Sitzkrieg

 I think we're in what the Germans once called the "Sitzkrieg" or literally sitting war. Where a world war has started but most haven't noticed it yet. 

It's the neo-medievalists in Russia vs. the Jewish octopus in Ukraine, the present consolidation of the media by ZOG in the US, Our Most Zionist President introducing IDF tactics on our streets where people are abducted or even killed carte blanche with no repercussions. It's the US/ZOG committing piracy on the high seas, which is barely being covered in our Jewish-owned media. Yep fishing boats are suddenly major drug shipments, better shoot everyone! Same as in "israel" the Jews have done to fishermen there. 

The whole thing's a powder keg just waiting for the right spark and meanwhile, we sit. Sit and wait. 

I was so tired last night I went to bed around 4AM and still managed to sleep until 3 in the afternoon. I got out of here at 4 and took my pay check to the bank, and the numbers agree so that's good. 

Needless to say downtown has tons of zombies, with the weather just right, not too hot and not too cold. Honestly we need Zombie Control just like we have Animal Control. Go out and catch 'em with a big net, stuff 'em in a truck and put 'em in a kennel with some water and kibble haha. 

I packed one heavy box and took it up to FedEx. The weather's really pleasant out there and that seems to mean the zombies are all out enjoying it. I had to dodge zombs right and left even just making a normal little trip up to FedEx and H Mart. 

I got the stuff done and took a nice circuitous route back here, haha, this because there's a big land-yacht RV full of bums that's set up behind Galli Produce so it behooves me to keep it a bit on the QT that I'm living in here and not just passing through. 

I helped a customer wade through all the Ebay shit and complication, and the result is just under 2 grand in sales today. BUT .... the last big order of capacitors, that came to over 6 grand with the shipping, was educational. After the shipping, it still came out that Ebay's various fees and the sales tax took almost half. 

So Ken thinks he's making 6 grand and he's actually making 3. 

This is why I've long believed that holding a sign by the freeway on-ramp is a more viable career than Ebay. The problem with Ebay is, you need a big place to store stuff, you need a car, you need to spend a few hours a day driving said car around finding things and shipping things. You're not making big money out of a rented room or a pup tent.

That's how I see things these days. Can an occupation be done out of a pup tent? There's scamming, grifting, pickpocketing, begging, burglary (although this last means you'd better only steal small things like jewelry) murder-for-hire, all sorts of occupations. Keeping the heat of the Law off of oneself makes it a bit more restrictive, because you're restricted to legal things, but there's still begging, street performing, working a job if you can hide the fact that you're living out of a pup tent, etc. All of which pay more than Ebay. 

Ebay *can* work if you do it like I used to, 1-week auctions only, if a thing doesn't sell out of 2 tries it's scrapped. It still requires an apartment or if in a rented room, a storage unit. And a car. By the time the dust has settled, begging (non-coercive panhandling is actually legal) or street performing still pay better with far less worries. 

Having a job used to be the ideal, but there's no progression that way. I make the same in absolute dollars that I did in 1986, 40 years ago. Except 40 years ago I had a medical and a dental (and I think a vision) plan, and a 401k which didn't appreciate at all but while it didn't grow, it still at least existed. So a job is just another way to just survive, along with begging, street performing, etc. 

The only "progress" for at least 90% of us is to get better over time at living on less and less, and any savings have to be kept off of the grid. Burying a coffee can full of silver dimes under the old oak tree etc. 

I remember an old (literally, he was Silent Generation) friend of mine complaining that for a while after the crash of 2008, only being able to find work as a painter's helper for $60 a day. That's 18 years ago and I don't make that much now. 

And I'm in that strange area between being the youngest of the Boomers or the oldest of GenX. I'd say myself, my older brother and my two younger sisters are GenX and my older sister is about as pure Boomer as they come. 

I remember her complaining about how tough she had it, that when she was first out on her own, she "could only afford a small car". I didn't have a car at all until I was about 30. I remember our being out together around Waikiki and we saw a young Asian girl selling T-shirts on the sidewalk, and my older sis staying that young girl "should be put in jail". She's utterly forgotten that she sold stuff on the side of the road back in the 1970s. 

