What's The Worst Christmas Song?

If you want immortality, record a Christmas song.

In the movie About a Boy, Hugh Grant plays a layabout who is living off the royalties of a song his father wrote, Santa's Super Sleigh, an obnoxious Christmas song created for the movie.  The movie was OK, I guess. But what struck me was how the writers fit into the plot what every musician knows - that if you record even one Christmas song, you will have royalties for life.

By this time tomorrow, you won't hear a single Christmas song.  So popular one day, dead-to-me the next, put out to the curb like a dried-out Christmas tree.  Odd, too, as in some Christian sects, Christmas runs 12 days (hence the song) until January 6th, at which time Congress convenes to tally Electoral College votes.  It's in the Bible, people!

And every year, it seems, there is an "it" Christmas song, just as every year there is the "must have" Christmas toy that is worth assaulting another shopper for.  Eventually, people get sick of the song and claim to hate it.  For example, All I Want For Christmas is You is objectively a "good" Christmas song, but rubs a raw nerve because it was overplayed.  In the past, other songs, such as Santa Baby (Popularized by Driving Miss Daisy) were played to the point where people said, "enough, already!" Then there is the brouhaha surrounding Baby, It's Cold Outside, which some claimed glorified date rape until it was explained to them otherwise.

Then, there are novelty songs, like Dominic(k) the Donkey which was all the rage one year and then forgotten about the next.  Chinga-D-Ching, Mofo! Or take, I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas - please!  A song that is bad objectively and also due to repetition.  Jingle Cats is reviled by Mr. See, but only because I obsessively played it on repeat one year just to freak out our felines.

There are, of course, songs that are bad, objectively, but don't get a lot of airplay.  The Waitresses (I Know What Boys Like) recorded Christmas Wrapping which is literally painful to listen to.

The gold standard of Christmas Music, of course, is The Vince Guaraldi Trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas which was released when I was five years old.  You can listen to nearly the entire album, again and again, without getting tired of it. Moreover, you can listen to some tracks, such as Linus and Lucy at any time of the year.  It is the standard by which all Christmas albums should be measured.

It is not, however, without its faults.  For example, the track, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing seems innocuous enough until the children's chorus chimes in, singing - as children are want to do - at high volume and off-key.  Screaming, really.  You can't hit "skip track" fast enough.  I basically erased this track from my Christmas play list.

The album also contains the best rendition of what I think is the worst Christmas song of all time - the Little Drummer Boy (Carol of the Drum).  Why do I despise this song?  A number of reasons.  Objectively, it is an obnoxious song, with its phrum-a-rum-bum nonsense.  But worse is its creation of a holy Christmas mythology - the presence of a drummer boy at the manger.  You can just hear Joseph shouting, "Will you keep that racket down!  We're trying to sleep here!  My wife just gave birth, for son's sake!"

To be sure, the nativity has been embroidered upon over the ages.  The "Three Kings of Orient Are" were apparently some kind of astronomers or wise men, not actual monarchs.  But at least the characters existed in some form in the Bible.  The little drummer boy, on the other hand, was manufactured from whole cloth.  And who in their right mind thinks banging on a drum is a suitable gift for a newborn infant?  It  just makes no sense.  And the song is obnoxious as well.  David Bowie and Bing Crosby, in a duet (no, really) managed to make it even worse, which is quite an accomplishment.

To be sure, Christmas is loaded with tacked-on mythology.  But it is secular mythology.  You can make up Santa and reindeer and Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman as secular icons, but I think there is something wrong with creating new Biblical characters for the sake of selling a song.  You know that Muslims wouldn't tolerate that sort of nonsense in their religion.  And I am sure Orthodox Jews are none-too-keen on Hanukkah Harry.  Make up secular icons all you want to, but when you start adding on to the Bible, you cross a line.

Then again, I guess that's how Christianity got started.

Merry Christmas and Yippee-Ki-Yay!

Why Some Are Turning Away From Liberalism

This video would be considered racist today.

I was watching some Police body cam videos the other day and it was interesting. You find yourself rooting for the Police most of the time.  It is interesting, but some people apparently feel they can negotiate their arrest. When the Policeman says, "you're under arrest!" they reply, "no, I'm not!"

