Easter Gift -- Super-Quick Tune-Up Makes You Feel Good

Weed, California, Easter Sunday 2009: Here is a super-quick little thing you can do in less than three minutes, and it makes you feel really good. Most likely this is very good for your body and mind as well, though I can't prove it!

I call it my 'Quick Tune-Up', and it's both startlingly effective and super-easy ...

A) Get an index card, or something similar, about 3" x 5".

B) Write on the card the following seven questions --

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Adrienne Searches on Google

Weed, California, Spring 2009: Adrienne is still somewhat new to computers, and she comes up with things that often elude me.

(Even around the house; she fixed the 'broken' garbage disposal; I'd never have thought to use the plumber's friend plunger!)

She has good results with the search engine, and uses it all the time.

One day I watched, and she types in entire sentences, like "Where can I find a list of all the major dog sanctuaries in the United States?"

I asked her why she didn't just enter "dog sanctuaries".

"What do you mean?" she said.

I repeated my question.

"I don't know," she said, "I just always think of it as the Magic Eight Ball."

For anyone raised in foreign climes, the Magic Eight Ball is a long-popular toy that looks like the Eight-Ball on a pool table. But it's flat on the bottom. You ask a question, and pick it up and turn it over. When you look at the flat part, an answer floats up into view in this little window.

My favorite answers: "Not at this time" and "Signs point to yes."

I have been giving her technique a try. After all, the plumbers friend plunger worked on the dishwasher. Why wouldn't the Magic Eight Ball technique work on Google?

And does it work?

Signs point to yes.

Paul Harvey ... Good Day.

Henrietta, Texas, 1960: When I was a senior in high school, at lunch I'd run to my car and drive quickly down to the Lo' Boy drive in, to order a BLT sandwich and coke, and then ... on with the radio.

Paul Harvey. One day he said, "Sniffing glue. All the kids in Texas are doing it."

Because my high school, and the Lo' Boy, were located in Texas, I was dubious about that particular story. I knew he was full of beans.

But most of the time, he was so on. And then one day he said he'd be speaking at the VFW hall in Vernon, which was less than an hours drive. I vowed to go.

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The Wonder of Acupuncture

White Crane Kung-Fu Studio, Geary Boulevard, San Francisco, 1974: In my Kung-Fu phase, I was crazy about everything Chinese ... except the interior decorating. I know that may sound just too, too gay, but aside from mysteriously grand Chinese interiors in old movies, have you ever been in a Chinese restaurant that wasn't garish as hell?

I've come to learn that it's because Red is Lucky, and no sensible Chinese person on the planet wants to be unlucky. Of course, when you think about it, that makes perfect sense. I wouldn't either.

Back to the Kung-Fu and acupuncture. This is a story about needles and eyeballs, but it turns out OK. Just warning you ...

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The Abandoned Road

Dallas, Texas, 1966. On this particular day, my girlfriend and I decided to take the psilocybin before heading out. Driving the Morgan from Dallas to Shady Shores was an odd adventure. It was about thirty miles, and seemingly many days driving.

I knew of this place from years earlier. College roommates and I had lived nearby, and some scouting trip discovered an abandoned roadway that had once run atop a dam built across Lake Dallas. In a concrete building halfway out, remnants of the dam's machinery remained, huge wheels and vast pipes, going nowhere.

Whoever these mysterious builders were, they were fickle, for after building the dam across the lake, they'd cut a hole through it, so it was no dam any longer. Just a finger of elevated land reaching toward, but not touching, a finger of land from the other side. On the elevated crest, earth and stone and even trees, and the once roadway ran, and stopped at the cut.

Just the spot for our picnic.

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The Good Old A-B Test

Weed, California, February 2008: Many years ago, when I lived in San Fransisco on Beery Goulevard, I had to do some layout work. I had very little skill, but I found a simple method. Although my method was slow, it worked.

I would just make up a layout, then change one thing. Then I'd look at version A and version B, and ask myself which version sucked less.

