No Beef With The Sardine Fast

I just got  back from the Ideal Market, where I encountered a lady who had about a 4 foot long sugar cane in her cart. I asked her if one boils, or grinds down such a thing.

"No, you just  peel it and suck on the inside. You've never eaten sugar cane?"

She was a  slightly rotund Latino looking woman about a half foot shorter than me and had a very dark skinned boy of about 4 or so -small enough to fit in a shopping cart along with a sugar cane, some bottled water; and the kind of sugar-water "orange juice" that that particular culture (that one in three of wind up with "diabetes") seem to like.

"No, but I've  had savillas before."

"Savillas have aloe  in them."

"Yeah"

"I guess I  know why they call it sugar 'cane,'" I said, making a gesture like holding a cane..

I got ground  beef to go with the sardine-only fast. This is allowed, due to a technicality.

Nutrition in the  21st century is more the art of what to avoid, then it is about the 'miracle' foods. Unless that "manna from heaven" comes in a sardine can...

I left my  phone to charge during the frolic to the Ideal Market and back.

Since my Firefox  browser crashed last week and I installed a Chrome browser, I've been pretty amazed at the behavior of that particular piece of software.

Had I not  known better, I might think that the "news" that is featured in that section of the search function is really news, and not propaganda. A monopoly on propaganda can be pretty convincing; jumping around to different platforms, seeing basically the same thing, then feeling like you are 'informed' because you have read "all the news," type of thing...

I have to  roll my eyes when people exclaim: "Don't you watch the news?!" along the way to explaining that

It's all the  same suspects, with the same transparent motives: just keeping people at odds with each other, instead of them.

He who controls  what comes over the phones that everyone in the world scrolls on all day, every day, has a lot of power. But this is primarily effective on the 'boomers' who might still believe the Warren Report, or that 8 million people voted in 2020 who had never before and haven't since, type of thing..

Better than when I was 50 (above)?

I had to  manually type things like: "Glen Greenwald," "Russell Brand," "Tucker Carlson," "Finkelstein," into the search box, to retrieve my trusted sources. While, to give the illusion of "balance," there were results for the kind of "right wing" news that trades in gossip and emotions. "Watch this politician's face when confronted with the truth," type of fluff...

And, still my  computer will shut off and go into reboot in the middle of some video that "I don't need to see," according to...?

Anyways; I've been  getting more accomplished and have less anxiety, almost zero depression, extra physical energy and I'm playing the guitar better than ever in my life (finally surpassed my 36 year old self who practiced the way marathon runners run every day) and, the sardine diet has been instrumental. I have more of a peripheral awareness; like I can put on a pot of water to boil, then go off and do something while waiting for it to do so, without being distracted by it until hearing the water that hasn't boiled out of the pan yet sizzling away and reminding me that I was making coffee, type of thing...

I'm 2 hours  from getting my retirement benefits, after a hellish month when I overdrew my account and was hit with charges, and had to start "in the hole." That should have freaked me out, but I am so slow to freak out these days, with all the gratitude and joy meditations, the sleep affirmations and the sardine fast..

Each one of  those 31 days of March, a new miracle happened.

Alyne 

and Mike, Lidgley

"..the moon was blue; and every crazy day brought something new to do."

One day, I  ran out of sardines. I went out for a walk, not doubting at all that I might just find a case of sardine cans sitting right along the way. It wasn't sardines, but a box of a dozen 'pea protein' energy drinks; which lasted just long enough for food stamp money to come in.
Another day, waking up in the afternoon, out of coffee; I had just nudged myself into a state of gratitude despite that situation when, out of my wallet fell one of the Starbucks gift cards that the LIdgley's have sent on various occasions like Christmas...
*I don't know why my pictures of them are rendering like this, without me showing. Probably a Google Chrome facial recognition bug designed to remove me from everywhere online, because I don't have TDS...?

On days when  I hadn't found something 'just sitting there,' Jacob would call wanting to busk, and we would split enough money to get me to the next day, the next manifestation, or we might just busk a second consecutive evening.

And then there  was one broke-ass day when someone called wanting to buy a tire that I'd listed about 6 months prior, on Facebook Marketplace. As I stood there thinking: I'd really like to go and get a couple cans and a bottle of red wine, but I don't have any money. And then thought: gratitude and joy for having life itself; and then the notification came in: "Do you still have the tire?"

