One year ago today: July 10, 2025, more confident.
Five years ago today: July 10, 2021, the most empty.
Nine years ago today: July 10, 2017, with flabby arms.
Random years ago today: July 10, xxxx, WIP
Please be patient, we are late today.
Want to do something scary for ten minutes this morning? Then watch this video on the push for digital currency. I watched it for info on distributed ledgers, but you’ll find the social implications are scarier. Distributed ledger is where the banks tokenize (a type of tracking code) to every asset. It’s where the bank looks at every transaction in relation to each other instead of what you want. The video narrator is a sprightly old gal who recounts the European whose car would not start because it could not see his eyes.
A bit more news from Tennessee, the situation is a disaster at the 59th minute of the 11th hour. The accident did not happen in town, that was my assumption, I do not know these people. It was in Los Angeles and a hit & run with no arrests yet. It seems two cars in a high-speed chase, so somebody will talk. The contracts could still be signed but there are two camps. Those to whom the individual recording artist means nothing, and those who stand to lose the huge momentum of this project. This may come across odd, but it seems we are the ones best covered for anything going this wrong. That is, the ones best equipped for survival but I hope it never comes to that.
I’ve got the doggie vet bill and he is now on heart meds. He did not remember me all that well until the Reb fed him a small bite of chicken. He was instantly at my side, practically on my lap. The circumstances are the lawyer is dead, killed instantly, and his aide is in a coma with brain damage and many broken bones. This happened at 11:30PM, it is not lost to the Reb they must have been talking about her at the time. This is depressing, so unless further news is especially different, the accident de-blogged for now.
Cancel most of today while I deal with this upset, but one thing I can say is I care not if anyone on the outside panics. The Reb & I will always survive and there is no borrowed money involved in our equations. This kind of talk is out of turn, I know, but I also know how these things go. You fight and win until the last moment, then they spring something on you. I risked nothing I can’t afford to lose, and there is little chance of us ever being homeless or destitute—a real possibility nowadays for those who do not plan ahead. None of what I just wrote are actual concerns, I’m just saying our situation is not immune from pressures.
I thought I had just saved Caltier, now I will pursue that again. They never did contact me back as promised concerning the liquidity of the funds. But I doubt the head guy, after sounding us out last conversation, would want to deal with us on such an issue. Again, I need time to think. Donald is no help with advice, he’s all tied up with that Iran thing these days.
On today’s word game, I did lousy. Then again, I mean my standard is not to beat the champions, I do that every game. The challenge is how many I beat, and today just 12. In my defense, I would point out I do not know what a “wrap party” or d “wrap dress” means. So I learned a wrap party is like Taylor gives at the end of a tour. An hands everybody $300k. That, I could use right now. I am finally planning on bouncing that check. The one where the bank will not give me my own balance, under some obscure KYC rule.
PPP
Please be patient, we are late today. Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
To show I’m not sitting around waiting for phone calls, here is the Tennessee insulation-stripping machine. The instructions are terrible, warning if used too fast the wiring can get a “fever”. I put it through some paces and see that it is a gronk design using parts from a copper pipe cutter. It has to be set up for each gauge of wire, meaning pre-sorting is a big part of the job. That’s where I could put the hillbilly to work, that’s one great match for his aptitude. Thing is, I cannot spring the guy from prison without exposing myself or my own to permanent system harm. What is system harm? Ask the people who are terrified of being flocked.
If you ever need a demo of why the Chinese mind can discover, but not invent, read the brochure with this gadget. I take it they mean if the wire is thin enough, you can pull it through without using the handle. That’s what you see in the picture below, short pieces of copper wire. My conclusion is this took cannot be put into regular usage unless motorized. But when motorized, it will wreck itself the moment an operator makes a mistake.
We have more news from Tennessee. One of the items I found expensive was the insistence from the west coast on “touring experience”, which we did not bring to the table. Yes, there was touring, but they want name and brand recognition so I went the radio exposure route. But this is one crooked business full of the most unethical bastards just this side of the law. This was a big part of why I rejected recording so long ago—I did not have the cash to survive even one rip-off. I was raised in enough poverty, I did not want to repeat it for a career.
