A busy Friday

 But aren't they always? 

I slept in too late to go to Sunnyvale to busk, and didn't really feel up to it anyway. 

Last night I took a big oscilloscope apart and put the parts out front, and then did a practice session, and eventually went to bed. 

I woke up, had nothing small to add to the small things I'd already packed, so I took off a half-hour early and dropped the things off at the post office, then went up to Dai Thanh market for some things, H Mart, and picked up packing stuff on the rest of the way home. 

No one had picked up the oscilloscope parts, not any of them, which was surprising. So once I got back and gave out feedback and relaxed a bit, I loaded up the parts and took them over to the area by the bridge, to have 'em far away from here. I was going to put some other stuff there too, but a zombess started squawking in my direction about something. 

With zombies it's hard to tell if they're squawking because they're happy or angry or just hungry for brainnnnnnns. After dropping off the parts I rode up the street to where I could cross and headed back, and when I passed the bridge the zombess was still squawking. So I wasn't going to go back and the other things will just have to wait. 

I went through the boxes of circuit boards and a couple of other places and found a dozen old things that will never sell or have actually dropped off of Ebay's system, and along with other bits and pieces from getting 20 things ready to list, I had another junk box full. I've put that out and it will be interesting to see if anyone takes it. 

And ... no one took it other than 3 old Samsung tablets haha. I'll have to get rid of the stuff later. 

I left here too late to consider going to Sunnyvale, so I went to the Whole Foods on The Alameda. It was actually nice weather, not too hot. 

There was a Gypsy woman with a drugged-up kid or two, on the other side of the entrance and a big cardboard sign, SINGLE MOTHER yadda yadda. And No Feet was there in his wheelchair, hustling hard for his vodka. 

I set up much closer to the actual entrance to Whole Foods and started at 7:30, with the result that I made a whole dollar while No Feet hustled the hell out of people and seemed to get both a lot of "drops" and some pretty big ones. I moved a bit closer to where he was to be more visible, in an attempt to make more than a dollar, without any result. After almost an hour, the "lovely" Stella came to collect No Feet and wheeled him off. 

Now I was able to move over by the bike racks, and it was still a bit slow, but other than the Gypsy woman who was quiet and only periodically left her spot and came back, probably for bathroom breaks and to top up the drugs the kid was doped up with, I had the place to my own. 

I noticed a guy's bike basket was decorated with a couple of really neat hawk or owl feathers, and when the guy came back out we talked about the feathers and where they were found, etc. He was down from Menlo Park and I gave him some good tips regarding transit, and just before leaving he said "Here's something for you" and I got a $20. Cool. 

Now I felt a bit better and decided I'd just chug along until 9:30 and see how it goes. I was able to work on a couple of good busking standbys, "Summertime" and "My Favorite Things" and while it felt slow, I eventually made $59 for this session. That actually works out to just under $30 an hour and with zero transit costs since I'd just come on my bike. 

When I was done I went into Whole Foods and put $20 on my clipper card so tomorrow I can take the train to Sunnyvale if I feel like it. 

The guy at the Whole Foods help desk where I was putting the money on my card and I talked for a bit. He asked how it was, and I said it was slow, mainly because for the first hour I'd had to compete with No Feet.  He really hustles hard, we agreed. And yes, he said, he comes in and the only thing he ever buys is a bottle of vodka. And the Gypsy woman is there quite a bit too. 

Honestly, this Whole Foods is in an interesting part of town in that it's a nice looking area, but there are bum camps all along the river, which is not far away. And there are really sketchy areas just a street or two away. In fact, that I decided to, and accomplished, holding out until 9:30, I noticed some guy with a one of those sit-down scooter things - usually pretty bulky - and had this festooned with flags and junk and was probably going to do some begging, but decided against it since I was there. He'll make more up the street at the late-night liquor store or outside San Pedro Square which is walled off and restricted entry, but has tons of people milling around outside... 

It's funny, I've been able to do my thing without spending much in Whole Foods these days. That's the funny thing about the "keto" diet, in that it sounds more expensive but it's generally cheaper. If I weren't going back on the "keto" plan I could at least get no-alcohol beer, which has some taste varieties these days. 

The only "keto" alcoholic drinks are things like vodka, whisky, etc. Gin is iffy. The thing to avoid is mid-priced gin because that will be full of sugar. Cheap gin won't have much sugar if any because sugar's a cost, and expensive gin like Tanqueray or Bombay won't have much sugar because sugar in gin is gross. Years ago my go-to was this really cheap gin called Essex and diet tonic water. Probably the ultimate "keto" alcohol is vodka because no one ever puts any sugar in any vodka, and you don't have the strong, often smoky, flavor/aroma of drinks like whisky and it doesn't need a mixer like gin does. I've both lost weight on vodka, and maintained weight loss on vodka. It all comes down to how much sugar/carbs your letting into your diet. 