I Have No Beef With The Sardine Fast

I've got some  ground beef in a skillet on the stove right now, which I'm getting mighty hungry for; but must do the Wim Hof deep breathing exercises on an empty stomach; as per Wim's wims; and so I must delay my gratification for about 35 minutes, during which I will be supping on the food of the gods, alkalizing my bloodstream, and manufacturing natural pharmaceuticals in my brain and body...

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40 Days (basically) Into The Sardine Fast

I had read, with some skepticism, things online about how the sardine diet can cause a squid to grow out of your head; but I figured it was trolls or whatever...

At first I was pretty calm, upon realizing that I had, in fact, a squid growing out of my head...

I was amazed by how unfazed I was about the squid; as, my brain really began to feel like it was repairing itself. Then, the squid started kind of melting into me, imparted some kind of intelligence into my mind as, time began to slow down, so that the ticking of my clock seemed like every ten days here, and I began to become lighter to the point where I felt like a cloud moving through anti-matter air; and I lived many lives as time dragged to a halt and I became nothing; and the only thing there was, full stop, was energy... and I became like half god, half squid in that moment; and became a very powerful, though sometimes downright angry looking, spiritual being -a portal to infinity! So just a heads up when you see me..

Sometimes I can't decide whether I'm more angry above, or to the left!
But I also can be a benevolent half squid/ half god.. 

I would say, in closing, and blogging as half god, half squid; have a good day everyone, and if this is indeed a side effect of the sardine fast, I tend to think it's a bonus..

>

How Do I Delete This? Kill It!!

Yeah; ""Ctl+a"" selects 

all of the blog post from the previous time; and then Ctl-k clears the screen so I can start typing in the day's thoughts...

I thought about:  why the letter "k" in conjunction with the Control key to delete all selected; and, while perhaps the letter "d" had already been assigned to "duplicate," and that might figure in, I believe it's connection to the human through her "intuition" being representative of the word "kill."

If you don't  have the manual for the Geany editor I use, you might be floundered by trying control+d only to notice that you have done something other than delete, say, yesterday's blog post.

Then, the code  writers figured, the user then should try the letter k, to kill the stuff highlighted on the screen.

I was just  thinking it's something like that which will be the bug in the AI realm that will be the undoing of mankind.

Control+d should have  been repurposed to delete; make disappear; demolish, even the text.

But, instead, I  give the command to kill it each time...

I went to  get 2 cans of sardines from Ideal Market, where I felt bad about being a 63 year old who finds the cashiers who work in there deligtful in their beauty who has not the impulse control not to show it.

They probably think  I am...I'm trying to think of that Spanish idiom for "crazy sardine man.." by now. Four weeks of 2 cans every day and, usually, nothing else to go with them...

Those poor young  ladies of various Latina persuasion, trapped behind those registers...nothing to do but gossip in between customers...

I thank God  in advance for a wonderful Latina about 20 years my junior, who's going to start going in there buying lot's of sardines..2 cans a day! A vibrant and healthy one with mental clarity who probably jogged to the store, and is a musician..

A pretty lady  who'd seen the same youtube videos as I about the keto and the carnivoire and the sardine diets; and had taken control of her life and is now looking for a like minded man, type of thing..

The day is  too beautiful to just sit and blog about it...(that might should be the new title of this blog..)

I

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Cartoons On The Horizon?

Another brainstorm, after having found this book somewhere..

As daunting a tast as learning cartooning comprehensively seems; I think I will create just one or two "characters" and then just use them as my main one's as it will be enough of a challenge just to learn how to draw them from different angles and perspectives...yeah..

Lilly's Doghouse Revisited

This is the  Saturday night in between Good Friday and Even Better Sunday...

The Easter bunny  is going to have hidden little chocolate eggs all over my apartment.

I remember, as  about an 8 year old, going to my dad's tool room, which was also the big freezer for sides of beef room and the stacked cases of Miller Lite beer room.

I returned to  the living room with a screwdriver, and was about to start taking the screws off the back of the Zenith color TV, thinking that the Easter bunny would have thought that inside the TV would be a great place to hide eggs.

"No, the Easter  bunny wouldn't put any eggs in there," my dad said. "He wouldn't have time to open the back of our TV; he has a lot of houses to go to...he's in a hurry..."

I often try  to recollect what my state of mind was, back when I believed in a fictitious rabbit that hid candy in our house every Easter Sunday. I guess I actually believed in the thing; yet; I think the very same "voice" -that is technically the negative of a voice (since it speaks only when all other voices are silenced) was aware that, the supposition of the existence of the Easter bunny raised more questions than it answered...

