One year ago today: September 28, 2017, up yours, CARFAX.
Five years ago today: September 28, 2013, yet more politics?
Nine years ago today: September 28, 2009, professionally trained?
Random years ago today: September 28, 2008, the cat can tell . . .
My day off, shuttled along by my nagging shoulder tenseness. It took all of two seconds to decide to stay put. Why not? I have my new Keurig coffee-maker, or maybe it’s a knock-off, and biscuits left over from y’day. I’m still reading the Koch brothers book, but I can only stomach so much of that poor-rich-kid granola at a time. I’ve learned enough from that tale from the upscale trailer court to know that the bunch of them were lucky to have one brother who had the juevos to lead the company. The four rich kids I’ve chummed with in my life never amounted to anything, accomplishment-wise. Charles, I think was the Koch that took them from millions to billions, yet the rest of them found cause to squawk. They say they’ve isolated the “rich gene” but such families show that it is recessive to the point of hit-or-miss. And here’s Elon to prove it.
By 10:00AM, still that shoulder. It’s not so much a pain but an inflexibility. Similar to that condition I had in my 20s, where I had to go get the electro-treatment. But that incident had a clearly defined cause and effect. All the guys working the job before me developed the same condition. Sounds like a damn good correlation if you ask me. It is dominating my morning and blog rules say thus you get to hear about it. Not the same pain as my injury, but a cramping sensation that only abates after five or so minutes of leaving it still. All you budding neurosurgeons out there, dish out some free advice in the comments. You don’t want me to resort to advertising, do you? (Veiled threat there.)
My condition says stay home, take it easy. My gumption says get out of the house, go grab a coffee, you will be a coffee-grabber to the bitter end. Don’t be any money, coffee it is. Did you know this upcoming January, Dunkin Donuts is changing their name. From then, it will be just Dunkin. I see I have nearly six hundred hits from Russia this month. I think you guys should know that American executives get paid the big bucks for making decisions like this. Change the name, get fat Xmas bonuses, and the stores will still be selling the donuts.
Three robo-calls. These are the “new” type that spoof phone numbers in your area, which tricks a lot of people into answering, I’ll bet. But not me. I have not lived in the area code my phone is registered in since 2006. I’m reading that the government, some eight years after these calls became a problem, is finally fining some of the operators. But they only took action when the calls interrupted some lady whose mother was dying. I don’t have the details. This is meant to inform the world how unrepresentative government has become and it is wrong to hate the people for what politicians do. True, these people elected those bad people, but most of them vote out of habit and memory of how things used to be. And once again, the government goes after the wrong side of the equation, the supply instead of the demand.
Later, I went for that coffee on the red scooter. And the rainstorm trapped me in the shop for three hours. It’s okay in there. I was the only customer. Since other than franchise dining and boozing, this is the only place open around here, everybody else must have other things to do on a Friday night. I do blame Starbucks for breaking the habit of people going for coffee, although I still time to time read references to it. It’s sad that the custom has lapsed, you remember how I used to drive 60 miles round trip for a coffee after hours. I’ve tried holding meetings at Starbucks, but they also killed the legendary American service. The meeting is over by the time you get through their lineups. It’s crazy what they’ve done.
And what’s this blog lately without mentioning music? I still have to write the book, “The Life Cycle of a Bass Player”. Kind of dispel the myth that they don’t get any. What? Well hey, I’ve already told you, this blog is not the place for that kind of descriptions, shall we say. I’ve got to upgrade my song list and this time I’m looking at Toby Keith, the country singer who adopted all the rock concert moves for his stage act. Smooth, there, Toby. I’m also picking my first pure Karaoke tune, saying so because it has no bass line to brag about. Nitty Gritty’s, “Fishin’ In The Dark”. And although the cover is out of my vocal range, let’s take a long hard look at the disco-like version of that song that’s played on the dots, “Knock on Wood”.
What dots? The dots on the guitar neck. Non-musicians, give it a try. Take any string and play the beat of the song from the lowest dot up to the highest dot. You’ve almost got it, how instead of starting on the lowest dot, move down one fret, leaving the rest of the riff on the dots as before. There. Play that 30 times and launch your musical career. Tell ‘em I sent you.
[Author’s note: might I say through all these years, one of the most difficult riffs I’ve played is the bass track to “Knock On Wood”. It is syncopated in a way that doesn’t click with my whatever. It was a choice of slough it or leave it. So, back in 2007, I sat down and did the Guitar Center fake it thing. I memorized the song note for note. It’s a talentless way to play anything. Sure enough, that was foolish, because if I didn’t constantly repeat the song and drill the notes into my brain, the quality of presentation decayed very quickly. You guitar players know exactly what I’m talking about.
Fortunately, around the same time, I recorded a short video of the four important components of that song. The riff on the dots, the three octave bass line of the verses, the walkup from E to A, and the totally jazz other-song instrumental break. This time it was a matter of finding the video, and that tune is back on my list, slated to be adapted to the disco version.]
Capetown, by drone.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Product packaging, a made-in-America scam. Made by the worst sorts of individuals our society produces. The ones who pursue an obvious swindle that everybody already knew was there, but were too upright to pull. This time, America has created an entire generation of these types, the ones who cannot create anything of their own, they lack the education. America comes in what, 65th in the world in some categories. You can thank the liberal left for that, they control the school system. And they don’t want mathematicians, they want everybody to be social workers.
My tablet won’t do spreadsheets. Actually, that isn’t totally the case. You can use Windows Mobile, but it involves uploading your work to MicroSoft. It may be the cloud, but I thought that was only for storage. Either way, uploading your files of any kind and trusting them to the mercy of MicroSoft is ballistically insane. Is anybody out there really that stupid? I used pencil, paper, calculator, and eraser. The all time combination that keeps your work in front of you. I had just finished reviewing some of the advertisements for hotdog carts. They do mention the importance of location, subtly working the angle that you will be the lucky one who finds the right spot. Bullshit. Truly persistent bullshit, and it is also the tactic used by vending machine routes.
Trust me, all the good places are gone long ago. Before you were born. It’s not likely you can do better than corporations that spend millions looking for the same thing. The idea, I opine, is to base your business model on something a twitch more solid. I’ve been noticing another site that has more activity and it is on Sunday. I know they used to have a cart on the premises. The local lumber yard. It’s worth an inquiry and Agt. R used to work there. The only places to eat are on the other side of the highway, which means driving, not walking. The question is why did they quit with the food carts? My guess is liability. And I’ve got that covered. By $2 million.
It’s been a difficult three months. It’s convinced me few others have gotten this far. And it’s hatched a lot of intrigue, the internal kind. Where if I had to do this, or had to do that, how do I go about it and make it look like an accident. For example, those big fancy food trucks at the street festivals. Those are carnival-grade and run by non-locals. Is that correct? What could be done? How would I react if I found an excellent location and somebody copycatted? When it’s done by somebody you don’t like, imitation is hardly flattery and if it is sincere, it is in the wrong direction.
Did I just invent the word “ballistically”?
ADDENDUM
More on the household budget that might prove interesting for historians and economists. I also have a category for “inside” and “outside” expenses. If I stayed at home all month, that is, had no entertainment budget, I would net a savings of only $121 each month. This convoluted number takes into consideration that my expenses are also categorized as “avoidable” and “non-avoidable”. It’s unlikely you’ll find these in many textbooks. And because of three new expenses, property taxes, auto insurance, and gasoline, my category “extraordinary expenses” now seems to come in at almost precisely 25% of what I used to pay in rent. I find the consistency of that percentage odd, since extraordinary includes items like my tablet, the new camper, my brake job, and a stray medical co-pay.
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