Then I'd take the winner, and discard the loser, and then on the winner I'd change something else, and again compare A to B.

In this way, I could slowly create a layout that looked pretty much OK, if not truly outstanding.

I just realized ... I'm still using the same method. Still slow. Still works.

This little story was version A. Version B sucked more.

So version A is my story. And I'm sticking to it.

Gosh. You learn something every day. Some days, you learn two things. I wonder if today is one of those?

Bobby's Communion

Wichita Falls, Texas, 1960: My cousins Bobby and Danny lived in this nearby city. Their father Pfeiffer sold insurance and had a fancy red Farmer's Insurance sign painted on the doors of their white Studebaker. "It makes the car deductible," he said.

His wife, formerly Rosemary Hurn, my mother's older sister, was in fact the eldest of the Hurn children, and she was quite beautiful. As we remember that screen sirens of the 1940's were somber-faced and dramatic explains a lot about how Rosemary and my mother dressed when they were dressing up. The difference between them was that my mother, a plump and cheery-natured woman, didn't really fit in that picture, but Rosemary brought it off fairly well.

Rosemary, in my opinion as a child, rather put on airs. It was this snooty outlook which made Bobby's first Communion so unfortunate for her.

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Follow Your Bliss, Know Thyself, Change the World

On the E1KaD forum, December 13, 2008: I enjoyed the following, which was posted today by Steve in Texas. Maybe you might like it, too --

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There has been a lot of talk on [this] forum about focus, building your business, marketing and so on, but I have seen little about being self employed, knowing yourself and getting the most out of yourself and your life.

Here’s my brain dump on "being" for you to use or disregard as you choose.

Why are you here?
Let’s face it, working for someone else is ultimately easer than working for yourself; no accounting, chasing payments, marketing or product creation. Turn up, put the nut on the bolt, get paid, go home. So why are we working for ourselves?

For me it’s the need to create, plus I don’t play well with morons, sorry managers. I used to write and record songs for a living. A couple thousand later I got it out of my system. Now I create other stuff. I love houses and remodeling (who knew), I bang out web applications, websites and and other apps on a regular basis… I can’t help myself. As my mother said when I was debating whether to build my first recording studio, "of course you should, it’s what you do dear".

What is it that you "do" dear?

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Law 23 of Project Design: Successive Refinement

San Francisco, 1976: I got my first computer! It was a high-class Cromemco, in a kit, and had a lightning fast Z80 processor that ran at (gasp) 3 megahertz, and a full 64K of memory.

I had a buddy who knew computers in and out -- he wrote code for our satellites to determine whether a field in russia had wheat or alfalfa -- and he put the kit together for me, cause I didn't know how to solder back then. (He's rich and retired long since, because he went to work for a new startup called Cisco, and they gave stock options; but that's another story.)

He also gave me a book about beginning to program in Basic.

It showed a simple technique called 'successive refinement.' If you are a programmer then you know this technique but for non-programmers here, it's really simple. And mongo useful.

Here's how it works ...

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Remembering John Lennon

New York, December 9, 1980: In the evening, John Lennon returned from the recording session at The Record Plant in New York. The limosine let him out in front of The Dakota, the gothic stone building pictured in the movie "Rosemary's Baby", and as he and Yoko Ono approached the building, Mark David Chapman called out "Mr. Lennon?" and shot Lennon five times with a .38 revolver.

Lennon was hit in the torso and the back. He called out, "I'm shot," took a few steps, and collapsed. When policed arrived, they found Chapman standing nearby, the gun on the ground. A building security guard asked Chapman, "Do you know what you've done?"

Chapman replied, "I just shot John Lennon."

Police rushed Lennon to the emergency room at the Roosevelt hospital, but he could not be revived.

Something died for many of us that day.

The sound of the Beatles, coming from the radio, startled us, back in the day. Those were college days for me. But perhaps you remember when you first heard their harmony, the enthusiasm, the sound was new and fresh.

