One year ago today: February 26, 2018, ohh, beee-have!
Five years ago today: February 26, 2014, Belizean beer. Belizean?
Nine years ago today: February 26, 2010, early attempts at blog photos.
Random years ago today: February 26, 2008, remember "Fired Up".
Here, I go to the ends of the Earth to get you neat pictures. In this case, the ends came here. This is from Pakistan and it is pink. The package lists the only ingredient as salt so let’s see how long it lasts in this humidity. I had to buy it if only because the label says it helps reduce blood pressure. Since when has that been so? They assert this salt is absorbed better. It also cures male pattern baldness, impudence, and French accents though not entirely. (The complete cure requires an expensive Indo-China war.) One should not be surprised at these claims, arising as they are from the land of the telemarketer cum helpdesk. Your assistant today is “Lawrence”. Please to be shouting more softly.
Millennials are too innately slow to invent their own viruses, so they kind of amalgamate what went before and call it their own. Usually they hijack your browser, how original. Four times this week I’ve found my Realtek card reconfigured to auto-log onto some site called STOF. It’s an easy fix but takes nearly three minutes. That’s more time than I’d spend saving a millennial’s neck if I thought he was the one responsible. I finally got through to the Dunkin service, my purpose was to watch a heralded documentary on the effectiveness of that wall the Israelis built across the Negev.
It dropped the illegal African immigrant problem from 12,000 per year to 12. Hey, libtards, now try saying that walls don’t work. I was looking at the design, it’s a private company who has done so well, the wall is now a major export product. It features touch sensors and configured so it takes two people to try to get over the top. America needs that with standing orders that, if anyone is more than ten feet off the ground, make it open season.
Water putty is not the only product in this house hard as rock. Here, try some of these ginger snaps. It has gone from my second-most detested cookie to a staple around here. I can explain. You can research this blog to find the ancient tale from the trailer court why I dislike ginger snaps. But nowadays, it is my diet cookie. I select only brands with no GMO/HFCS. What, you’re curious which cookie I dislike even more? Fig newtons. They are okay but if I didn’t tell you before, I once OD’d on them. Can’t even look at them any more, and I’ve further developed a comparable aversion to dates.
Russian diamond mine.
(1/3 of entire world production.)
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
No pics but I wiped out a family of dark brown mice. They found their way behind the furniture and had to go. Forget about a picture. I buy the traps by the 4-pack at Dollar Tree. Nothing for two days, then just before siesta time, all four went off in less than ten minutes. I was working on my theory that they are escaped mice from a vaxxing lab that mutated to hunt in 4-packs themselves. But then I remembered I put the traps at opposite ends of the building. I’ve got a fresh set laid out, replete with succulent peanut butter treats. With any luck, I’ll sleep through this batch, the gnawing sounds kept me up most of last night. They got pretty brazen there for a bit, having deduced I could not tend to catching them whenever they heard bass music.
Which brings us to this picture. You will see it as either a still or a gif. I’m going to try to embed it as a gif. This is me playing my interpretation of “Never Can Tell”, that Chuck Berry tune on the guitarist’s list. I read gifs could be accompanied by sound, but for now I’ll be content to just get one operational. Of course, this means I’ll have to go to the pub for WiFi and it’s middle of the week. Darn, the sacrifices I make for this blog. Monetize it, somebody, and I’ll cut you in for half. But I mean real monetizing, not the kind where I do all the work. Hey, I create content; you market it. I see no overlap, none whatsoever. There is a term for those that do. “Millennials.”
Now, if the gif does embed, you may instantly notice that what I’m doing does not look like bass playing. Aha, I’ve been saying. But, since this may be the first time you’ve seen me in action, examine the moves. What I’m really playing is a take-off on the horn and piano riffs in the version I downloaded. I avoid root-pumping because I consider it amateurish unless the tune actually uses that, in which case I have my own way of playing those passages as well.
Even without sound, if the gif is moving, you can imagine what a contribution this style of bass would make to the soloist on guitar. Factor in that the style is intended to not look like regular bass-playing. Somebody has to set the trend away from that horrid limp-wrist claw-hand “finger” bass that Guitar Center has foisted on the world for too long already.
