One year ago today: August 6, 2018, screw MicroSoft.
Five years ago today: August 6, 2014, repackaging free concerts.
Nine years ago today: August 6, 2010, a polite thief.
Random years ago today: August 6, 2004, remember MD5?
I didn’t get away this morning. There are last minute items, always chancy in a climate prone to rainstorms. Friday is the latest I can leave without leaving without the chance of having to rely on non-family. Even those who know me closely don’t always allow that I am loathe to accept anything from anybody. It’s a trait, not a quirk. My plan is to move the dryer out of sight and call that a day. The word from Nashville is the doggies are “eager” at meal time due to the new diet. It has to do with increased meat content, so nobody here tell the Reb the boys and I already know about that.
Agt. R says the solution is to season the lumber here. Yeah, and how does it get from Hermitage to Lakeland? Where is the storage facility? And who provides the labor? These and other unanswered but searching questions.
Like moving the dryer around to the blind side of the building. Easy? Sounds easy, until you get in there with shovel and rake to level the blocks to place temporary joists to lug the dryer with the wagon and set up a small canopy to keep it out of the weather. Then tear down the old canopy because it was partially visible from the street. Do this while the heat index is 97°F. Vermin are a constant in warm climates, but they are opportunists who go for the easiest food. Unless your place is vacant for a number of weeks. The rat got all my soup mixes. They usually won’t bother but get persistent if they know they have time to help themselves. The alternative is to lock up all the food every time. I just accept the loss.
Here’s the new deck, with the dryer in place but not yet operational. I’ll get you a shot of the small temp canopy if this rain lets up. I had to batten everything down for the afternoon. I finished watching the Pink Panther movie, I once paid my 35¢ to see that. Back in the pre-Internet days where your choice of movie was limited to what was at the only theater in town that Saturday night. At least all the “one-movie” actresses had that Playboy bunny look. We had no way of knowing it was all downhill from there. I mean, Queen Latifah, give me a break.
Dyed turkeys.
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In another ten minutes it was monsooning. I dug out what I think is a Blu-Ray™ player and examination shows there is a USB port. Samsung, that’s the brand name. Weird, it has only a play and eject button, no pilot light. No way to tell it is working except to listen for the drive motor. It comes with an overkill remote control. Model BD-JM57. Close examination shows it is one of the theater mode units that exports only a digital signal. The is nothing here that matches, but a converter cable is only ten bucks—if you can find one. Careful, there are two types, you need the one that matches either RCA or component. By default, I’m always RCA because the wiring in universally available.
Check back, I’m going out shopping in Tennessee day after tomorrow.
ADDENDUM
For the fourth time, I’m reading “Nashville Chrome”. It’s a great theme, a hillbilly family torn apart by their success in country music. But I can’t seem to get past chapter ten or so without getting distracted. The theme intrigues me, so I’m taking it along this trip. I get it, some people are ruined by greatness. But many more people are ruined by failure. I’m like the kid who says I would like to find out for myself that money isn’t everything.
Maybe there’s something timely about the tale, but there is no common ground for any musical influence should I wind up on a Nashville stage. Even once. There were no whining buzz saws to teach me harmony, or Saturday night radio shows listening to Patsy Cline. I never heard of Floyd Kramer until I was in my 30s, and I used to play piano. (This was because he played the same song every time.) My musical background was distinctly unmusical, never once did I receive any kudos or awards for the effort. I admit to no being a great piano player but it was a wonderful background to how I play bass.
To pinpoint the most significant influence from piano, I would say it is awareness of scale tones. It makes sense for all instruments to play in the same key. Except when you want a certain sound, I’ll explain. It’s a giveaway somebody took lessons when they insist on being in the right key. My quasi-famous walk-downs don’t follow that rule. There is a mix of seconds, thirds, and fourths that can be changed “in advance” if you know what the next chord is going to be. Use sparingly.
The Nashville band is not the same format as teaming up with the boys for a jam session. It is modeled by the ancient ‘call list’ where the manager calls for people willing and capable to play a certain set of music. This doesn’t work with garage bands who tend toward a fixed song list and play the crap out of it. I’m okay with a flexible system. It’s hard work and you live a single failure away from being canned. I believe this is the way it should be, within reason, in most areas of life. And I think that even though that principle has so rarely been in my favor.
Health-wise, I’m okay and hope you are likewise. I put in a few ten-hour days, not that I busted my chops, but I didn’t overdo anything. Can’t no more. Country music trivia. Today 71 years ago an unknown singer decided to replace a song he was going to play at the next day’s music show. That was in Shreveport, Louisiana, the song was “Move It On Over”, and that singer was Hank Williams. Back then a lot of people had (I got distracted and this sentence never got finished).
Today's yesteryear mentions MD5, and I guess not many people remember it. This was one of the first "hash" formulas that was tried as a security algorithm. I was surprised at the time because they were never suitable. It worked by keying in a code phrase of any length, which returned a fixed length reply. This reply could be used to verify the original message. I always felt such codes were vulnerable to being cracked from without. Since bad typists, the majority of users, tend to send short messages, keep trying every possible combination of words until you get the same hash. I don't know if that would work, but I never trust codes dependent on plain text content.
