One year ago today: March 6, 2020, new van, first pic.
Five years ago today: March 6, 2016, bargain-basement paint.
Nine years ago today: March 6, 2012, fretless inaccuracies.
Random years ago today: March 6, 2014, 10 million pixels, programmed.
A casual week of travel and I’m tired, can’t get past morning coffee without a break. So I decided to watch a documentary I’ve been putting off. The formation of the Atacama desert which they say is 150 million years old. I’m seeking an explanation of how that is possible with the shifting of the tectonic plates. Sizeable deserts must remain in roughly the same position, which can only happen under rare and specific conditions. The latest theories seek to explain that large gypsum outcropping, which even an inch of rain per year would have dissolved. Here’s a photo of the Atacama, or a possible metaphor for America not long from now.
Have you heard of “Vention”? It’s a product that says building inventions is easy. Except I can’t find any info. Their site says how-to videos, until you click, whence video morphs into demo and if you’ll just part with some personal information, they’ll make you an appointment. Millennial sick-bastards. There, I said it. Kind of like proof my fatigue is still work-related and not age-related. Though, I’m beginning to wonder about my health on that same count. I watched a couple videos on the $15 per hour wage issue and it was the same tired arguments you would have heard fifty years ago.
What’s been amazing all along is how none of these shows reveals the strong correlation between people who are broke and who have the same screwed up ideas over matters like equality, immigration, and political correctness. I’m very familiar with that hypocrisy. How “being good” was not so mush as character trait as strict adherence to an artificial set of rules written by people with hidden agendas. And how they are quick to attack anyone who points this out. I mean who ever notices when you meet a jobless millennial who supports critical race theory , you can also bet your arse they’ll have opinions on climate change and contrails. Nope, no connection whatsoever.
I got a dollar that says they are also the “no evidence” type, if so, have them watch this Trump video. Dang that guy, he will just not roll over and play dead. And those people dining outdoors in Manhattan who got plowed into by a car. Question. Were they wearing masks? BWAAAA-ha-ha. Hey, you dipshits, quit eating in the street, you clueless bastards. Good thing you were not inside and spreading COVID.
Oh, and did you catch that huge data breach of VPN numbers? Ha, to think those are likely people who got in the game late and decided they has something to hide after all. Well, good luck you morons. The first thing I warned you about the day I saw “as a service” VPN was don’t give these people your name and bank account number. But every one of those millions of people were smarter than me, why just take a vote on it. Truth by majority rule, that’s what makes the world flat.
Here’s sad news, blog readership is down 30% plus or minus. But, since this blog is not user-supported or full of Google ads, it means little to the publication. I view it as just another round of competition with the next fad. My people always return because there’s that one point the Twitters and Im’s just cannot compete. It’s called “content”, and I’ve read other postings on a variety of platforms that tried to post on a daily basis. Their problem is, to succeed at that, you actually have to have something interesting happen on most days. I have my down times, and as an entertainer, I’m allowed to repeat myself and tell the same jokes as often as they produce. So stick around for the ride.
I also watched a video on that girl who could paint since she was what, four years old. The one who claims God told her to paint. Akiane Kramarik. Anyway, I say it’s a claim because there is something in her tale that is just a little too polished, something out of place that says she’s repeating something she’s been told. There are so many casses of this, such as Greta Thunberg, that there is even a name for this condition, I heard. Yes, the paintings are nice, and they would be just as nice as without the hyperbole. Her parents are evidently playing right along, after all, have you seen the price tags on these works. I’m saying I’m not buying either the paintings or the narrative.
And I am very aware of how feats of memory all too often pass muster as being genius. They aren’t, for each person has an aptitude for remembering something. Like my family, who can remember every mistake you ever made but none of their own. It’s pretty amazing. That’s the same video with the guy who inspired “Rain Man”. The guy is great with dates, but I have seen too many instances of people who can do this type of confined calculation in an instant because they can know the pattern. For those who don’t know about the sum of the digits rule, it seems wondrous you can tell if a number is divisible by 3. I recall a multiple choice test that asked the product of 8,163 x 13,965. Got it in less than a second. (All but one answer was an even number.)
Nor could I be the only one who notices these highly gifted people avoid associating with each other. Wouldn't want anyone spotting any charades. There are likely other reasons than rarity that you never find two geniuses forming a team.
Feynman graph.
(Molecular movement.)
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Finally, I’m ready to go to work, but it is late afternoon. Sigh. I did get some hours in on the upcoming budget revamp. My fiscal years land on Halloween but my reviews are April Fool’s. To future scholars if you still exist, that’s happenstance, since the actual dates are approximate. It’s not a given, but usually a shift in priorities will result in a realignment of everything from diet to blog topics. Will that happen this time? A new budget category for travel can often result if a significant increase in funds, since much of the money comes from “over-allocation” in areas that traditionally show deficits without such control.
