January 8, 2015

MORNING
           Some mornings just are not that magnificent. The high point was the unusual crossword puzzle, which had scrabble letters as clues. Good idea, but it was far too easy for me, and that was the NYT version which I normally don’t attempt. That’s the puzzle you cannot do unless you waste an inordinate amount of your life memorizing what you see on TV, including the names of soap opera actors. That is just something I could never get into.

           Well, I’ve got to make an unexpected trip in around twenty minutes, so let me go on Craigslist and post you the first picture I find that catches my attention. Ready, set, go. That’s politics, but it’s the best I could do on short notice. True, the market is up, employment is up, job creation is up, and all the short-term indicators are up.
           But that’s micromanagement of the low-end voter mind. This was accomplished by taking the government debt up to $18 trillion dollars. With that kind of money, you could make the Cubans love Castro. You could get Chuck Norris to throw the fight. You could get me to like stupid people.
           What’s biting people is the inheritance tax, but they did have it coming. Two generations too late to help me. I have always believed nobody in a place like America deserves to live good except by their own hard work and entrepreneurial genius. Instead, I grew up in a world where those with a head start lorded it over the rest of us. Remember the hippie protesters who never worked? We all knew it was on daddy’s dime. I grew up poor among rich kids and I have never forgotten how many of them treated me—after they found out I was poor.
           My connection with the matter is I warned many people I knew and worked with against spending their whole lives paying for a house to die in. Houses never were a store of value, in fact, they take money out of circulation. The government does not like that and houses become the natural first target. I’m no expert, but if you inherit a house, you don’t get it free any more. I understand you must now buy it from the estate for 55% of its value or lose it. Goodbye free ride.

NOON
           It’s clear the bakery cannot operate efficiently without the front lady. She has to bring the baby in with her. I assured her it is only the first twenty years that is the hardest. I go home and practiced cutting with my nice new scroll saw. If anyone else has noticed there are not that many patterns out there for learning, you are right. I bought it to make robot parts, which must be oversize because wood lacks certain qualities.

           Take this object, for instance. Can you guess what it is? Very good, you have a keen eye. Because it could be anything. It is just a shape I practiced on. The saw is great for making replacements for broken plastic pieces, like that radio that fell off the fridge when I was vacuuming.
           Tell you what I need next. A sander. Just one of those little 4” models will be fine. You can pick them up at Harbor Freight with a coupon, hell, I’ll even give you the coupon.
           Seriously, I am about to make my first useful product with the scroll saw. Take your time and you can actually make fairly straight cuts. But usually not. I’m going to make a small wooden frame to hold a tiny LED clock on the dash of my scooter. Strange they don’t include such a cheap device as a good selling point. Anyway, the casing has to be watertight and plastic will sweat on hot days, killing the clock.
           Still, don’t you like my block of wood? Bet you don’t have one. And there’s my cup of tea. There is a mini-rule over here that the first person to use the power tools has to make a pot of tea. No, I’m not kidding. You have no idea how many pots of tea I eventually pour down the drain the next day. But I’ve never had anyone cut themselves, either. Take your pick.

NIGHT
           In good news, the Telegraph reports a new antibiotic derived from soil microbes. The first such discovery in 30 years. Just in time, as bacteria was getting resistant to the point of immunity. I was expecting the breakthrough [to come] from nano-tech, but this discovery plain makes sense.

           Apparently, electronic chips planted in the soil are part of the process of making the antibiotic grow. It seems a natural and oddly, the product occurs at the proper strength for human usage all by itself. Nearby is a picture of what a resistant bacteria looks like. The green object at the bottom is rejecting penicillin from attaching to its “cell wall”
           Congratulations to the Miami Herald for continually reporting that “Europeans” are joining the ISIL jihad to fight for Islam. That implies white, Nordic, stock, and you had better take a look at the reality such journalism is trying to hide. Then again, it was places like France that allows these people to become citizens and such. France was repeatedly warned about these people returning to their homeland and coming back indoctrinated.
           Which brings to light my long-standing policy for immigration. The very act of immigration is assimilation, not diversity. Not my fault some people got it backwards. Now, initially, you are going to laugh and call me ridiculous. You will think I’m crazy to come up with such an idea. Well, I agree that it takes very deep thought to get through to the logic. The plan is to stop bad things happening, and some people just never get to the core of the rationale. But here goes, see if you can follow.
           Immigration should be restricted to only young, slim, pretty, unmarried, childless females. That’s correct. If you have trouble with the concept, quit now, because you will never be able to grasp the really meaningful facets. Think of the facts, most problems in the world are caused by male over-competitiveness. Only young pretty females allowed. Until there is no more crime (why bother), no more prostitution (who’d pay), no failed marriages, no unemployment, no army, no jealous lovers, no bar fights, no gross people. The correct ratio is probably 3:1 or 4:1.
           Men would not have to fight for money and glory to get the woman or women of their dreams. What good is power when other men are happy and couldn’t care less what you do? Why fight a divorce, why bother with the macho act? Ah, you see, the more you think about it. Some say women would be worse off, but if that is so, let them prove it. America is full of single old women who fend for themselves just fine.
           Again, it is very difficult to think this concept through. I didn’t leap to the conclusion about pretty females, I thought immigration policy for years before it hit me. I realize that extra women will cause a different set of problems, but those are infinitely preferable to the problems we have now. If you cannot see any merit in the plan, you are probably too hard-headed to learn anything new anyway. This blog is no place for dull-witted nincompoops.
           And of course, I can hear the men of foreign countries mewling like babies that they are losing all their young women. Right. That's part of the plan. The women are leaving voluntarily, so you guys, time to shave the beard, take a bath, and quit goat-dating. Maybe even think a bit about maybe giving your women some rights. Like I said, it's a well thought-out theory designed to solve problems, not cater to anyone's notions.

ADDENDUM
           What happened to the dreaded Killer Bees? Remember, they were advancing northward at 350 miles per year and crossed into Texas 25 years ago? By now they should have reached the North Pole, or at least the outskirts of Falher, Alberta. (There is such a place, they have an airport and all speak French. Falher is pronounced “Fuhl-AIR”). Anyway, where are the bees?

           First, they are not the true African kind, but were bred with domestic Brazilian bees. (Hence not "African" but "Africanized".) While they still exist, for once the scientists correctly predicted they require mild winters to survive. That would not be Texas.
           Secondly, they interbreed with the tamer local honey bees and this lessens their nature to attack. So we’ll be okay until the numbskulls in DC allow some other invasive species to be classified as a pet.
           We are taught in elementary that humans are homo sapiens. Except me, I’m hetero sapien. Anyway, those are the classifications of genus (homo) and species (sapien). What is the rest of the taxonomic name? Ah, this blog is known for the part they don’t teach you. Here is the complete list of where to find humans on the evolutionary tree.

                Kingdom: Animals (as opposed to plants, fungi, protists, and monera)
                Phylum: Chordates
                Sub-phylum: Vertebrates
                Class: Mammals
                Sub-class: Placentals
                Order: Primates
                Sub-order: Anthropoids
                Family: Hominids
                Genus: Homo
                Species: Sapiens
                Super-species: electric bass players

Now, in the Kingdom part, that’s protists, Wallace. Not prostitutes. Like your daughter Patsie. They are mostly parasites. Have you ever wondered where she gets it? By the way, I now know what you told the police and they marked you down as demented. I was going to speak up, but anyone who would listen to Patsie is definitely demented so I kind of left that one alone. By the way, Patsie, how has life been treating you lately? Like you’ve been treating others? Awwwwww.