She's petty, spiteful, extremely thin-skinned, and very, very insecure which is why any conversation with her includes her constantly reminding me that she went to Punahou* (the expensive private prep school my father utterly torpedoed the family finances to send her to) and/or what expensive purse or whatever other ostensibly high-class trapping she's agonizing over buying from (name-drop) store. Like, who fucking cares? I got sick of her obsessing over some dumpy-looking purse and I finally said she ought to just buy the thing and live with it for a few days and then take it back if she doesn't like it. 

*No shade intended on Punahou which is a great school. I just wish all schools could manage to educate all kids in the state as well, and it makes all the sense in the word to send one of your kids there if you're not shafting the rest of the family by sending them there. 

But as bleak as it was for me, I've had it better than younger generations do now. This is why I, and a lot of people, think we're in a powder keg; that WWIII in earnest or civil war are just waiting to pop off. 

At least the younger people are Noticing. They're not brainwashed by all the Jewish propaganda we olders were. 

Even  in the 80s and 90s, sure I'd make jokes etc., but I could not honestly, in my heart of hearts, believe the Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov and all these Jewish scientists and writers would be anything but angelic. In the US it was always Jewish scientists and SF writers who got promoted and publicized. 

Now I know  that Asimov probably left every penny to "israel" and Sagan would gladly have worked on rockets not to explore other planets but to bomb the neighbors of "israel" and all these lovely characters who have been lionized, are good at putting on, or having put on, a good face while they hate the goyim and any benefit they've done for the goyim is incidental. 

And this is all becoming really obvious lately, on an accelerated timeline, and the younger people are Noticing.  

OK Boomer

 I got "OK Boomer"'d but good. 

I'm not sure if I mentioned it here but a few months back Ken bragged to me about a sterling silver dish he'd bought for something like $5 at the Goodwill on Coleman. He showed it to me, it had a bunch of hallmarks, etc. 

So from time to time I'd thought about that dish, I guess because I'd been kind of jealous. 

So last night after I got my check and we talked and the usual, he asked if I knew someplace that would buy the dish. He had it in his car. I said "I've got a guy" so he handed it over and after he'd gone I weighed it and did some math. Ken wanted at least $300 for it and I figured, since my match seemed to show a melt value of $540, that there was a fair chance I could skim off a bit after selling it and then give ken his something-more-than-$300 and he'd flake off a bit more to me, for my time. 

So as usual I didn't go to bed as early as I should have, and since I set my alarm clock for 1PM I didn't get much sleep. I packed a few packages and basically was up at the time I'd set, cleaned up a bit, and headed out at 2. I dropped off the packages and went to Whole Foods where I got a couple of beef sticks and $40 cash back. I put $20 of that on my clipper card to be sure to have train fare, and got on the train. 

My place was up in Menlo Park so the train's really the only practical way to get there. I got there and after watching the guy fork over a few thousand dollars to a guy for a coin collection, I handed over the tray and he got out the XRF "gun" and tested it and said, "I'm gonna pass on this". 

The thing was plated! Sure it has a bunch of little hallmark-looking marks on it, but for the first time, I looked closely and one is "SP" in a circle which even I know is "Silver Plate" and the others didn't look like anything, and it was also stamped, "Made In US America" like who stamps that on something? "US America"? So all in all it was a bit of a laugh, and the guy, who I think gets them for free, gave me a still-warm cheese steak sandwich which I tried once I got to a bench to sit down outside and, well, I'd have had to be a lot hungrier and have a lot of hot sauce .... But  I digress. 

It was a kind of fun trip in that the new electric trains are always nice to ride, and I got to look at the pretty coins and bars and stuff in the display cases at the shop, and the guy was in a nice mood. The mood in there changes with how silver's doing and it's kind of "meh" right now. So the mood was nice. 

I went to the Starbucks to use the loo and get a drink and I called Ken and told him how things had gone, and about the XRF gun and Ken was like, "Oh, those are nice, they cost thousands though". So he's pretty lah-de-dah about the whole thing, and I told him we might be selling some big capacitors that might bring in a few thousand, so it's all good. He, in turn, said my ballot has come in the mail so I'll get it next week. 

So I'm out an afternoon and the train fare but I think the whole thing is kind of hilarious. Ken thought he had one over on the Salvation Army folks and in the end, he only fooled himself. And he's the one who has his life set up so he's always chasing after money like a junkie. 