As a seven  year old, it never dawned upon me to ask my parents how the Easter bunny got in our house, and even why he chose one particular brand of commercially sold chocolate eggs to hide in our living room. And, why only in our living room and how were our parents so sure that it would't have hidden some extra eggs, say in the basement...

I don't recall  ever having any persistent curiosity about the Easter bunny. Like, the day after Easter I don't think I ever wondered aloud to my parents: "I wonder what the Easter bunny does the rest of the year' or any such muses. That was probably because my attitude might have been: who cares, it doesn't bring chocolate those days, so, out of sight, out of mind, type of thing, perhaps...

That being said;  there were little chocolate eggs hidden all over my place this morning...

Jacob and I  went out to play at Lilly's this afternoon. This was unusually early for us, 4 pm. and I noticed as we were unloading our stuff and starting to walk to the spot that I had a missed call from Lilly.

I was pretty  sure that it had been her calling to protest our having played from 11:30 until after 2 a.m. the night before, and she might even have been calling to inform me that Jacob and I were hence banned from playing at the Lilly Pad for maybe a month or so, like the last time...

It really was  my fault for having gone and set up at 11:30 after Lilly had chastised me for doing such probably a year ago. I guess I was thinking that that was a year ago, and it would be alright.

In the meantime  some black guy had sat on the stoop where we play and had unpacked what looked like a barber shop out of a large backpack and I think he was intending to offer haircuts to tourists.

We should have  just walked up to him and maybe asked him if he would be cool with doing his hair thing one stoop down, so we could play there. Hindsight is 20/20.

Instead I made  the mistake of calling Lilly to inform her of the guy.

She went out  and ran him away, but then we made the mistake of showing up with our gear whilst he was refilling his backpack with hair care products and clippers and trimmers.

He basically told  us that we need not bother setting up to play because the lady had just come and told him he couldn't run his barber shop in front of her house.

To boil it  down, he said that, should we set up and be allowed to play, he was going to sue Lilly because, in his opinion "that would be racist."

The race card;  of course...

"Well, we're both  Italian," I said to the guy.

"What the f**  does that matter?!" he said.

"Exactly," I said.  "It doesn't matter what you are, it's not about race."

Then, Lilly came  out and used the matter of us having played until 2 the previous morning, as an issue to tell us we couldn't play.

I think she  was actually afraid of the guy invoking the "R" word against her, either on social media or in any other way...

We moved down  a block to the green door and had a good jam for the couple hours we had before Jacob had to go do other things...

"That would be  racist!!" What a stupid ignorant "The View" watcher he was, to have delivered that of himself..

It would be  easy to blame that on his phone, and what comes over it all day, every day.

But, at some  point it's incumbent upon the individual to figure out how he is being manipulated and just not ""go there."

He was probably  a homo, was my thought, because most black "men" under 30 just are, these days...

They must drink  the tap water, along with the likes of Alex Carter in San Jose, CA.

What a pathetic  fool that pathetic fool is. -running out the clock on his pathetic existence -desiring some blond haired Japanese guy he sees at a market where he goes; but cowering under the imagined shaming by his father, or more likely his mother. And never really "living" -not once, during his whole biological life..

I see a  lot of my contemporaries -"boomers" beset by this same plight...

Where was I? 

We are playing  really well, I'm starting to feel that familiar "audience in my hands like putty" sensation while playing and, it's about time... 

I think marijuana usage had delayed that particular evolution, the past couple decades...

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The Post That Was Blocked By The Algorithm That We Have Been Assured; Doesn't Do Anything Like That...

 

I had a nice post that I had written, and I even sent it through my Python3 script to pretty it up.....it was swallowed because I used the word "nigger' is what I'm thinking..I might write it again but; yeah....maybe later....

I guess, just as well because it was very "controversial."

This Is An Interesting Post....April Fools!!!!

Good morning everyone;  it's about 8:12 in the evening, central standard time...

I spent about  8 bucks on a bottle of Barefoot cabernet sauvignon last night around the approach of midnight, thinking it might be better than the $5.49 bottle of Gallo.

The other 8  dollar choice was the Yellow Tail brand.

Both of these,  I have found to be good values, being just as good as the just under $20 bottles. The Yellow Tail, in particular, benefits from the exchange rate between US dollars and whatever kangaroo money they use down there. Plus, the vineyards are not on as expensive real estate as the one's in California.