           But listen to me. African bees are sluggish fliers and can only travel around a quarter mile tops. An adult human can just outrun them. So run in a straight line and, if you can, run into the wind. Let me know how it works.

Last Laugh
Jeezus Kryst, how much help do the rest of you need?

January 7, 2015

MORNING
           Happiness is discovering that you do, after all, own an 11/64ths drill bit. A perfect day weatherwise. It has to be remarkable to get mentioned. Because I’m not the type to read the weather report. I’ve got music work to do but man, I would like the day off. Incidentally, I got the last Argus 1610 on eBay, the original digital camera of this blog. The one I’d still be using today if I’d not forgotten it at a restaurant in Coconut Grove. It should arrive any day so watch for an improvement in pictures.

           Isn’t that a telling experience on digital cameras? How they started off simple and easy, then the manufacturers conspired to start packing on the features and raising the prices. Now you get ginormous pixel ratings that can’t fit on a flat screen, and forty features nobody uses. But no setting for a 640x480 jpeg. They removed the viewfinder and added a battery-hungry flash. One thing for sure they know is how to appeal to the totally stupid.
           It says a lot about consumerism that after ten years, I finally revert to the camera that started it all. It takes 26 pictures, just like an old roll of Kodak film. And that is as many photos as the thinking person would care to leave on a camera without downloading.
           On the up side, we are gaining experience with the Tascam recorder and it is turning out to be a real gem for great sound. Initially I found the best fidelity was recording off the PA system, but I’m finding with practice, it is possible to get much the same quality direct in. But pay attention here because this part isn’t in the book. There is no universal best setting. That means to get the impressive sound, you will still require one trained man at the controls. That means he can’t be playing an instrument.
           Now the Tascam cannot record the whole band at once via separate inputs. Here’s the trick to avoid that layered indie sound. I should be charging you a hundred bucks for this lesson. Instead of adding each part to the playback of the previous tracks, record your drum beat. Play that beat back as a metronome and have the entire band play the song over until you get all the instruments one by one. This has the effect of catching the momentary “inspirations” that are missing when you record to a monotonously identical playback. Real music can be a little bit “loose”.
           It also prompts the band to rehearse more. And being recorded gets them to pay attention to the weak spots in their delivery. So overall, I’m impressed by the caliber of the Tascam, but don’t rush out and buy one. Because it seems to take about 25 hours of inquisitive tinkering and several late night study sessions with the manual. And after page ten, that is not an easy read.

NOON
           Let’s start with a little Tascam trivia. Shown here is a photo of the original recorder, four tracks on ¼ inch tape. This is the unit from the recording studio my pal had when I was a teen. My brother, using my good name, ran up a bill of several thousand dollars to this studio, and skipped town. Tascam was a company that took TEAC products and modified them for use in a recording studio environment. They were first with almost every innovation, I should point out.

           So although Tascam does not make the very best quality of equipment, all other companies have pretty much copied Tascam products. Since around 1980 Tascam has been pretty much the leader in independent music recording with such successes as Bruce Springstein. So you newbies don’t get any ideas, it is the media system, not your music, that you have to get right with before you get exposure. And there is a reason they are called “the establishment”.
           Several hours later, I have succeeded in getting the PA sound on the Tascam directly. I’d like to say I could not improve the sound, but I’ve tweaked every setting on the machine already. Still, eliminating the PA is good enough because it eliminates a step and frees up a lot of cables. That PA is a bit complicated anyway, I’ve never used more than half the knobs on that puppy.
           It can’t have been this easy, so I’ll likely find out what I’m doing wrong. Ideally, I would like to connect a laptop to the Tascam and use that as my source files. But plugging in the USB transfer cable disables most of the functionality of the Tascam. I’m working on it. Ah, moments later I found the limitation. When the Tascam saves your working copy, the file becomes 11 times larger. This makes sense, as the editable copy must have precise timing points attached to every part of your save. So a 2GB card will therefore hold less than a gig of songs. But that’s a problem for the future.
           There is something else not quite right on these recorders either. While I see the logic, most of the effects and processes are real time. For example, if I want to apply an effect, I can’t just click a button and it is done. Same with mastering. You have to sit there and wait for the whole song to play before the process is done. That gets time-consuming. It took me four hours to produce a single 4 part tune and export it. And get a good set of headphones. When overdubbing, the unit is very sensitive to feedback.
           And one more thing, Tascam. The transformer plug is located in a position where your official model wiring can get in the way of the USB port. Smarten up.
           God, I hate MicroSoft. I had to use their spreadsheet (Excel) again. They’ve taken all the commands used by intelligent people and hidden them. I’m going to assume you noticed that. This time the annoyance is when you set the global command to show the grid lines, it reverts to invisible when you open a new file. So it isn’t really global. May I live long enough to see that company file for bankruptcy.

EVENING
           Did I ever tell you about our school field trips when I was in kindergarten? The school loved field trips whenever it snowed. There was a bush north of the school and they’d send some grade nine boys ahead to tramp down a path. Then they’d give us kids a tin cup, glass was “dangerous” and we hiked out to a clearing. The surprise was always the same. The school sleigh had a big vat of scalding hot cocoa. Water, ground chocolate, and a smidgeon of sugar.

           No, not the modern recipes with added ingredients like tinned milk or vanilla flavoring “which is alcoholic you know”. But sometimes we had stale marshmallows. To this day, I don’t like stale marshmallows. The main component of hot cocoa is water and you have to keep stirring it or the cocoa settles out.
           Other schools made bus trips to Washington, DC, or Mt. Rushmore. There was talk of how some schools “in the city” got to go to Disneyland. Not us. We knelt in a snowbank at the “Indian Bush” and said grace for cheap foodstuffs.
           There was an educational component to this activity. The school counselor, an “outdoorsman” would show us the difference between a birch and an aspen. Because those are the only two trees that grew in the area.
           I’ll never be a recording star. I can’t sing effectively unless I am on a stage and can hear my own voice through a set of PA speakers. The Tascam recorder is very clear and I just cannot get into singing dry through a studio mic. Maybe it’s the atmosphere, it’s too artificial an environment for me. But there is a “narrator” setting for making video soundtracks that I come across clear and easy. That is, I can easily speak okay, just not sing it.
           The ratio of time to music on the Tascam seems to be four hours to produce each song. The basic recording not included. Also, expect long hours with headphones, as the unit is also sensitive to speakers in the room and any type of sound loop. To date I’ve only made live videos and the native sound often includes the whirring of room fans, a necessity in my place. I will shortly see if I can work the unit with my lapel mics as I’ve always wanted to make a video with professional audio.
           I will let you know when they turn up, but I have lost my two most-used tools. My expensive pliers and my fancy awl. I never used it as an awl. Just everything else, including poking air holes in jar lids that would not open any other way.
           Elliott, from out west, reports a huge increase in the price of shipping. I know I recoil at the thought of the $24 letter delivery. And he is shipping motor parts. My operation needs a new budget, too. Because I no longer have a gig, I looked in my cupboard to find 178 batteries, mostly AA and AAA. This can happen when you don’t change the budget to match reality.