I got back downtown and went down to Walmart for TP and paper towels, and got back here and that's that. 

I probably will not busk this weekend since I want to work on this new technique and I haven't been practicing. It's not like guitar where you can just bang away and blargle out some nonsense "lyrics"  and get tipped if you play until the wee hours of the morning for the drunks and if one of 'em gives you guff, you've got your guitar and they get the "KA-BONGGG!" just like Quick Draw McGraw. 

Happy Birthday, Herr Himmler

 I looked to see if he was in fact a descendant of Heinrich The Fowler but sadly, no. Although he considered himself an avatar of, or spiritual successor of, The Fowler and that's good enough for me. 

"We fought the wrong side" - general Patton. 

I can't think of anything else notable about this day. If the USS Liberty can be forgotten about, then I can't think of anything else of any note. I guess if I'd planned ahead I might have gone to Teske's downtown and celebrated Herr Himmler with some Schweinshaxe and a good bier. 

Last night I had hamburger on top of asparagus, and also cooked more, courtesy of 5 bundles of it that had fresher tips than I often see in the supermarket, for free. So I had delicious chilled asparagus today. Plus I got two large packages of blueberries and with all the warnings lately, plus there's a reason they got tossed, I put some time into picking out the good ones by hand, rinsing those, and cooked them along with one of those little boxes of coconut milk. I also added salt, I think a bit too much, but hey  a lot of "sweet" things are also salty. Lookin' at you, instant cocoa. 

So today after dropping off packages I bought a can of whipped cream at H Mart, which should be perfect with the not too sweet and somewhat salty cooked and now chilled blueberry ... soup? 

Plus I got a bunch of hothouse cucumbers, small ones but fresh. So I got a good batch of freebees last night. 

Today's the day the EMT training place throws out stuff but when I got there there wasn't anything, but there was an old Asian guy collecting bottles and cans. I dug out a couple for him. That's a hard way to make money, since they're only worth 5c-10c each. 

I got back here and the guys hadn't taken the box of scrap I left out, but had put some heavy greasy car part in, haha. So once I was back and had put things away I put in another old car part that had been living under the bench in front of their door for a while, and took the box of stuff up alongside Old Bayshore where someone will pick it up. It's kind of funny how sometimes, in fact most of the the time, the stuff will be picked up and not a trace left, and other times the stuff will be untouched and there will be *more* stuff. It all works out in the end. 

Also, last night, I got a good practice session in. I felt rusty as hell having not practiced for over a week. I really wanted to work on this "aperture" idea that one Japanese guy I watched on YouTube went on about. And I think I'm on a very productive track. I was actually able to do high notes easily, when I could get away from using too much pressure (both breath and mouthpiece against lips) and I've found I can play some super crazy high notes and yes they're actual notes not just squeaks, it's just a matter now of filling in the notes between those and the ones in the staff and slightly above the staff. 

Dennis Hasters and Jim Bakker, GONE NOWWWWWWW.....

 The "GONE NOWWWWWW" in the voice of "Metal LEO" on YouTube, who loves saying that about closed businesses, of which there are so many, he sees in his walks around US cities and towns. Haha! 

I burned up some of the "popcorn", crumpled up sensitive papers, last night and was doing various things when I found out the water was off. I called Ken to ask if he paid the bill and he said he'd check, then I got the bright idea to just get some water from next door, where they have a hose set up. But theirs was off too so I called Ken back and said it's not just us so don't panic. 

I set out to go buy some water, and remembered that there had been work trucks around this place at the front of the complex where it's always wet. I'd even smirked and said, "Welcome to the perma-puddle" as I'd rode by earlier. They were really working on it now. 

I decided I'd go to the 7-11 on 1st, because being a franchise store, for some reason this would mean water would be reasonable. Well, it wasn't. I got some, but the main thing about that place was the BUMS. There were bums on the corner and one bum in front of the store, and when I went out with my water, there were about 5 bums hanging around my bike. The bums were, as bums do, quarreling among themselves and muttering and jibbering etc., under their various drug and mental illnesses. There were bums inside too, also arguing among themselves, and acting crazy in various ways. The Indian guys inside have to put up with this shit every night. I can't begrudge them their high prices because of this. It's a war zone. 

