One year ago today: April 16, 2016, the absence of women.
Five years ago today: April 16, 2012, the promised car.
Nine years ago today: April 16, 2008, I used to eat this?
Random years ago today: April 16, 2009, a poorly written book.
Easter Sunday, or is that Monday, anyway you are wondering what that enticing aroma is. I made a pork roast, and since the oven was hot, I made two Cornish game hens. I wanted them stuffed, but I didn’t have an onion, so I substituted diced curried apple and collard greens. That is what you are enjoying. A pot of tea and a DVD, the old John Revolta movie, “Broken Arrow” that I quoted a few days ago. I saw this movie when it came out twenty years ago and I realized Hollywood was already having trouble finding older actresses with decent figures, particularly when wearing a park ranger uniform. Ha!
I listened to Adultery Radio of Bushnell, Florida, for an hour. They have sided with the staged anti-Trump “protests”. What I can’t figure is why they want Trump’s tax return. One look or listen to that mob and you just know they lack the lerts to comprehend such a document. Conclusion—they are being paid to stir up shit. Those hooligans read tabloids, not accounting statements. There’s no way I’m the only one who has spotted these Democrats are generally the least educated group in any setting. Don’t get me wrong, they are as necessary to society as maggots are to the jungle. Second conclusion—Trump is intentionally withholding his return to give them something irrelevant to focus on. And make asses of themselves. Smooth, Don, smooth.
I can’t say often enough I wanted that bedroom finished before I moved it, but that was a pipe dream. Now everything takes three times as long as I have to take out the furniture and storage boxes, pile them in the living room, and then move them back afterward. This did not stop me from experiments, one of which was somewhat successful. Those sinkholes in the candles were unacceptable. It involved keeping the exact color of melted wax to one side and refilling the cavities, which requires a fine touch and still leaves a visible seam in spots.
In true robot fashion, one of the first things checked out is the environment instead of the process. I notice the candles near the kitchen stove developed the smallest sinkholes. That suggests the candles are cooling to fast and the depression is some kind of thermal. Shown here, I’ve designed and built a small insulated box to retain the residual heat from the pouring process. That’s glue-streaked tarpaper and the interior of the lid will be lined with foil.
One mystery is the way the tarpaper is stapled in place. It seems impossible until you remember that I have a completely equipped mini-office and that includes a long-throw stapler. This is a test model, if it works I’ll devise a production model. I was too busy running in temp power to the area I will move the tons of boxes that got stored in the bedroom. Hey, I had to move and that defeated my intentions. In four days, I’ve logged on hour of billable time.
Namibia.
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Famous last words? Why, I’ll just take an hour and move this furniture and throw up that tarpaper and be done for the day. More like the day was done before I was. It’s ready to drywall the eastmost 8x12’ section, which is where I will be living until the living room is done. This is a monumental task for one guy my age. A ton of drywall and old lumber needs trashing, the entire electrical has to be rewired (and we know how long that took last time), add in the insulation and new drywall, I’d say we are in for a summer and a half. Maybe a summer and five-eighths?
I took an hour off to watch a DVD, “87th Precinct: ICE”, thinking it was about the immigration ICE. Nope, it is another detective story that involves a chorus line. The only place I’ve ever seen or heard of chorus lines is in these sort of movies. You know, I have never known or met anyone, even nostalgia buffs, who has ever patronized this brand of entertainment. Except as extras in these Grade B movies, I don’t see how they can compete with stripper bars. The portrayal of the women as serious dancers pursuing a career is ridiculous—when is the last time you met a retired or elderly chorus line girl?
“I watched a documentary on how to build
ships, and it was riveting.”
An hour over at Agt. R’s got everybody up to date on what’s where. We have a large amount of candle was, so the cooling cabinet was a welcome idea—unless you actually want to watch wax set up. The cooling wax is a process from the outside inward, so the poor results have to be due to some glitch at that stage. We’ll soon know. Before sunset, I drove to the club south of town to find it is closed. Easter, my eye, that place never closes. So I pulled into Mack’s place and he tells me the whole county is shut down. Except. Except for the Legion out on Hwy 98. They commenced to watching the overhead, while I wrote letters to some people I knew in university oh so long ago.
The other development this evening was a growing frustration with Windows. The product is sliding downhill as they gear themselves to social media at the expense of a system that can do anything else. I don’t care if my personal database is compatible with Facebook. Maybe it isn’t intended to be shared, difficult as it is for Redmond to fathom. If you disable the automatic links, which you should always do on your home computer, there are consequences to your vintage DOS programs.
This is one of the hinges emerging from the rock tumbler drum. It’s clean, but still has to be polished up. Let me take a moment to explain the bigger picture. Old wooden doors are an easy item to sell in this district. They are easy to clean, but not the painted-over hinges. And the hinges to do clean well by boiling like other brass items. Nobody around here is skilled enough to install hinges, so the best option is to clean the old ones and put them back on the doors. Sell two such doors, and your yard sale is a success.