ADDENDUM

           The Miami Herald, known locally as the “fag rag” devotes another eight pages and articles to their pet (ahem) cause, “gay rights”. What a sad day for democracy. Remember, every right given to a special interest group is a right taken away from the majority. I buy that newspaper only because they have two crosswords—and the other generally available paper, the Sun, is even worse.
           These people were fighting for their own personal agendas, not some noble cause for the benefit of all mankind. That’s why I don’t respect them. This is not be the first time the world has been subjected to disgusting spectacles of self-centered fringe elements declaring victory.
           Another favorite Herald is the illegal immigration thing. On they go about how the immigrants take jobs Americans won’t do. Yeah? Cut off welfare and we’ll see about that.


Last Laugh

January 6, 2015

MORNING
           In another sign our club is progressing, I was able to invert the operation of the normally closed switches. It doesn’t work perfect, but I have my red scooter back without having to open the seat to get at the battery compartment every time I want to start up. This is the finished product, that was one greasy grimy job. This might cause a few smiles that something like this made the blog, but such a task was unthinkable around here not that long ago.

           While “under the hood”, I see that my horn somehow got wet and needs replacing. How did that happen? Here’s a tale from the trailer court. As I changed my into my work clothes an old dollar bill must have fell out of my shirt pocket. The neighbor found it lying on my stoop. He asked if I get women into my bedroom by leaving a trail of dollars?
           I didn’t get it. But I did ask him how it is was he even thought of things like that. Then I got it, and shortly afterward, I got the intended joke. Geez, I must be slow. But not as slow as his wife must be.

           Up I went to Home Depot to get the wiring and hardware for my new starter. On the return leg, that lady over on Cedar waves me over, I’ve never talked to her before. The one with the long grey hair that walks her dog all day. Yes, ma’am, what do you want? Would I, she asks, stop my scooter and walk it past whenever I see her because the motor scares her dog. I told her, lady, I have good news. The whole trailer court used to think you are crazy, but that’s changed. I no longer think you crazy, rather just ordinary inconsiderate and incredibly self-centered. That seemed to make her happy.
           Trivia. I noticed today those plastic wine corks are the identical diameter as PVC plumbing pipe. Hmmmm. But the wine tasted okay anyway. Or at least, didn't taste any worse than usual.

NOON
           Oil at $50 per barrel, that is not necessarily good. I’ll explain. While some rejoice at $2 gas, the talk that this means that people have more money to spend. Lower prices do not create money, the people have the same amount as before and doesn’t matter where they spend it. What’s not obvious is that over the last decade, ever-higher per barrel prices were disguising the more serious problem of declining demand. Economies like Saudi Arabia cannot survive for long without a minimum price of around $80 per barrel. Canada’s oil sands faces a similar problem.

           In a sense, what the economists tried to do in the seventies is finally underway. Lifestyles have changed and vehicles have become more efficient. Combined with less driving, loss of industry, renewable technology, and the general move of the west away from wasteful usage is, I deduce the beginning of a long-term lowering of demand. And another lesson that it takes two generations for a cultural changes to have any effect.
           OPEC views the drop as a temporary slump, but it does represent the largest price drop ever, and it dropped from the highest price ever. They can’t be happy about that demonstration of volatility. The long term projection is for oil demand to rise, but that is because of developing countries. Either way, there are millions of dollars per day not leaving America and that will have some effect shortly. I’m watching.
           Today’s Herald had seven articles on the “victory” of gay marriage, as if everyone does know by now which way that paper leans. They’ve been running an article a day for years on the topic and somewhere, they finally found a Florida Judge trying for some brownie points. It establishes a sad precedent. Nor do I appreciate their attitude that one cannot be pro-tradition without being “anti-gay”, because I do not believe in special rights for any sub-group.
           The sad truth is, the system caved to a fringe special interest group that has never shown an ounce of consideration for the society whose traditions they are destroying with their selfish, narcissistic agenda. And if anyone thinks this concession will finally shut the queers up, wrong. The homos are not quitting now until queer lessons are on the curriculum. As Anita Bryant said fifty years ago, since they can’t produce their own children, they have to recruit yours.

NIGHT
           Another successful rehearsal. As we progress, it is gradually clearer that we are a one-off band of some kind. The majority of our practice time is music theory in the sense of what sounds best. We were able to fake two songs we’ve never played before using technique only. That’s a shortcut that we need, the ability to fake songs without comping. I’ve always jammed this way and it is significantly different than following the guitarist. Trent is one of the few who listened and is now on his way.
           The other aspect of not comping is that you don’t have to be totally original. You merely have to give the majority of the audience something amusing that they’ve never heard before. Often it is as basic as altering the motif of the bass line depending on what part of the song is being played. Since this is extra work, it is too often not done. We have incorporated it from the start.

           Ready for a laugh? Trent and I dropped in at the local pub, where our influence is solidly in place. Gee, folks, it is okay to play country music on the jukebox. This joint is just up the road from here and Trent has not been there often enough to spot that we already have a solid influence on the atmosphere. We play country music on the jukebox, which others were hesitant to do before. It seems they just needed us to learn that it was okay. You can walk into the place now and hear classic redneck.
           Oh yes, the laugh. Double humor for me, because I have tons of experience being around the type of people get by on the attitude they are just as good as you are--and insist on it. Trent casually mentions that he’s got a government phone. This fat lady at the other end of the bar holds up her Obama-phone and says, “I got one, too!”

ADDENDUM
           There you have it, the advertisement for the perfect bass position in a working band. On Craigslist. Two problems, though. It is twenty years and forty miles both in the wrong direction. A set list right out of my past, it’s the band I was so desperately seeking in Miami – but back in 2000 when I played that kind of music. It pays $70 per week for a three set gig. And showing only a couple tunes on their list I’ve never played before. It is too far away or I’d snap it up.
           There is a Sunday gig, 90 minutes, pays $50 every week. The music is all charted out. But I’m not into playing at church, not since I was 13 and conducted the choir. In case anyone missed that, I was the conductor and organist, not a member of the choir. That is also a very sad story which I probably already told somewhere nearby. So it is not like there isn’t any work for a bassist. But I’d rather have the good money that ain’t steady.
           It has been three months since I was in a band and oddly, for the first time, I don’t miss the last band. You could be the best bassist on the planet would still be a flunky in that band. Ah, well, that band is capped right where they are unless they change that attitude, which is not going to happen. I never played in a band where I had less influence. To them, the bassist is support staff. No way could they deal with somebody who thought differently about that.

Last Laugh

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January 5, 2015

MORNING
           Okay. I’m cheered up again. I’m also up at 6:00AM. That’s the curse of the retirement class, waking up totally refreshed but far too early to set a good example. Then again, the only way to wake up raring is when you wake up whenever you please. What to do today? Stick around, let’s see how the old guy finds things to do. That’s one reason we like this silly blog. The painless source of information.

           Helium. The gas, not the comedy club or the site for smart phones and dumb people. Since my MeetUp connection was blah (remind me to cancel that membership), I looked at helium. It’s rare on Earth, but all known galaxies are at least 24% helium. But it is mostly in the center of really, really hot starts. Since we don’t use many zeppelins, what is this inert gas used for?