It doesn't work that way.  While watching these bodycam videos, you come away with a newfound respect and sympathy for the Police.  They have a level of patience I could never achieve.  Frankly, I would have beaten or shot the suspects in many of these videos, early on, as they try to fight with me or pull that "Sovereign Citizen" crap.

Police chase videos are the same way.  Some jackass in a stolen car is going 140 MPH on the street and after they "PIT" maneuver him, the perp jumps out and runs away, only to be tackled by the cops.  Adrenalin is running high and the temptation is to beat the shit out of the guy.  Usually, they show some restraint. I would not be so kind.  Good thing I'm not a cop!

I mentioned to a Police officer about body cameras and whether he felt they hindered his job.  After all, if you punch a suspect on camera, you could get in trouble - and some Policemen do.  But he was supportive of body cameras as he felt they protected the Police from false accusations of Police brutality and also helped show the public how hard their job actually is.  It was an interesting take!

I ran into a former DC Metro officer and we were talking about the state of that once award-winning transit system.  When we lived in DC, the system was immaculately clean and fairly reliable.  Over time, it seemed, it just got better, with scheduled trains and lighted signage telling you when the next train was coming.  But there were pretty strict rules, however.  No food or drink was allowed on the Metro!  As a result, there was little or no litter, discarded wrappers or cups, rats, or track fires.

I recall, a few years after we left, a brouhaha erupted on social media (boo! hiss!) because an employee was ticketed for eating a sandwich on the train.  People who never lived in DC or rode the Metro weighed in with their uninformed opinions.  "No one should get a ticket for eating!  How do they expect us to remain hydrated if we can't drink!"   And as you might expect, the once spotless Metro system is now littered with garbage and you are better off standing up that sitting in a seat with someone's dinner spilled in it.

Most of us obey the rules because we understand why they exist.  Naturally, we are chagrined when we are caught breaking the rules.  No one likes getting a speeding ticket - but logical people realize there is no point arguing with a cop.  "Tell it to the Judge!" is a phrase as old as time.  And I have gotten many a speeding ticket and been "cuffed and stuffed" so I know how it goes.  It never pays off to argue with a cop - they won't let you go as a result.  Sometimes, if you talk nicely to them and explain yourself, it might work.  But once they say, "put your hands behind your back!" the time for talk has ended.

Recently, worldwide, there has been a shift rightward in politics as many look toward authoritarianism as a solution to perceived social problems.   I say, "perceived" as actual crime rates are down.  But if all you watch is Police body cam videos and Fox News, you might believe the criminals are taking over.  It is an echo of the past, when the Wiemar Republic was perceived as weak and people clamored for a strong-man to set things right.

California is usually ground zero for wacky Leftist thinking, and during CoVid,, they were letting criminals go free on appearance tickets.   There was talk about abolishing bail and they actually passed a law decriminalizing shoplifting for amounts under $995.  That law was recently rescinded.

Similarly, a homeless "crises" erupted on the West Coast as laws about camping in public spaces were relaxed.  People who played by the rules, stayed off drugs, went to work every day, and paid their taxes on time, felt that their rights were being subjugated to some drug-addicted bum.  At least that's the way some folks felt.

Throw in a few riots, looting, and a takeover of several city blocks, and people get the idea that government has lost its way.  And even though border crossings have decreased in recent years, some folks still feel they are being overwhelmed by refugees who often appear to have more rights than they do.  Never mind whether it is actually true or not, that is the way some folks feel.

In response to all of this, the Democrats come out with... preferred pronouns - which you'd better use, buster, or you'll lose your job and career!  Congratulations!  You are now one of the sainted homeless!

Again, that's the perception - that while we might have real problems, the Democrats are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  And worse yet, none of this is up for discussion.  Whether it is fair or not for a transgender person to compete in sports is a question you are not allowed to ask.  Whether minors should have hormone therapies or operations is also not up for discussion.  And we wonder why we lost the election.  Republicans paid attention to the concerns of voters while Democrats pandered to people who threatened not to vote.

