One year ago today: December 2, 2019,short, sharp, very focused.
Five years ago today: December 2, 2015, around came the beggars.
Nine years ago today: December 2, 2011, composed & driven.
Random years ago today: December 2, 2003, remember my warning.
Two things will save Xmas for me this year. One is the car may only require an alignment. My mechanic looked under there and noted both tires are toed out the same amount. Rare enough, he advises, that the cause may not be the collision of last March. That’s the hillbilly who fell asleep and hit me. If the car had moved laterally, one would toe-in and the other was toe-out. The plan is to get a good alignment and see what happens. It’s not all roses, I’m finding many things that were never packed for long-term storage that must now be thrown out. You will notice just since y’day, the new shelf is already full.
It’s a mystery how some things don’t work. I would like my act to be wireless, not to move around much, but to avoid cables and cords. I pay extra for angled plugs because I’ve stepped on too many of the regular models. So, sit down and figure out how you could accomplish this with guitar, microphone, and drum box. Turns out there is no wireless mixer that properly transmits all three, and separate transmitters are out of the question unless you ship me a thousand bucks.
That drum box has to be mounted on a music stand high enough to reach conveniently between tunes. Music standards are not known for their stability. I’m also missing the correct transformer for that drum box, or more likely it was used for something else. As I set up the practice space for full rehearsal, I become aware how the total weight of gear adds up. I’ve paid attention to this, even favoring the Fishman at 28 pounds. But that does not include the stand and accessories, which make it 35 pounds.
And how about the South African lottery? The number 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 10 came up and they are in a fit. Myself, I recognize that sequence of numbers is just as random as any other, but what I would like to know is the order in which they were chosen. There are 719 ways I would not get suspicious and 1 where I would. One thing that does not panic me like all the reports of a UFO sound in the northeast. The Navy has been testing a rail gun for years. One can suppose something flying past at 4,000 mph is going to make a sonic boom. But there is no telling the kind of things that take people up there by surprise. Baloney, ring tones, daybreak. No telling what sparks a stampede in New York.
Original Nevada wind farm.
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After a bitter cold morning, coldest since 2003/4, I got some more materials moved around. A lot of it has been sitting where it was dumped in late 2016. I also had to bring all four electric heaters into the cabin, of which three actually worked. The insulation here helps, it does not protect when the building itself leaks. For that, I would have to remove the siding and shrink wrap, which I may get to yet. One thing about being behind budget, the allocated money builds up. It never warmed up enough to get the scooter running, but I did get important things done like this holder for my Harbor Freight coupons. It’s an old clipboard with the bottom two-thirdscut off, it got wet. Important things.
Later, I set up part of the music gear in the kichen. If it flies, I think I should fix the laundry room up and practice in there. That would sidetrack me for a week but I can’t spare the space inside the cabin. I’m fairly giving up trying to find a news feed in America, I’ve been using the amalgamator JimmyR, but he is a Trump hater that does not seem to have the slightest grab on the evil things his party is doing. There’s a lot of that going around, people who only hate Trump and have no clue what voting against him entails.
I was unaware of the political parties in the Civil War, to me it was always the North versus the South. Now I see a parallel. When the South seceded, it should not have made an iota of difference to the North. Lincoln had some pretty funny reasons for “preserving the union” that ring astonishingly like the Democrats. They need the country as one huge tax base or they will be extremely hard pressed to come up with the money they need to pay back. One likely source is China.
I did not find a suitable news amalgamator. The recommended sites were all media run and recommended each other. I never did like the format of Reddit, ten minutes of reading for ten seconds of information. You can infer I’m not too happy with Newsmax. That is related to the fact they take getting used to, something a true news source should not require. In the shadow of the growing mountain of evidence, the MSM reported that Attorney General Barr announced there was no evidence. Who is lying? My instinct says the MSM.
Trump’s team, which is a loose definition as many of them are independent of Trump’s organization, report that none of the media or persons denying there is evidence have ever seen or asked for any of it. And why is the government giving another $20 billion to the airlines? Let them fail, let them shake out the fat. A loan maybe, but not another bailout. These airlines have been a festering sore for twenty years and have allowed their business model to be dictated by politicians who know nothing about running an airplane or an airport.
ADDENDUM
Cliqz, the browser add-on I’ve been using is no more. They are closing down permanently after being highly touted as an add-on to Firefox. What went wrong? There are two views on that same question. One is that it didn’t work, the other is that is worked too well. It was originally a European product targeting the German market. It worked by creating some sort of alternative index within Google. Two factors worked against them. One is that big tech responded by offering their own anti-tracking features (whether you believe them is your bag) and the EU has not been enforcing their own anti-tracking rules.
I had considered Brave, which said it also prevented ads from getting through. I rejected it for several reasons, one of which was their funny-smelling terms of service. They also wanted too much information to sign up. Both suspicions were right, Brave was simply replacing the website ads with their own, based on what you told them and their own illicit tracking. You cannot trust American anti-tracking claims, because it they worked, they would be choking off their own money supply.
During the process of uninstalling Cliqz, I accidentally deleted my last browser. I’ve been avoiding the MicroSoft “updates” for two years, now I must allow them or use the dreaded Edge. The trick is to get a semi-secure browser, like FireFox and slap an add-on like DuckDuckGo, but I have one of those tablets where you cannot switch of Windows S mode. So, I’m taking a huge chance and allowing the update. Last time I disable most things I did not want, but that took hours scrolling through the registry to erase every instance. Updates are not your friends, I’ve just used my system without the updates for over two years. There’s no assholes like MicroSoft assholes except Google assholes.
With Redmond, it is always something. Sure enough, anupdate knocked out my audio. No devices found, took two hours to get the audio back. Every button, FAQ, and help link except the one you need. F*ck you, MicroSoft. I’ll get it, I have to get it for my music practice, but I did not need this 1980-grade bullshit that you people cannot seem to get past. MicroSoft, the company that instead of fixing its old mistakes keeps creating new ones. We get it, if you people make a product that actually works, you'd be out of business.