           As a refrigerant. Your kitchen model uses Freon, another inert gas, but if you want to make liquid hydrogen/oxygen rocket propellant, you use helium. It is a byproduct of natural gas refining. And the supply is dropping as new oil drilling is into shale deposits, which do not trap helium. This photo is Sir Ramsay, the discoverer of the gas. I like that, “Sir”. See, them Brits understand the proper treatment of scientists. And robotics enthusiasts.
           I’m clearly back in fine form. Thank you all for your heartfelt and immediate concern, but now I’m going to the Latino breakfast place. I missed Sunday and lordy knows I miss the spending money from my long-lost gig. Don’t worry, I’m focusing 100% on music as the only viable part-time venture left open to me that doesn’t seem like work.

NOON
           Okay, who is this rich lady? It’s Diane Hendricks and I’ll explain why she should dump whoever she’s seeing and take up with me. I first saw her when examining a list of who gave money to Paul Ryan’s election campaign. So she agrees with me the entire American system needs to be revamped and that this can’t happen gradually.

           She’s the richest woman in Wisconsin. So why should she pick me? Oh, there’s countless compelling reasons. For openers, I’ve never been to Wisconsin. She lost $800 million last year and I know what it’s like to lose such a chunk of one’s fortune, even if she did inherit it. (She’s the widow of the ABC building supply chain.) She is self-made, hey, keep it down back there! And listen what I say.

           She has seven kids, so I’ll assume she wants no more. She’s a farm gal and serial divorcee, so of course, we would not get married, but a FWB arrangement is best for all. I mean, consider the life she must have in Wisconsin, meeting nothing but fancy-pants suitors. She wants a real man, like me. For example, real men shun politics except to resist it, and I absolutely guarantee if the topic of politics comes up, I can sit there with a stunned look on my face. What more could a rich woman ask for?
           Ah, but some say, kids and divorces and inherited wealth are not high on my respect list. True, but here is an exception. Forbes Magazine, who after years of reading this blog obviously, finally took my advice and measured not wealth, but asks, “How far did they climb.” The scale is one to ten, with one being a totally useless twit who inherited every penny without a clue or contribution. Classic example: Steve Job’s wife, Laurene. That’s a one. Same with the Walton lady who married Sam Jr.

           At the other extreme, there is the dirt poor who clawed it to the top out of obscurity, classic example is Oprah Winfrey. She is a ten on the Forbes Scale. And that is the rating I would get if ever I get rich. Now Diane, she gets a nine for being co-founder of the company and signing the original loan papers in 1982 that started ABC. Ergo, she deserves a down-to-Earth guy like me.
           Note, on the same Forbes scale, Zuckerberg only gets an eight, because although he made his own money, he was born rich. This tells me Forbes is finally looking into that aspect of things, and gets my total admiration for addressing the issue. To anyone born after 1950, family environment is the single most important determinant of future success. And that’s how I know what it is like to have the first two-thirds of a life rotted away paying the bills until you earn the first dollar you can invest. Let’s not confuse poverty with starvation or such. Poverty can crush the most determined spirits. It can hold back even those who have done nothing wrong and made no big mistakes.

           Author's note: I don’t expect Forbes to pick up my other suggestion, which is that there are also several different grades of poverty. I recognize at least five grades, the worst being the brand [of poverty] resulting from self-chosen stupidity and recklessness. That is representative of the worst in society. The other extreme of poverty is those, who for no fault of their own, have poverty forced upon them by the very people to whom they looked to for hope and protection. It is sorrowful the way those unlucky few are lumped into the category of the lazy and listless and told to get on their bike and ride. There are wildly different categories of poverty.

           So, about the best thing for Diane is for her to hop the family Lear Jet down to Ft. Lauderdale this weekend. I’ll pick her up in the sidecar and we can trip the light fantastic as she gets to know me better. And realizes I am the new V-3, the one she needs, the Brave New World she’s been seeking, but never finding, in the rarified atmospheres of Oshkosh and Sheboygan.
           PS: my second choice is not, as rumored, Elizabeth Holmes. I disagree with her Forbes rating being raised because she was a dropout. Poor kids, the really poor, cannot drop out or they wither or are forced to take third-rate careers at the phone company. Her father is Christian Holmes IV and the school she dropped out of was Stanford. If she is self-made at all, it was not skill, but gambling with daddy’s money. Besides, her hideous black eye makeup makes her look like a you-know-what, if you ask me.

AFTERNOON
          Digging through my music files to find my drum settings, I see that the average tempo of the songs I play is 158.886 beats per minute. That’s over 32% faster than the default setting on drum boxes, which are geared toward guitar players (120 bpm). Which show would you rather walk in on Friday after work? This concept goes further, for I just got a call from JZ.
          Now, he says, he is at the casino that has a Karaoke show. And it is full of single women, like he is the one who discovered this. One got up and sang a song about being lonely, tore out his heartstrings. By the roots. Alright, this is the dude I could not drag to a Karaoke five years ago. About the same time as I failed to talk him into learning country guitar. Let’s us a moment review this. JZ has never seen me sing or perform on stage.

          No, not even the night last summer in Ft. Meyers Beach. I had to leave him behind to get there, by which time I’d missed my turn. He does, however, know that every time we’ve done a lounge instead of a bar, all the women were at our table. Henceforth, he wants to do this Karaoke show next Sunday and I told him, yeah, okay. He seems to have glommed onto Karaoke for the first time, and that is entirely likely in his case.
          He further reports the crowd loved country [music]. The hitch there is JZ does not know country when he hears it. JZ’s musical perspective is either she’s talking to him or she ain’t—and since he never learned guitar like I told him, she ain’t. So something must have impressed him. (I found out later he finally went to a Karaoke show and did what I told him, and had women approaching him. Remember, I never said we had trouble meeting women. That isn’t the problem at all.)
          I’d be remiss if I didn’t go find out what he is gung-ho about. I stopped in up the road on the way back from the post office. This pub is still new to me and I ran into several women I’ve already met there. I said hello. And that is it. Sorry gals, at your ages, it is all or nothing. Or shall I say it WAS all or nothing, as in past tense. I am not known for taking seconds, even my own. It’s immediate, positive, and exclusive, or I move on. Tell ‘em, Theresa.

EVENING
          This was a marathon club meeting as we finally found some clips that fit the batteries for the monster bike. We had been considering the expensive alternative of custom drilling plastic blocks until we found them for 30 cents each. The meeting began at the donut shop, where coffee and a muffin is now a $5.00 proposition, and lasted until 1:37 AM as we hunted for parts and know-how.

          Here is a photo of the battery pack used as a model. This is not the bicycle pack, merely a method of ganging the batteries together to get any multiple 3.7 volts. Shown here is us examining the special strips that bind the posts, it is a metal that melts like a fuse if any of the individual cells misbehaves. This is a constant obstacle, so we were looking into how others solved it on a larger scale.

          So you’ll know, we have nothing like the scale of batteries shown here. These batteries are “old” laptop Lion cells (lithium ion, don’t try this at home, there are two different types and you will invariably pick the wrong one), salvaged for the following reason. This is a secret, don’t tell anyone. When the laptop battery pack goes dead, it is usually only one of the cells. The others are still perfectly good and we have around 200 of them.
          These cells are each the 3.7 volts as just described. I’m not happy with how they are advertised, which is a misleading format of tiny units and big numbers. For example, I’m pointing to a cell that says 5600 mAh. That’s ridiculous, the standard should be amp-hours, not milliamp hours. It is easier to understand my point if they called in 5,600,000 microamp-hours or something equally ridiculous. The bottom line is the battery at full usage lasts less than an hour. That, we can relate to.
          As for the bike prototype, Agt. M does not understand his competition has fully equipped laboratories and workshops. We have but one advantage, in that we can learn from other people’s mistakes. There is probably a proper term, but I call this method the “Chinese Space Program”. Wait until America spends the billions to find out what doesn’t work, then build it so cheap they cry like babies.

