Dickin' around

 Friday.  I never work on Friday.  It's one of the 3 days of the week I can't be scheduled.  There's no particular reason why I picked this day.  At my age, days of the week and weekends really don't matter.  This doesn't mean they're totally unimportant, merely that there's no reason to prioritize them.

They working on the house next door again.  No one showed up for several days.  Maybe they decided to take a vacation.  Or, more probably, they were waiting for someone with more specialized skills, like a plumber, or an electrician.  They are planning on selling the house once they are finished, so I do hope the plumbing and electrical work are done by qualified, licensed individuals.  It will need to pass a house inspection if they go through a real estate agent.

My last royalty payment from KDP will be posted into my account on the 29th.  Kindle is a great place for fledgling authors who want to self-publish to get their feet wet.  However, care needs to be taken.  You see there are multiple ways to earn royalties.  You can earn royalties when someone purchases your book, that's either the Kindle, paperback, or hardback versions.  And then there's the however.  They have something like a lending library where you can earn a small % every time someone reads a page in one of your books.  They play this up by sending you emails letting you how many $$ millions are in the pot.  However signing up for this library licenses your book to Kindle, meaning you can't publish it anywhere else.  Prince Harry's book will earn him many, many $$$.  For most authors, like myself, the royalties are miniscule, which is why I've pulled my books from the 'lending library,' in order to sell them through Barnes & Noble, as well as Kindle.  On the 30th, the last royalty from the lending library will be deposited into my checking account. Let me share with you a picture of that sizeable fortune.

And now for a funny, Ha Ha moment, at least most people were laughing at this, some, I suppose, dismally.  73% of Americans believe that the Republican House leadership is just... well, dickin' around.  Only 27% think that Kev McCarthy and his team have their priorities in order.  A substantial majority is looking at the George Santos hypocrisy and saying "Kev, stop dickin' around, and kick that liar out."  Unfortunately, Kev needs the vote to get the Hunter Biden laptop investigation off the ground.  Kev prioritizes a committee to investigate the origins of Covid and people scratch their heads and say "Kev, stop dickin' around with shit only 27% of Americans are interested in."  Of course, Kev needs to 'dick around,' if he doesn't the Republican party is going to lose their base.

An even funnier Ha Ha moment:  30% of Republicans want Mike Lindell, the wacked out pilling guy, to run the RNC.  If they were to vote today, he'd win!  Stop Laughing!

GO GOLFING INSTEAD!

Holy Crap!  It's Wednesday!  2 vacation days are gone.  On the first I was Mr. Relaxation.  On the 2nd I work outside:  the lawn was mowed, 2 more pepper plants were added to a shiny new container, a zucchini plant in, and a ride through Andalusia that took over an hour (what can I say, there's a hill 4 miles long).

The temps here hit 91 (F) and today they're supposed to hit 92 (F).  Remember last summer.  Temps got really, really hot around the world.  Global warming, you know?  That thing Republicans don't believe in?

Oddly enough, I've learned that if you purchase the Kindle version of my books, some of the chapter numbers are duplicated and others disappear.  It's a Kindle thing.  Everything's where it should be in the paperback versions.  Isn't that interesting?

 And I had thought the Idiot Jerk in the White House was silent yesterday... wrong.  He actually Tweeted some sort of lies about that 75 year old protester who had been pushed down by police, sourced from an anonymous blog, of course.  Can we talk about ironies here?  On the day of George Floyd's funeral, the Idiot Jerk in the White House Bore False Witness against a 75 year old man.  I do believe Joe Biden was in Houston for the funeral.  The Idiot Jerk?  Once again he proved his callous indecency.  This is to be expected.

There's also word that he's regrouping the team that managed to get him his Electoral College win...  As if that's going to help his sorry ass.  They're also saying his campaign is struggling to come up with a message that will resonate with the voting public. They ought to hire me.  I came up with one in... oh, 3 or 4 seconds.  So tell me, what do you think?

GO GOLFING INSTEAD!

Can any message be more concisely precise?  Getting in a round of 9 holes is so much more fun than dealing with a pandemic.  Or Racial Injustice.  Being under par is one of the best feelings you can have... except for maybe praising white supremacists (you know, they're really fine people).  So, tell me.  Do you think it will fly with the voting public?  Does it have a sharp enough ring of truth?  Let's be honest here.  The country's in a recession because he chose to go golfing rather than deal with an approaching pandemic.  Ouch!