California wine has  their Governor Newsome's fiscal hijinks baked into the price tag. This should have detered me from getting the Barefoot, but I suppose I had some lingering brain fog from having had to switch off the sardine fast, after having mismanaged the monthly fish fund..

I may have  diverted too much money to the wine account.

Winn Dixie was  going out of business and had wine 75% off. A rare opportunity to try bottles normally priced at around $50 that are worth every penny at that price. But, having them for sale at $12.50 was, in effect, an insideous way to get me to spend 50% more on the nightly bottle of Cabernet..

There are few  meals more delightful than a good can of sardines and a Federalist Cabernet...

The Barefoot wine  was disappointing, and I have noticed that almost all the 2023 vintage has been pretty poor.

That makes sense,  as these were made during the "pandemic" when the grapes probably had to be picked by gloved hands on mask wearing people, picking 6 feet from the next person; and probably nursing sore arms from intra-muscular injections, if that is indeed how that gene altering, vulnerability to the next strain they create producing, concoction was administered. I don't know.

I have the  vivid memory of having to get a Covid19 test, and bring proof of the  "negative" result to Harrah's Casino ,so I could cash in some chips that I'd gotten in my tip jar, before the economic war broke out between the tech and pharma oligarchs against the oil tycoons.

Taking every automobile  off the streets of the world was indeed a stroke of genius. Kind of funny to think of the masses cowering in terror inside their dwellings, just because some billionaire wanted to teach some OPEC billionaires a lesson.

I had my  little paper document indicating that I hadn't gotten "the virus," (did anyone, really, or was that the "seasonal" flu just repurposed, with things like ivermectin kept out of the public consciousness to insure that there would be enough "victims" to keep up the ruse?) and was able to get past the masked security lady at Harrah's.

Next, I encountered  a group of about 25 people, who were gathered just beyond the entrance, and who broke into a thunderous ovation as I walked past.

They must have  thought I'd gotten the jab, and they were applauding...that. Wow, given what we know now.

These were the  "useful idiots" I had heard so much about, I thought. "Tribal stupidity," anyone?

They believed the  mainstream media narrative. It was on "every" channel and even PBS and NPR, so...

I was tempted  to hold up my proof of negative result and announce: "I just got a negative test result so I could come in here and cash out some chips; there ain't no way I'm taking that experimental therapy. With the main reason being; well...you guys..."

But I just  let it go and let them think I had switched "teams" and was just awaiting further orders from my antenna TV..

And, so I  also let it go here... 

Back To The Present: Wednesday, April 1st 

My food money  came in at midnight but, by then I had already had a 5.5 ounce tin of Sardinas brand sardines with a $3.99 + tax bottle of shiraz from Trader Joe's. The next bottle up price-wise is the Trader Joe's brand coastal Cabernet Sauvignon at $5.99 + tax.

After a 10%  taxation, the total comes to $6.58. 

I had counted my cash and had exactly $6.58. 

It seemed like a no-brainer, when adhering to the Law of Attraction to just pay no mind to details; I should have just emptied my pockets onto the register as if it were preordained, but..

I would have  been walking out penniless, with a really nice red wine as good as any "under $20" bottle..but I had balked at the "penniless" part. Was I going to need to ride a street car or something?

So, there I  sat with the lesser wine and decided to stay in and work on recording my guitar along with a metronome then overdubbing drums played "live" by me on the keyboard along with it.

Then I had  a smörgåsbord of drum beats that I could switch between measures and try against different guitar rhythms. The measures or bars that came out "perfectly" I could make repeat and create whole new songs out of.

That fun must  have lasted till around 4 a.m. because here I was, waking up at around 12:30 p.m. on this Wednesday..

I look forward  to hearing what I created. This is another new phenomena. I had habitually been reluctant to play back the previous night's work the next day; afraid that I wouldn't respect it in the morning, type of thing...

It was immediately  out in the sun with me, after I brewed a cup of coffee, using enough grounds for a pot for just one large cup, to do the morning papers, as prescribed by Julia Cameron in her "The Artist's Way" book that I'm still in week 1 (of 12) in. But I am fervently and conscientiously working that "week 1" program.

The 3 handwritten  pages (which I'm supposed to file away without re-reading) just came rolling off my 1.6mm ball point; words appearing like on a screen at the back of my forehead; like a teleprompter channeling Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen...or... Jimmy Buffet?

Fine, Indeed!

I just started  liking and appreciating fine point pens after having hated them all my life, and looking askance at those who did like them...

