One year ago today: March 11, 2017, my barren yard.
Five years ago today: March 11, 2013, Outlook Express, the nastiest virus.
Nine years ago today: March 11, 2009, on not selling insurance.
Random years ago today: March 11, 2005, remember the Tremeloes? I don’t.
I went out for a few last evening, but it must have been ugly ladies night. That didn’t stop the local boys but I find it a shameful spectacle, how they go on. Okay, there was one good-looking gal there. With her husband. This morning I was up before dawn taking measurements. I want the later part of the day off, so get the chasing around done. Have you seen the prices of electrical hardware? Yeow, I’m glad I bought most of what I’m using a year ago. But I’m finally running out and prices have doubled.
Just after sunrise, I made my way to the coffee shop. That’s the nice Dunkin over on Hwy 98, a bit of a drive. The place is always booming, both the drive-thru and inside. In the mornings. By late afternoon, I get the whole place to myself. I have a favorite chair—which reminds me, here is a doozie for you. One reason I like that chair is there is only one spot in the whole room where anybody else can sit and snoop what’s on my monitor. Yet, it is uncanny how many times a single person walks in and sits in that very spot beside the garbage can.
[Author’s note: the fantastic morning business of that coffee shop is not unnoticed over here. On average there are 18 cars in the parking lot and up to 31 cars in the drive-thru line up. The inside is never full, for many people walk in for their orders instead of using the window. The wait is actually longer. The problem I see in this town is that there is no real place to go for a sit-down morning coffee at a reasonable price. The atmosphere in the franchises is “contained idiocy” with that blaring “Dunkin Radio” arsehole screaming at the top of his lungs. I mean, girl scout cookie flavored coffee?
You’ll never go broke underestimating the taste of millennials, to paraphrase what’s-his-name.]
When the hardware opened [later in the morning], I went in to check the prices on sub-panels. I have instructions on how to do it yourself, but the book was written by engineers. How do I know they are engineers? Because engineers totally suck at writing instructions, that’s how. When I got to the aisle of the sub-panel parts, all the boxes and stickers used terminology not even mentioned in the book. Warning, this panel for ML only. This panel does not meet DCE-501.3 standards. Non-fusible. Or how about “For hub use only” and “BW type”. These, apparently, are things you are “supposed to know”. And we all know what I have to say about people who have opinions about what you are supposed to know.
I put in the call for Agt. R to help me rig up the rafter brackets for the new ceiling fixtures. It involves precutting some sturdy plywood to the correct width, then feeding it up through the access panel in the longest pieces that fit that way. And move the fridge to over beside the door. This means converting it from left-handed to right-handed. So why do I keep putting it off? I need it moved like last month. I got stuck in such a long lineup at the hardware store that I didn’t get back until siesta time. So check back in a couple hours, will you?
The rest of the day did not go anywhere near so great. Who recalls the situation with the NOVA so-called robotics and artificial intelligence club? If you give some write-off the ability to cancel at the last moment by “smart phone”, he will increasingly begin to do so. Last minute cancellations make millennials feel important, a factor which they have a severe problem with. They get that stunned millennial look on their faces. “I pressed 1 for urgent delivery.” What, you don’t have a smart phone? I don’t have a douche bag either. I think I got caught by another cancellation. Keep reading to find out.
Why? Because Shkreli did not do anything wrong. He was put in jail because he was demonized by the press. The judge, shown here in a posed photo taken so long ago, had to collaborate with the court to reject over 200 jurors to find the ones who would convict Shkreli. He was never charged with any crime over raising the price of “AIDS medicine” to $750 per pill. That is not illegal. But his mistake was he raised the price he was charging to medical insurance companies, and that’s who got him. We know who owns the insurance companies, don’t we now? And the press got him, too. Yep, they own the press as well. It's all happened before, you need only look it up.
Instead, Shkreli was charged with “securities fraud”, a body of law that could, if sufficiently applied, put every bank manager in the nation in prison. Shkreli did what every funds manager does, he repeatedly pulled money out of bad investment options and put them into good ones. And in the end, all his investors made money, so where was the fraud? In the eyes of the insurance companies, that’s where. Who else has the clout to pull in a federal judge over a routine paperwork case and make it stick?