I got out front with my 2 liters of water, put 'em in the bag and unlocked the bike as quickly as I could manage smoothly, hopped on and got out of there without even bothering with the lights, just get me out of here! 

I decided to swing by the place on 1st and Brokaw, just to see what their prices are. There was one bum-ass / zombess with a cart of some sort loaded with crap, holding quite the lively conversation with herself, out in the parking lot but at least I didn't have to go through a screen of bums to go in, and there weren't bums inside. Their water prices were a bit less, and they had pork rinds. So I got a bag of pork rinds and a liter of water there, too. 

I had a bit of a conversation with the Indian guy there, who said they call the police but they never do anything. I said Yeah, unless the bum is being violent or trying to break in, they can't do anything. I said unfortunately you can't just take a stick and whack 'em and chase 'em off.  It's not like the old days, we agreed. 

As an elaboration on this, I said that back where I grew up, when I was a kid, there were very few stray dogs and cats, and no stray chickens. Now there are tons. The difference being, in the old days, people ate 'em! Even the dogs and cats, I didn't care and don't now. But now there are tons of stray animals, chickens all over the place. 

(Likewise there were very few homeless. People didn't eat 'em, it's just that your family took care of you or the state mental hospital did, or you just plain fucking straightened up and flew right. Not taking drugs was a major factor, I'm sure.) 

So I got back and got through my night using up almost all of the water, and although the water was still off when I went to bed around 7-8AM, it was on when I woke up at 4PM. 

 

Papers conquered

 I spent the night doing what I'd taken the weekend off to get done. I had the packing out of the way, and got out the 5, not 3, banker's boxes of papers and sorted out the things I really want to keep, the latest 3 mailings with my home address on them to take to the DMV along with my expired license and passport to get my "Real ID", and had a huge mass of stuff to throw away or burn. 

That was what took up most of the time, making "popcorn", crumpled up balls of papers with sensitive information on them, to burn. 

I also found application papers for Medi-Cal which I'd been sent over the years, but never filled them in haha. I still have Medi-Cal and I'm sure it's pretty easy for the powers that be to find my income and such information. 

I also saw, on one of them, that I can, and am encouraged to, apply for Medicare when I am 64 years and 9 months of age. I'll need to look into that. I've heard there are some kind of penalties for applying if I'm much over 65, so I need to research all of this. 

Two bags of non-sensitive papers went out in the Post Office trash, and burning up the "popcorn" may take a week or two, doing it bit by bit. 

There's a lot of personal stuff that mattered once but just doesn't any more. The copy of my high school newspaper with my picture in it, sure. Stuff about the sport I did, doesn't matter and no one cares. Even shit like my amateur radio license; I'm just not interested. I find listening in on strange radio stuff to be interesting, I'm not that interested in transmitting. 

It was kind of fun looking at some of the old stuff though. Apparently it was the Outrigger Hotel snack bar that I worked for, long ago, serving up hot dogs. It's apparently been gentrified away now. 

I've been watching a lot of fishing videos from people in Hawaii and those are fun. I'm also currently into watching videos from three different guys who metal detect around my old stomping grounds in Orange County, California. I've got some metal detecting ideas of my own back in Hawaii which should only require one of those "pin pointers" that people who dig for coins in parks use. 

But fishing is something I really look forward to doing again. 

I'm also looking at prices for things, and fools on Reddit keep nattering on about how "food is 3X as much" in Hawaii and it's just not true. It's about 30% less, if one eats a normal, local, cuisine. Even a lot of fancy imported stuff like Swiss cheese from Switzerland at Whole Foods, is probably no more expensive than it is here and I'd not be surprised to see it 10% - 20% less because they base their prices on what the market will bear more than on their cost. 

It *is* expensive to live what I call an Orthodox Suburbian lifestyle in Hawaii. To do so, you must only eat foods that are standard "suburban" foods on the mainland, tons of "diet" or "healthy" foods that are 99% sugar and carbs, etc.

It's a lot more expensive than my diet, to follow the Orthodox Suburbian diet here on the mainland, too, in all fairness. It's kind of required to be at least pre-diabetic if not full-on diabetic, and Ken recently told me his doctor says he's going from Type 2 to something close to Type 1. That's an achievement and it takes a lot of work (and insulin). You have to hog down a burger and two bags of fries as your "snack" before you go home to dinner, waffles or pancakes or a mixing bowl full of sugary cereal for breakfast, and so on. Fast food, sugary cereals, prepared frozen "hash browns", etc are expensive here, or there. 