You have to  press much more lightly with them and basically write smaller. I used to hate the thin line they made, especially when writing on a single sheet of paper upon a hard surface. I thought that they accentuated any jerkiness in one's penmanship, which they indeed do, but only if you are pressing down hard on them. 

I had discovered the Bic Crystal® ball points that have the largest (1.6mm) points on them, and writing on sheets that had the padding of extra sheets them, alowed the pen to sink in a bit and produce thick, and well controlled strokes...

But now I  have become pretty good with a fine point. What a crazy life...

Now that I  am a firm believer in The Law of Attraction, I'm finding things as soon as I feel gratitude for the possibility of me finding them...

I came back  in and decided to raise the blinds on my windows so that, the Brazilian flag, used like a curtain on one window and the Mardi Gras mask face in another one would be fully lit up at night when my indoor lights shine through them. Last night I noticed that the blinds were blocking about half of each of them..

I had found  the Brazilian flag, folded up and sitting on a brick column the morning I went out to find 20 dollars. Yup, I had found in myself a wellspring of gratitude over the possibility of going out and finding 20 dollars (just about totally broke, but not feeling in any way lacking) one morning probably 2 years ago now. I walked along just kind of looking around, and decided to take the Brazilian flag home and use it as a window curtain. I then walked a little further where those very same Brazilians can often be seen standing by their parked pickup trucks listening to music and drinking Corona beer. And, there was a 20 dollar bill just laying in the dirt...

So, I raised  the Venetian blinds so that my display will be fully visible at night; then noticed one of my plants being a little brown. I watered it, then decided to move the other plant to the window sill as spring is upon us and I had just raised the blinds to let even more light in. And in lifting the plant, I discovered my white and brown pieces of charcoal that I was making drawings with a couple years ago before misplacing my charcoal...

There it was,  all along. But it was only one thing leading to another -letting in sunlight, moving plants around that led to the discovery.

"When it's time  to resume charcoal art, you will know. Trust, and obey..." type of thing...

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A Tweek In Time Saves 1001 ("9" in binary)

A clean slate;  a new day.

Woke up around  10:30 a.m. not sure that it was Sunday until turning on the TV to see if they were talking about the rain coming down like cats and dogs outside my window..

I knew it  was Sunday as soon as I saw the bull riding, or whatever it was, on channel 6.

I made a  change to this script so that I don't have to worry about the self reflexive pronoun of "I" being rendered in bold when it's in the middle of a sentence, I didn't want that...

The bolding is  to be used on "proper" nouns, I think they are called. People, places and things that rate being capitalized. These are the items that can stand to be brought to the skimmer's attention; allowing them to scroll quickly and be able to tell if I wrote anything about Sacred Heart Apartments, for example..

It's also good  for people whose only interest in reading is to see if they have been mentioned.

The proper noun  capitalizer is good for this...

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In Which Moby Dick Might Enter The Frame

I'm looking at  my calendar and it's Thursday, March 26th and will be, for another 4 hours and 18 minutes..

A whale has  the whole ocean; but, when you get to the bottom of it, it lingers at the surface. Hard to fathom...

I just completed  a walk around the block; which included walking past a gaggle of about a dozen people hanging around the Holy Ground bar; none of whom acknowledged me, nor any of them I, I thought as soon as the thought of: "I'm being ignored," tried to gather energy in my consciousness.

There is a  big difference between "I'm being ignored," and: "They're ignoring me..."

The latter would  be explainable by the fact that, they are pretty much the same dozen or so people who might be there next Thursday before sundown, and whom I recognized at least half of, from seeing them last Thursday before sundown.

I have, or  try to have, no qualms or shame in picking a snipe of tobacco off the ground in front of them all..

And, I suppose  skeezers -not me; but skeezers- do such a brazen thing as a ploy to get one of them to offer a cigarette, out of pity perhaps. But that becomes entangled in the social fabric as, the other 11 or so would be witness to this; and so the benefactor might have to justify, not his imparting the gift of one of his American Spirit's™ -maybe it's well known that the guy makes pretty good money, as per his braggin's after a few beers, but his falling for "one of the oldest skeezing tricks in the world."

Because of the  presumed shame in someone who is picking up a butt right in front of them, as they sit with a yellow American Spirit™ box on the picnic table in front of them, they might indeed feel they are being manipulated, or at least having their "heart strings" pulled, by the poor guy.