Last Laugh
After all, he is drinking Lipton with the bag till in the cup.

January 4, 2015

MORNING
           First, food. I’m the breakfast rebel, I don’t believe there are breakfast foods. And I was a hungry man. So it was bourbon chicken this AM. Spicy food does not bother me, it only burns once. So it was the fiery Cajun style, not that ho-hummy eastern tenderfoot molasses goop. Bring it on. I was famished.

           A morning of moaning about things. Okay, so I woke up grumpy. But there are things that cause that and they are going to get it over my oatmeal. While I’m no rebel or revolutionary, I’m am always in defiance of the worst parts of what’s going on. Like the census claiming to be nothing but questions of local information. Except the information is required by law and there is no provision to opt out. They claim it is anonymous, but they got your address, did they not?

           The lowly comparator, the least understood circuit over here. The reason for that is although it is digital, it works on an analog input. It always was low on my priority list. Now that I’m out to learn it, I see most of the experts are in the same boat. Well, except they refuse to admit they don’t really know. How it works is easy, but I need to know enough about the characteristics to incorporate it into a circuit, and that’s where the existing literature fails. It’s like listening to a bunch of mechanics when you asked for a driving instructor.
           Companies you love to hate: Adobe. Constantly trying to shove the horrid Google Chrome on you every time you get one of their nonsense “upgrades”, not because you want the upgrade, but to stop their annoying popup messages. You can’t trick them anymore by downloading but never installing. Disgusting pack of losers, that Adobe, plus, they tamper with your computer registry. Gentlemen don’t do that kind of thing.

           And those westernized Chinese women they show in the movies. What’s the message with that? That the only liberated feminist oriental women are the ones who pretend they are white? And act like high-class hookers? Because if you’ve never seen the real role of women in Chinese society, it’s time you should. Because slavery is illegal in America, except to the credit card companies.
           Stereotyping. How about movies that start with some reject (social, police, military, space academy) and his/her recurring dream. You know, the dream that shocks them awake and they reach for a bottle of scotch. (Maybe they don't like bourbon?) The bright side is you know the agency is about to find him in his mountain cabin/Tibet/flophouse so he can save the world. So speaking of stereotypes, here are my favorite five stereotype quotes:

           “I bet you anything that 10 times out of 10, Nicky, Vinny and Tony will beat the shit out of Todd, Kyle and Tucker.” -George Carlin.

           “When you are about 45, something terrible happens to music.”

           “You never realize how the human voice can change until you hear a woman stop yelling at her husband and answer the phone.”

           “Love is cuddling on the couch. Marriage is deciding which couch.”

           “Popular in our time, unpopular in his. So runs the stereotype of rejected genius.”

           Mind you, I have always said that there is ALWAYS a reason for people being stereotyped and there are a lot of others who agree with me on that one. But I've also always said those who fit a stereotype have a duty to change themselves, not argue with the world. What's more, those who dislike stereotyping have things in common. They are boringly similar and are all talk. It’s like listening to ugly people call the world superficial. It’s so predictable, it becomes a stereotype. Love that circular logic! But only when I do it.

NOON
           Here’s the newest issue of the Canadian twenty dollar bill. It is the most common bill in the country, since, I suspect, anything smaller won’t buy anything. The bill is made of plastic, actually a polymer so it won’t tear. Anyway, this is the trivia. The maple leaf symbols all over the face of this bill is not native to Canada. The leaf on their flag is a sugar maple, but not the leaf on their money.

           It was uncomfortably warm today, so I was under the air-conditioning with a good book or two. Boy, anybody who doesn’t read books because of computers is really living in a vacuum. Even mediocre books that make it to print have better content than on-line editorial. I think media on the ether is built on crappy sensationalism so bad that their ratings drop if they dare to get the facts. Like that old priest “arrested for feeding the homeless”. None of that is true except that he got arrested.
           But isn’t it neat how, once he saw his own spin on the six o’clock, he started whistling that tune himself? The homeless, my eye. All he was doing was making sure the beggars and pickpockets were well-fed. He was turning the center of one of the finest beaches in Florida into a haven for druggies and queens of the twenty dollar paycheck. You like that last phrase, do you? Good, because I invented it.
           And one more thing I'll add. I sat down for my tea and looked in the package. I buy the large family size that makes the whole pot of tea with one bag. What? Talk about inflation. Same box, same price, but the number of bags dropped from 36 to 24.

EVENING
           I was at the Paradiso. We rescheduled rehearsal for another night. Told you, I’m not feeling right. That even explains the movie, “Good-bye To All That”. A fantasy comedy about a divorced guy who scores all these super-hot women on the dating sites that his ex gets jealous. Yeah, sure. Must have been written in LA during the early days of Internetting. Did I just coin a verb?

           Didn’t I say how I canceled my membership in the university dating club? That was a joke, half those women have never been anywhere near a campus. The few okay ones were a little too close to their mothers. When over 50, this is not always a good marketing plan. And they were all still hung up on the age thing.
           Contrast this to my attitude that any women over 32 who isn’t married yet ain’t too young for anything that comes along. If I’m wrong, prove it. And when you can’t, it’s back to teenage dating philosophy: if they are all going to turn into beyotches anyway, at least pick the pretty one.

           I always pick the pretty one. But that’s only good advice for guys who have grown a pair. Sorry, Ken. Anyway, that dating club was upscale, but I did detect a money game going on. According to what those women said, they don’t enjoy the less-expensive things in life. It costs money to hike in Colorado and sail in Mexico. Moonlight on the beach and weekend getaways don’t come cheap, you know. What I’m not okay with is how they try to be coy about the fact you need an income they can enjoy.

           Anyway, the movie was unrealistic. The girls you went to summer camp with forty years ago are not, by today, divorced sex goddesses. Hell, I saw pictures of my 30th high-school reunion (which I did not attend as I was living in S. America at the time) and didn’t recognize any of the women. I would have had quite some difficulty picking the pretty one over there, so I stayed in S. America. Where you date who you want to date, not the one Ann Landers tells you is right for you. Never did care for age-appropriate women if they are over 30.
           True, those women picked the pretty ones themselves. But they married them, cheated on them, divorced them, and now blame the world. Myself, I don’t recall having done anything of the kind. That’s partially why, in the movie I just watched, I’m not buying that at the party, the first woman he meets invites him on a week-long scuba class in the tropics. Or that as an office worker, he can afford a house of his own the day after he gets the divorce notice.
           So in all, I rate this movie as a cleverly disguised chick-flick. He even meets a wild sex kitten that flat out tells him that’s all she wants. But he is too kind and sensitive to accept anything less than a relationship. Like I said, chick flick.

Last Laugh
Here's my stereotypical image of the fat lady's fridge.

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January 3, 2015

MORNING
           A full evening on the new Tascam recorder taught me to avoid the on-board editing features. Besides, I feel if a person cannot play through an entire tune right, why are they recording it? Talent cannot be produced or reproduced in a studio. That’s why a lot of indie (independent) music sounds like a string of corrected mistakes. It is basically a Boss recorder with an SD disk (tard-card).