Of course, all of these flames were fanned by foreign (Russian) influences.  And just as many were pushed further to the Right, many others were pushed further to the Left.  Republicans are clutching their peals over the murder of the United Healthcare CEO (Update on my Medicare journey- I am re-thinking using United Healthcare/AARP for supplemental insurance!).   What puzzles them is how so many people, particularly young people, seem to be cheering this on.

I noted before how assassination never works - and often backfires.  It seems the only result of this latest episode will be to increase security (and no doubt pay) for corporate CEOs.  Whether the murder of one man changes how our healthcare system works, seems less likely.  That doesn't mean there weren't real underlying issues involved. And funny how little effort is spent catching the serial murderer of hookers, while one CEO gets the entire FBI and State and City Police forces to act. (To be fair, they just caught the guy - over a decade-and-half later).  Police protection, like healthcare, is rationed - and the richer you are, the better off you will be, whether perpetrator or victim.

I recounted before how my detached bicep won't be repaired under my insurance, unless it affected my ability to work.  This was one of the things mentioned by "Luigi" - that medical care is only essential to your ability to be a productive citizen.  That is to say, of use to corporate America.  And of course, you should, as Elon Musk exhorts, have lots of children so as to feed the machine with more raw meat.  Funny thing,, Hitler also exhorted Germans to have more cannon fodder kids as well!

I noted also, that the Mayo clinic wanted a $5000 deposit before they would see me about my stroke.  Once I am on Medicare, this limitation is dropped - provided, of course, that President Musk hasn't abolished Medicare by March of next year.  Let's face it - our profit-driven medical system is broken.  Sure, I know a few smug people who have good jobs where they have great insurance coverage.  They live in fear of losing their jobs and becoming "one of us."  Corporate health insurance is one way to chain people to their desks, to be sure.

A lot of young people, particularly those who were snookered by worthless college degrees and onerous student loans, feel the system is stacked against them.  Again, this is how they feel, again amplified by outside forces.  You might think they just made shitty financial choices.  Maybe the latter is true, but then again, when I was in my 20's, no one ever offered me ruinous credit offers.  And I did buy my first house at age 22 - with government help. Yes, we did have a lot of things easier back then and we should recognize that.

But regardless of what you believe, it isn't hard to see why some (mostly older) are moving rightward and some others (mostly younger) are moving left.  The divide also neatly falls along financial lines.  I know "younger" people born into wealth who are convinced they deserved all of it and moreover not only should they pay less taxes, but none at all.  Should any of us win the billion-dollar lottery, I am sure we would feel the same way.  Mine! Gimmie!  It is human nature.  Where's my damn Social Security check?

I am not sure what the point of all of this is, other than it isn't as hard as one might think to understand why we seem so divided as a country.  You just have to put yourself in the other guy's shoes for a moment, and suddenly it makes "sense" - from their perspective, at least.

Dealer Fees, Stealer Fees (Private Party Sale!)

"Mandatory" dealer fees are the latest scam.

A friend of mine wants to buy a used car and asked me to help him out.  He is looking for the second generation of the "new" VW Beetle, which was made from 2011 to 2019, and we're looking for a later model one with under 40K miles.  Great, a fucking unicorn!  But not as rare as it might seem.

Even though the second generation "new" Beetle was redesigned for a more masculine look, it seems to have been more popular with women, particularly elderly women.  Within a 500 mile radius of my home, I was able to find about 20 examples, mostly in Florida.

We were camping in Florida and went to see one at a local Subaru dealer.  Advertised for $22,500 with 15,000 miles on the clock, it was, according to Edmunds, KBB, and NADAguides, a little overpriced.   But as it turns out, that price was the bait-and-switch price.

Since CoVid, dealers feel they can screw their customers mercilessly.  That's about to end, as consumers' pockets are emptying out.  One gag is to claim there is a "mandatory" dealer fee of $599, $999, or even $1499 that has to be paid in addition to the purchase price.

In this case, it was a $999 fee, which means the overpriced $22,500 Volkswagen is now an overpriced $23,499 Volkswagen.  "But our price is competitive!" they argue.   "But it is $23,499 with the fee!" I replied.  "No, that's not part of the price, that's a fee!" they illogically argue.  I guess they figure since half the country voted for Trump that everyone must be a moron.