I always decline  any offers of cigarettes when that happens. I say something like; I think it might eventually get me to quit smoking by putting me through the humbling rite of sniping in front of people.

"I have this  internal conversation that goes like: OK, you want a puff of tobacco right now; and there's one right there on the sidewalk...but, you're too proud, aren't you. There's pretty ladies there, too...

Then I just  figure that the price to pay for tobacco is that..

But, I'm also  aware that people might think I'm trying to evoke pity, so that's why I don't take cigarettes if they're offered. Plus, I usually just pick up American Spirit™ snipes. Their tobacco, along with being flavorful enough to have gotten me to 'un-quit' smoking, about 20 years ago, now; is packed in tightly, so that if there's a half inch left, that's enough to get you a righteous nicotine fix. You really don't have to smoke much more. I think they package cigarettes so as to imply "this is how much you smoke each 'time'" OK?

That's probably them  trying to get the public addicted..."

And then I  go back to Sacred Heart with maybe some weed in the size of a raisin and some tobacco.

Maybe after: "Yo,  dude; I don't feel manipulated, I know you said you don't take cigarettes, but, here...(reaching towards me holding 2 American Spirit's™)"

Now, that's how you skeeze!

So, I got  back and it's almost 9 at night and I have had 1 grapefruit and 4 cups of coffee and a hefty shot of an herbal tea the color of kratom...

I'm going to  be flat broke if I think about it... I must feel grateful and happy; maybe the tire I posted on Facebook Marketplace has attracted a buyer at $20. It's an almost new tire, by my judgement. It doesn't have the little nipple things that brand spanking new tires, at least I think used to come with. Little pins of rubber that I guess show that the tire's never been driven on. This one has all the tread and is just a bit shiny on the bottom. Like a fallen tree that people walk over to traverse a stream out in nature, maybe.

I have had  the bane of a social media mafia of teens, I would guess, f-ing with me "hard," as they might say; on Facebook Marketplace over the tire. They seem to be doing the equivalent of calling store managers to ask if they have Prince Albert™ (loose tobacco) "by the sack" (or "bag")

And after he  answers in the affirmative (you've been in his store and know he has it) you say something like: "Well, you better let him go; that must hurt!" and hang up..

Then maybe you  get a friend to call back inquiring about King Arthur sardines, 20 minutes later.

In 2026 this  have evolved to expressing a great amount of interest in the tire, then seeing how long you can string the guy along and take up of his evening, through a series of; "I had to drop a friend off downtown, but I'll be there in 15 to 20 min" type of posts. The idea is to paint the picture of a skinny guy with long hair and a hat, standing all evening in front of Sacred Heart Apartments, babysitting a tire that's new but doesn't have the nipples...

And then, in  the wee hours of the morning, punctuating the gag with; "Oh, I just checked; I need an R16, yours is an R17; sorry," type of thing...

The tip off  to me, after 3 or 4 such contacts is the initial: "I really, really need that tire!!" Their over exuberance over a tire suggests that they are trying to get me emotionally invested in the process. To get me pumped!
I'm supposed to think: Wow, I'm definitely going to sell the tire tonight! This as a primer for me to stand out front waiting for a white corolla "any minute now" to come down Lopez Street. Even after dark. Even though it's after midnight. The guy really really needs the tire; and has just been having the worst luck trying to get here, type of thing...

Yeah. Thursday and  I don't know what I'm going to eat, if anything, on top of the grapefruit and 4 cups of coffee; make that 6.

It's time to  leave this here after running the new and improved Python3 script; which now features a comma in the format of the "You've just read X words" printed at the bottom. All I had to do was add a ": ," in the print statement and it puts the comma in 2,877 for example. It wasn't doing that before, so I fed the script to Meta AI and said something like: "you are a programmer and need to only change this script so that the {word_count} variable will print in the conventional, more readable by humans, form"

I thought I  was going to have to massage the word_count variable so that it had the comma inserted into its string, and then print that. But the function that counts words didn't have to manage commas; it just counts the words and returns it as an integer. I wasn't sure how I was going to get it to put a comma between every 3 numerals..

The print statement  can, with the addition of a colon and a comma. I would have been digging in the "Learn Python3" book, looking at ways to split the variable into 2 with one just keeping track of the "thousands" and the other counting from 0 to 999.

This would have  been a delightful evening spent, learning how to become a better "coder." Instead it took less than 10 seconds for me to learn to "Change the print statement in line 87 to..." and now there should be a comma in the number of words this is; even if it exceeds 100 trillion.

