November 11, 2023

November 11, 2023 Saturday Yesteryear
One year ago today: November 11, 2022, still no vacuum, folks.
Five years ago today: November 11, 2018, WIP
Nine years ago today: November 11, 2014, rezoned & sold, very rapidly.
Random years ago today: November 11, 1982, Dave makes spaghetti.

           For the first time in at least a year, I was downtown for a sandwich. They always taste better when somebody else makes them. I continue in the doldrums, unable to get underway or fall into a deep sleep. I went to pay the utility bill and accidentally dropped the tax envelope into the wrong box. It was the big used car festival downtown, I forgot this was the third weekend of the month. I stopped by to see Sandy but she was too busy. This was the most important event of the morning, so it is blogged. I’m yawning sometimes twenty or thirty times in a row. Maybe I’ve been kidnapped by aliens and they’ve rigged their flying saucer to look like my bedroom. Hang on, I gotta yawn.

           That computer I bought from Wilford is a dog. I still cannot get it to play videos without a lengthy series of clicks. I’ve never seen Gresham’s “The Rainmaker”. That’s my goal for today. In my Nautical Almanac, I found listings for some places I’d never heard of. This is the list, I’m going to look a the profiles of any that are not just known by some other name. This is the dragon’s blood tree, from it’s bright red sap. It grows on only one island, I was going to link to a video, but I balk at the first mention of climate change. Here are the unknown spot, turns out they are all islands.

Amirante Islands
Annobon Islands
Schouten Island
Socotra

           The Amirantes are some shallow islands and shoals north-north east of Madagascar. One is apparently used for a prison. The Annobons are in the Atlantic, 350 miles off the coast in the Gulf of Guinea. They are part of the nation of Equatorial Guinea. Population is 5,000 and the volcanic island has a freshwater lake. An undiscovered tourist haven in many ways, far enough from Africa to be safe. There are two Schouten islands, one is off the northern coast of Papua and densely populated, the other is a nature park in Tasmania, mostly uninhabited. (Schouten was an executive in the Dutch East India company that explored these areas.)
           Socotra is south of Yemen, uninhabited but briefly made note when National Geographic did an article on the dragons’ blood tree that grows there. Folks, even if there was climate change, I don’t want to hear about it from the types of people who buy into it. I’ve not strong opinions about climate change, but I absolutely hate the people who weave it into a conversation knowing damn well you don’t want to hear it from them. I didn’t say not hear it at all, just not from them.
           There is some emerging evidence that high cholesterol levels may not be the culprit in heart disease. Rather the studies that linked the two were too short-term to spot the real connection, they say. There is a correlation, but it is not cholesterol directly. Your brain is made of cholesterol. November marks the 50th year I have been a critic of the C+ programming language. It will outlast me because it has been shoved down everybody’s throat. Today I read an article of a “new language” called HARE (?) that is supposed to set the pace for the next hundred years. I looked, and it is C+, the language that is responsible for likely 95% of the computer problems, including crashes, viruses, ransomware, and a long list of unpleasant ills. Most stem from how hard it is to proof-read the code and lack of standards. The structure looks like every nerd-turd who came along in those 50 years took a piss in the pot.

Picture of the day.
Pre-Raphaelite painting of a thunderhead.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           The slump at Disney continues as former customers boycott their woketard pervert movies, the latest being “Marvel” or something. Costing $275 million to produce, it has so far returned less than $7 million. The latest term for groomers is to call them “Disneys” because social media would have trouble censoring that. Doing probably better is Curiosity, now past its 11th year on Mars and still cranking along. It’s drilled over 35 holes into the surface but no real sign of life potential yet. It’s nearing Mount Sharp, a small mountain with exposed rock layers. At the other extreme, a successful release by Taylor Swift makes here into a billionaire and the world’s 34th richest women. And in my opinion the closest to the one who did it on her own.

           By late afternoon, I’m still lethargic. That means I got the laundry done, made chicken a la king, downloaded all the music and tabs for tomorrow, and finally plunked down to watch that Gresham movie. I know they glorify law but I like watching the antics. So far, they’ve use the phrase twice, “There’s all kinds of lawyers.” Near the end, I spotted that I had seen the final trial scene before, the one where they award the $50 million. And the part where they caught the CEO trying to skip town. They made references to the billion dollar insurance company so a few of the numbers don’t jive.

           I would also remind all that I’m not in the best of shape any more. The good news is I’m still kicking twenty years past my wake-up call. Let me old-lady for a bit, since recording my health was one of the initial premises for putting things in writing. At this moment, my shoulders are knotted, my left leg has some permanent swelling, my hands and wrists get mildly arthritic in cold weather and a week afterward, and my lower back is still troubling from that fall in August 2022. That’s it, other than that, I still haul my own lumber and manage some type of physical activity most days that constitutes real work. It’s easy to forget how close I was to the edge in December 2003. And that is why my inability to do much today is troubling—one foreseeable day I will take a day like today off and never get going again. It’s inevitable, so party hardy!
           What’s in the news? A town in Michigan has ousted the entire town council of libtard Democrats, and changed the locks on the doors. That’s a shot across Biden’s bow. A recent poll indicates a quarter of Americans would be willing to take up arms against the government, but as Homer Simpson memes, only a quarter of them are willing to admit it to a government pollster who could really be working for anybody.

           Rabbit’s “Driving My Life Away” is now a duo, I spent an hour getting those bass turnarounds and that lead lick on the C#m to sound right. As for the recent guitar player with the scowl, he’ll learn to like it. But they never change, I’ve witnessed that behavior so many times, they simply have too much invested in doing it their way. I remain off kilter long after nightfall, I wonder if I may have something else. Wide awake, let’s take a look at some rich people’s lives. The Visual Capitalist reports the super rich lost a collective $10 trillion in wealth in the past year. I’ll skip to the one I’ve not heard of. Richest is the Arnault family own a lot of French fashions and wine to the tune of $200 billion. Larry Ellison at $113 billion was unknown to me, but I was aware Oracle software got the first big CIA contract.
           The former MicroSoft executive Steve Ballmer checks in at $103 billion. Susan Klatten inherited half of BMW for $29 billion. McKenzie Scott divorced Bezos for $25 billion. I’m just mentioning the ones I never heard of, but not any Orientals, Indians, or South Americans. Self-made rich women are rare indeed, the only one I’d be interested in is Taylor Swift. She’s worth $750 million so she would not be constantly hitting me up for anything material.

Last Laugh