It reminds me of the only Seattle concert I attended. The Stones had a warm up of the J. Geils Band (the “Angel in the Centerfold” group) who successfully built a following using this formula, and disappeared when they did not. Well, around a year ago, there was a near miss with a big star I cannot name.
Can I come up with enough cash? I will need this weekend to think it through. I never did sell all that silver, y'know.
News from Miami, are you ready? I’ve told of the condos across from JZ’s tht have been 80% empty since they were built. It’s an easy calculation, the condo market is so fine tuned that they overbuilt. The condo fees, taxes, and insurance are not so high, nobody wants them. Well, there was a water leak in a top floor condo that flooded the unit below. The owner claimed the water destroyed all his antiques and paintings and sued for $150,000. So the guy upstairs absconded, sticking the rest of the condos with the lawsuit. They were this week informed of their share of the cost. I would have thought the owner would insure such valuables, but fact is they were probably worth $1500, max.
Um, you’ve seen me interchange JP with JZ, neither are his real initials. The letters are just at opposite ends of the keyboard. There, how was this for a nothing Friday? And I might still go out tonight.
ADDENDUM
Digital photos changed this blog. I, for one, was not sad to see Kodak fail. They were a monopoly that was gouging people. I had a $350 camera in the 1980s and the major failings were the delay in develop time, the need to make two trips for the prints, the product was not durable, and there is always a risk with strangers knowing what you take pictures off. I’d have to delve into where I listed these concerns, but it was around 2002 when digital cameras finally began to drop in price.
This was the time I decided to watch prices, not cameras. I was naturally skeptical as there was no standard format and no standard battery size. Turns out there still isn’t. I used a scanner to make a few digital images but my decision was not to buy a digital camera until they were less than $50. In this era, things get (ha-ha) blurry, because digital cameras were becoming popular gifts and by 2005 I had used several. Even the Hippie had a digital camera before I did. His pictures are probably still stuck on it.
Cameras were also appearing at the computer shop, people were bringing them in because they did not know how to download the files. So I could not pin down a date when I decided to go digital. I do know I always did reject camera phones and still do. But I found a camera for $20 in September of 2005, my original Argus 1600. It had all the features I needed, including short video capability and a computer cable with a software disk. I believe my first digital photo with this setup was of an ink cartridge.
T he Argus took 26 color photos and was incredibly rugged, even surviving an ocean dunk. It’s easy to underestimate this evolvement because digital cameras had easily taken over within previous ten years. But you will not find any non-commercial blogs with photos in that era that are still around today. I was late but I was first in many ways with the combination. And I’ve never been able to replace that beautiful Argus 1600. Unless I want to spend $150 for a “vintage” unit.
While on the topic, let’s take a peek at current blog stats. There are over a half-billon in existence (and growing at over 10% annually), but maybe 1% get published daily. Those are the only ones I will consider. I do not care for blogs that are advertising or marketing, nor have I ever met anyone who does that. Most bloggers are between 30 and 45, which makes them the nubies, not me, and also the crowd I am least likely to learn anything from. It’s simple math, the average person in that age group would have less than a third of my experience. (The fact is, most of them never got near a computer until this century when the Internet made pornography free and easy.)
What’s more, metrics, SEOs, and “engagement”, are trivial to me. I was accurate about photos enhancing blog readership and days with videos get half again as many views. Statistics that are meaningful to me are hard to find, but they do reveal there are some concepts catching up to this blog, features that I’ve included for twenty years. Here are some.
͕√ Fast download times. My photos should be almost instant.For the record, this blog does mention food and travel, but these are totally based on my own blog viewership, not some corporate standard. This blog is 100% human-edited and direct time is less than five hours per week. Production time varies, mind you, but I would take pics and write a lot anyway. Due to crappy content and A.I. backlash elsewhere, it seems personal storytelling is rapidly becoming a valued blog factor. That would be nice. This blog, you see, is based on reality. You can't make this shit up.
√ Average sentence length is 12 words for easy readying.
√ Punctuation is designed to appear nice, not meet print standards.
√ Blog is not formatted for mobile display.