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Schooling On The Sardine Fast

Yesterday

I have made  a speedy recovery from the way I felt after substituting the turkey that I'd only paid $3.45 for, at Winn Dixie, and then had gorged on, washing it down with a $25 bottle of wine that I'd paid $6 and change, for..

It was while  sitting there the next day, with the back and sides of my head aching; that I searched online and found that particular brand of turkey, coming in at #2 on a list of "8 turkey brands to avoid."

"Everything that's wrong  with modern food production" is how they described it...

But after a  day of not eating, I went back to a big tin of sardines and some goat cheese as a morning meal; and I'm 98% better already...

I could walk  through the lobby here at Sacred Heart and merely say out loud: "Isn't he the biggest a**hole ever born?" out of context, and whoever was there, milling about, would look up in unison from their phones and say: "Tell me about it!"

They would assume  I was referring to he-who-can't-be-named (because the syllables are too triggering to about half the population). Who else could "he" be?

Lawyers and politicians:  "Of course we're telling lies, but they're the lies that are going to put us in power, so shut up!"

The public is  gullible; -just ask Elvis, who, after faking his own death, lived an unassuming and content life, out of the public eye (outside of a few hundred sightings worldwide) pretending to be an Argentinian grape grower, before that cigar shaped craft beamed him up, Star Trek style, then shot off into space, faster than possible using any technology known to Man, after writing:: "Elvis has just left the planet" in the sky over Argentina.

Maybe if the  people knew the truth, they wouldn't be afraid to enter buildings in New York for fear they might collapse, for no apparent reason, upon them..

And, Today...

Last night, I  forgot to grab the spotlight so the sun went down, leaving Jacob and I in the same kind of darkness that has effectively warded off any other buskers who might have thought about playing at the Lilly Pad..

Amazingly enough, a  group came along with about 3 of them illuminating us with phones and, I think shooting videos at the same time. I am about to text Jacob to see if they "dropboxed" them to his fancy i-phone.

We were playing  really well -enough to plod on for another half hour or so in the dark...which produced the only 20 dollar bill of the 3 hour night in the tip jar. It was a chore to switch harmonicas; trying to read the half worn off from playing key signatures on the fronts of them.

We wound up  splitting $46 after probably leaving another 60 or so "on the table." The street was just starting to flood with merry makers and the sound of them was rather positive..

I joked to  Jacob that maybe the Zuckerburg types have decided the turn down the temperature of the algorithms with the knob less in the direction of fomenting division and hatred between the people -maybe that has served its purpose; the war is on, so now we can be made happy and able to connect with each other in positive ways.

It might still  be a nefarious way to unify people in preparation for the bringing back of military conscription.

You know, draft  all the able young men, er -except  those of Islamic faith, as that would introduce "loyalty" issues. They can remain, along with the illegal immigrants to watch the shop, hold down the fort (figuratively, of course) and, should we lose a half million white Christians in battle, well, shit happens, right?

I was up  and feeling glorious on this day 15 or so of the sardine fast. My body seemed to have forgiven me for the one bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies I ate late last night after having had only one 5.5 ounce tin of Goya wild caught sardines in tomato hot sauce. 

They had rung up at the Ideal Market ("se habla fresco" -we speak fresh) at just $2.75 despite being labelled on the shelf at $2.99 + tax.

That must be  a secret amongst the Latino community which that store sits in the middle of. A higher price tag to discourage anyone not "in the know" from emptying the shelves, reserving  for themselves the benefit of  lower prices on Goya products, realized at the register..

The fact that  the cashier apparently rang me up as a SNAP customer, as evidenced by the $2.75 having not been taxed, even though I was using hard cold cash, fresh from the tip jar, might have been done out of her habit of seeing me use the SNAP card before it runs out (less than 2 weeks into a given month, lately) and she might have mashed the "SNAP" button on the register reflexively.

I prefer to  believe that, either she has been seeing me in there buying only sardines over the past 2 weeks and might think that I am just barely surviving, relegated to eating the cheapest healthy food there is; and I can't afford anything else... and might have waived the tax out of pity; or the sardine fast might be something she knows about, and maybe she gave me a discount as a commendation of the devotion to healthiness that I hope I was exuding,  being fresh off of playing some of the best music of my life, for real human beings...

That being said,  I then had just enough to eek out a bottle of red wine from Banks Meat Market ("we speak crackhead niggas") diagonally across Broad Street from the Ideal..

