probably ten years. I was mildly surprised to find a large can of it for a buck-fifty. The score on that one is it has become hopeless trying to find canned pie filling without HFCS in the mix.
[Photo delayed]
Without even checking, I’m going to presume I can find all the recipes I want and thus avoid that unwanted sweetener with such a bad reputation. That and modified (corn) food starch. It’s in every pudding mix I could find. I also found out that fireplaces are quite okay with the city, or at least this district. I can’t afford one and I gave my book on building them to the Robertson brother’s from Green Island back in 1979.
Trivia. It is estimated that hunter gatherers, human ancestors, ate the equivalent of 20 teaspoons of sugar per year, while now the average American eats that much daily.
I’m past chapter ten reading “It’s Murder Miami” and enjoying the detail, as the book is now clearly based on real incidents. And also because I am against the operations of “crime labs”. Not the concept, the operations. In theory, they catch bad guys. In reality, they are the innocent person’s worst enemy. The labs have no public oversight and have repeatedly been used to other purposes and to railroad suspects. The worst case is where they ignore exculpatory evidence, or are instructed when asked about it under oath to state they “don’t remember” any at the time.
Another abuse is the retention of such evidence for future use. The problem is, that future use is not necessarily always morally or legally above board. There is no body of law protecting the innocent from police obtaining samples and other evidence, then filing it away permanently. For example, to “prove” that is NOT your thumbprint on a weapon, they take a complete set of your fingerprints. Don’t be foolish enough to think they throw those away if there’s no match. The naïve will say it’s no big deal. Until years later, it’s their turn.
I believe the American Constitution’s strongest implication is that the authorities desist from keeping any type of general demographic files. That is not the government’s job. The downhill slide began with the institution of the census in the nineteenth century. No harm in counting people, right? Tell that to the families of young men killed in foreign wars once the government was able to pre-calculate the size of its armies.
Hence, I am against crime labs because their behavior is publicly funded but secretly operated. All governments eventually abuse all information kept on file. It’s not a fine line, but a huge barrier once the labs go from examining evidence to keeping records for potential future uses, not all of which are legal today—and all American crime labs have long since crossed over to the other side.
No, I’m suggesting criminals go free. There are plenty of laws and provisions to catch them if those are applied properly. I would enforce existing law that only those against whom there are the required reasonable and probable grounds can be investigated in ANY way. If they are not convicted, every record should be expunged and any evidence destroyed and prevented from being used as evidence as second time in any case. A complete German-style gag order on the press if there is no conviction. And the labs must be open to public scrutiny. Some say that would prevent the police from doing their job. My reply is, exactly. The police are breaking the law to get convictions.
“If You Don't Leave Me Alone, I'll Go and Find Someone Else Who Will.”
NIGHT
I began to tackle that slope on the north side of the house that channels water toward the foundation. At first, I was just going to bank the soil the other way, but that’s when I noticed it was good quality loamy ground. Under years of unraked leaves, I found a deep lay of dark soil. Not like compost, but more sandy. I’m going to move more of it to the front yard to see if I can get something natural happening there that beats that clover-like growth in the summertime. Don’t expect instant results, that is at least a two month project for me.
Recalling my filling earlier, I hauled out several of my more trusty recipe books and went looking for home made pie fillings. Yes, I always used the canned varieties because I rarely have enough fruit around to start peeling it. I was looking to see just how much sugar the various fruit pies called for and it is not that bad. Except for some definitely anti-diet sugar bomb concoctions, the fruit recipes generally ask for a single cup of sugar. Since a pie lasts me a week, that’s an acceptable amount. If it helps get rid of corn syrup, I’ll consider it.
You might want to read up on sugar prices anyway. Although the price of sugar is now at about the level of 1980, the price you pay for products with sugar in them have continually risen to more than triple in the same time. This is another form of hidden inflation—where the massive agri-business food producers do not lower prices any more when their ingredients drop in price.
Now don’t get me wrong. I do like corn syrup, the vanilla flavored light brands, and I use molasses sometimes in baking. It is the hidden corn sugar that’s made it’s way into 70% of our processed food products according to some sources that I’m wary of. If I want corn, it should be on the cob.
I baked some cinnamon coffee cake and put on the movie, “Splice”. I got to the six minute mark and it started to gross me out. That was likely the intention, since the actors are all Millennial unknowns. They can’t invent anything new, so they overuse existing clichés to the extremes. Like these DVDs that have extra scenes at the end to show how the movie is produced. How retarded can you get. They don’t show you much, but instead go on about how this or that scene was so difficult, and the makeup was such a chore. don’t need your the aliens are real people in costumes. That at the end of the day, they go home to their wives and kids. We don’t care how you “felt” about the casting or the script. It’s a movie, already, we fecking get it.