           So this morning is a repeat of my first report on the Tascam. I searched for something new or novel or innovative on this device and failed to find any such things. Anyway, here goes with what is mostly the same report over again.
           No matter how you slice it, these are still the same family of single-track recorders. The Tascam can record two, but that’s a joke. If the entire band can’t be miked and recorded synergistically, you will never get anything but that shallow and layered indie sound.
           Can you imagine a Tascam-Boss concert? First the drum comes up and plays the song solo. Then he vacates and the guitar player solos. Then the bassist. Somebody should inform these companies that is not how music is created, but I suspect the bums already know that.

           What is the name of that term for marketing by degrees? Where the manufacture won’t release a new product until his [existing] inventory of junk is sold. All makers of these “pocket studio” machines are alike this aspect, how do you spell “c-o-l-l-u-s-i-o-n”? I doubt many people ever use all the bells and whistles built into these recorders. The factory would do a better job using the resources to add more input jacks.
           The unit is also geared toward the guitar player. Built-in click tracks, tuner, this kind of nonsense because you just never know when you’ll have your Clapton moment. It will record one mic and one guitar simultaneously, but every other instrument has to be separately added. Hardly the band sound but then, we now have an entire generation raised on the bland clatter of layered recordings. They have been trained to prefer shallow.
           Worst feature of these recorders? The music cannot be exported in an editable format. Whether one track or the whole song, you must convert the file to WAV to read it on a computer. WManipulatingWAV files is all or nothing. The Tascam LED screen is so tiny, I pity the soundman who tries to use it to get any real work done.
           The manual is poorly written at the advanced chapters where you need the most help. It keeps saying you “can” do something without giving directions. All in all, the unit does what it says. Even if it doesn’t say it very clearly.

NOON
           I did more recording. My early experience was with a rich kid I knew who had a studio at his house. It was fun but nothing ever came of it. There are odd photos around of me at the control panel. But I was never a recording type, I’m a performer. Lineham. Bob Lineham. That was the name of the rich kid. His parents owned a farm on the edge of town. When the town became a city, they got themselves very, very, very rich.

           You see, they didn’t sell out first chance like the other farmers. They waited until the city completely surrounded their 640 acres and then leased the bad land parcels to a series of developers. What Bob called a “tax plus” lease. I see from aerial photos, they still have the old farmhouse on twenty private acres. Manicured acres. City Hall has repeatedly tried to tax them off the land, but they just pass the cost on to the furious tenants.
           There is a similar arrangement in Florida on an Island called Biscayne. The toll bridge to the island is in private hands. But hey, it prevents eminent domain fiascos like in downtown Hollywood.
           I watched the movie “Mars”, this time online. It is better than at the movies since I could stop it when things got too anthropomorphic aor mushy. So this is actually my third day of watching it and he still hasn’t done the wild thing. Most innovative character is that lizard dog that can go 0-60 faster than a married woman with a credit card. These older sci-fi movies raise a lot of questions. Like how do these heroes spontaneously know how to kiss a Martian woman? And, ahem, where?
           But always remember, you budding John Carters, Hollywood alien women are always as childish and indecisive and neurotic and spinny as Earth women. Martian as they are supposed to be, they’ve learned constantly push the limits of what they can get away with. How, the more clever of you ask, do I know this? Easy. My ex-wife was NOT like that. In fact, she had this little five minute act where she pretend to be that way to remind me of how good I had it. Put another way, my wife showed me repeatedly how the way most adult women behave is play-acting that can be copied as a joke.
           The most important thing she taught me was that so-called women’s intuition is nothing more than an a I-told-you-so attitude. Constantly predict failure and of course you’ll appear psychic to the lower orders.

EVENING

           I took one of those on-line tests to see what my stereotype was. It said I was “nothing extraordinary, but had good friends”. Then I thought, isn't being nothing extraordinary also a stereotype. Return tomorrow as I give you some quotes on being stereotype.
           Personally, I can tell you acting stereotype makes people put down their guards. But that's another story. How about these things called "self-guided tours"? WTF is that? Isn't that just a tour? Anyway, that's what I thought until I discovered in the state of Georgia, self-guided means there is an admission fee.
           So here is a map of stereotype America. Enjoy.

ADDENDUM
           I found some other usage for the Tascam that utilizes the track by track feature. What you do is use an excellent app like Audacity (the older versions are often better than the post-Vista releases). Use Audacity to open your desired music, normally an MP3. Then export it with the following settings. WAV file at 16-bit PCM and 44.1kHz sampling. You MUST use this setting or the Tascam will balk.

           You'll find the correct settings at the bottom of the drop-menu on the track display, called "Set Sample Format" and "Set Rate". See diagram. Rename your to-be-exported file in the 8.3 form, that is 8 alphanumerics max and the 3 letter extension must remain WAV. You must rename the file using Audacity before the export or there is a chance the Tascam won’t pick it up. But, kiddies, there was a time when all files had titles like DntRckJk.wav. Don’t Rock The Jukebox, get it?

           All the conversions will be done during the export, Audacity is automatic about this. You may be tempted to format the file first, then export it, but that is another Audacity step that is not necessary and is just one more thing to remember. In this instance, use the easy way I’ve described and already tested for you.
           You export this WAV file from Audacity to your hard drive, not to the Tascam card. I suggest you open a directory file for nothing but these files and always use it. Why? Because it turns out better to remove the SD card from the Tascam and slip it into your computer card reader. Then you drag to copy the file onto the SD card into the folder called WAVE. You see what I’m cautious about? Don’t get in the foolish habit of renaming files or folders after they are on an SD card. Or you will be sorry.
           You could, of course, do all this file juggling by using the USB cable that comes with the Tascam. But not only do you have to keep the cable handy, you will find that using it disables the Tascam functions and when you remove the USB cable after you are done, it reboots the Tascam. This can be maddening. In all, the USB cable is more trouble than it is worth.
           Copy this new WAV to your Tascam card. At this point, it gets a bit tricky. Don’t proceed until you create a new blank song on the Tascam. Then use the Tascam import menu to copy your WAV file to channels 7/8. You need both tracks because we shall assume your original file was stereo. At this point you’ll need some advice instead of instructions.

           Advice, unless you are absolutely certain you know better, never record anything on channel 7. You will regret it if you don’t always leave one channel free, and the arbitrary choice is 7, sometimes 6. I have no idea why this is. However, since in this special case, you want to use channel 8 and the tracks must be paired, so you will use channel 7 and 8 as left and right stereo. In my opinion, reputable manufacturers would not create this bottleneck. Now back to the next step.
           Once you have the file on tracks/channels 7 and 8, you can use it for any manner of recording. My motive was to record the bass lines I play on channel 4. When I have a bass line good for learning or demo, I erase the backing music and make a master bass line.            For consistency, you should always put the vocals on channels 1 and 2, the guitar on channel 3, bass channel 4, keys 5, other 6. I suspect channel 1 is better built that the others. QED.

Last Laugh

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January 2, 2015

MORNING
           You know what I miss about living out west? Shopping at Freddy Meyers. He’s got more sense than all of DC put together and he is too good to run for President, although I think he should have (he passed away in 1978). He’s the guy who really pioneered the off-highway shopping mall, planning his stores along projected highway routes. A lot of the fancy ideas people think came from California, like banning plastic bags, once again, came from Washington State. Here’s a Freddy Meyers at the end of the rainbow.