My point being, I yawn at the supposedly expensive prices I see, looking at the online "sale flyer" from Foodland, Hawaii's answer to Safeway. I actually worked for them for a bit. It was ... not great. But I'll sure shop there, seeing that they have things I'll buy that are 1/2 the price they are here. 

Speaking of old times, on Friday night I rode through San Pedro Square and there I saw Ron, the guy who used to play a recorder (he had about three of them, including one I'd given him) and this little bippity-boppity wooden box drum. I'd seen him off and on for at least a decade now, I think a bit longer, so I was interested to hear how he was doing. 

He was no longer playing any music of any type, and was dirty, dirtier than I've ever seen him and that's saying something. He's still living in a friend's (probably friend's mom's) kitchen for $420 (tee hee) a month. But he's lost his job washing dishes for The Old Spaghetti Factory. 

This last, Gee I wonder why? If he seemed to have some shred of self-respect, playing music, before, he's fallen far below that now and has gone full bum. He even had a bum-specification sign, barely readable. He said he's just "doing this" (begging) now. 

He said they'd cut his hours down and down, finally scheduling him none, at The Old Spaghetti Factory and it's obvious why: The guy's filthy and not anything you'd want anywhere near any place where people eat food. If he's living in a guy's kitchen at least in theory he's got access to a shower, maybe even laundry facilities. Worst-case the kitchen is a place to sleep and he could use a laundromat for laundry and join a gym or something for a shower.  

I have a sneaking suspicion the guy's smoked a ton of pot and that's why he is the way he is now. Pot was considered harmless then I was a kid/teen but it's obviously not and I'm glad I simply didn't care for it. 

 https://www.reddit.com/r/lostgeneration/comments/1wy96m4/the_son_ate_5_meals_a_day_to_save_his_dad/ Wow this worked! OK it's about an 11-year-old kid in China who was a bone marrow match for his father, but could not do it because he was too small. So he ate 5 meals a day, gained 33 lbs, and was then big enough and was able to save his dad. Hero kid. But also, fantastically wealthy kid compared to 11-year-old me, growing up here in the US. 

When I was 11 there was simply not enough food around to gain 5 lbs much less 33. My dad would have just plain fucking died and that would have been it. I dare anyone to try telling me China is some kind of loserville and the US this great, wonderful, nation. 

I want to live a long life for a number of reasons, not least of which is to see China take its rightful place as leader of the world. 

 

Uncle Adolf's One-Pot Dinners

 The Nazi regime was horrible, Oh so horrible, that they had a sort of program where, one weekend a month, people were encouraged to have "one pot" dinners, vegetarian or largely so, instead of the end-of-the-week roast or ham etc. The money saved on that dinner was to be donated to aid for the poor. 

Hitler was such a cruel, cruel, creep that he instituted early on, something called "Winterhilfe" or "Winter Help" and vowed that no longer would elderly poor die of cold and hunger in the winter. 

I'm sorry but I can't imagine Americans cooperating in this way. It's just not a thing in the JewSA. I hear from time to time, of parents going hungry so their kids can eat, but honestly I've never seen it in real life. That's not how American parents operate. The rules in America are, if you're bigger and stronger, you get first pick of everything, and the smaller and weaker have to just try to stay out of the way and get by on what's left. 

When my oldest sister, the first born, first encountered rivalry in the form of a sibling, my older brother, she had a 4-year head start so obviously, in American logic, this is why she had a governess, and private schools and pretty much everything. My parents, being bigger and stronger than us kids, never missed a meal while we kids missed quite a few. And my mother, although she always got the best of what we had, didn't eat as well as my father, being biggest, strongest, and the best earner when he could find work. 

And one still wonders why Uncle Adolf is being looked at more squarely and honestly by the kids now? This dog-eat-dog American way of doing things makes no sense, and by the time I was in my teens we kids looked out for each other more than our parents ever looked out for us. At least we kids had some of our Folkish instincts intact! 

I mainly packed things last night, to get and hopefully stay caught up. 

But the main reason for taking the weekend off of busking is I want to get all of my important papers consolidated into this one file folder thing I got at FedEx (they sell a good assortment of office supplies) so all the papers can fit in that, in a backpack along with other important things. Right now the papers are in three Bankers Boxes and most of them need to be disposed of. 