All I could  think about was double bagging the wine and heavy can of sardines in case I had to swing the bag like a sledgehammer to impact the top of anyone's head, along the half mile walk home. It was right around 10 pm...

The last time  I smacked a guy like that, I had only a can of cat food in the bag.

That had gotten  the guy (a 20 something white "meth addict" looking guy about my size, but with probably very little muscle tone, from so much time spent nodding on heroin) to stop letting the air out of my rear bike tire, by stunning him for a second; which was enough time for me to move a roller one digit on my combination lock, freeing both it and the chain; quickly providing me with a more formidable weapon, and sending him running.

He must have  thought that I would have to walk the bike home with a flat tire, making me a slower, and easier, target  somewhere up the road.

One side note:  When I got home I found that the can of cat food had been crushed into a more oval than round shape from the impact.

But, I had  almost bought one of those "Jesus" candles, along with the cat food -the glass cylinders filled to the brim with wax, with either Jesus or some other holy figure on the front, and a prayer in both English and Spanish on the back. That meth head never knew how close (them being almost a dollar more in the French Quarter) he came to having one of them come down like a sledgehammer on his cranium. And to the irony of it having been a Jesus candle that clocked him.

And, had he  died from a brain hemorrhage or whatever; the candle sitting on the evidence table as "the murder weapon" during my trial, rotated, of course  so that Jesus would be facing the jury, in his "peace be with you" pose...

But that was  in 2022, I believe, and in the middle of the "George Floyd" peaceful protests.

Many roads I've  walked since then, and, I really was wondering if I had it in me to fend off a potential mugger in such a way; then have to pour the wine out of the bag and through a sieve to remove the shards of glass, before drinking it, type of thing...

So, the solution  seemed to be to take advantage of the wealth of energy that the sardine fast affords, and to jog home, which I did.

The invigorating jam  at Lilly's; the sardine only diet; the jog home; the Wim Hof deep breathing practice in direct sunlight each morning; the 3 pages of handwritten journals  each morning; the Joe Dispenza "Morning Meditation" each morning; the "Mindful Movement" positive affirmations while you sleep videos each evening...

It all seemed  to be adding up to me having become someone who doesn't need to swing things at anyone's head. There was an out..

On the matter  of the bottle of red wine "to go with the sardines" having gone way past the point of the sardines, and to the bottom of the bottle... 

Um... At least I'm not running out for a hit of crack and a blunt, then coming home and watching porn?

I think I've  heard it preached before, though, that stealing a pack of gum from a store is the same thing as murdering someone in the eyes of God; a sin is a sin..

I was never  sure how to take that. Never steal even something as trite as gum? Or: you might as well kill "that asshole," because it ain't no worse than bagging a blow pop from Bank's Meat Market...?

Anyways, it's a  beautiful Monday morning; the herbal tea I ordered has been "tracked" to my door by 8 pm. tonight, UPS willing. 

Jacob has said he won't be able to busk today, but I could go down there and play "unplugged" and probably grab 20 or 30 bucks. 

"Good Morning, Starshine" by Oliver (1969) is all it would take on a day like today. My tip jar would be full of glibby glob glooby in short order... (sorry, spell checker...)

I had no  sooner pushed away a rogue thought (something like: "You're down to like 8 dollars in cash to last you the next 18 days, what are you gonna do?") and re-entered a state of gratitude than I entered to lobby to learn that the "senior box" bearing my name was amongst the pallet load of them sitting there.

This is food  that arrives magically during the last week of each month; and I think it is funded by the association of doctors and pharmacists who treat diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, hardening of the arteries, fatty liver disease, depression, ADD, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia...

"I'm still doing  the sardine fast," I told Miss Cherry, the morning front desk lady.

I said it  too loud, as, instantly a guy who'd gotten on the elevator, stopped the door from closing and said: "I can have your box?"

Miss Cherry came  to my (though, maybe his) rescue with: "He goes through it and picks out a couple things.." and the door closed on him..

I became aware  of the negative thought passing through my mind that there would be no sardines in the senior box this month and, hence, nothing for me. But I was able to send the thought along its way and rest my mind back into a state of gratitude, as I tore open my box to discover a large can of wild caught tuna in water, not seed oils; along with one of wild caught salmon. That means every senior will also get them, and I can look forward to seeing enough salmon to live on for a week, discarded on the "unwanted foods" table..

But, I had  better divide my time between blogging, and the rest of my life; and end here. For now.

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