One year ago today: October 9, 2024, she shoulda stayed country.
Five years ago today: October 9, 2020, I wonder about shipwrecks.
Nine years ago today: October 9, 2016, 26% unmarried.
Random years ago today: October 9, 2008, but I never had the $30k.
My $100 cell phone has GenXed me. Somehow it has turned the ringer so low you cannot hear it unless it is right in front on your desk. Who even comes up with this shit? Since it is a digital device, some doof coded that setting in there. It is not off, you can just barely hear it. Nothing in the manual, the people who sold it to you have no idea, and nothing in any of the menus. It is not airplane mode, because it works fine for everything else. What manner of asshole do they become to even dream up such things? I had a couple of them look at it and these so-called experts can’t find it either. And they were dreadfully inefficient, often dropping the same menus time after time. And they wonder why you don’t like them.
Today I was reviewing Steve’s song list. He has not slated a rehearsal for nearly a month.
Since nothing happened here today, let’s see if it did anywhere else. It is 11:52:40 in Greenwich this day (in 2014) and let’s go exploring. Let’s choose Betelgueuse because you’ve heard of it and it is in the northern hemisphere. Aries has an hour angle of 182°59.3’, and Betelguese is at 271°00.2’ and declination N07°24.5’. That puts its GP at 357.0256° and 07.3920 Google, again placing us in West Africa.
Good news for you Etsy types. The BBB (Big Beautiful Bill) changes the 1099 limit from $600 to $20,000. I would have settled for $600 in sales this year. Oh well, proof that even in capitalist America, you still rely on others sell for you—and that’s where the stranglehold is. There are no “small businesses” you can start in America since 1960 that you don’t have to work at all day long—except capital investing. And I don’t have any investment funds left. However, I do have more than a quantum of hope. Plus a four-week coffee supply.
Here is my big score for the day. Half of the drill bits, I bought two packs. You will never have enough of the #2 Phillips, and I’ll tell you why. I do not know if it is a defect in the drills, the bits, or GenX thinking, but nobody has net invented a bit that will stay in the drill while you are walking between locations. Particularly over grass, mud, or dirt. I have probably lost 80 drill bits this way over my lifetime. Way to go there, mechanical design engineers of America.
Inside Palantir’s Tel Aviv office.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
I picked up supplies and did some banking. That’s it for today. Half-inch copper pipe is now over $3 a foot. A four-foot 1” dowel is $12. I made it to the pound with the doggie food, and made enough deposits to let everyone know we are on the road to recovery. A haircut is now $18 and my favorite drill bits were on sale for less than $5. I guess we didn’t do badly. It’s just that the writing is on the wall for everyone on a fixed income. Getting a job nowadays means menial labor at minimum wage.
These days I have a dilemma. I have two masters, one that says if nothing exciting happens to blog about, I have the capability of creating something. The counter-pressure says to keep the posts realistic and stick to what actually happens. After all, this is a darn good documentary on getting older. Or growing up, depending on your take. Today, the latter option wins and here are the two round objects I spent so much money on. In the end, realism won out, here is the copper tube and the wooden rod (photo nearby). Thirty-six bucks.
The house across the way is now sporting hurricane tarps. The kind the city requires when they are accessing properties for hurricane damage. Beyond a certain limit, they do not let you repair your house. It’s a detestable policy because it is based on repair costs as much as any actual damage to the structure.
The DVD “The Scorpion King” got on my playlist. From 2002 with no really White actors, it has enough special effects and expansive scenes to keep me interested. Otherwise it is just another Indiana-Jones spinoff with all the clichés and actresses who never sweat no matter what. The actors, I recognize, but names? Meh, all flavor-ot-the-week material of that day. Our protagonist has just been captured by the rebels and is busy beating up their leader.
Now’s a good time to mention I just woke up after zonking for a full 11 hours. You know the saying, I don’t mind getting old. I just thought it would take a lot longer. For me, that is a joke, I’ve seen what other people don’t do with their lives and only boredom makes it seem longer. I wil not live enough to do or try half what I would like. I don’t identify with the unmotivated. Right how, I would like to be in Texas, jamming at a country bar and touring all the small museums. But that would only take me up to noon tomorrow.
ADDENDUM
Halloween everywhere, it’s amazing the sales job done on people over such a nonsense day. Sure, back then we went trick or treating and there was the costumes, but today it’s hysteria. The only Halloween Party I ever was at, I was eleven years old. There my older sister had a classmate who was an only child, Ernestine Pitman. I was invited because my sister was, once more to be the youngest in the place. What got me was the seeming luxury of a kid with so much money, they could have a party and invite her whole class. I had heard of such money, but had never personally seen it.
The Pitman’s lived on a farm two miles north of town. I was stunned by all of it, the house was decorated and other kids had parents who drove them there from thirty miles away. There was a big batch of “witch’s brew”, punch bowl of something I’d never tasted before. I asked Ernestine what it was and she told me the ingredients. One was ginger ale. I could not believe it, people rich enough to pour whole bottles of Seven Up into a mixture.
What a contrast to my situation. If you had a bottle of soda, you had to protect it from the others. You had to hold it in your hand, not daring to set it down or even take your eyes off it. (They would steal it or spit in it so you wouldn’t drink it.) It was best to sneak away outside somewhere. And suddenly, there before me was a punch bowl of probably five gallons where anybody could help themselves. I suppose that is why I remember it so well, it was proof there was another, better world out there somewhere.
Later. Ernestine lives in California, divorced surname Green. She's White, nationality unknown but I know what it is. A friend of my older sister, she turns 74 this year. No known accomplishments. Either one.