But wait, it got worse - far worse.  The overall sales price jumped to over thirty grand by adding a "reconditioning fee" of $3000 (for a car that arrived in inventory the night before) as well as an "inspection fee" of $750.  It was downright insulting.  Was this because we were gay and perceived as clueless?

The only weapon you have in negotiation is to walk away so we did.  The next day, they lowered the "list" price - by $500.   The problem is, if you pay $25,000 or $30,000 for a car that has a market value of $20,000, well, the day after you bought it, you just set fire to $5000 to $10,000 for no reason whatsoever.

By the way, when I asked about the "reconditioning fee" he said that was to replace the tires.  Some expensive tires!  He had a mechanic look at them and that was a bad idea.  Even the mechanic was mystified as to why a car with 15K on the clock had nearly bald tires.  Dry rot, you expect, but worn out tread?

The more I looked at the carfax (which showed it in dealer inventory for nearly two years in Michigan before being "sold" to a dealer in Miami) the more it seemed there was a "story" here.  Used as a parts-getter with the odo turned off?  (some manufactures supply cars to dealers with a removable tab which can be used to "turn on" the odometer at time of sale).

Then there was the minor accident damage which, upon closer inspection, seemed more major - and badly repaired.  Urethane bumpers require a special elastomer in the paint and this one was already starting to chip.

Granted, low-mile cars have their own share of issues, like rotted tires and dead batteries.  But this was starting to look less and less like a low-mile car.  I'm glad we walked.

The best deals are from individual sellers - private party sale.  Harder to come by in this day and age as dealers have gone out of their way to make it hard to sell via private party sale.  The local grocery store where we lived in Virginia was threatened with a lawsuit by the local used care dealer association, as local residents were putting their "for sale" cars in the parking lot.  Their argument was that, if more than three cars had a for sale sign on them, the grocery store needed a used car dealer license.  Bullshit?  You bet.  But the grocery store backed down and put up signs threatening to tow cars away.

In addition to avoiding "dealer fees" and "reconditioning fees" and "inspection fees" there are also tag and title fees that can be avoided.  You can't avoid sales tax and registration fees (7% title fee here in Georgia) but the dealer wanted $599 for their "paperwork processing fee" and another $399 for an outside tag-and-title service to obtain title and tags.  These are both things you can do for free with a trip to your local DMV.  So that's another $999 in savings.

The good news is, we found at least two private party sale cars with low mileage, both belonging to elderly women who lost their licenses. One is orange!  Complete service records, oil change history, etc.  And we're going to look at the orange one tomorrow.  Price?  $18,000 to $20,000 (asking).  A far cry from thirty grand!  And no Takata airbag recall! (VW has stalled on this, claiming there are no parts available to fix the problem - aging airbags may go off spontaneously and blow your head off - charming!).

No one weeps when a car dealer goes bust or a used car salesman does the honorable thing by putting his head next to a Takata airbag and driving gently into a brick wall.

I don't deny a car dealer a fair profit, but tacking on ten grand to a twenty grand car?  Fuck that - and fuck them!

UPDATE:  When we bought our last two cars (the Hamster and the King Ranch) we negotiated the price over the phone or via text (same for the Nissan).  No hassle, no hidden charges.  There are good dealers out there - or were.  I think CoVid and Trumpism have destroyed people's  minds and created this "what's in it for ME?" mentality.  Also a new generation  has come of age with apparently no fiscal skills.  We have 20-year-olds going bankrupt on student loans, sports betting, Bitcoin, or options trading.

More on that, later.

Capital Gains Tax and the Installment Provision

When someone unilaterally alters the terms of a deal, walk away!

We sold the condo - or will be selling it shortly.  We had a lot of showings in the first two weeks - at least a dozen or more.  One problem in selling the place is financing. Since the majority of units are now owned by investors, Fannie Mae financing is not available.  It's either a VA loan or cash sales - and that limits your buyer pool.   As I have discussed ad nauseam here in the past, the value of Real Estate (or anything) is determined by supply and demand, and if the demand pool shrinks, so do prices.