A memory floats, quiet, like a blossom in a busy stream, and rushing around a bend, is gone.

A Tale of Toblerone ...

A Movie Theatre near Picadilly, London, 1968: Funny how memories come back to you. Pointless little things, a turn of phrase, the way some trees looked against the clouds on a dim horizon.

One of the moments in my life that I remember, from time to time, from 40 years ago, and still laugh each time, was a snippet of conversation overheard, when I first sat down in a theatre in London, to watch the film Barbarella.

The film had not yet begun, and I gradually became aware of the two guys in the row right behind me. Being American, it seemed to me that their cockney accents were thick as bad pudding.

Said one: "I'm going to the confession, mate."

Said the other: "Get us a Toblerone, eh?"

"Save me seat?"

"Guard it wi' me life, I will!"

Perfect Man, Perfect Woman

Someplace, Any Date: There was a perfect man and a perfect woman. They met each other at a perfect party. They dated for two perfect years. They had the perfect wedding and the perfect honeymoon. They had two perfect children.

One day the perfect man and the perfect woman were driving in there perfect car, they saw an elf by the side of the road, being the perfect people they were they picked him up.

Well as the perfect man and the perfect woman were driving with the elf, somehow they got into an accident. Two people died and one lived.

Who died and who lived?

The perfect woman, because the perfect man and elves aren't real.

The Holiday Cheer Touchstyle Club

Weed, California November 2008: Hot on the heels of the Mobius Magnificent Layaway Plan ... comes the "Holiday Cheer" Touchstyle Club, with perhaps hundreds of dollars of savings for deserving little girls and- Oops, I meant to say dollars of savings for deserving musicians around the globe.

Yes, the Touchstyle Club, strange visitor from another planet, who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal man; and who, disguised as Kent Clark, mild-mannikin at the Daily Bungle, a grape necropolitan snoozepaper ...

As you can see, things are going downhill fast here at the on-site news center. That's because I stayed up late last night, and then woke up early with yet another set of bonus stuff for anybody wanting to save perhaps Hundreds of Dollars -- oh, did I say that already -- well, perhaps I did.

If you'll take a quick peek, you can see why I've become over-excited. Be sure to *read every word*, from top to bottom, and then let me know what you think, you good little boys and- I mean, you good musicians, you.

Here it is --

The Holiday Cheer Touchstyle Club.

To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

Ginette Degner's blog, November 2008: The Bloggard has completely stolen this list from Search Engine Diva, even the title, because it made me fall about. Maybe you'd like it, too.

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.

2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don’t Disguise Your Voice!

3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, ask If They Want Fries with that.

4. At the Office, put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks . Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.

5. In the Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write ‘ For Marijuana.

6. Skip down the hall Rather Than Walk and see how many looks you get.

7. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.

8. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is ‘To Go’.

9. Sing Along At The Opera.

10. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can’t Attend Their Party Because You have a headache.

11. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream ‘I Won! I Won!’

12. When Leaving the Zoo, Start Running towards the Parking lot, Yelling ‘Run For Your Lives! They’re Loose!’

13. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, ‘Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.’

14. Pick up a Box of Condoms at the Pharmacy, Go to the Counter, and Ask Where the Fitting Room is.

This Newfangled Daylight-Savings Time

Dallas, Texas, Spring 1966: Living in Dunia Bean's apartment on Gillespie street, I worked at the Cabana Hotel. The Cabana is a clone of Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, complete with oversized statues of Venus, David, and the rest of the crew. Inside, a vast two-story lobby with greenish marble floor and a round sunken area with sofas enough for a football team.

Overlooking this magnificance, our front desk where I worked with Dick and Earl, dignified alcoholics. Dick taught me how to get big tips at crowded times, and Earl as a young actor fought swords with Errol Flynn in the movie Captain Blood. That was a while back.

But this was in the spring, and for the first time since the war, Texas was going to have Daylight Savings Time. We were all abuzz.

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