Mr. Finch's UMPC

 Johnny Winter..

Currently on the Paperwhite:

A couple of years ago, I purchased a Sony Vaio UX-380
ultra mobile personal computer.

When new, these UMPC's were incredibly expensive.

As part of my devious plot to rule the world,

i waited and bought a used, like new example, from Amazon, waaaay cheap.

Ultra mobile personal computers, UMPC's for short,

were considered the future of personal computing at one time.

Until, that is, the smart phone hit the early adopter, Japanese Schoolgirl market

and soon thereafter the entire world.

 Vaio UMPC's are outstanding, powerful and work great if you don't mind, as i don't, 

Vista as an operating system--and a 4 inch viewing screen.

Alas the rest of the world doesn't think as i do and these little Vaio UMPC's

are pretty much now collector items when you can find one.

This design remains so cool that Vaio UMPC's can be observed on odd occasions in film representing a futuristic small computer.

As shown here in a still photo from Terminator salvation:

 I dug out and set my UMPC up in it's charging/operating cradle next to my large laptop

and now can watch MST3K on the UMPC while i simultaneously prowl the web

 on the standard laptop.

My new set-up has more computing power than all of NASA

and the Strategic Air Command had from 1975 to 1995.

I am putting it to better use tho!

Too many jobs at home, and too little time right now.

Just doing the best I can. 

"The best weapon against an enemy,

is another enemy."

Fredrick Nietzsche

Way down in the hole

My Sony WMD-10 cassette walkman that i spoke of 

so proudly in a previous blog--committed suicide.

The motor is barely running now, perhaps a belt--perhaps 

who the fuck knows?

I am hanging onto it with the hope that someday in retirement 

I may acquire the expertise to fix it.

But----

I want to listen to my Jazz cassettes in the PM's at work,

with the death of my WMD-10 my only option for transportable tape music, would be

to bring one of my immensely valuable and non-replaceable recording portables

to work with me, something i am not going to do.

As a replacement i ordered, used, a Sony WM-F2081 player.

This may allow me to sit, read my Paperwhite and listen to jazz

while i await retirement to hit....

The unrated cut version of World War Z is tremendous.

Why they cut this film into pieces insuring it's mediocrity is beyond me.

Watch the unrated cut of this movie------ it is so worth it.

The retirement car project status remains the same..

No status change and none on the immediate horizon.

The garden is in the process of an excellent year.

Work remains the suck--

soon to be over forever at least i keep saying that to myself.

I am seeming stymied by the world lately.

All turns lead nowhere.

The only thing it seems that i am good at 

lately is:

"If there was an observer on Mars,

they would probably be amazed that

we have survived this long."

Noam Chomsky

It was broke when i got here

The betwixt and between carries on with me in so many things.

I am attempting to cause some change.

Soon i am going to start cleaning, and organizing 

my automotive tools, and over several weeks i will add 

items to the tool collection items i need.

Once i get my tools cleaned, organized and replaced as necessary

in a new organizational system of tool boxes.

I will begin to work on my one bay garage in preparation for

working on/storing the upcoming retirement car.

I will have to take our garage from a current status much like this:

to something more like this:

I am not kidding myself in the fact that this is going

really, really fucking tough.

It is something tho that i can do prior to obtaining the vehicle.

If i can get myself motivated and moving to simply do it.

The car search continues--I have run through all

the types...and Jesus Christ the prices!!

I have been around long enough to know what some of 

the vintage vehicles offered for sale were really worth--

and they were never worth what they are asking for them, new, much less, 40 years later.

So i have limited my search now to something possibly affordable:

An Austin Healey Sprite from say 1968.

Sprints are more affordable overall, including parts,

and a vehicle that i can actually work on.

Currently all this is just conjecture.

To keep me occupied while i am awaiting retirement. 
To keep me from going insane.

Having a bit of trouble with this one as you might well imagine....

This was a really great bio of one of my favorite actors.

My favorite movie of his----
The Professionals...

We've been binge watching both of these

alternatively.

Strange eh?

It's taken me a couple of weeks to write this single blog entry.

Things have not been personally bad, simply, unchanging like groundhog day.

Repeating over and over and over. 

Appearing as if I am trapped in a wait and see zone of some kind. 

Which means not much to write or philosophize upon that is actually new.

"Hope is the dream of a waking man."

Aristotle