One year ago today: February 22, 2021, powdered coffee.
Five years ago today: February 22, 2017, that Zorro dude.
Nine years ago today: February 22, 2013, my first “good” checkup.
Random years ago today: February 22, 2011, 30 miles @ 30 mph.
Here’s a supersition day, 2-22-22, so let’s go buy a lottery ticket. Which one? They’re all the same. I think a little more work today will do me good, so one more coffee and we get an early start. Not so fast, my blog “random” calendar says food picture time. Hang on while I make breakfast. Okay, I’m back. This is coffee and French toast, double dipped. I sent a copy to Trent, who has been hibernating or something lately. But first, let’s watch some news feeds from overseas. Can’t trust the local sources.
HP led us down a dangerous path in the 1990s with soybean ink cartridges and plastic housings keyed to fit only specific models. They were also known for putting printers on sale, then canceling ink that fit them. Then implanting DRM software in the cartridge chips to disable the whole printer if you used refilled or after-market brands. Now Dymo, the label-printer company has come out with a Kodak-like lock-in by putting detectors to spot “unathentic” label paper, and slapping a hefty fine on any competitor who tries duplicating the paper
An extra coffee had me reviewing the “We Sue Telemarketers” site. Problem, you must reveal your identity to participate. Last day I received a call from a guy who’s number was being spoofed by an autodialer. I thought spoofing had been outlawed but the number of calls is back up to 3 or 4 a day and bound to get worse. However, we have discovered that on occasion the displayed number can be called back although all you get is their answering service, who deny all participation in the scam. The point is, a human answers the phone and that makes the phone number, shall we say, vulnerable.
RoboKiller is a bit more sophisticated, as it maps the caller’s voice so after a while they know where all the calls come from. But I’ve never followed it up because they don’t quote their price and won’t let you try anything until you sign up. So if you say no, they have a record of that, too. What I have in mind is a site that publishes the callback numbers that work Then take it from there, but what I would like now is a phone app that I can buy outright that deals with these callers.
The real answer, is of course a phone that you can program to accept only numbers on your directory, but nobody seems willing to take that step. Here is a photo of the new flip switch on the red scooter. The slide switch was aging and those do not make an audible click when engaged. The switch is because I never did replace the ignition key assembly.
Oh no, sailors who posted the video of that dumb broad who smashed up the $100 million dollar F-35 on the carrier deck have been charged with leaking information. I say dumb broad because she had completed a four-year training program and already practiced landing many times on a simulated deck. Worse, she ejected but dunked the plane in the South China Sea, where the US Navy has repeated failed to raise it. The Chinese will not fail.
That’s not four weeks, guys, that is four years of training she had. The smear merchants keep referring to her only as the “female pilot”; contrast this with what would be if it had been a male pilot. Rumor has it the pilot was Kristin Wolfe, a female flight instructor nicknamed “Beo”. TMOR, Beo is pronounced “Bay” in reference to an ancient English epic called “Beowulf”. This is not for sure, but the [suspect] list is pretty short.
Desert Sunlight solar farm.
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A lot done today but very little of it was new work. Like the scooter switch, it was maintenance and routine, but here’s a cross section of the activity. I finally got the latch installed on the old laundry room. There’s a dead fan I actually got working again with WD-40. Next that pesky drawer that I have to keep repairing and the plastic glide that fell out with it. Then, almost dead center you can see the clay pot birdhouse. They must be regularly relocated if the birds won’t use them, but now it faces the northwest, where the weather comes from.
Moving to the next pic, this is the heater that quit working but shows no visible problems.. It’s sitting next to a box I built for my grinder, which I must now replace. I have six or so tool boxes like that now, and have not lost or damaged a tool in transit since. Last photo is that old computer thingee that was intended to get all your plugs into one spot where you could hit them at once. I knew I kept it for a reason, and it is soon to be the place where all my battery chargers are grouped and switched. I had two but I took one apart and can’t find the pieces.
