One year ago today: November 20, 2018, Bakersfield – Nashville in 26 hours.
Five years ago today: November 20, 2014, a semi-chronological list.
Nine years ago today: November 20, 2010, a lack of guarantees.
Random years ago today: November 20, 2012, widening and shifting.
This used to be my backup roll of paper towels. See that, kitty? I know that look on your face. Thanks for the new toy, it was fun. See, I got to drive four miles up to Lebanon Pike to get these on sale. Fortunately, I can still clean things with claw marks and tooth holes in my towels. But you’re pushing the envelope there Chloe. I can restrict your intake of cat pellets and leave you out on the porch when you want back in. So just watch it, baby girl. I cut down 35 stalks of bamboo from the south side of the yard. What do you know, there is a sun over on that edge. All of it’s going to the burn pile. I returned the barrel now that I know smoking up the whole neighborhood doesn’t attract sirens and firemen like it does back in Florida.
Microsoft update, my eye. Last evening I was on the phone for nearly an hour and left the tablet connected to the Internet. Now I can’t get that POS MicroSoft Edge from activating itself when I log on. Up yours, Redmond. I will use DOS to rip that next big flop of your out by the roots. You know something MicroSoft? I have never paid extra for your “operating system” and never will. Forty years and you still can’t come up with something that works right, but you sure can use it to quash any startups that at least have something you don’t any more. It’s called potential.
That was the guitar player on the line just now. Neither of us plan to do any real rehearsing other than learning the few tunes we don’t know mutually already. The plan is to follow his existing circuit, but as a duo. The going rate is $150 for a three-hour gig, which is actually pretty pitiful but the competition is hellacious. I’m glad the four-hour gig isn’t standard any more. $150 was the going rate in 1985, and the on-line inflation calculators will tell you prices are 2-1/2 times higher now. But inflation is not spread evenly. Surprisingly, if you factor in historical inflation rates, from 1952 when Brookston Beer (no link) kept track, in today’s money a pint cost between $5 and $6.
Today, the pint is around $4, which is pretty remarkable. However, I’ve recently paid as much as $7.50 for a bottled beer (no community glasses for me) in both Miami and Nashville. The first beer I bought when I was underage cost me 35 cents. It was a Budweiser and that means inflation made the beers last Sunday appear to cost 21-1/2 times more than my first. Twenty-one and a half times.
After thinking it over, I’ll play for the exposure. Let the young fellow keep the gate and we’ll split the tips only. That way, he’s incentivized to get us into his regular circuit for more money, most of which he gets to keep. I told you, the kid is sharp. Reminds me a lot of myself. Musically, I don’t see any real problems to us just showing up and playing most of the material. He’s already got a few comedy tunes in his repertoire. That makes it easier to ramp it up from only the music to the entire presentation, which is my specialty.
After that, I took the doggies on a two-hour stroll. Whoever was mowing the hiking trails along the power lines has not done so this year. That was a treat, miles of semi-forested pathways. Who does that? The city, the power company? They are missing out on an excellent PR opportunity.
Oklahoma City.
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Finally, here is a box I think I could sell. Don’t be too critical because I never meant to get good building these by hand. I want to get good building them with power tools, and I don’t have all the power tools I want yet. I cut this lid without a table saw and it came out okay. The hole in the lid is for a handle but I don’t have a big enough bit to countersink the bolt. How do you like it? Inside the box is a carry handle I’ll attach. I got the hinges to work right, but I’m not satisfied. I was very careful but still feel a lot of the result was dependent on luck. There has to be some simple method to get hinges to work right every time.
Taking a break, I tried to watch a DVD named “Lifepod”. What crap. It was hailed as sci-fi, but was all about a group of neurotic women who escape a spaceship explosion. Outer space emergencies and politically correct screenplay don’t exactly mix. While the crises seem real, the attempts to portray every character as nurturing ruins the plot. I mean, who takes pregnant women on dangerous space journeys? So when the meteoroids start puncturing the pressure hull, she can jeopardize the whole crew by running around screaming, “My baby!”
Man, that MicroSoft Edge is persistent. It even survived a system restoral. I view that tactic as the outcome of what that barely-functional Common Core education has drilled into a generation. They can’t come with anything that people will buy willingly, so they resort to cramming it down their throats. Related scams include discontinuing a too-popular ink cartridge (but not the printer), worthless service contracts, and pop-up advertising. Rule of thumb, if a product is marketed by pop-ups, it is a piece of junk to start with. Maybe something in the school lunch has lowered student IQs by 15 basis points in the last twenty years. I mean, did anybody ask for this Edge product? MicroSoft has become like The Beatles, selling crap at the end by the sheer momentum of their earlier success.
No, I’m not going to try the newest release of Edge. Because MicroSoft has a reputation for releasing bad software and poor backward compatibility. If it was wrong in earlier versions, it is wrong in the rest. I used Edge once and it kept seizing up unless you enabled a ton of useless extensions on startup. It would also start closing tabs on you and of course, kept directing you to inferior MicroSoft products. That is why so many big operators stick with Windows XP. It’s the last MicroSoft system that was not itself a virus-like tracking system.
ADDENDUM
I have to report how business back west moves so much slicker than east of the Mississippi. I’ve been out this way so long I accept nothing by mail happens in less than three weeks. And in Florida, when they say allow 3 weeks for delivery, that means it arrives just before quitting time on the 21st day. This is why the bulk of my really important business still takes place out on the west coast. A 5-day turnaround has not happened in Florida since the Civil War.
In another body blow to American police tyranny (yes, we have it here) a State Supreme Court, which constitutionally are more powerful than any Federal agency, including the President, has struck down another unlawful police activity. That is where “escalating law” was used to force people to reveal their passwords. It meant cell phones, but applies to any device. A mere forty years into the computer era, a court finally recognized that passwords are testimony, which is protected by the Fifth Amendment. As usual, there are exceptions, such as a subpoena for business records, which the police can be expected to exploit. But the ruling goes a long way to reminding people how vital and necessary a right the Fifth Amendment confers. You do NOT have to supply or lead the police to any incriminating evidence. That is their job.
“Escalating law” is this blog’s term where non-compliance with a lesser law, such as ignoring a traffic ticket, becomes a major offense such as defying a court order. That repugnant element of American law was inherited from the British, which pretty much says it all. It’s too early to see if this will strike down that detested situation, but if so, I hope it is immediately applied to against the vile police practice of purposely standing in front of a vehicle that has a right to move and screaming attempted murder.
I wonder what happens now to the people in jail for refusing to give up passwords. Under US law, they are not automatically released, but must go through another trial while behind bars. Will they be compensated? And by whom?
