May 22, 2020

Yesteryear
One year ago today: May 22, 2019, generic day in Nashville, TN
Five years ago today: May 22, 2015, six acres, almost.
Nine years ago today: May 22, 2011, at the learning level.
Random years ago today: May 22, 2009, half the beef.

           What’s this, I find two uncashed MegaMillions lotto tickets for Oct. 23, 2018. Let’s check the numbers and see if we missed out on being noveau rich. Nope, not even one number. Florida lotto corporation is one of the most corrupt of the corrupt. I believe this was the state that led the way in adding extra numbers to the selection pool. They realized and took advantage of how the addition of even one more number changed the odds to astronomical proportions. I see there was one million dollar winner that draw, but nobody got the $1.6 Billion (with a B) jackpot.

           The original really popular lottery began with 6/49, where you chose six numbers out of 49 with odds around 1:13 million This led to the curious situation of when the pot got larger than $13 million, people would try to buy every combination, which they made illegal, but people began cheating. Like registering themselves as a lottery dealer. Or making arrangements to pay by check, then bouncing the check if they didn’t win. The solution is not easy, but the lottery responding by making the odds worse so nobody could afford all the tickets.
           Funny, the winnings also dropped off but not the sales. Aha, people didn’t understand what 6/49 meant. This led to a vicious cycle. Check the math on your own, it’s been years since I ran the numbers. But adding a 50th digit made the odd so astronomical, nobody would win every week, the jackpot rolled over and sales went even higher.
           The lottery people knew they were on to something. But people still had to win to keep stupid people lined up at the wicket. So they dropped the number of ticket digits to 5. So I think the FlaLotto is 5/56. And then there’s that “multiplier” that gets even me to buy a ticket when the pot is over a billion. And face it, what other blog would dare headline a two year old lottery ticket?

           Let’s begin the day off by updating other numbers. It’s too early to go shopping, but not to clear up some delayed and missing entries. Go virus go, I’m sinking over $500 per month in materials into this place. Everybody has the same idea and the lumberyards are laughing all the way to the bank. My lumber total includes pricey items like $150 medicine cabinets, but also shed lumber and various projects. Let’s peek at some totals and averages of general interest if you seek to buy a place and renovate. All of this material had to be bought, hauled, and installed, which is priced separately.

                      Lumber $5,611
                      Electrical $2,253
                      Plumbing $1,780
                      Yard $989

           All told, materials into the house, sheds, and yard come to $14,600 and I have not yet worked on the house exterior or replaced those 50(?) year old shingles. Lumber is the most surprising, where did all that go. The average lumber purchase as $181 and the average was $40.46. There are over 200 receipts on the rack, meaning I’ve made that many trips. The house is not finished, but what is done is comfortable and done right. I could have skimped all along the way. The fence panels in the yard represent 11% of the total and I still need more. The bathroom was over $800 in wood, including new joists.

           See this next pic, it’s in the new coffee shop. Drop back this afternoon for commentary. Home early from shopping, I threw on a random DVD. I had an “oh-no” moment. It was a complete movie about almost every technique for scoring with the best of women that I have in my repertoire. Go easy here, I have to word this carefully. For openers, I’m not saying the name of the movie. And maybe the term “technique” is a bit heavy. The point is, I could have written that script. The plot concerns a dude who cannot score with the ladies and goes to a guru, who enlightens him on what to do. He begins to score. It is the list of things to do and not to do that smacked me between the eyes.

           My intention is to avoid bad or weak or unsuitable women. In the movie, the dude’s intention is to hump as many 10s as possible. The common ground is he is artificially employing tactics that work for the wrong reasons. How did I learn them? I didn’t really, just before I was a teen I sat down and looked at the reasons other men failed so badly with women. This is a complicated area, but I narrowed it down to three major categories.

                      A) they consider women to be a different species
                      B) they brag about being something they are not
                      C) they are too direct about sex

           I’m the opposite on all three counts. I have so little fear of being rejected I don’t even bother with technique. In fact, I avoid bragging for the reason I told this blog in 1979—even when I tell the truth it sounds like bragging, so I let people, especially women people, find out for themselves. And I never, never, never joke about sex with women I’ve just met. Of course, I was delighted to find out when I was so young that this combination worked like magic. I am not claiming to have invented anything here. My surprise is that somebody would , albeit for lame reasons, make such an accurate movie about it. Usually such movies are corny. This one isn’t.
           Am I worried? Naw, the movie was a bomb, and I’ve already gotten so far much more than my fair share of babes that I could care less who shows up now. So much so that since I was 25, I’ve never bothered dating women for sex, but for companionship. And boy, did I ever find out how much more difficult that was. Anyway, the tactics depend largely on delivery and most guys can’t manage that. It’s a case of same approach, different agendas. But, guys, this is why, in a room full of men who can’t break the ice, you may find me alone on the dance floor with all six available women. Ha! And to any naysayers, you name the time and place and pick up the tab, sure, I’ll demonstrate. Like bass playing, nothing to it once you know how.