What they did was comb over the jurors until they had a pool of 67 people who had been turned against Shkreli over the drug issue. Note that it was not an AIDS drug at all, but a treatment for a type of parasite than sometimes affects people in any weakened condition, only one of which is AIDS. Matsumoto, that’s her name, was taken to one side and reminded how she got her job. She promptly ruled that the hate directed at Shkreli was over the pill episode and not the securities violation now on trial. Therefore, they were “qualified jurors”.
And just as promptly, they sacked Shkreli for seven years, many of them openly declaring that even though they knew he was not guilty, felt that he “deserved to be punished”. All find and dandy, folks. Until it is your turn.
[Author’s note: but I got to hand it to Martin. He put on a fantastic show of remorse, declaring he was things like his own worst enemy and, well, you go read the details. I think it entirely possible that Martin knows exactly what he was doing. We have not seen such a display of repentance since Mel did his academy performance over apologizing to the Zionists. They gave him a little talking to and next day Mel was declaring he could not believe the words that came out of his mouth. He put on a better show than the All Saints Academy. Encore! Encore!
Gibson's apology was never accepted and he has been blacklisted by Hollywood. That should give you some idea what he was up against.]
Giza, seen from Cairo.
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I’m avidly trying to coin a new term, but can’t find anything onomatopoeically disgusting enough. I want the word itself to convey repulsion at people who cancel at the last moment because they think they can. I polished my shoes, pressed my cuffs, and basically would have been the only man in the room with a tie in full Windsor. Instead I got there to find this scene. Lights out, wickets closed, and no indication whatsoever that the show had been cancelled. In my day, the theater company always took the chance over ticket sales, it was called a flop. Now the theater passes the cost on to the customer. I suppose I’ll get and e-mail or text about the cancellation. But no offer to compensate me for the 58 mile round trip [from where I was at the time]. After all, I took that upon myself to drive over there when I should have been glued to the phone, checking for messages.
Actually, there is something I have to say on that smart-phone account. It is the increasing number of “services” that are becoming available to protect your identity. We’ve gone over this before, how your identity is rarely stolen from you, but rather from the bank, credit agency or Google database that has it on file—and it is they who should be held responsible for the consequences. No, instead you get these ads for “alerts” when the system detects something. The latest racket is one is protecting you from people who get a second mortgage or something on your house behind your back. Then the lender, who make the mistake, sticks you with the consequences.
And I say that is bullshit. It was them who lent money on your house to somebody who showed up with fake documents. How could you possibly be held liable for that? If the bank lends money to somebody with phony papers, then too bad for them. They should take the hit. The money was stolen over the paperwork system they created, not you. Apparently the thieves duplicate papers from the Internet and take out refinancing loans. Same question, was it the homeowner or somebody else who put the papers on the Internet?
So, Sunday evening live theater was not an option. Downtown Lakeland is always dead, and tonight was particularly quiet. It’s weird, there are cars parked all over the streets but not in the numerous parking lots. And nothing open but a couple of smallish restaurants. I’m not a downtown person but one day I hope to find out what all those cars are doing. The play cancellation was a real disappointment because the only time I’ve seen “Oklahoma” was one of those cheesy musicals of the 1950s that they passed off as movies.
[Author’s note: the Sunday performance was moved to 2:00PM on-line.]
Way down here if you’ve read this far, is my girl news. I may have met somebody, a real no-nonsense gal which automatically makes her my type. We’ve only talked so far but if she calls in the next few days, we’ll meet for coffee. She is for real and you would like her. Blonde, but not natural, lots of tattoos and body piercings, but her generation considers that fashion. You can gather from that she is considerably younger than I am. That makes her even more my type. She has two infant children. Her most attractive feature is that she does not bore me. The ultimate relationship-killer for me is women who get boring once they think they’ve got you on the hook. She’s also taller than I am. Please, let her call. I wisely or not, left that option up to her.
ADDENDUM
On day 91 of my diet, there are no serious pangs. I continue to lose inches, but not pounds. The tough part of permanently altering your choice of foods is over. By now you have found alternatives to any cravings. Like eating spaghetti sauce without the spaghetti, it’s only 45 calories, so it’s better than soup. I broke my bathroom scale over a week ago, but so what, I know I’m slimming. I’ll get around to a new one, maybe a nice digital model. Remember, once the weight comes off, it has to be maintained, and that can be dicey. It’s those daily few pounds of normal fluctuation that will get you on the wrong track. The diet community tells you that much daily variation means nothing, but in reality, if you gain more than two pounds, take it off as fast as you can.
Trivia. Diet stands for “did I eat that”. Ha-ha, sort of.
Last Laugh
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