 

Might as well call him "Wimpy"

 Ken came by last night and I got my check, but of course to only deposit on TOOOOOOOOsday. For a hamburger, today. (Actually he did bring me a hamburger, as he's always afraid as any American would care about another, that I haven't eaten beef at least once that day.) 

At least his latest hinky reverse-mortgage scheme seems to be proceeding. The appraiser came out and too photos, and now it's just a matter of their lowballing Ken on his house and cutting him a check or however it works out, and then his financial problems should be held at bay for another year or so, and since my plan is to be out of here in 14 months, it will work out fine for me. 

When Ken was gone I photo'd 20 things and listed 10 of them. It seems I can't list more than 10 at a time, it's just too much work along with all the other things I have to do. 

I woke up around 3:30 maybe closer to 4, had my breakfast etc., and packed this one big thing that I'd collected a special box, from some kind of baby buggy or something, for it yesterday. The thing is not only large but made of glass and the last one like I shipped, broke. So I'm being extra careful this time. 

 

Monday was Monday

 And not much to write about. I shipped some things off, bought things to stock up like beef and pork which I portioned out and put in the freezer, and other such boring things. I also packed some big things to ship today. 

Today I woke up at almost 3, which was OK because I got out of here at almost 4. I dropped off trash at this one trash can  I use, dropped off donations at the little free library in Japantown, dropped off packages at the post office, and went to the bank and deposited my latest pay check - the one I'd been given last week. And the math all comes out perfect so nothing's bounced. 

Then I went down to Walmart for a bunch of things, and rode back here. I put the things away, put some much-needed air in the bike trailer tires, and loaded up the big things. Those went to FedEx, and I got eggs and Kewpie mayo at H Mart, and came back here. 

 

Well, maybe a bit of busking

 Yesterday I not only listed the 20 things I had photographed, having fixed the picture posting problem, but I also gave myself a haircut, started a load of laundry, and took a big high voltage power supply apart and got 20 more things ready to list. As in, all cleaned, labeled, etc., so I only have to photo them and list them. 

I even got some practice in. 

I woke up too late to go to Sunnyvale though. To be there at a realistic time, I need to leave here at 4 and I woke up at something like 3:30 so that was out. 

So while I didn't feel like going out busking at all, I told myself I should do it one day a week anyway, and "plan your work and work your plan" and got out of here a bit after 7 I guess. 

I played at the Whole Foods on The Alameda and it was an interesting session, in that the tips started with a $20 and then another $20, and then finally a single. I put the $20s in my wallet for safety and busked on, telling myself I've done OK already and I can always count it as practice. 

It got chilly with the wind and general lowering of temperature, and since I'd started at 8:00 I made up my mind to stick things out until 9:30 and I actually managed to. When I did the count-up I found, among the singles and a $5, a $100. I have no idea who put that in there. 

One thing I've realized is that I think a lot of people who tip hang back and listen and sort of "evaluate" and I'm not even conscious that they're there. Of course I'd barely set up and played a single "Amazing Grace" to get warmed up and a lady put that first $20 in there so this is not always the case, but I think a lot of people *do* hang back out of sight before they decide to tip. One lady said, "Thank you for doing this" so I'd say she's one person who's noticed that buskers are just about extinct here. 

Each busking session *is* a practice session in that I always have things to work on like a steady tone, trying to get more crisp note beginnings, etc. But I will say this one practice session went really well. 

Of course when I was done I had to "check in" with Kenny and he wasn't inside so I thought he was gone for the night, but he was outside, talking to an old lady who's probably homeless. She could play an old witch in a movie, haha, even down to one, prominent, singular tooth in front. I told Kenny to guess what I'd made and he said $45, and I said actually $58, but really, ONE-58 and I had no idea who put the hundred in. Somewhere in there the old witch bitched out some homeless guy who was coming over to hang out, I guess, and apparently was going to light up a cigarette. 

"DON'T SMOKE THAT AROUND ME!" she yelled, "IT'S RUDE!!" etc. The guy scuttled off and I told her how I'd grown up in the 70s and we used to buy cigarettes for our moms, and of course for ourselves too, 50c a pack. And the Army! - Don't get me started! She wasn't hearing any of it, "Those people are on ventilators now!" she asserted. "Maybe some of them.... " I said. The thing is that smoking is a nasty habit and I'm glad I never picked it up, but a tiny whiff of smoke isn't a big deal and she was making it into one. Probably has little other purpose in life. 