Picture of the day.
SuperB owl.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           It took some diagramming, but we have light and power in the shed. The real deal, no extension cords. Now a single large fan is enough to keep it temperate and we’ll see some productivity now. It’s nice to walk into the room and flip a switch, on comes the lights and the fans. The lights are wired in parallel, I think I told you that. Anyway, it’s a problem I encountered in the attic a couple years ago so it was easy enough to fit it together. I dug the drain pit another foot deeper. It was a good day.

           I checked out the new coffee shop on Main. Three bucks a cup, but it is great coffee and there is a small bookstore with none of my reading material. The lady that runs it took a shine to me, but not my type at all. The place is also yuppie-ish with many large four-chair tables, but only a couple of small spots and no stools or singles at all. That’s aiming for a crow that does not exist in these parts, but it is a mile closer than the other shop. But, unless business absolutely booms, they can’t afford to keep open long hours. It’s a Tampa style atmosphere in a town that thinks Taco Bell is Mexican food.

           Finished the crossword, I told the book lady I’d have to catch up with her later, and got over to Wal*Mart. Avocados were on sale and I was running short on iced tea mix. I get back here, finish the basic wiring and discover the last of my light bulbs are shot. No heading back, the summer weather has broken and the afternoon rains have begun.
           I coughed up the whole two dollars and tanked up the scooter. How I love to pull up to a pump that reads like this. It gives me a chortle to see somebody pay that much for gas. Because that means they drife a vehicle that can hold 30 gallons. That’s an expensive piece of machinery, and the laugh is that the more you spend on a vehicle, the more it costs you to run, and the less chance you’ll own a second vehicle to run downtown for groceries.

           The first shelf is in, meaning at least some things get up off the floor. The tiny amount of storage space is most welcome and I should have it mostly done by this weekend. A party in St. Augustine was canceled for tomorrow, but it was this close. Twenty-four years since I retired from working for a living. What I’m doing now doesn’t pay worth a shit, but it’s not like work in the sense they tell you. I look forward to working on my place and sure, I wonder what might have happened if I’d had my own place long ago. This is one weird economy, based on property value and ownership. It’s surprising somebody hasn’t upset the apple cart by now.

ADDENDUM
           Adherents to this blog, who have enjoyed excellent coverage and advice concerning computer and social privacy for the past 30 years are probably diverted by the sudden rise in public backlash about the same topics. Ha-ha, for them it is too late. They laughed when the parade came along and now they are crying that they have to clean up after it. A quick look at five of the top tech sites shows that for the past three months, nearly a third of all posts have been warnings about surveillance. They have missed the boat, baby. Let’s take a peek at one of my regular sites, Jimmy Ruska, who does an okay job for an anti-Trump, pro-illegal, left-wing, traitor to his own race homophile.

                      • turning on your phone for the police requires a warrant
                      • contact tracers caught selling location data
                      • judge rules FBI need warrant to access lock screen
                      • questionable intelligence agencies collect health information
                      • browsing data needs protection
                      • copyright infringement defined wrong

           These are well-known topics to us, how strange that so many millions of others are just catching on now, after they have shot themselves in the foot. They laughed in complacency at the conspiracy theorist, who now may constitute their only hope. It should have been obvious how the government control abused the banks, the IRS, the colleges, the DMV, passports, police records, and turned national security measures on ordinary citizens and each other. But, as usual, did nothing until it came knocking on their own door. I’m telling you, it is Martin Shkreli for president in 2024. We need a guy in there who hates the system, because there is no fixing it.
           All my life, I watched the old measure-countermeasure pendulum go at it. The government, instead of going after bad guys with existing laws (of which there were already plenty), keeps bringing in new laws that criminalize ordinary citizens doing ordinary things. Society adjusts by going underground and they have to keep adding more law to uncover it. Back and forth, and soon they’ve passed the point where they can’t just undo all the bad laws. Why? Because in the process they’ve slowly trained all those ordinary citizens how to skirt the system and the result would be a fiasco. American law and its enforcement has become a beast that feeds on itself, but it’s still better than the British (Canadian) system that feeds on you.

Last Laugh
(You might have to think about this one.)