One year ago today: September 29, 2025, early A.I. comment.
Five years ago today: September 29, 2021, the finest omelet.
Nine years ago today: September 29, 2017, three years before teletype.
Random years ago today: September 29, 2004, arguing with Cubans.
I awoke with just a headache and sore teeth. Weird, but I’ll tell you what is the real headache. I used my oldest and most trusted version of Excel, the spreadsheet MicroSoft pretty much forced on us. Well, today I went to update my old records to restart January 2026. I was kind of out of commission an just got to it. This is one single account that did nothing but sit there and collect interest. The difference is this time the software is installed on a Win 11 computer. What a friggen nightmare.
Strange invisible links, formulas that would not copy, bad instructions. All so some dumbass secretary who knows nothing can make the numbers look right without knowing how that happened. And links that re-established themselves even after you close and reopen the sheets. Where do they even find such imbeciles?
Today, you get some battery lore. I seem to have rotten luck with them. They work until the first time I don’t use them for a while, be it a week or a month. This illness has me stopped dead so I’ll use the time to delve. It also reminds us the blog means the best parts of my day, not the other guy. This time I had the brand new rechargeable game camera battery start giving out on me in after only 60 hours drawing 2ma. Possibly, when it comes to battery polite society, I’m the outcast.
The lawyer movie was called “The Verdict”. Very good portrayal, but at the ending they ran out of money and had to clip it at the point where the sleaze phones and he lets it ring. Now I pause here because of pain, it’s damn weird. It is a pressure pain inside my frontal cheek sinus cavities and any motion aggravates it. Even leaning over to take a knife out of the drawer, anything and it becomes a stabbing pain back to my eardrums. Cancel this morning, except the news, which is kind of disjointed.
You see, it’s a worn-out tactic but the Democrat control over the media lets them push a demoralization campaign. It must work, or they would not persist. But this time they have a problem. They have spend a fortune spreading the word that Trump has lost popularity and rates and has fallen behind. They have spend millions this time and it is a flop. The independent polls, the only ones that mean anything, show Trump support in the MAGA bloc is running at 98%, the surprise is that it isn’t 100%. It was 99% in 2024, so the Democrats are wasting what little money they have left. The good news is the lady baby-killer (Clancey) is going back to trial. Hormones, my eye.
Abilene, Kansas.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Only a mild decline in symptoms kept me at home by now. My plan is to eat soup, I will not be moving my mandibles, no sirree. And I found some old Uma Thurman movies where she wore no camouflage. Trump says no deal on student loans for worthless degrees, but dang, he did not say which those were. I imagine gender studies tops the list. I dozed off and awoke at 8:00PM feeling much better. No joy, however, this was one of the weirdest of attacks on my already-weakened system ever. Pretty damn unusual, I think this is a warning.
I’ve had bouts before, but this flu I will remember. I don’t remember how to play Fur Elise, the best piano piece ever. And I have not played it in 20 years all the way through. But 40 years ago I played it every day. Probably 800 times in my life. The time I recall most was the day RofR and I were over at Dr. Hunters, as his wife wanted to hear it. I never did play it all the way through without a mistake, but that day I made only one. I hesitated one note. I could not play it today, don’t remember the notes except the easy part.
In a way, this forced convalescence works gives me time to work at my desk. I keep finding gadgets I built as much as ten years ago, then forgot. Here, for example, is a signal light bulb tester. It plugs into 110, but rectifies it to 12VDC. Plug an 1157 (most popular signal and brake light) and hit one switch to test the brake filament, another to test the signal (and much brighter) filament. Complete with pilot light, I may even spruce this up with some laser lettering. I did not study transformers until years later so this device surprised me. It’s a bulky affair, but beats walking back and forth to test it on the vehicle. The robot club quality is evident.
What’s this? Dynamic pricing comes to McDonalds. Prices vary depending on time, location, your credit score, and what you spent last time. Because people don’t hate them enough already. I’m so glad Tampa radio has somebody standing by 24 hours a day that will pray with you if you call. And how about the ongoing praise of the 12-year-old on her annual diaper drive? Nothing spells Third World like teaching your kids to beg early.
ADDENDUM
I stayed in pain all day, giving me time to elaborate on the Win 11 spreadsheet nuisance. The application has become oriented toward the dumb and stupid user—parallel to what happened to word processing twenty years ago. They put in so many gimp features that the package became impossible for educated users. I mean, what manner of moron composes a sentence without knowing the first letter is capitalized? MicroSoft, that’s who. Ah, you might think, just disable all the gimp features. Wrong, you can’t, and over time most of them come back without being asked.
So how have spreadsheets degenerated? Redmond would have noticed long ago that ignoramuses use mostly single-layer spreadsheets. It makes the sheets large, cluttered, and inconsistent. The answer is links—but those require planning and education to do right. I have encounterd offices with staff so unskilled to transfer data, they print out the entire spreadsheet and key it in a second time. Here's another battery picture, and why not?
My spreadsheets are almost entirely links—but I put them there myself and know how they work. So I know when they don’t, and I know when the other guy has screwed up. My accounting software (the budget) is not a page of cells where you plug in the numbers—which is roughly where MicroSoft starts buggering around. For example, I do not comb through my bank statement and separate the deposits from the interest from the withdrawals. I key each figure into one of three columns, and those contents update all my reports instantly.
You’ve seem me post bits of these boring sheets over time—but how many of you know to the penny what your CD is worth today, or even care. I suppose some folks like being poor. But now the formulas no longer cut and paste. They will not even paste as text, including when you first paste them into word processor, then copy it back. Worse, many times it comes back with an identical looking formula and says it is a “corrected” version. It isn’t.
Nor do I appreciate Excel analyzing my formulas, which average 72 characters long, and thus above their pay grade. I cancelled Festus Tuesday, whatever I have is some opportunistic bug. I don’t have any cold compresses, but I have many cans of ice cold ginger ale, which helps. And to really clear up, I have my firey hot Carolina reaper sauce. If you don’t know what that is, I suggest you approach the peppers at an angle.
I’m inside, no fever, but not feeling right. Here is a small bettery that just quit working on m. These are sealed unit and rechargeable, so I will check for the obvious before putting it on the exchange rack. The new unit bought last week is on the charger, it lasted only a few days when operating the 5V Arduino. The on-line goofs all say the same, that the batteries can be restored wit baking soda, Epsom salts, and topping the cells. They lie. None of those things work reliably enough to be worthwhile and all take far longer than they say.