Another interesting thing while I was busking happened, in that a large (both tall and fat) gal strode by saying something along the lines of, "I tried to play trumpet...." and I said it just takes sticking with it and she said something about not realizing how hard it is. So I guess it's logical that if something's hard you just quit doing it.  

 

 

The arc of history does *not* bend toward justice

 After changing out the memory card and re-shooting the photos, I still just got a black box when I tried to post one on Ebay, so I decided to try doing software updates on my computer. With my last computer, I had to do this periodically but on this one it seemed to do it on its own. 

The answer to that is yes and no. So I had all these software updates to do, and I found a nice long lecture on YouTube about a guy named Walter Benjamin to listen to while I took circuit boards apart and monitored the downloads/updates and the restart. 

The lecture was about 2 hours but wow did it ever clear some major things up for me. Walter Benjamin was a Jew born into a wealthy Jewish family so yeah, 10,000 goyim had to live in poverty and squalor so he and his family could wallow in gluttony and opulence. And much of the account of his life was of the women he f*cked and left behind, the neglected child or children, standard Jewish playbook. 

But when a parasite finds itself in danger, it might come up with some valuable insights, and Benjamin did. He shows how liberalism leads to Fascism. 

It's a core tenet, perhaps THE core tenet of liberalism that "the arc of history bends toward justice/progress". Benjamin, or perhaps the highly intelligent goy he cribbed the idea from a' la' Einstein and Mileva Maric, concluded that the "arc of history" doesn't "bend" anywhere. In a sort of Newtonian mechanics of politics, nothing "goes" unless it's pushed. Progress, regression, don't happen on their own. People make them happen. 

Yet, this "The arc of history bends toward.... " BS means that liberals are content to sit back and do nothing personally, believing that the system is self-correcting and somehow, automatically, bad actors will be punished and good people rewarded and so on. You can hear Chris Hedges intone this maxim in pretty much every speech he gives. It's a core, core belief. 

And it's why liberals are happy to sit back and let bad people take over. "Just wait until Mom gets home" is pretty much what's going through their heads. 

Also, Benjamin noted, Marx said that "Revolution is the locomotive of progress" and in return he quips that perhaps revolution is the unwilling passengers of the train, pulling the emergency brake. 

The Religion Of Progress is one thing, but I guess I never realized how liberals use it as an opiate and this is why they sit around stoned on goody-two-shoes-ism while right are taken away, ICE agents haul off American Indians to deport them to "where they came from", it's illegal to call attention to ZOG, etc. At this time of writing there's to be an "integration" of US and "israeli" militaries, showing the truth in my own maxim that "We are all Palestinians". 

And liberals just sit back while concentration camps are built, and many, many children are missing (this is particularly noted during the Jewish "High Holidays" as that blood matzo ain't gonna bake itself) and the net tightens around we .... Palestinians. Palestinians in spirit, Palestinians in identical situations, we're just, over here in the US, not affected as strongly - yet. 

After the lecture was done, and the circuit boards done, I got some sleep. I woke up at 5 in the afternoon and after some breakfast I tried posting a photo on Ebay and and it's working again. For now. I'd submitted a big report to Ebay so maybe that was it. 

I was able to post the 20 things on Ebay and all's well for now. The neighbors around here are popping off tons of fireworks which is awesome. One year back in Hawaii the Chinese New Year's festivities were described by one newspaper reporter as being "Like the Tet Offensive" haha. 

 

Friday before the 4th and it might as well be the 13th

 I was up around the usual time, 3:30 in the afternoon. I got things packed, and took off the usual time, but FedEx had closed early so I had to take that box back home. I didn't find much for packing materials, and just got back quick because I'd bought a lobster at 99 Ranch and was looking forward to making a lobster soup. 

I set about getting the meat out of the lobster and it was weird, the whole tail was just mush! The claws were the only part that had some actual meat. I looked online for why a lobster might be like this, and the answer is that it would have been left dead before cooking for an extended length of time, or frozen and thawed repeated times. And the sell-by date seemed to indicate that this was a fresh one, as it said it could be sold until the 8th. Yikes! 

I re-configured the bike to go back out for two reasons. First, the Quiksilver shorts I got at Ross are a pure win, and while I can find them online I can't be sure they're the exact ones, plus they're about double the price even on sale. The rule as Ross is, if you see something and want more of that thing, better get right on top of it. So I went back over to Ross and did indeed find another pair of the shorts, but in a 40 waist! I'll have to look in Ross in Sunnyvale... 

I settled for getting some socks pretty much like the ones I didn't buy last night. 

I went back over to H Mart and looked around and finally decided to just get some chicken that's 2 for 1 after 7PM. And some celery. I was going to use up some change doing this, but the guy said, "No cash, we're closing" so I used my card. 