           That’s interesting, the intro to “Jambalaya”, once I figured it out, is the identical notes to “Folsom Prison Blues”. Another technique left out by many duos is what I call coming in off the fifth. It basically means if the song is in G, the intro to the song is in D (right, the fifth note above G) and resolves to the root. For some reason this process confounds guitar players on stage so it is normally omitted. Ah, but I’m not a guitar player, so we do it on around 25% of our tunes.
           At that point, it becomes a simple matter to embellish the bass part to play at least some of the instrumental notes from the studio version. Hence my rep for “playing lead” on the bass. But this is not to be confused with over-playing. You never over-play the band nor the audience, at least I don’t. However, if one wants to outclass the rest of the band, it is open season. Twenty thousand. That’s how many hours of dedicated practice needed to outclass the band. But by then, you completely outclass them.

NOON
           What? I have not mentioned food this year? Give me a moment to think of something novel. Okay, how about rice paella? It’s pretty much the same as any rice dish but with seafood I don’t normally dine on. It had crabs, oysters, mussels, you know the garbage disposal animals of the ocean. But the dish has won so many awards, I went out and bought a package. Store-bought with spicy rice and a small tin of morsels, so I can say it's home made.. It’s like seafood gumbo but cooked together rather than piled on the rice.

           I’d give you a recipe except it seems to be around 60 recipes, some of which were nothing like the dish I made. Here, I found a photo that resembles what I had. Go to allrecipes to see what I mean.
           Alas, this item is on my restricted list, as in one cup serving per month. Sigh. Oh, here’s something unusual, which this blog is good for--the unusual. The search criteria I use to look up what I’m allowed kept finding the name of the actress Gwyneth Paltrow. Since I’m not into middle-aged mothers no matter what they do for a living, I looked.
           It seems she’s given up all the same foods I did, but she’s in detox. GMOs, white bread, milk, factory food, she is swearing it all off for the year. Let’s see if she lasts. But I’ve always wondered how easy would be to diet when you have a chef making the meals for you.
           Anyway, what a coincidence. Same diet, different people. I’m cantankerous that way. Actresses of a certain age (but not musicians) should step down and let somebody younger have a chance. I’m just not into anything fake. She dyes her hair, but wants natural fare. So, do I, Gwyneth, so do I.
           This is not really food but inflation has hit my blood thinner. That’s correct, I drink my dosage in the form of Alka-Seltzer. That’s 325 mg of A.S.A., one tablet per day. Years ago when I learned there were possible side effects from this acidic medicine, I took it with water. I learned to prefer the lemon-lime flavor. Wallace liked it as well, saying it cleared his mouth, which makes sense. But the price is now $10 for 36 tablets of what is basically buffered baking soda.
           There, that’s my obligation to report on food without resorting to standard taste tests or swapping recipes. And it’s not easy to walk that tightrope in this day and age with the Internet covering almost every angle. Oh, and on the paella, I would be allowed more if I could have it with chicken instead of seafood. So I’ll go over all those different recipes, don’t give up hope. If you have not tried it and are a fan of rice, you really ought to.

AFTERNOON
           Here’s a picture of a prototype e-bike leaned against a sidecar (under the blue tarp) next to a scooter. If you see this kind of thing regularly, or just a bit, or even at all, we’d like to talk to you. For the intellectually curious, this is the re-wiring of the new and expensive controller, which required hours today I would compare [effort] with the work done by any 15 men elsewhere, and I’m not just spouting.

           Look as closely as you like to see the wealth of resources. Not just the grease, heat gun, shrink tubing, cutters, wrenches tape, pens, towels, and, well, cameras. You don’t even see the cords and saws and grinders, nor the entire support system required to carry things at this level. We are not building some boy scout shoe box over here.
           I guess what I’m getting at is that it is not the iced tea and pineapple juice and plastic chairs and country music and Jap oranges not shown in this photo. It is the oh, so rare, non-critical, comfy and encouraging place to work. Seriously, neighbors pulled up benches to watch.
           The resolution is crummy, but we found and ordered an Argus 1610, so future photos are likely to get better. That Argus, that’s the original camera that changed this blog from prose only. Some laugh at such a 0.3 megapixel camera, but you know, I laugh at their 0.3 lack of accomplishment in life.
           I also have this great incentive stimulus package for DC. Quit giving free money to the banks. Like me, they are unlikely to spend it. Give it to stupid poor people because the only thing they know about money is how to spend it as quickly as possible. That’s how you kick-start the economy. Give me free cash and the last thing I’ll do is pump it back into circulation. Jeez, you guyz.
           Return tomorrow for a treat. I thought to show the 14 photos, on average , required to have one like shown above. These are not posed so it takes all kinds of time and pixels to find the single nice or best photo you encounter in this blog. Real life don’t work that way, so examine the proof sheet, which I’ll shoot for tomorrow.

ADDENDUM
           My IQ? I’ve been tested three times by professionals. Once for the military, once for a management test, and once for my Mensa application. All three results were identical, my IQ is exactly 100. As I’ve said, the average ten year old can beat me at chess. He could probably best me at checkers, tiddlywinks, bicycle racing, and any other kid’s game as well. (You can infer from that what I think of adults who still play at such things.)
           The traditional IQ test is that which compares intellectual age to chronological age and nothing else. It does not measure the creativity of ’tards or the fantasies of dreamers because it was never designed to do so. As I pointed out years ago, if everyone woke up tomorrow twice as smart as they are tonight, the average IQ would still be 100. Using that test, the average American is 1% smarter than the average Canadian. With Canada ranking below Mongolia.

           Countries With The Highest Average IQ
           Rank Country Average IQ (Matching scores are listed alphabetically.)
           1 Hong Kong 107
           2 South Korea 106
           3 Japan 105
           4 Taiwan 104
           5 Singapore 103
           6 Austria 102
           6 Germany 102
           6 Italy 102
           6 Netherlands 102
           10 Sweden 101
           10 Switzerland 101
           12 Belgium 100
           12 China 100
           12 New Zealand 100
           12 United Kingdom 100
           16 Hungary 99
           16 Poland 99
           16 Spain 99
           19 Australia 98
           19 Denmark 98
           19 France 98
           19 Mongolia 98
           19 Norway 98
           19 United States 98
           25 Canada 97
           25 Czech Republic 97
           25 Finland 97

           Real IQ tests don't work until you are at least 16 years old, preferably 21. The reason is that like, height, children have vastly different behaviors and rates of learning, etc, which tend to move back to the norm after time. At age 21, most people have stopped getting any taller. And the IQ test is based on measured norms, not wildly varying data. I'm often asked about my IQ. It is 100. Exactly normal. Always has been. I took a Mensa test once and landed on my ass.
           Sorry, single moms, your children do not have IQs of 130 and neither do you. Montessori tests are designed to average out at 120 so you'll buy in. In real life, IQ is extremely sensitive, a person with 105 IQ will breeze through grade school, a person with a 95 IQ would be unable to tie his own shoelaces. And none of you have ever met anyone with an IQ of 110. I could disprove such claims by merely asking where you met or what you talked about. Can't fool me on that one, Wallace.

Last Laugh
Guys, try to remember in 2015, it's pillage, then burn.