We listed it at $165,000 which is in line with other recent sales for admittedly nicer appointed units.  That is still very cheap for walk-to-Metro in the DC area.  We got one offer for $145 with $115,000 cash down and asking us to "take back" a $30,000 note.  Since I bought 917 Duke Street with a similar arrangement back in 1994, I was receptive to the offer and asked them to put it in writing.

The offer came back at $135,000 (with no explanation) and putting $100,000 down and asking us to finance $35,000 over three years at one percent for some reason.  We countered at $140,000 with the note at 6% and they ghosted us.  All for the best, anyway, as the next day we got an all-cash offer, no contingencies, at $150,000.   Sold!

I ran into a similar thing with Duke Street.  I had listed the place for rent and an insurance agent (Boo! Hiss!) called me and said he wanted to buy the place for $640,000.  I was not on the market to sell, but was open to the offer.  He put together a written offer that changed, subtly, several terms of his verbal offer.  One change was that he wanted (verbally) to have 15 days to inspect the property and do an "economic analysis".  I agreed, only to be chagrinned to see he wrote the contract (which he typed up himself - a first warning sign) to read fifteen business days which is nearly a month.

Not surprisingly, his "inspection" claimed the building was riddled with defects, but out of the kindness of his heart, he would give me $400,000 for it as an act of charity.  I realized he was a time-waster and moved on and rented the place for another year and sold it for $680,000 with no contingencies.  Today it is once again a residence, as the market for office space has evaporated over time.  But it was an interesting lesson to be learned.

And the lessons are many.  When people try to "sneak" in changes in a contract, watch out.  A contact is a "meeting of the minds" not a game of "gotcha."  And when (as he did) you represent a written contract as encompassing the terms discussed verbally and via e-mail, but instead sneak in changes, well, that's pretty much fraud.  Just walk away from people like that.

The other thing is that, while home inspections can be useful to a buyer (particularly a first-time buyer) in deciding whether or not to buy, some buyers think they are a cudgel to be used to cram down the price on a home by getting a friendly home inspector to find "defects" in the property.  They will then try to threaten you by arguing that if you don't sell to them you are obligated to disclose these alleged "defects" to anyone else looking to buy the property.  It is a shady way of low-balling people and in the commercial or investor class of real estate, it isn't done much.  But it is used against amateur sellers all the time, so seller beware!

When I told the insurance agent (buyer) to piss-off, he started screaming at me on the phone.  He thought I was desperate to sell or something and that by tying up the property for nearly a month he would catch me in a cash-crunch.   I should have seen the signs early on.   But I learned from the experience.

But now on to today's topic - the installment provision of the tax code!  One problem with making money is that you have to pay taxes on it.  And paying taxes is only fair - up to a point - but getting socked with a big tax bill all at once isn't fair at all.  And the tax code assumes your income is steady, so when you get a one-time windfall, they assume this is your new normal and tax you accordingly.  Hourly workers notice this when working overtime - the withholding jumps up because Uncle Sam assumes this is your new norm.

So, for example, we sell this condo for $150,000.  Since the property was fully depreciated ages ago, our capital gains are easy to calculate - the entire sales price is a capital gain.  Problem is, we live on about $40K-$50K a year in 401(k) savings (no debt!) so that would put our income at $200,000 a year, which means we are boosted into a much higher bracket.  Fortunately, I was able to move the closing date to January, so the income will be taxable in 2025, not 2024.

Still, even then, it is problematic.  In addition to paying the capital gains taxes, we also will lose our Obamacare subsidy (nearly $20K!) or have to pay it back.  Again, the government (whose employees receive regular checks) assumes that a one-time blip in your income is a new norm and should be taxed accordingly.

One way around this is to spread the gains over a number of years (which the IRS forces you to do with passive losses!) through the installment provision.  Take back a mortgage on the property and receive monthly mortgage payments.  You get paid interest (ordinary income) as well as principle (capital gains) but your tax burden is spread out over a number of years.

There are other advantages as well.  For example, by offering owner financing, you may increase the size of the pool of buyers, which means you can ask a higher price.  In terms of an "investment" it is pretty sound, as the debt is backed by the property and if the tenant buyer stops paying, you can foreclose, take the property back and sell it again to someone else.  It's like being a landlord without having to unclog toilets.  Just make sure the down payment is enough to cover potential foreclosure costs, should the need arise.

