Saturday, July 18, 2009

Blog - twits.

Man, if you look at the national unemployment maps, it's like -- Revenge of the Red States.

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Bend keeps popping up in the top five of all kinds of negative indicators. Someone more ambitious than me ought to collect them all in one place.

But anyone that ambitious probably wouldn't want to wallow in all the bad news.

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A customer offered a rational explanation why so many parking spots downtown are empty -- the heat. People are parking in the garage to escape the heat.

Makes sense, except it hasn't been all the hot until lately, and it didn't seem to be this way last year or the year before.

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Foot traffic, schmoot traffic -- I did twice the business yesterday with half the number of customers than Thursday.

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I didn't get my gold star for customer relations on Thursday. Had a real putz in, and I asked him. "Are you from around here?"

"Why, no," he says.

"Good," I said, emphatically.

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Lost my twitter access for about ten days, but I still picked up a smattering of followers.

I don't understand twitter....

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HBM has offered to show me how to download music. Don't I have to buy some fancy do-hickey? Something eye-pody? I have no speakers on either of my computers. I don't like the constant noise...

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I topped off my gas tank last fill up because I wanted to check my mileage. Now I come to find out that I can't top it off this time, which thwarts me.

I do so hate being thwarted.

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Any bets whether the OSU College of Education will actually move to Bend?

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We just don't seem to have the trouble with trash and graffiti and swearing and loitering that Wall Street has. Knock wood. I think it's really interesting how the city council imposed a big fine for skateboarding at almost the same time the police department withdrew their downtown patrol.

That really worked.

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So is there a consensus that this economic era will be called the Great Recession? Sounds about right.

7 comments:

tim said...

Do you want to listen to music on your computer? If you buy speakers, I'll get you going. You don't need any hardware besides the speakers.

Duncan McGeary said...

Thanks, Tim. My new POS is a quantum leap in quality. I think there is a button I can push, and the speakers are built in. I think.....

tim said...

At the very least, we can put the music you own into iTunes so you don't have to have the CDs lying around.

H. Bruce Miller said...

"Don't I have to buy some fancy do-hickey? Something eye-pody?"

No. You'd only have to buy an iPod if you wanted an iPod, but the iTunes software (the thingy that enables you to download music to your computer) is free.

"I have no speakers on either of my computers."

You don't need 'em (though I'd recommend 'em.) You can listen with headphones. Or you can spring for speakers and just set them on "mute" until you want to listen to something.

"My new POS is a quantum leap in quality."

What's your old machine -- a Radio Shack TRS-80, I think? Or is it a Wang?

"I think there is a button I can push, and the speakers are built in."

The built-in speakers are crap. You need a separate set with a subwoofer. They're cheap and easy to set up.

"At the very least, we can put the music you own into iTunes so you don't have to have the CDs lying around."

That's also a good way of protecting the CDs against damage or loss. Listen to the MP3 files and keep the CDs safe.

Incidentally there is a music site called pandora.com that provides a commercial-free feed of all different kinds of music 24/7. And iTunes also has a huge variety of streaming audio stations -- about 30 jazz stations alone.

I'm tellin' ya Dunc, it's a world o' miracles and wonders out there ...

H. Bruce Miller said...

"Man, if you look at the national unemployment maps, it's like -- Revenge of the Red States."

The red states have been flat-ass broke for years -- the rest of the country just caught up with 'em.

Actually I think the explanation is that since so many of the red states have agriculture-based economies, they weren't hit as hard as the states that had manufacturing-based economies or (like Oregon and Florida) real estate bubble-based economies.

Anonymous said...

This so called "Great Recession" will be called "The Great Collapse", IMHO

Duncan McGeary said...

Marge, you may be right.

The Great Recession is like saying, "Worst coldbug ever." Doesn't really get across the pain, does it.