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January 1, 2015

MORNING
           Trent found this radio station in Texas, called Country Legends frequency 97.1. That link may not work, but if you are a traditional country fan, that’s the station you want to hear. Nothing like it in Florida.
           I got the recorder working and cut another no-hit on it. Titled “The Sunny Isles of Walgreen”, it is a walking tour of the pharmacy in the people’s key, E. A twelve-bar blues number. As usual, the directions that came with the machine get woefully inadequate near the end chapters, right when you need the most help. For instance the manual casually mentions that you “can” modify your track files into WAV format but not that you absolutely must do so or a computer can’t see them.

           But it does not tell you that to do that you have to “export” the data to itself and the conversion is automatic. It automatically reformats the file to WAV and places it in a directory you cannot see on the recorder. You can, however, see it on a computer. Anyway, how on Earth no-tech people are supposed to figure this out is not explained. Also, the mastering function on the recorder is bad-ass tricky to use, it is better to do your editing during the mixdown stage. The earphone jacks, even on full blast, never get loud enough for you to truly hear every note.

           While tackling this device, I watched “Resident Evil” on youTube. It starts okay but breaks into a predictable zombie movie at around 40 minutes. In all, it is cliché after that. You know, the memory loss thing that affects movie actors infinitely more often than the general populace. I’ve got it figured out. The special effects colleges all over the country taught no make-up artistry classes except zombies from 1985 onward. Around the same time, there was a bankruptcy at the fake blood factory and two million gallons of the stuff went to auction in Mendocino county.
           Couple this with the fact that it is plain hard work to invent new and scary monsters. So it is not that the make-up artists are just plain stupid and unimaginative, but that they honestly don’t know any better. They can be hired by the dozen and any actor in the DiCapprio mold knows he can get work hobbling around stiff-legged and chanting “Imhotep”. And that’s your scary movies from your Class of 91. The nothing-new generation.

NOON
           Here is Agt. M back from the cruise. The monster bike is ready to go, though it is no longer a convenient vehicle for the average rider. Shown here is dismantling the battery casing because we fried the controller. That’s $400 down the drain. This is a progressing field so that loss is worse than it seems if you factor in that right after the money was spent, a new model came out that uses Bluetooth programming from an iPhone. The replacement is just $160. We will soon have a $10,000 prototype on our hands.

           What a terrible day, must be another weather pattern pushing down from the north or another ocean storm. The referral to Florida as “the tropics” is a misnomer, it gets cool here in the wintertime. Agt. M has some experience dismantling scooters (the monster bike has scooter handlebars and brakes) so we are going to have a crack at finding that open in the starter wiring. Check with us tomorrow.

           For those people who complain the new rush of pirated videos on youTube look funny, I will for free tell you what to attempt first. See what a great guy I am? Okay, the red blocks are not some new anti-copy mechanism. What’s happened is your view is set in 3D and you should turn that off. Secondly, these movies are uploaded by idiots and sometimes you see the top half of your movie is cut off. That means it was uploaded in Windows 7 using the Google Chrome browser thing, sometimes called “the Walmart” setting.
           What’s happening is your regular setting uses different drivers. You have two basic choices. Log on using the Walmart settings, which means allowing Google Chrome to take over your computer and snoop into your files, or download the drivers that work, which can be a daunting task. There may be other ways to work around this aspect ratio problem, but I don’t know what they are. I’m just trying to help as best I can here. While I don’t advocate piracy, I don’t advocate movie producers and browser companies fucking with your computer even worse.

NIGHT
           Here is the club meeting adjourned over to the donut shop, which is why I’m late today. I had to get out of the house. This is Agt. M researching flashlights, the only thing that has come down appreciably in price. We use these flashlights as headlamps on the electric bicycles, as they are the only models powerful enough that don’t gulp expensive batteries whole. Now, I have a tale from the trailer court for you, because the club, now years old and established, has plenty of cash for these outings, so we got to talking about his cruise.

           Now don’t go telling him I said all this, but he is going through exactly what I predicted long ago. Now in his mid-30s, he’s finding the supply of women has dried up. The only leftovers are the fussy, the unhealthy, and those women who for some reason or other just don’t fit in anywhere. So, here’s the report from his voyage.
           The passengers on the ship were about 50/50 in age and gender. Naturally, the only really single women, as opposed to the ones who lie about it, are in the predictable 18 to 22 range. That narrows things down to less than ten women on a cruise with 3,200 passengers. I know about these things.
           He did not take my advice and move in for the kill instantly. Why? Because he still believes in being the nice guy. Those few women are quickly going to find each other and start talking. Trust me, being on board a ship is akin to living in a small Texas town, or really any small town. You might as well marry the first gal you talk to, because that will be a barrier to every woman you ask out after that. “Oh, I thought you were seeing Sally. You broke up? What’s wrong with you?”
           Sure enough, and although nobody likes to admit I’m right, he ran into the second problem of trying to find a date while on vacation: Parents. To every parent, a man more than two years older than the daughter is the enemy, at least until the daughter is 22 and mom is chewing her fingernails down to the first knuckle. You must never allow a young woman you just met an interval to talk to her mother. I hate to state things that some may consider brutal, but I learned the hard way. Come on, Sally, admit I’m right.

           Bottom line? He hesitated and lost. By the second time he ran into these individual women, on the second night of the cruise, they had formed a group. A “bevy of broads” as my childhood pal, Graham Smith, used to say. Agt. M no longer stood a chance. Basically, he spent the remainder of the cruise chatting with them. And that is why, in my day, we would say he never scored. As with most men, he stubbornly resists admitting the problem is precisely, including choice of words, is as I've described. Worse, the one or two female exceptions you will meet after age 32, if you are lucky, are not anywhere near enough to tip the scales.
           Age 32, as I’ve described for men, is the crucial year. There was nobody around to tell me this, of course. While I was 32, I believed everything I told myself. (Hey, I like that last sentence. What a neat philosophy.) Because there were no respected or respectable older people around who could be trusted to give good advice. That’s as true today as it was every day of my life. Like my family, most people will never give you advice you can use, instead they will say whatever they vainly think will make themselves look or sound good. The working class version of political correctness.
           We even had a term for my family doing this: “getting elected”. It has become the preferred method for manipulating the Nobel Prize committee (not that anybody I'm related to ever got that far with it). Today it is called being politically correct. There is no limit to the suffering a liberal can imagine you should endure. The major problem with all liberal systems is that eventually the money runs out.

ADDENDUM
           This topic is purposely buried in an addendum, but today is the effective second anniversary of my warning letter to seven different magazine editors in America. That’s the letters where I advised them a least somebody on each of their staffs were plagiarizing this blog. You can look back to see if I named the magazines, but I have no reason to list them today. Reason? Because although I could not and did not prove a thing, the plagiarism stopped almost instantly and has not recurred.
           What I had hoped for was credit. I suggested that I would not mind my work being cited. Not one of them took me up on that offer. They smelled a rat. But again, since the badness stopped practically the day after, I’ve had no cause to go further. They were nice enough about it to not demand proof or examples. But they must have held the meeting.
           It was not merely a word or two here and there in as expected during plausible research, but entire paragraphs and concepts of my original material were being wholesale looted from these pages. Often not even reworded, and yes, that made me angry. There is no credible claim of fair usage at that level. These magazines were major players and I had to put a stop to it.

Last Laugh

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