I need to be ready to get out of here with a minimum of fuss. Since I no longer drink, there's no longer the chance that I might get really drunk and blurt out my plans, but there's always the chance that Ken might sense something. Or, and this is a bigger worry, that he might bring in some friend to work also and juice up sales, and then I'll have some idiot in here with access to all of my stuff, probably thinking they can boss me around. That would be reason enough to clear out and I mean immediately, to a hotel room, while I round up airline tickets and get rid of things etc. 

So the idea is not only to pare down papers, but to pare down personal belongings as much as possible without it being obvious, and have plans in place to dispose of what's left when I fly the coop. 

For instance, my bike and trailer will be used to get me with my backpack and suitcase to the Airport Flyer bus stop, where I'll leave the bike + trailer with a "FREE" sign. By that time all over bike stuff will be gone. Before that I'll be using the bike and trailer to run loads of stuff to the sidewalk in front of the Goodwill on 7th street, or maybe just the space by the bridge where I often dump things. Or just run a free ad on Craig's List and tell people a bunch of stuff will be in the parking lot by Watersavers Irrigation. 

The suitcase is an interesting subject on its own. I have about 3 of them that I've picked up, and the one I like most is this bright orange plastic American Tourister one that I don't have a key for, but I think the lock on it is a "TSA" lock which means I only need to obtain or make a "TSA" key. I have another that I like fairly well, but it's missing a wheel so I need to either replace the wheel, or set it up with two bumpers so it will have two wheels. It's big and really light. The suitcase will hold my cornet, in its case, and the cornet gig bag, and then whatever space is left can be clothes and stuff. 

 

Observatories

 I'm gonna write this down first. On reddit there's a post about "Fremont Peak Observatories" which I suppose is an observatory complex on .... Fremont Peak. 

Or ... one observatory at least  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Peak_Observatory

And about the programs to, you know, go up there and see the stars and stuff. Cool. 

Except there's pretty much a 0.000000000000000001% chance of my EVER being able to do something like that. According to quantum "tunneling" theory, there's a chance I could run at a brick wall and pass through unharmed. It's on that order. 

But back home in Hawaii, well, ya wanna see stars? Tell a moke you like beef hahah OK joking aside, just take DaBus out to anywhere good and dark, Hawaii Kai is nice, and just look up at 'em. Plus the University of Hawaii has at least some sort of observatory on campus, plus there will be local hobby astronomers holding "star parties" which, Hawaii being how it is, won't require you to own a car to get to, for good viewing. 

All kinds of things work this way back home as opposed to here. Wanna take a college class? Just walk over to the damn college and sign up. Everything's a walk or what would be a very short bus ride here.  

I can't even imagine how much money + time + vehicular support it would take to go collecting seashells or snorkeling or *gasp* surfing here. 

OK rant over. Yesterday and last night I was so tired I didn't feel like doing much of anything. So I engaged in a good "put brain in neutral" activity, taking stuff apart while listening to videos on YouTube. Now have have tons more parts to sell, and 3 annoying plain-Jane bulky gadgets off the shelves. 

I *did* watch a video by a Japanese guy who plays and teaches trumpet, "4 octaves easy" or something, and according to him, it's not a matter of tightening the "corners" of the mouth almost like a smile, but concentrating on the air coming out of the little hole you make in the center of the lips, and with no more or less pressure, just making the hole larger or smaller, you can make lower or higher notes. He did several demonstrations and it's pretty impressive, given he said his age was 76. 

This, if it works, would be in line with Allen Vizzutti and his premium on relaxation, and Claude Gordon's on "it's just air flow, don't pay attention to the lip". 

I woke up around 1 this afternoon because the guys next door parked one of their trucks right outside my door but at least they were noisy about it. So I made up two "DON'T PARK HERE" signs to put under the windshield wipers and made sure they saw me writing down the license number, and it was moved pretty quick. I don't get it; they have the whole parking lot and yeah it was about half full but that's it, it was half full. 

Since I was up I got to work packing 15 things for one buyer in one box, and of course 3-4 of the things had disappeared into thin air, so refunds were in order. But I got the package sent off and at least in theory Ken made a bit of money on this.