But in our case, we decided to take the cash offer.  And some would be quick to note that long-term capital gains are taxed at relatively favorable rates.  However, if you have short-term gains (such as in house-flipping) they may be taxed as ordinary income.  Moreover, if you are selling a property over a half-million or so (see chart below) the rate may jump to 20% - which makes the installment provision look attractive.

Note also the 0% rate for gains under about fifty grand.  This makes a three year installment note of 50K a year look attractive!

For us, it is the Obamacare subsidy which is the issue. It amounts to nearly half our annual income and thus would really screw us in terms of accelerating the depletion of our 401(k) balance.   Punting this gain to 2025 at least lessens that impact as I am going on Medicare in March, and that just leaves Mark on ACA, which should cut our premiums (and thus subsidies) in half.

After taxes and payback of ACA subsidies, however, there will be barely enough to live on for more than a year or so.  Sad math!  But it is time to downsize, and the condo was becoming a break-even proposition, starting several years ago.

Next Up: Is it time to look at retirement communities?  Perhaps.

Tax rate	Single	Married filing jointly	Married filing separately	Head of household
0%	$0 to $47,025	$0 to $94,050	$0 to $47,025	$0 to $63,000
15%	$47,026 to $518,900	$94,051 to $583,750	$47,026 to $291,850	$63,001 to $551,350
20%	$518,901 or more	$583,751 or more	$291,851 or more	$551,351 or more

  

Who's Training Who? (The Perils Of Voice Recognition)

Is the machine serving us, or vice-versa?

A reader writes, suggesting I use voice recognition to dictate blog entries.  It is a good idea and I have used it in the past.  You can tell the voice recognition entries, as they tend to be verbose and long and sometimes have awkward phrasing.  This one is typed, and probably suffers from the same problems.

I tried one of the first voice recognition programs, Dragon NaturallySpeaking back in the 1990s.  It was kind of a hot mess.   As I recall, you had to "train" it with sample sounds, and even then, well, the results varied from frustrating to amusing.  I gave up rather quickly.

Still, it was an amazing thing.  As a kid, my Math teacher had this "crazy" idea that 7th graders could learn computer programming - normally a special elective reserved only for the smartest High School Seniors.  Come to think of it, in 2nd grade, they taught us set theory and Boolean Algebra as part of the "New Math" curriculum.  I could have been Bill Gates!

Problem was, back then, software was considered "Liberal Arts" and a trivial pursuit.  Colleges didn't recognize it as "science" and neither did the Patent Office.  Maybe that is why so many tech Billionaires are college dropouts.  Not everything there is to learn is taught in school.  In fact, nothing new is learned by memorizing the old.  But I digress.

Back then, of course, it was the 1970s and we sat around all day long getting high and drinking beers (at age 15, act shocked) and when passing the bong would say things like, "Hey man, wouldn't it be cool if someday you could just talk to a computer and it would talk back to you?"  And a friend would reply, "Far out, man!  Maybe someday they'll make a computer small enough to fit in a suitcase!"  "No way, man!"  I remember having a vision, at age 16, while high, about artificial intelligence - something about language models or something, I forget.  It evaporated as quickly as it appeared.

We had no idea how prescient our marijuana-fueled fever-dreams would be, and how soon they would come true, and how timid our expectations were.  Today, a cell phone fits in the palm of your hand and does all these things and more - and stores a library of information as well.  I have over 10,000 songs stored on my cell phone, along with a library of a thousand books.  For a guy raised on 20MB hard drives, who had to solder in DIP chips of memory, one Kbyte at a time, well, it seems unreal.

And yea, voice recognition has come a long way.  But it also hasn't.  One reason I am loathe to use it - in addition to the verbosity problem - is the manual corrections that need to be made.  And these corrections are as painful (in my case, literally) as typing new text.  Speaking of which, I have about 20 minutes until the Tylenol wears off, so I'd better damn well get to the point.

