One year ago today: December 22, 2022, he was singularly unpopular.
Five years ago today: December 22, 2018, the city gets pushy.
Nine years ago today: December 22, 2014, no DIY propellers allowed.
Random years ago today: December 22, 1981, a week on the job.
Wow, back to productivity. XP uses Word 2003, which does everything a word processor should do, but you don’t have to deprogram it. For example, newer Word versions have an annoying shortcut that switches the template to this weird hanging indent. You can’t disable that sucker, and along with dozens other millennial brain-farts, it slow you down. As a group, they never seemed to realize each “convenience” takes them further away from control, but they haven’t figured out the danger of that either. Today we got 90% of the lean-to roof done, this photo shows the shingles from Tennessee emphasizing the “3D effect”. I like it. The final strip will get done when daylight returns. That’s the pieces shown in the upper right corner.
The book on German history is slow reading. It’s well-written but Germany is a tough study. They are descended from forest tribes in recent times, yet I find it amazing how culturally homogenous they turned out. You get tribes in other placed like the Americas who were bloodthirsty neighbors since day one. And I was going to cook a chicken pie but missing one ingredient, I wound up eating a bowl of the filling and now I can’t move.
I also talked with the Reb, she is still unable to drive. She’s the most independent woman I’ve ever know, though a few others come close. I have not told her now precarious the finances are, but once the CD money mentioned y’day becomes liquid again this Sunday, I’ll rest easier. I had a laugh listening to the radio praising personal debt. I lived through the transition of the 80s, where being in debt was something you kept quiet to people bragging about their credit scores. There are more real estate rumblings from California. The bust of 2006 shows how rapidly the market can react.
I’m currently using three computers to do the job of one old XP and I instinctively installed anti-virus software. All of the slowed my computers to a crawl, causing me to uninstall. I had older “ad-free” versions but many of them updated to include many megabytes of unexplained code. AVG never gobbled less than 52% of memory. Hence a new term, millennialware.
Hotel Roc Blanc.
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By darkfall I put on the coffee and ran through the bass lines on the two latest additions (“Turn The Page” and “Seminole Wind”). Both tunes are spruced right up with bass lines I found on piano-note sheet music, on-line tabs, and listen to cover versions to pick out any compatible riffs. These ones I particularly like because the effect is very subtle unless you are listening for it. Plus, they are tunes I don’t care for, so no loss if they get dropped or whatever.
Since rental pads have doubled since I left the trailer court, it is tricky to compare what I’ve saved in rent, which is likely in the order of $60,000. To counter that, I’ve sunk a lot into this place, but I still have it all in some form, making it an investment. The finest treat of ownership is the ability to leave for months at a time without some landlord breathing down your neck.
One comparison I used to make was “the cost of standing still”. That is, the raw basic cost of staying alive just paying rent, utilities, and food. Inflation has make the ratio obsolete, but if I recall in Miami it was around $30 per day. Here, I no longer track that, but it is less than $10 per day, of which a third is my telecom bills. In fact, it is near enough to year’s end that when the computer is returned I’ll see about some actual numbers.
I turned curled up with my book on Wake Island. See photo. Several chapters of the horrors of Japanese prison camps are enough to remind all that compassion and altruism are not primary traits of certain ethnic groups. The prisoners learned about Allied victories by the increased number of beatings, but the real revelation of the mentalities involved is the amount of stealing from the Red Cross packages. I had to smile at the changed behavior of the worst prison guards as increased numbers of short-range US aircraft began to appear on a daily basis, in that it reminds me of what is going on with the various Deep State scumbags of today’s world. They can’t change sides and praise Trump fast enough.
The term “constitutional republic” is appearing frequently now as a counter to “democracy”. No matter how much we like the part about constitutional, the voting is still democratic as in majority rule. The way the system has been corrupted, I’m led to believe that not one person in a hundred who uses the phrase knows what it is. The whole process rests on the lack of a political class and that the representatives are meant to serve temporarily. One of the first signs of corruption is professional politicians, defined by incumbents who begin to use taxpayer money to finance their own re-election. It’s a short step from there to bribing police, judges, and ballot counters.
Here’s an interesting tidbit. Notice how youTube now slows down your browser (which should be illegal) when you use an ad-blocker. Try XP. It sails right past that nonsense. It’s not a big deal here, as most of what I watch is downloaded. President Trump, make it illegal for anyone to alter the performance of your computer without consent. It’s amazing how advertisers think they are losing money if people block their ads. Since you won’t switch back to XP, the other trick is to spoof Google into thinking you are using Chrome. The process is called user agent override, you can look that up yourself.
The way it works is in the configuration settings of your computer, there is a field which reports back what browser you are using. Google denies it, but they are attacking those who use Firefox, their biggest rival. The trick is to copy the Chrome information into this field. You can also uncheck the cookies box, but it keeps re-checking itself on my system.
ADDENDUM
As a primo consumer of muffins, I have a couple hints for baking from scratch. It seems baking powder and baking soda don’t store well in the Florida humidity. It is best to test them and here is how you do it. Most often you baking powder will let you down, so put a ½ teaspoon in a small measuring cup and pour boiling water on it. Not much, about a 1/4 cup and see if it fizzles. If not, it’s gone. Baking soda is a bit of an art. You just need a tiny bit, and pour a bit of vinegar on it. You did this as a kid, you know what to look for. Unless it is really disappointing, you can still use it, but baking soda is cheap.
Check back tomorrow morning, I have a biscuit treat I made for Xmas, cheap and easy in my days in college. It’s been a long time but I’ll remember. Because you bake it just long enough to have one coffee and a refill. Only these days, I’ll use a milk substitute. It’s popular to decry such products but I find two good for recipies. Oat milk and unsweetened almond milk. My only diary product much any more is Carnation in my coffee. It’s fun weighing less than 200 pounds.
If I didn’t say, a couple weeks back I looked for muffin tin recipes other than biscuits, but all I found were labor-intensive. I was after the portion size, not shopping for capers and herbes de Provence. I’m back to regular biscuits, which I will make in a muffin tin when convenient. Tomorrow will be convenient.
