I started writing this yesterday after getting the news about the death of John C. Dvorak.
He used to piss me off so much when he was working for PC Magazine and Computer Shopper.
My impression of him was strange. His early tech writing often hit me just the-wrong way.
I haven’t returned to look at much of it. When he was involved with the CNet/TechTV/etc group, I paid far less attention. My interests were things like women, football, politics, etc.
As the pandemic dragged on, I tuned in No Agenda, one of the earliest podcasts with Adam Curry, formerly of Headbangers Ball on MTV.
Uh. Um. Okay. This is different.
The Episode is very long. I had all sorts of thoughts as I was listening, but many of them were really circulating around the older Boomers, like my parents and JCD.
I notice on TV when there’s stories about a celeb who’s died. Now many of them are born between 1946 and 1955. JCD was 80, though his Wikipedia page says he was born in 1952 (And the family tried to get it corrected, then gave up kind of as a hey-fuck-yourselves-Wikipedia-we-told-you-this-was-wrong-but-you-refused-to-fix-it.
But, in a couple of his final few episodes, he and Adam discussed what Medicare paid for his double-bypass in his late-70s. The operation kept him going for less than a year.
CATO puts out good information on these sorts of things.
It’s very odd to discuss as someone with an incurable and very expensive condition, but….
I have mental problems, and think of Edward G. Robinson in Soylent Green.
Relaxing trip off the mortal coil before you become food.
In an oddly-interesting parallel, Mark Warner announced that this year will be his final re-election campaign.
Um. Okay. How much money you gonna make in the meantime, Senator Nextel? And I’m absolutely certain that you will collaborate with the people you hate to make sure there’s funding approved that skirts both the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, and the Pay-As-You-Go guardrails. Neat stuff.
Social Security gets its haircut, now, a year sooner, partially due to the stupid stuff the Trump Administration has done. (For the umpteenth time, I didn’t vote for him, and actually think Officer Harris would have probably found a way to be worse…) Medicare has been paying out more than it brings in for a while now, and a good portion are spent in the last few years of life.
Nobody is going to do things prudently. Good luck, I guess.
So. Prompt….
What’s a form of creativity I want to explore more?
Hm. Well, since the guitar stuff is working out so well, I’m kind of at a loss. With the restrictions on what I may do financially, I’m still muddling through a bit.
What can I do through “trade,” as it used to be called when I was in the broadcast industry. The Podcasting 2.0 crowd call it Value-for-Value (V4V).
I paid a significant portion of the repair bill for one of the tenants in my mother’s house. I’ve certainly “wasted” money on stuff less-consequential. But the car is kinda neat, it has A/C, and would probably mean a comfortable ride to and from New Orleans. If I fly to New Orleans, I don’t have to change planes in Charlotte, Atlanta, Houston, or Chicago. So the trip is a bit quicker, costs a little less, and I get a comfortable ride where I’m trying to go.
“I’ll pay this for three rides to and from NOLA”
“Deal.”
Back to the other fun stuff that’s preventing guitar practice.