One year ago today: June 9, 2017, 2 fifties & 10% blonde again.
Five years ago today: June 9, 2013, 30% withholding tax.
Nine years ago today: June 9, 2009, Tod, from Chicago.
Random years ago today: June 9, 2012, Marmite & anchovies.
Biggest event of the day? There wasn’t one, not so far. So you get a morning of editorial, a form of blog gossip where random issues finally get some air time. I’m looking forward to October 3, the day I will have quit smoking for 15 years. I didn’t so much quit as just stop. Quitting gives people all those symptoms and I never had any craving. Nor does cigarette smoke bother me, nor smoking rooms or cars. Blog rules say mention food today. The good news is I weighed in at 181.8 pounds, less than I’ve weighed the same 15 years. I thought about that over my breakfast of one New Zealand apple sliced into my raisin bran with fat free soy milk. I have hopes this time because I changed diet. Here, this picture will wake you up.
And when I have my breakfast cereal, I always think of back west. I’d move back there if I could afford it. People are different out there, I would not say friendlier, but less prone to thievery, welfare, and a better all round ethic. In particular, I think about Liz, my buddy from the company. It’s not sentimentality, but that she always was a healthy eater and never gained an ounce. She’s my cereal memory. When I eat grits, I think of my ex. And when I eat porridge, it’s Sweet Judy. Allow me to extrapolate what I’d have to eat for breakfast to think of the women I’ve dated in Florida. I dunno. Dog food?
Now enter all this material into the Internet archives, so around 500 years from now the descendents of these Millennials can finally figure out it has all been done before. That all they did was give things new titles and call it new. I mean, texting and top-knot hairdos? The generation after that is going to be hard-pressed to find anything beneath that. They are not unaware of the past, they just have undue difficulty interpreting it. They’ve been brainwashed to not make value judgments so they ain’t that great at anything else, either. As usual, they will get bloodthirsty enough once they enter the real world and find out racial and sexual equality means the gimp with the biggest sob story gets the job.
The wiring in this old place was pulled tight to the limit. No slack whatsoever. Anybody who’s done it knows that splicing or tapping into such work means a minimum of two junction boxes. If I want a second overhead light in my nice new kitchen, I’ve got to do just that. Maybe that’s why I’m sitting here typing instead of crawling around in the attic again. What do you think? Plus, it is that old cloth-wound wiring with no ground wire and sometimes breaks internally at the slightest movement. The book says that brand of wiring was only projected to last 25 years. Then what? Replace the house?
Don’t believe a word about the economic recovery. It is recovering, yes, because of the thousands of job openings now that Trump is kicking out the illegals and sealing the border. I didn’t check it further, not since I heard about posting the National Guard along the border. The liberals are still howling with rage, not so much about the illegals as about not getting their own way with everything. Let me go make some tea, hang on. Back. Who makes the best tea? C’mon, you can say it. I learned the art in Delhi, in India, in 1985, y’know. Back to the economy. What’s tough on many [people] is that the system was designed while times were good and things like court fees, dog fines, and park admissions never did back off once things went bad. I had another phone call from a friend who got a fine when he was two days late in paying and they revoked his driver’s license.
And if you still have not installed Ghostery on your computer, take a look at this photo. You are being watched. Constantly.
And I like it that way. I didn’t say they’d never come for me, only that they are bureaucrats and they will round up the easy targets first. Nor can I stress enough that anybody who uses bank cards for daily purchases is a complete idiot. When the time comes, they will not only revoke your license, they will know where you are on a minute to minute basis, where you shop, what you buy, and make a pretty good guess you don’t have any spot cash. And if they’ll do that to your driver’s license, which also prevents most people from getting to work, don’t you for a second think they will not find some way to use that information against you in even more evil ways. And guess who you have to thank for that? C’mon, you can say it.
Haucachina, Peru.
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Did you hear about the new European law that restricts the uses of artwork as memes? Likely not, as these issues rarely make headlines in this country, where to plug news-rags, they have to exalt school shootings. My favorite memes use that picture of the Dos Equis guy saying he doesn’t always. This law makes that a thing of the past. You have to get permission, meaning if the US of A follows suit, that is the end of the Internet that you grew up with. Things now enter the same old realm of where the big companies dictate what you can and cannot look at. Here’s a cartoon that I call fair usage but could very soon be a felony. According to the owner (not the artist) I just prevented millions of people from rushing out and paying for this object. In reality, meme postings are more like the graffiti of the Internet – few people sign their work.
Here’s a situational report on the influential people around here. Agt. M is happily married, but if thinks he was always broke before, well, you know. Trent may put his business on the block, and I say hooray because he has not have five minutes spare time in 18 months now. I assigned Agt. R to look into the hot dog cart immediately; this nonsense of him getting up to be at work at 5:00AM has also got to stop. JZ can’t make the trip out here and is not saying why. I always pay for the gas because he actually likes to do yard work and roof work for free. Here’s another news clipping, scofflaw that I am. I live on the edge; no mattress tag is safe around me.
Next, I ran the numbers for the upcoming year. I’m more convinced than ever a small cash flow business is in order. That trip to Kissimmee for rehearsal was enough to dent my gasoline budget, and I’m going out there again tomorrow. If I didn’t say, yes, I broke the kitchen light wiring and have to rip out part of a wall to get at it. This was already planned, just not right now today. I’ll put in a couple of hours, an opportunity to listen to Saturday radio, which is not usual around here. Meaning usually I read or go out. And the newest song to make the grade for duo presentation is “Every Time I Turn The Radio On”. It still has to go through the wringer and the bass treatment, but it has the ingredients I’ve learned give the best performance for the least time put in.
Tell you what, I’ll even describe what’s in store for that song. If you can pull it up, it’s the one that asks if I’m the only sufferin’ son-of-a-gun left in the world. The guitar rule is follow that drummer and keep it minimalist because you will get tired by playing even one tiny extra chop. Worse, no matter how teensy you are inevitably going to need that pattern somewhere else that gives you no choice. This tune is boom-chick and after the guitar starts, I’ll pretend to notice what he’s doing. Imagine the arm motion and listen to the bass riff. Now imagine I duplicate the gesture just because I can. Making fun of the fact that guitar is easy.
It is the guitarist who will tire before me. I’m hardened up by decades of playing. Do the math, I play an average of 506 individual notes (many are repeated) in each song, and I play 40 songs per night. Yep, 20,000+ notes by end of the show.
ADDENDUM
I finally finished half-watching “The Monkey King 2”. At least I think I did, the movie starts and ends in the middle of nowhere. But talk about a major cinematic effort. I was able to pick out the conversation, but you would miss a lot of the incredible special effects always straining to read the subtitles. The most evident facet of the production is that no matter how well they copycat, things like films and soundtracks are just not Asian media yet. Don’t mistake me, the movie is an epic of some kind, but there is an overall slight disjoint between the elements. In so many places the movie moves too fast or too slow where eastern culture meets western filmmaking technique.
If you want a unique experience, watch the end credits all the way. You are talking close to ten minutes. It is mind-boggling. No expense was spared on this movie and they have a sound track behind the credits that rocks, though once again it is copying western ways. What you want is to view the list of companies that had a hand in this production. My guess is about 300 of them and their logos scroll by page after page. Some are recognizable, most are logos of the style in vogue in Europe these days.
Wait for the movie at the $1 Thrift like I did.
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