ADDENDUM
Do you like action movies? I do, mainly for the pretty women that all cops wish they had at home. Hey, you don’t have to tell me how difficult it is to find choice women over 30. I also watch the movies with an eye to the quieter moments in the script, and I’ll tell you why. Back in my days at the corporation, we used to regularly listen to police scanners and other chatter on evening shift. Let me tell you, some of these movies can get frighteningly realistic in the segments that portray phone traces, computer searches, and the general amount of time that responses take in real life. Anyone who knew what to look for can easily pick up a wealth of meta-information in those routine scenes.
So I’m watching “12 Rounds”, about an arms dealer who goes after the cop who nabbed him. He gives him 12 riddles to solve, which is fantasy because most cops ain’t that smart. And that aspect of the movie has me laughing and thinking.
Sure, modern cops don’t get respect—because they have lost their reputation as the good guys. So they risk their lives and put up with a lot, but these days that is deemed part of the job. What is not right is the way the cops play the system to get their merit badges. Hardly a month goes by without news of a wrongly convicted prisoner or a celebrity bust. These are telltale signs of a system rotten to the core.
That, and the arrest-the-victim policy of most police departments lowers their esteem. Plainly, a person cannot be wrongly convicted unless there is top to bottom complicity. Forensic and micro-investigation has progressed infinitely beyond the point where a clique of crooked cops acting in isolation can frame anybody. The whole circus has to be involved without pity or conscience. Since when has a crime lab ever apologized and look at the emergence of a large group of “expert witnesses” paid by the state, but unaffordable to the defense. These people are a new class that makes their living getting convictions, at least if they want to stay in business.
Another disturbing development is the change in public perspective toward the criminal. A hundred years ago, the police generally chased bad guys. Arsonists, murderers, bank robbers, etc. Those who were caught were regarded with opprobrium. But then the police began a long history of encroaching on privacy and personal lives. Why, then if anybody commits a crime, they are already on file. No pesky warrants needed. Prohibition squads, police as traffic cops, arresting people as defamation, all of this degrades the reputation of the police because their intrusion into daily life makes every last citizen a potential lawbreaker. Nowadays, people don’t “hate” criminals the way society used to because these days that convicted criminal with a police blotter could be their own mother.
You cannot blame people for not wanting to get involved, either. The police no longer represent personal liberty and protection. Imagine how you felt the last time they pulled you over on the roadway. Free? Safe? Most of you were scared shitless. Sit in a courtroom for an hour some day and watch how the cops and judge work together whenever anybody tries to argue their own case. Watch the preference for the cop’s words and huge leeway allowed when cops commit what for anyone else would be perjury. I have been in a courtroom personally where the cop lied, so the judge stopped the trial, ordered the clerk to strike the record, and then counseled the cop how to reword his testimony more to the courts liking. Right in front of a dozen other cops and a room of lawyers. But what are you going to do when your traffic ticket is up next?
[Author’s note: this was in the City of Hollywood, around two years ago. Some kid had argued that from where the cop was standing, it was impossible to see whether or not he had unbuckled his seatbelt before the vehicle was approached. The kid was dumb enough not to have the cops excluded from his testimony, so the cop thought quickly and testified the kid had made motions as if cinching his belt. That still leaves doubt, so the judge removed it.
He stopped (the trial) and told the cop basically to say that when he finally did see the unbuckled belt, the car was moving slightly. The kid was unprepared for this twist and muttered some thing like, “I dunno, maybe.” In that moment, the judge said, "Guilty, next case." What a setup! It was further interesting to note that this normally happens when the accused and the cop are surprisingly similar in age.]
A fair trial? Listen how expertly words are used to trick the hapless defendant into saying the wrong thing. I agree, people should not become drug addicts, or sleep with their sisters, or keep money when they find a purse—but if they do, I definitely don’t think it is any business of the police. It is somebody’s business, for sure, but definitely not the police.
One theme in these movies that is dumb is the way the cops think they can testify against somebody, then expect that person is not going to take it personal. That somehow, there will be an understanding that the cop is just doing his job. Yeah, fight your next traffic ticket and you will never think that again. Damn rights it is personal when the cop will have selective memory, the court will allow your past record entered as evidence (which is unConstitutional), and the best defense to which you are entitled (which normally involves proving the cop is lying) is deemed inadmissible due to its “imflammatory” nature.
You get all this in one movie with “12 Rounds”. The cop conducts a reckless pursuit and the bad guy’s woman is killed. If you don’t think that gets personal, there is a career for you in law enforcement. I’d give this movie a thumb’s up for great screen writing. And the DVD doubles as a helpful how-to tutorial on replacing the chip in your cell phone after every call, to boot.
Another reason I liked that movie was I have a secret admiration for the sophistication of the Irish rebels. They eventually got caught but it was not a bunch of simpletons who survived as long as they did on a tiny island dominated by the British secret service. The English have not totally surrendered their empire, they just moved it closer to home. So it is hard to imagine how the IRA was even able to conduct attacks when every person and every movement in the republic was monitored by the police and the government. It’s no wonder when they get to America, they regard our police as bumbling amateurs.
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