It was cool today, but that’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but the day had the allotted number of minutes and they proceeded in a linear fashion, so it wasn’t broken. Just cool. Every year we pretend that it’s normally warm the first half of May. Every year it isn’t, except for the years when it is, and that one we think about for five, six, nine years.

Spent some joyous time making airline reservations, doing my best to fool the system - different computer! VPN! Serbian language option! Couldn’t get the price down no matter what I tried, so I gave up: I guess I can’t fly there for $47 like the banner ad said. (I’m writing a column on this, so I will spare the hilarious details.) (Or at least the details I will endeavor to make hilarious. Got a sad email from someone who didn’t like my last column, and felt compelled to say so, for some reason. Hello, I’m a complete stranger who’s going to step into your email box and tell you how you failed. Well, not how, but what. Now I will leave, and you can crack a window.)

I remembered that I had points on my credit card, and for the first time in my life I applied them to something. It’s a bank card. Found the exact flight I wanted, entered all the info, paid the extra amount for the right to choose my seat, hit CONFIRM and was about to send Daughter a picture of the screen with our tickets all done.

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At some point you know you are screwed. You fear it first; you suspect it, then you know it. Error message - something about a double reservation attempt, which I certainly hadn’t done.

Point balance: $0.00

Huh.

Called up the card rewards program, and the conversation had an this amusing beginning:

“Hello, Mr. Lilks. Your rewards balance is zero dollars and zero cents. What can I help you with today?”

He “requeued” the reservation and told me to check back to see if it went through. I thanked him for his help but then said the usual - if this call is indeed being recorded for quality control, let them note that this is the first time I’ve used these points since I’ve been with the bank, and it failed utterly, which isn’t really a good advertisement for continued patronage.”

It’s like yelling at the sky and hoping God hears you.

 

 

We're in need of some skeptical dog.

 

Or some early spring evening dog.

And that's it. We're a little light today. It's been a thick week with lots of stuff. Come Friday, to be honest, I'm ready for a night of scotch and watching movies and not thinking about the website . . . except that on Fridays I watch the movies that will go on Monday in 2020. (I have 36 done so far. Done! Written, screengrabbed, video clips sized, the whole shebang.) It's ridiculous.

 

Remember this feature? We never met Bela Lanan himself. We never will.

This was a daily feature, with the solution on Saturday. We'll do it the way they did it then - one entry per day, with the expectation that you'll be following the story.

 

The Real Decision - is here!

 

 

Back to the Blue Note Cafe, where the show opens - as usual - with Casey talking to the bartender before the shill butts in.

 

 

You have four notes to identify the song.

 
   

I play this entire opening because it amuses me how it never varies, never tries to be particularly interesting, and gives the composer abourt four seconds to set a mood, based on the title.

This one couldn't have been easy.

   

 

2019 returns to the bins, and the records dumped back into the world when someone dies and the kids give the contents of Mom and Dad's entertainment system to the Goodwill.

Wikipedia: "Like many of his contemporaries, Mottola started out learning to play the banjo and then took up the guitar." Many. Hmm.

   

A style of music that no longer exists. Damned bright stuff, no?

 
   

   

 

 
"It's like listening to paint dry
   

And now, the Recipe Cards of the 1970s. See you Monday!

 

 

 

 
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