TubaOrNotTuba

It is with great disappointment that I announce the passing of my old speakers. The pair hung around for more than a quarter of a century, but over the last few years they’ve languished, almost forgotten, in the back of the TV hutch. Our stereo amplifier had developed a case of terminal deafness on one side, so the compromise was to forego home sound, replacing quality with quantity. We bought personal media players and cheap earphones and learned to sing off-key with the various videos showing on the appropriate channels. Home sound was downsized.

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Heard about it; couldn’t hear it. The mosquito. Actually, this story has been around for a while, but there’s a local flavour, according to the news. Store owners who have camp followers, in the sense of kids that hang around outside (waiting for Godot) and drive more monied customers into the arms of the competition have been testing a repellant that uses high frequency sound to annoy the young, more than the young annoy them. Simply feed the sound into your outdoor speakers and the triage is done.

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I have enjoyed some wonderful times at the beach. Days and nights where the world shrunk to a small area of sand, surf and a campfire created out of recycled storm wrack. If I was given to superlatives, I might even refer to some of those places as a bit of paradise, within the limits imposed by my own experience and organized religions. But, what if that paradise was also a description of Hell?

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This afternoon saw me out trying to buy little things. Stuff like headphone adapters, that stores such as Radio Shack would have had by the boxload only a few years ago. Now, the orphan child of that venerable chain is about to be sent to a new foster home, where only telephones will be given a place in front of the fireplace. The clerk knew what I was looking for (he’s older than you might think), but that doesn’t change the way stock is now allocated. If you’re looking for little stuff, grab it while you can, because “the times, they are a changing”.

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Like the rest of you, I listen to the news, I read the news, I avoid being the subject of the news. The rules are clear. But from time to time, my cynicism increases, nourished by the content. Take, as an example, a trial that’s winding down in the US, involving  a huge case of investor fraud. I can’t comment on the veracity, but I can comment on the voracity of one of the parties involved.

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About four years ago, when I took my first tentative steps in the blogswamp, we were in the process of changing vehicles. Nothing impressive; one van looks pretty much like another, and that goes for the interior as well as the exterior. Changing your “rig” in the middle of the winter keeps the unnecessary chatter around the driver’s window down to a minimum. In fact, I didn’t even go out for the changing ceremonies.

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What to do? Most commercial transactions are straightforward. You pay your money and you take (your chances). The buyer and the seller are part (and parcel) in the equation, but guilt isn’t one of the variables. And then there’s the commission sales agent.

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The realization that tough economic times was driven home, when the local sandwich shop ran out of bread. No reserves in the back room. No customers waiting for a hot batch of buns in the oven. Just a handlettered sign in the front door. Might as well have declared “Gone out of business”.

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We’re ready to change the family vehicle, and I have to hand it to Detroit. No matter how troubled the economic pool might be, there is no need to court the customer. Self-assurance is the name of the game, I guess. What’s one customer, more or less, when the governments have decided to “carry” your business model?

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Somewhere, I read that we have to know where we’ve been to know where we are (going). I’m watching the “first news conference” from the new president, and his ability to speak is such a pleasant distraction after the last eight years, but that’s not what I started to write about. Fortuitous timing. Let’s return to the regular programming.

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