I did work on the guest room but found a segment of window frame that was damaged under the paint. It had to be puttied, which found me out in the shed waiting for it to cure. I built my first “fancy” box using the radial arm. It’s a start and I truly screwed up quite a few times, mostly procedural stuff. Cut the bottom of the box before you brace the corners, duh. That manner of things as related to inexperience.
I’m making headway with this, so as a reward, I’m going over to the only place that still sells decent licorice AllSorts, which they spell ‘liquorice’ to jack the price. It’s called the likely name “Tractor Supply” and I’m going to peel the candies in layers and eat the best part last. This kind of thing makes me wonder, if I ever grow up, does it spell the end of this blog?
What’s my Tennessee shirt? Finally, an easy question. It’s the first and to date only shirt I ever bought in Tennessee. I had no work clothes and that yard needed raking. It is purple with one black and one white stripe across the front shoulder areas. I’d spent the day before shopping at Kroger’s, so the fashion statement seemed in keeping.
My DVD for the day was “Predator 2”. It seems to be unconnected to the Arnold series so it was new to me. The plot was weak but they had the special effects in order. Where the first movies gave only glimpses of the alien, this effort has full minutes of the ugly mother, though no need to tell him I said that just in case. They even speak in a growling monotone, insert state senator joke here. The movie seems obscure but somebody put a lot of decent time and thought into the production. In the end, I stayed home and the gif embedification can wait.
In the off-beat movie category, I watched “The Age of Adaline”, the tale of a lady who stops aging. Her car plunges into an icy river, where her heart stops for several minutes. The vehicle is then struck by lightning, which kickstarts both her heart and the plot. I must say, if you are going to be immortal, then it helps immensely to be blonde, slim, sexy, thirty-looking, and have perfect teeth. You get the neatest movie roles. Being a woman, how does she use this tremendous gift? Here, I’ll make this one multiple choice:
A) to solve the mystery of the ages
B) to become a librarian
C) to avoid relationships
D) to keep dogs in her apartment
E) all of the above, except A)
I particularly enjoyed this movie because the scientific principles give up an explanation that what happened is entirely possible. The creators of this story must have had some sincere training in medicine and physics or been somewhere they could find it. On a molecular level, there are recent studies that show such a state of “suspending animation” is possible. There may even be a true anti-aging gene. It is dormant if it exists, and I have a theory. To me it is logical that DNA would evolve a death-through-aging mechanism to ensure it would always adapt, for that is how it survived the past few billion years.
Survival is dependent on rapid and effective change in positive ways to the changing environment. The surroundings change to blind and mostly geological forces, not so with life. Being alive is to investigate as many avenues (of mutation) as possible and select those which confer the best chances for survival. This form of selection is called “natural” but I think, in the sense that it is reacting to Nature. Along comes man, who is (so far) the only animal who can control and change his environment. Possibly in that circumstance, the anti-aging gene would eventually re-enable itself. But long before that, somebody is going to help it along. This, folks, is why the capitalist system must also remain viable.
End of lecture. $80 please.
ADDENDUM
It was not pretty, listening to me try to get the bass line to “The Breakup Song”. It has several interleaving lines, a situation where it is usually wiser to find a compromise that conveys the impression of playing the right thing. Here’s your characteristic state where most bassists would play strictly the bass line, which for the most part is boring roots. I’m after the moodiness of the riff, but it turns out such music gives my ear the most trouble, the lines I have the least aptitude for. Rather than wrestle with it, I’m going downtown to see if I can cheat. A tab, a youTube lesson, a music chart, anything will do and all is fair in love, war, and music. And turtle documentaries. If it draws attention away from the guitar player, it gets a good word from me. So don’t forget the documentaries.
This current guitarist is not the most organized. He did send a reply saying that he wants to play out a lot, make money, a lot of money, and wants somebody committed to the music. Specifically not somebody who just waits around for him to get the gigs. Funny, he has not been pounding on my door, a trope, because he doesn’t know where my door is. Who’s fault is that? His song list is pretty diverse, which hints at comping.
To wrap up today, I’m having an extra hot cup of cocoa and pondering what could be done with this new-found ability to make gifs directly from my old movie clips. Is this how others do them? Do the play by themselves on-line, or is special software needed. I can play them by opening the files with IE, but that is the least likely browser I’d ever rely on. The ease of making these gifs probably assures them some kind of occupation over here.