This movie is a dog on that account. It pulls together all the myths and fears that have been bantered around by the media for the past twenty years. The gene-spliced human monster that’s immune mostly to logic and emotion. It’s also libtard. On they go about saving the fraction of humans with birth defects at the expense and endangerment of the entire race. The survival of the fittest means fairly rapid extinction to the unfittest, it is how a species survives.
I’m not saying what side I would take, but that I do not automatically root for the underdog in that situation. I’m reminded of that couple who had the six, or was it seven, retarded kids in a row. Instead of admitting Mother Nature was telling them something, they put all seven in expensive institutions at public expense and went on these “poor me” lecture tours. I only attended because it was paid company time. When they said go to the seminar, you went. Like Pete said during the question period afterward. “So, you have all these retarded kids. Are you going to keep on doing it till you get it right?”
The movie “Splice” has no surprises except that the plot is oxymoronic. You are supposes to believe people who are leading edge medical scientists are dumb enough to make every mistake in the book. The broad puts her hand into the embryonic chamber of an unknown life form. They leave the creature incubating unmonitored overnight. Shit like that, roughly on a par with Gilligan’s Island reruns.
For a treat until I can get the today’s pictures for you, here is a transcript of an e-mail discussion I’m having with an old friend on the left coast. He keeps meeting Millennials who claim they can play guitar who have touched the instrument maybe once or twice. Smile, you don’t usually get the actual contents of real e-mails out of me, but this has a message.
You bet, I began noticing that about the first generation of Yuppie Puppies. They are constantly barraged by advertising on their "social media" that promises them fast results and shortcuts to every damn thing, instant gratification. I recognized this long before most, I think, because this was my family's mantra. They'd watch you spend years learning to play a difficult piano piece, and you think they are admiring your sacrifice and dedication. Nothing of the kind, why that just proves you are kind of slow compared to them. One day they ask you if you can "show them how to play that". Shucks, they got nothing planned for the upcoming ten minutes till the bar opens.
You get that in people who have fallen so far behind academically by the time they are 25 that when something actually new does come along, they no longer possess the brain thrust to grasp even the fundamentals. Soon, they fail to even recognize the process of difficult learning as it takes place other people. I saw this syndrome full-time when the phone company "went computers". I was once called out on double time and a half and the problem turned out the third-level supervisor had her CAPSLOCK key stuck on. You bet damn rights I put in for that overtime.
PS I have taken to using the word "Millennial" to encompass the entire "greatest generation" to hipsters, yuppie puppies, Gen-Xers, etc, the whole gamut of these indoctrinated public school "graduates" who think they're the first group to finally get their attitudes fine-tuned. My conclusion is they are too young and/or naive to have learned that their concept of democracy ain't gonna be so great when it finally comes back to fuck them.
ADDENDUM
I baked some cinnamon coffee cake and put on the movie, “Splice”. I got to the six minute mark and it started to gross me out. That was likely the intention, since the actors are all Millennial unknowns. They can’t invent anything new, so they overuse existing clichés to the extremes. Like these DVDs that have extra scenes at the end to show how the movie is produced. How retarded can you get. They don’t show you much, but instead go on about how this or that scene was so difficult, and the makeup was such a chore. don’t need your the aliens are real people in costumes. That at the end of the day, they go home to their wives and kids. We don’t care how you “felt” about the casting or the script. It’s a movie, already, we fecking get it.
I’m not saying what side I would take, but that I do not automatically root for the underdog in that situation. I’m reminded of that couple who had the six, or was it seven, retarded kids in a row. Instead of admitting Mother Nature was telling them something, they put all seven in expensive institutions at public expense and went on these “poor me” lecture tours. I only attended because it was paid company time. When they said go to the seminar, you went. Like Pete said during the question period afterward. “So, you have all these retarded kids. Are you going to keep on doing it till you get it right?”
The movie “Splice” has no surprises except that the plot is oxymoronic. You are supposes to believe people who are leading edge medical scientists are dumb enough to make every mistake in the book. The broad puts her hand into the embryonic chamber of an unknown life form. They leave the creature incubating unmonitored overnight. Shit like that, roughly on a par with Gilligan’s Island reruns.
Last Laugh
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