I came home and ate the chicken and celery, and put the bones along with the lobster meat which I didn't feel like taking a chance on my health with, out for the birds. 

I did my usual thing, got 20 things ready to list, took the photos, and was going to list 10 of them anyway, tonight, and my photos started showing up just as black boxes. I got out a brand new memory card for my camera, took all the photos again, and still - just black boxes. 

So I guess I can continue listing and hope the customers understand that they're not allowed to actually see what the things look like, maybe link them to a blog page and they can go look *there* like it's 1996, or I can get Ken to set me up with a computer that works, or I can get out my newer laptop that uses the (blecch!!!) Microsoft browser and try to get Firefox installed on it or just get used to the Microsoft browser which will make me hate computers even more, if that's possible. 

This is why I hate Ebay and computers with every fiber of my being. 

I think my plan's a solid one; to hang in here until mid-September of 2027 because then I'll turn 65 and all kinds of magical things will happen. Like half-price bus fare, I can "audit" college classes for nearly free, and most importantly I'll start getting Medicare. 

The question is whether this business of Ken's, or Ken himself, will fall apart first. When Ken was over on Wednesday night his car sounded even more like an old jalopy and made a weird sound when he pulled up like something was dragging when he turned. And Ken was wearing some kind of belt plus back brace setup, so that when it came time for him to inject his two full syringes of insulin, he injected in his leg instead of his stomach as usual because "it's so much hassle to take all this stuff off". 

The thing is, I may have to "skedaddle" really quickly. This area being heinously expensive compared to Hawaii, and my having one "nest egg", one shot, to move on, I need to make that move count. 

Living here, working non-stop, never having any friends, never seeing the ocean again, just does not appeal to me. Paying at least a third more than I'd pay to live back home in Hawaii makes the prospect even worse.  

If I have to move out of here fast and I take the cop-out of finding a place here, I'll end up stuck here. 

I'd really like to put more busking in this blog. There are maybe 3 busking blogs on the entire planet and this awful thing is 1/3 of them. There's "Street Musician Daniel" which you can find by doing *just* the right Google search, then knowing to click on the title of the page because Google will feed you a post that's over 2 years old. Clicking on the title will get you the latest post. 

There's Marvin Naylor's blog, which takes being even more obsessive. First you have to search Google for "Marvin Naylor Busking Blog" then click on "Start Here" which will get you to his first post, well over a decade ago and maybe closer to two. From there you have to really snoop around, the Archives are most useful because you can at least read things from this year. 

Marvin's blog is the best, though, because not having a job or a crack pipe to distract him, he's out busking really often and even gets gigs occasionally, playing at weddings and things. He talks about the characters he runs into, or who run into him, in his busking sessions and there's where he's a real stand-out, I think because of being in the UK. The UK has this "walking culture" that the US doesn't have, and he actually has "regulars" who know him by name. I've never experienced this in the US, not even before the pandemic and at times I was out busking 3-4 days a week. 

I mean, I guess I can think of two "regulars" one, who I think of as "The Paperclip Bandit" is an old, I think Irani or Indian guy, who's never said a word, and drops off a couple of dollars held together by a paper clip. I think he gives his little gift to whoever is around, so it's not that I'm playing music but rather that I'm merely there. And one of the checkers in Whole Foods, Kenny, is always curious how I've done when I come inside Whole Foods after a busking session.  

I could busk for 200 years and I'd never have "regulars" like Marvin Naylor does, because that's not how US culture works. You're not here to make friends. 

 

Planning for the weekend coming up

 I think tomorrow might be a day off for the post office? And banks? I'll have to ask at the post office today. 

In any case, I've got about $14 in change (and I don't save pennies any more) so zero money worries. 

I packed things and took off the usual time, took things to the post office and FedEx, found a bunch of other the counter medications and stuff at the EMT training place to donate and things like off-brand Bactine that keeps me from having to buy the real stuff at Walmart. 

I got back here, offloaded, and took my receipt and the socks I'd bought last night, which were too large, and returned them. I found some other socks I liked but they're marked "one size" and I decided I'll hold off until next week and maybe the next re-stock will have the ones I really want. 

What I *did* find was a couple of pairs of shorts and I know those are good because I got to try them on. That was simple; the dressing rooms in back have a sign saying they're closed, and that there are dressing rooms up front. The ones up front have a sign saying they're closed, and to try the ones in the back. Everyone just ignores the signs and uses the ones in front. 

I put the shorts on my card because good ones are worth it I think, and came back and cooked up a "low carb" dinner. It was tasty, too. Just greens and some roast pork on top.