Some days bad news is the headline and some incoming this afternoon kept me indoors. Without any names, a bad player has reappeared on the scene that I may have to contend with a while. She won’t last, but why now? It’s not much of an imposition on me, but an annoyance, you know what I mean. One of those people who will talk to you for ten minutes and you think you agree on something, then she turns on you. Does it too often for it to be happenstance.
And the books, I sunk $80 into the Taurus, which I have not driven in over a year. That round trip to Tennessee used to be $180, now it is nearly $290 and climbing. Some say Biden gas will hit $7 before November, assuring he’s a goner, but also meaning he’s been reading the statistic that no sitting President has ever lost an election during an international war. He’s wrong, his ass is out on the street, but does he have the brains to realize it?
Have you seen the Clown World Dating site? I haven’t, but the concept is witty, that the people who sign up dislike NPCs. Non-playable characters, it’s a dig at those video game figures that are played by the machine. It means the dumb automaton people who appear on dating sites. Anyway, I predict the site will have the same fate as all those who allow the clientele to self-assess. It will quickly fill with hookers, liars, and wannabes. I saw their ad on Gab, and mistook it for ClownDating, which is for musicians on the road, where it is hard to meet decent people at all. (But not hard to meet women that are too young for you.)
It reminded me of the site I looked at (Scientific American) that claimed only people with at least one university degree. It was such a joke of a laugh, I actually read the profiles for months. More like loser women who wanted their next victim to have a degree to get on child support. Or ugly old women who expected the world because they used to have a body and a job.
In the news, more about Ukraine. I don’t care to choose a side there. While I recognize their historical boundaries, the Russians have spent decades populating the eastern lands with their own people, which has always been a precedent for conflict. What I remember is Germany saying poo-poo to Trump when he warned them not to get dependent on Russian oil. Funny, we have not heard from Germany lately. The few J6 prisoners getting out of the DC jail are consistently reporting they were tortured.
And sensing something really wrong with prices, I pulled up this month’s budget to date. All categories are over, including the telltale “household expense”. I’ve already spent this month’s allocation in 22 days without any special purchases. Lately, Dollar Tree is sold out of eggs, bread, and packaged milk within an hour of opening. That Biden bastard is up shit creek.
ADDENDUM
Mulling over my band options, I recalled the two defining moments of my life-long music hobby, I dare not call it a career. Every entertainer has one, I was luck with two. The important one is that first time you get in front of a crowd of strangers. Some people are so afraid of stage fright the often don’t learn what it really is. I had the usual childhood shyness and embarrassing moments but the one that stands out was the church junior choir. They had a new electric organ and the regular lady didn’t like it. Where I was to play only the choir anthem once a month, they wanted me to play the whole service. For me as a pre-teen, this was an enormous workload.
I was not so much fearful as aware that I was not ready. The service always began with an organ chord. I was stunned when I played that chord and the whole church reacted as they always did. The congregation stood up and the choir marched in from the side doors into the loft with everybody singing. I learned that moment that the fear was an illusion and the illusion could be controlled. Just know your stuff.
The second instance was seven years later. By then I was an old hand at being in a band, but I had never done a solo. But at university, I learned it could be done and here’s the tale from the trailer court. University is also what taught me some kid’s parents have too much money, and there was this career student, a 30-ish squat English lady totally accustomed to the ways of campus which rarely extends to real life. The residence put on a talent show and I attended out of curiosity. This sounds dimwit but she got up wearing a cardboard Indian headdress and a tom-tom.
No doubt it was her only show, but she was up there and I was in the crowd. She started off with that old “Fish & chips & vinegar” chant that got the crowd to clap just a little faster until they are applauding. It’s what came next. She beat on that drum and sang “Running Bear”. It was light fun but for me telegraphed a heavy message that I still carry today. While that message could be that even a tenth-rate personality can sell a crowd, it was something different for me.
In that moment, I learned how easily presentation can take over even for people who don’t really grasp that is what is going on. Years later when I did my first solo acts, I never had a smidgen of butterflies. Not the slightest hesitation, just get up there and do it. Them two episodes were defining moments for me. Now you know too much.
