Well well well

Last week, which did not start well but trended up and seemed to conclude nicely, ended with an utter fustercluck. It actually mirrored, almost down to the language, another event in my career that resulted in an FU rage-quit. Which I will not be doing here, because I love what I do. For all I know, the worst has passed; for all I know, the worst is yet to come.

It’s really remarkable.

I spent the whole weekend pondering it. Turning it up to the light and counting the facets. There’s always those times when you imagine certain conversations that might arise, and how you might respond, and you catch yourself drifting into arguments or assertions about secondary, unrelated issues and topics - no! Stop. It’s not going to be like that. Guaranteed.

A word has been said that ends the conversation. I’ll just leave it at that.

So how do you fill the hours when you’re preoccupied with a churning mind? Find something that needs ruthless sorting, maybe. The closet! The downstairs storage closet. Needs sorting. Go. There’s some plastic stacked drawers that have a lot of power adapters, cords, and other things Computer Dudes tend to hoard.

We must be honest with ourselves: two of each is enough. Especially when you consider that this is the backup to the office box of cords, which is separate from the bag of cords that has the ones most likely to be used, which is separate from the travel bags of cords that are never to be touched, but exist in a state of perfect readiness. I can just throw that in the suitcase and go! (Well, better check first to make sure it has everything.) (It does) (Well, better toss a few backups in the carryon just in case something doesn’t work.) (They work.)

I threw out a lot. I think if a half-decade has passed since this item or that old camera was used, it’s clear its utility has passed from my life. Maybe one last time: hold the camcorder with which I recorded so many moments of Natalie’s life, feel the familiar buttons, look at the glass that captured her running across the soccer field or filing down the aisle at Christmas to sing. It is blank and wide and sees nothing. Glassy and dead. Out it goes.

Holy Kahliss, it’s the VHS tapes of me as a Klingon judge in a cable access fanfic show. Do I have the means to get these back? I suppose I could hand them off to one of those places that transfer stuff, but I used to do that myself . . . right? A VHS tape deck, an Elgato decoder, something with S-Video, usually a nightmare. Do I have any of that stuff around?

Yes, I have a VHS tape deck. It’s in the basement family room, never used anymore. It had a five-DVD changer, which I got to placate groups of small children. Load it up with the faves and let it serve as background noise until they got tired then laid on the floor looking up at SpongeBob or Mickey. That was a long time ago. You know what I use the basement family room for now? A sign that the weekly vacuuming has reached its final destination. After this we're done. Now and then Wife uses the treadmill; I do too, from time to time. Otherwise the space is something we pass through.

Say, what's this . . . an old hard drive, marked "Family Movies." Better keep that.

NO. For one thing, all the plugs are archaic, which is hiliarious - during the last cord purge, I must have looked at one of the cords and thought pshaw, like I'm ever needing that again. Out it goes! So proud. Making progress.

Would one say pshaw in that situation? Not sure. Of course no one ever says it, so it doesn't matter. The drive will be scrapped. I have more than enough backups, and yes, I realize that uttering that remark gets me kicked out of most Data Hoarding organizations and fraternal societies.

Sunday I painted the wood fence that conceals the garbage bins, a very nice way to spend a warm afternoon while listening to the history of Carthage on The Rest is History. I know how these things go: when I do a job and listen to something, I will always remember what I listened to, and so the fence will be forever associated with the first Punic War. Next weekend I will do a second coat, and this might mean the fence will be associated with the second Punic War.

Or possibly the Green Hornet theme, although I'll let you figure out why.

The Gazettes provide a look at the commercial vernacular from 90 years ago. Sometimes they look forward, and just as often as not they reach back decades for a familiar look.

Are any of these brands still around? We'll find out.

Say, you don't think . . .

Nope. Frito-Lay was the result of the merger of Frito and H. W. Lay, not T. L.

Okay, well, we'll see what we can do. We're pretty backed up now

It starts with lots of low-quality inadvertent documentary.

Where is this?

Has to be Bunker Hill, the usual location for all the seedy shots. I could watch this stuff for hours.

"Hey, let's head down to the red-light district, get blotto on fortified wine, see some burlesque, and get out passport photos taken"

Our wandering soul ends up at a modern office building.

Can we find it? You have no idea how much I tried. I reversed the sign:

And if I had access to more period photos, I'd find it. Anyway: our hero-but-not-really-but-maybe:

He’s dictating a story to someone, and starts by saying he’ll be dead in 55 minutes. So it’s Double Indemnity?

If that’s the case, who’s the femme fatale?

Look, we all love her, but I’m not sure she’s the right one for a tale of murder and infidelity.

The prosecuting attorney, shown here with his scale-model Paul Drake:

Why, it’s our old friend from radio. (I love the fact that he was in Airplane 2.) For that matter, Raymond Burr was everyone’s old friend from radio. Anyway, it steals from Double Indemnity, with a voice recorder as the framing device. And at the end:

Busted! But this might be the first time Burr displays his Perryosity, and for all we know this was one of the reasons he got the gig.

There is no Diner this week for the stupidest possible reason, which relates to the Current Difficulty, which some day I may tell you. In a way I hope I don't.