But I remind us, the purpose of the budget is not penny-pinching, but control over where the money goes. I’m really wondering what these new changes will mean, as they reflect many unforeseen changes. Like Tennessee, a permanent road vehicle, and even matters like how I now have a shed full of the right tools that I spend so much time in on a weekly basis. And I don’t know if I should tell you this, but there is a new category for giving money away. I recognize others have not done as well but their support (and patience) has been, through the years, what I’d call valuable and invaluable, very much so. And the robot club budget ends, but the money goes to a college fund.
What is the rest of the country investing in? Let’s take a look. The “RealWealthNetwork” is recommending, well, the same thing they did fifty years ago. Savings accounts, CDs, and Treasury Bills. All of which play less than inflation and taxes on the things you likely buy if you have any money left over at month’s-end to invest in the first place. These vehicles appear to work because they lose value more slowly than cash that is spent—which essentially loses value instantly. Where savings really shines is that you have ready cash when things go wrong for the other guy, but that’s another story.
Let’s next look at “ClubThrifty”. Same crap, same lunatic requirements like needing $25,000 minimum deposit to earn less than ½ of 1% APR. And they wonder why half the people with anything to invest are such slick operators. If I was going to invest in paper, I’d tend toward REITs, real estate investment trusts. The ones who actually own property as opposed to those that buy mortgages. They’ve suffered less than I figured in the busts and compare well and the requirement they must pay out 90% of their income as dividends means they have to be run more honestly and efficiently that the rest.
But are they poised for a collapse now that the COVID reset has shut down so many shopping centers, a prime REIT investment since 1960? Fundrise reports nearly half of American investors or households (nearly the same group) have some real estate holdings. That makes them too big to fail but the behavior of the banks has alienated Americans from bail-outs. Tell you what. Tomorrow, I will pull my old Vanguard files, the ones I had to liquidate kind of against my better instincts, back in 2010.
My gut instinct says COVID has caused major vacancies in office space as well as the shopping centers. That little voice says this is not impending collapse, but a buying opportunity. I was on the verge of putting $10,000 into American Tower, the cell phone people, back in 2003 just before disaster hit. With Berkshire Hathaway now at $380,000 per share, I’d have to start a little smaller.
And how about the lengths the Democrats will go to instill the fake news that the incident staged by their operatives was an “insurrection”? They are now striking a medal for the brave soldiers who defended the capitol against “armed insurgents” who never showed up. That’s right, they are claiming that the news staff at CNN and MSNBC scared the bad guys so much, they moved their takeover to March 20. That’s the ticket, keep advancing the due date. This, world, is why Joe is a one-term president. Let’s just hope there is still a USA left to recover in 2024.
ADDENDUM
Ha, what a bloody mess the Bidenistas are making of things. Sleepy Joe has basically gone into hiding as this press core, the mainstream media, are tripping over themselves. They are blaming everything on Trump, who dropped out of the picture months ago—insofar as thief Democrat operations are concerned. Talk about shameless, reopening the “cages” at the border, but what is hurting worst is the DC shutdown. My guess is the strategy is to distance Biden from the public. The original plan was always to have Biden declared incompetent so the Kamala person becomes president without ever receiving a vote. I fear what will happen when they pull that stunt.
Another bland personality that’s doing more harm than good is that new press secretary, Psaki. That’s the “circle back” lady, but that applies more to her thinking than any question-answering ability. And talk about your classic Plain Jane, she has no answers to most direct questions about all the growing lists of things going wrong with their “administration” . And dang, the non-evidence of any election fraud just will not go away. The political activists called the mainstream media keep up their game of whack-a-mole denying it exists, often in disbelief why they can’t bury it like they did before Trump.
Wide awake still at midnight, I watch a biography of George S. Patton. The S stands for Smith. Like Bernard Montgomery, I find the hype around these people to be disgusting. These were ordinary men propelled by family connections through the era of late Victorian military schools. These characters, billed as self-made, could never have amounted to beans on their own. Montgomery’s father was Bishop of Tasmania and the Patton lived a life of unbelievable luxury compared to most of us. What got me was this was a recent Patton biography—and by now some of the veneer of hype and twaddle should have been peeled back. It’s gotten worse, if anything.
He was not our “greatest general” except maybe to those he helped sell newspapers. I wish I could find that article how after war was over, only a couple dozen German military leaders had ever heard of Patton. Nor do I buy any stories about the hurdles rich kids have to overcome. Poor Georgie couldn’t read so well, so he memorized his lessons. Yes, but he had precious little else to trouble his half-baked head all day long already. Somebody should do an exposé on those two. Press them from the angle of what might have been accomplished by someone of real leadership qualities if they had not been blocking the aisle. He was called “blood & guts” by the press, but by his men: his guts, our blood.