Google Voice has problems with homonyms.  They're, Their, and There are indistinguishable to voice recognition software, as are You're and Your.  Not long ago, posting something online and using the wrong your or you're would generate a litany of pedantic complaints along the lines of, "It's spelled you're, dumbass, buy a dictionary!"  But today, I see less and less of that, as everyone just assumes you are using voice recognition.  In automotive discussion groups, confusion of "breaks" for "brakes" isn't even commented on anymore.  Everyone knows what you meant.

Which raises an ugly point: Are we training the machines or are they training us?  Because I notice already that I tend to avoid contractions when using voice recognition to as to avoid the You're/Your or the They're/Their dichotomies.  So my voice recognition "writing" tends to be more formal, with "You are" or "They are" instead of their contracted counterparts (which save one ASCII character each!).

(I think also that people are accepting these alternative spellings and they may supplant the real deal in a decade or two.  The online brochure for your new SUV will describe the four-wheel anti-lock disc breaks and no one will bat an eye.  The Oxford English Dictionary will list "brakes" as an archaic spelling).

But beyond that, I find myself talking differently as well.  Apparently, according to voice recognition, I have several speech impediments, so I have to pronounce words more carefully.  Funny thing, though, when it comes to punctuation, Google Voice recognizes period, comma, exclamation point, and question mark, as actual punctuation, but cannot understand "quote" or "quotation mark" for the life of me.  Moreover, sometimes it reverts to spelling out those words, instead, for no apparent reason.

I wonder if perhaps voice recognition is training us to talk in a certain, stilted, accent-free manner, to the point where, a decade from now, the sound of our very voices will be unrecognizable to the people  of today.  We adapt to the machine, not vice-versa.  And if you need evidence of this, look no further to your smart phone, which you are likely hunched over as we speak (Are we speaking? Why is that a phrase?).  And consider how "Social Media" has changed how people actually think - and how it has swayed elections and overturned governments.  We are slaves to the machine.

Of course, it might not end up that way (or has it already?). A few lines of code could be inserted to use text context to determine whether you meant to say, "You're breaks are bad" or not.  Maybe "AI" will fix this, maybe not.   The results of Google searches using AI are laughable and inexcusably wrong - for no apparent reason, it seems, other than to mess with our minds.  Maybe that is the point.

The Tylenol is wearing off and my error rate is skyrocketing, so I guess I am done for today.  Not verbose, though, eh?  Take that, Google Voice!

The New 2025 CoVids Are Here!

Trump is back and so is CoVid!  Like a bad penny!

I haven't posted regularly for a number of reasons.  Health is one of them.  My rotator cuff apparently needs surgery and that will have to wait until the latter half of 2025 at least.   If I use the computer, my arm starts to ache and then I feel spikes of pain in my shoulder and then, after a while, my right arm feels like it is on fire.  I never did like the mouse and I wonder whether 30 years of mousing was in fact, the problem.

I could type up a storm in the days of WordPerfect and DOS - no mouse to interrupt the keyboard flow.  Back then I could do 100 WPM with few errors.  With a mouse, well, that drops it to 60 WPM - so much for Windows "productivity."  Today, I am lucky to hit 15 WPM with a lot of typos - perhaps a combination of my shoulder injury and early dementia.

Oh, well.

I also got the Covid - again.  A friend recently traveled to Canada by plane and came back hacking and coughing.  She and Mark spent a week setting up the Merry Artists show and he started hacking and coughing.  A few days later, so did I.  I felt like crap, just like the last time - with searing headaches (no doubt more "white spots" on the brain) and a general feeling of malaise.

My doctor claims the new variant of Covid is not as bad as the old one.  We'll see.  Bad time to appoint anti-vaxxers to government health agencies, doya think?

Anyway, I have my new passport and reservations are in place.  Repositioning cruise to Barcelona from Ft. Lauderdale (by way of Gibraltar and Lisbon), six weeks in a rented camper on the Iberian pennisula, and then another repositioning cruise back to New Orleans.  I may never come back!

Invest $500,000 in Portugal and you get the "Golden Passport" - 10-year residency and free to travel in the EU, plus a path to citizenship!  It's an option.

Gotta go - arm's on fire!