April 14, 2022

Yesteryear
One year ago today: April 14, 2021, a generic day.
Five years ago today: April 14, 2017, neutrality was a joke.
Nine years ago today: April 14, 2013, no women. Ever.
Random years ago today: April 14, 2008, turning a blind eye.

           What a morning, already. Convention be damned, I say you can tell a smart person by looking. Now always, but a lot of times out of ten. It could be anything, their bearing, a spring in their step, maybe that are simply more aware of their surroundings. It doesn’t have to be obvious, like them carrying a book or an electric bass. The problem is there are certain types who give intelligence a bad name. Take any occupation, like a lawn mower mechanic. Pick the top of his trade, and outside of that he’s just another numbnuts addicted to Cheetos. Am I right, or am I right?

           There are two other sorts who have an equally unjustifiable reputation for being “smart” and I’m here to tell you otherwise. Chess players and MicroSoft programmers. These people are neither smart nor intelligent. If you say one sitting at the bus depot, there would be no indication they didn’t live there unless somebody starts telling you they are smart. I’ve met teenage whiz kid chess players who could not peel potatoes to buy that donkey. Next time a chess “champion” or MicroSoft nerd becomes President or wins a Nobel prize, let me know.

           What brought this on? Folks, it is a known fact the longer you use a Microsoft operating system, the more your system degrades until it crashes. You can triple that speed by connecting to the Internet. My nice new Win 7 is on-line and it’s begun acting up in about a year. It’s noted that my generation inherited tons of problem, the next generations created their own. Sheer stupidity is the cause, it is not like they can blame much on inexperience. Take the millennial ass-clown who coded the “block” feature on smart phones. The phone still rings, you still get down off the ladder, the number still displays—with a little block icon. Nobody is born that stupid.
           You want to know about the picture. Okay, I scored an $800 LG screen with everything for $40 including the wall mount. I don’t have any place big enough for it inside, but the hurricane silo has no windows. This monitor is about the right shape, so how about a virtual window? A security camera that projects the view through the wall into the room. Brilliant. The picture gives you a good idea of the size, I had to stand it upright against the wall in the front bedroom.

Picture of the day.
Argentine-Chile highway
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
          
Woo-hoo, that pension of mine heard so much about more than a decade ago continues to chug along with the times. This morning I’m informed I get a “cost of living” increase of $10.17 per month. I’m the last one to tell you administering a pension correctly is easy and I regularly meet people who simply hope they will always have enough. You can tell, they don’t got the cash to stop for a cup of coffee downtown. This brings me to the point, the Reb & I have agreed to spend more money on a follow-on offer by our latest business mentor.

           The reasoning is the value of our time. Part of the operation involves sifting through lists and picking likely candidates. It’s discouraging and time-consuming, and far beneath the hourly value of our time. I’ve been learning in the off hours, but there are never enough of those and the first thing you learn is hire somebody else—but that’s trading one headache for another.

           To celebrate this windfall, I went out and got myself a big curved monitor on sale for $159 at Wal*mart. It’s the biggest “screen” I’ve ever bought and it was a disappointment. So far, I mean. At the highest resolution, it just makes the images bigger, rather than letting me put more regular sized panels on the screen. There is more room, but opening the e-mail alone cannot be made to occupy less than half the space, where at regular is a quarter would be plenty. The telling part of all this is there is nobody in my own demographic to ask for help. I’ll gradually get it working but what a telling situation on millennial mentality that after 1995 such hardware issues still exist.
           Did someone mention security? Well, you decide if what is displayed in this photo is something I was actually looking at or if the whole thing is a plant. And no, Ken, it is not monitor buying season. I was on my way to buy the curved screen when I stopped at the Thrift.

ADDENDUM
           We have a pro guitar player who has seen the light. That’s misleading, but I’ll explain. Countless times in my life I’ve run into people who kind of knew or strongly suspected something wasn’t right, but felt it must be just them. Until somebody like me arrives and spells it out, whence they breathe a massive sigh and tell me thank goodness they were not the only one. Such it is with guitar players and I dare say more so with pros. Time teaches them that the bigger the band, the more things go wrong. But for their “sound” they hesitate to even try downsizing. Until they meet me. And we have such a person on the e-mails.

Last Laugh