December 16, 2020

Yesteryear
One year ago today: December 16, 2019, here’s the swing.
Five years ago today: December 16, 2015, jammed on full.
Nine years ago today: December 16, 2011, I’ve since aced “Pour Me”.
Random years ago today: December 16, 2018, creeping expansion.

           Today is current events day. It’s quiet out there, except for the 500 announcements per day that some guy named Joe is claiming to have won an election. The sheer silence on any other topic is weird, not even any anti-Trump rhetoric. What’s going on out there? I tuned to my usual overseas sources, but not one of them has the guts to quit with the COVID stuff already. And the equally boring headlines that the vaccine is ready, which is about as interesting as climate change. As for the vaccine, I’d rather get the disease and take my chances. Have you heard that monstrosity Gates lately? And the Canadian government’s Operation Vector, using the military to “distribute” the stuff.

           How about Facebook framing itself as the champion of small business, that Apple’s new privacy features are the work of Satan. Facebook is clearing out of Ireland due to European privacy laws. (Ireland was not part of Brexit.) Then the article that robots are taking jobs away from the poor, trapping them. My favorite has got to be the women “some as young as 18” had their porn sessions go on-line and are now trying to sue. I’d love to be the Judge on that case, “You did what? And now you want what?”

           This is an excellent shot of the old scroll saw as I begin to dig things out of the shed that have been in storage far too long. The unit was in excellent shape, no so my small belt sander. The sander was starting rough and finally gave out is a pall of electronic smoke. And here is the new youTube corporate logo for 2021. You saw it here first.

           What’s the funny stuff going on with Gmail. I never used that service since it was a Google product. Now they are claiming a “massive outage”. I am not surprised the problem seems to mostly infect Protonmail messages. That’s the company I use, and the messages are encrypted at the user level. But in millennial-think, it’s probably nothing. Just a glitch. No, that lot cannot wake up and smell the coffee because it isn’t even real coffee. Regal is closing its 500+ theaters while digital rentals are scoring hundreds of millions in new revenue. I’ve never seen a packed movie theater in the past ten years, they were already doing something wrong. That movie prices are too high is a given,
           The past twenty years the studios have failed to find any new material. It should not cost two people $50 to see yet another remake of Batman. And you can keep that crop of Marvel hero movies. The studios went for expensive special effects instead of content, so COVID was just the final straw. And that bloated bureaucracy called NASA has cancelled Orion, the Mars capsule. Instead, they are going for the brownie points again, seeking money for a “Crew Exploration Vehicle”. Fire them all, I say.

Picture of the day.
House on Inhaca.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
           Two days in a row the 20% chance of rain has hit the sunny part of the afternoon. A good side effect is working in the shed will soon produce results rapidly. The explanation? Now that there is room to unpack, I’m finding tools and parts that were stored long ago, causing me to bypass needed repairs. I even found the missing oscillating saw. The red chicken coop paint is on the whirl-a-gig, a pity I didn’t snap photos of the interim restoral, where it went from wood filller to brown, then black, then a light purple. Be patient, there were parts missing. Next, we talk about women, always a great blog topic.

           Elliott tends to work near his computer, so e-mails betwixt us regular happen like a chat room. Elliott is your typical man in one very strong context—he believes all men are virtually the same and those who are different are pretending. This makes for lively topics, since I was raised in just such an atmosphere and can shoot him down in flames when he makes invalid comparisons. And today’s topic was men who have trouble meeting women, a third party topic for us, but for opposite reasons. Elliott cannot believe I have no such trouble, which I like to throw back at him “because I’m a bass player”. So the questions were:

           A) how many women has each of us met this month?
           B) what was the nature of the encounter?
           C) how many resulted in a date?

           The answers are predictable. Elliott, 0. Me, 6. So far. That nullifies his answers to the remaining questions, but of the six, two were not really strangers so they don’t count. Of the other four, I did not solicit anything from them to my knowledge. On the 3rd, a Thursday, I was the only man in the Fubar reading a book. This lady pool player decided to ask me questions, but she was not interested in celestial navigation. That Sunday, the 6th, I was at the Fubar again, the only man in the place reading sheet music. A beefy type lady came over, definitely not my type. Then on the 11th, another Thursday, I was in the lounge way over in the far corner by myself, the only man in the place painting a whirl-a-gig. A really noisy lady came over to scope me, I told her I was concentrating. And last night, I stopped at the old club to sketch out some database tables, the only man doing so, and this housewife type came over to check me out.
           Now guys, I know what bullshit looks like and reads like, and I am not bragging about these situations. That would change drastically if Taylor Swift came over. The point is, I know what it takes for a woman to approach a stranger, make no mistake about it, these women don’t have time for idle conversation. There is up to an hour lag time that they see me before they make the move, knowing the risk if they pick the wrong sort of man. I think you can see the common theme, I was the only man doing anything other than drooling and ogling—but that has nothing to do with the atmosphere. I always have something to do whether it is the pub, the library, a restaurant, the city bus, I keep occupied for me, not for others.

           Elliott, no matter what, will conclude I’m bragging. But, what’s the motive? I’m already seeing somebody and my point is not how often I score. Never has been, the theme here is meeting women. I meet them everywhere and I know how that bugs guys who just can’t get to first base. That would be Elliott, the last time he had a steady was, to the best of my knowledge, 1995. Let me take a quick tally. I don’t “date” in the normal sense, movies and dinner stuff, it is more casual, a walk, a talk, maybe a bookstore, sometimes just a stroll in the mall. I rarely mention these events unless something goes wrong. How many since 1995? Around 90. But if I had no standards, that would be nearly three times more. I turn down more women than I meet up with, plain and simple.

ADDENDUM

           You are not supposed to know about any of this until tomorrow, so this is a sneak preview. A close family member has been tested positive for Carona, a test that is reputed to me as much as 92% false positive. (Those odds don’t occur by chance.) Ha, let them just try to quarantine her for two weeks. They will learn who the real boss is. The neighbor in Tennessee has secured clear title on the van, the one I checked out that didn''t have clear title. The neighbor now has it, and it is for sale but can’t find anyone with cash money. Except us? The club Xmas bonuses this year are a record high. I may not leave for TN until after Xmas day. I wrote dear Marta a letter, in pencil.
           Here’s something unusual, but you can’t see it in this photo. This is a small pair of paper goggles. When you don them and look at Xmas tree lights, it turns each one into a little snowman. Drat, the effect could not be captured on camera, but this is one of those situations where at least we tried.

Last Laugh