Dumb Bitch

Well, it's Sunday and after a not so thrilling day off I get to go back to work for 2 days.  Well, let me clarify that.  Saturday had it's good points.  Mike Teunissen, a Dutchman, won the first stage of the Tour de France.

Not a sport for the safety conscious

He wasn't even considered as a contender but there were crashes... 2 of them, and at the last minute he pedaled his ass off... well, he still has it, he just rode like hell.  Good for him!

So, I was in a good mood.  I did chores, no laundry for a change, and decided to put in some mileage on the bike.  Everything was going well until Votis showed up.  Who's Votis you ask?  I have no idea.  What I do know is that someone, somewhere was riding the same route I was riding and he was less than 2 miles away.  That's right, the training application I use lets you see other riders, no matter where they live, riding on the same route.  Until yesterday, this has never bothered me... but for some reason yesterday I found Votis an aggravation.  He was slowly falling behind, and was soon going to disappear from my screen... yet I couldn't stop looking at that little blue balloon named Votis.  So, after 3 miles, I got off the bike and went downstairs and completed 35 minutes of cardio on the elliptical.
I did climb on the scale this morning.... Holy Shit.
Anyway, late yesterday afternoon I did something I rarely do... I looked at the sales reports of my books.  Now, I know my writing is never going to make me rich, which is why I rarely check my stats.  But there was one sale I was looking for...  I think I've already told you about my Navy buddy's wife who posted a list of books on Facebook she was planning on reading during the summer.  I jokingly asked "where's my book?"  Well, she shot back this little challenge, "have you bought mine?"  Her's is a slim, paperback volume of black and white photos... and poetry.  I had no problem buying her book.  I can gift it to my friend Betsy, she might like it.  So, I told this friend's wife I'd purchased her paperback volume (no inexpensive Kindle version was available) and she responded by saying she'd purchased The Body on the Lawn... the Kindle version.  Well, that was over a month ago and I got curious.  You guessed it.  No purchase from around that time.  Basically, she lied.  This is irritating, you know?  She knows I can see my stats, so why tell me she bought the book when she didn't?  Dumb Bitch.  This makes her look really, really bad.

The Body on the Lawn

Well, it has been a busy morning.  Breakfast with my brother was moved till tomorrow.  Something came up... he and his wife are trying to sell their house, partially to help pay for the farm.
And, I guess it's time to let the cat out of the bag.  Well, it's not really a cat.  It's more like a book.  A mystery.  The E book is now available on Kindle.  Paperbacks will be able to be ordered Friday, I think.

Since I've never done this before, I thought I'd give you a bit of the first chapter,

Darkness…

Dawn.  I’m an early riser.  Always have been.  Sitting up, I swung my feet over the side of the bed and slid them into my slippers.  The dogs were already stirring.  Boxers.  Since there are seven, we call them the Von Trapp Family Boxers, I know, very cute.

We have thirty-eight rooms, not counting the ballroom, a full time cook we call Cook, and three part-time maids.  The only mansion bigger in Laurel Lakes is Margaret Stanley’s, she has us beat by eight rooms, and her ballroom is substantially larger.

Crossing into the salon, I pushed up the door of the dumbwaiter and lifted out our morning tray with a carafe of coffee.  Morning equals caffeine.  Cup in hand, I pulled up my calendar to see what I had scheduled for the day.  First thing on the list?  Walking the dogs.

Twenty minutes later I was heading down the staircase surrounded by the Von Trapps.  Even though my grandfather installed an elevator when he’d built the place, we most often used the stairs.  The elevator is almost a work of art, all brass filigree. I remember my grandmother telling me how, when she was a little girl, two maids would need a full day to keep the whole thing bright and shiny.  My grandfather later had it lacquered, now a simple dusting does the trick.  However, seven full sized Boxers in an elevator is too tight a fit.

The hair up Apple's ass

Let's wait for the next version

Well, the new Iphone is out.  Who cares?  Why the Appleheads around the world.  Who are Appleheads?  Those individuals who live and breathe Apple.  Every time a new product comes onto the market they upgrade simply because it's the newest toy by Apple.  This is a very good reason to question all of the press releases they dump into the media as a form of massive advertising.  At this point they're bragging about having orders for 5 million and there may be problems supply the vast demand.  That's pretty much horse shit.  No company worth it's weight in gold is going to be caught with its pants down when it comes to meeting the demand of their customer base.  Yep, that's right, Apple puts out a lot of Ho Ho Ho.  I think it's funny that this time around they took off Google Maps and installed their own mapping software which just happens to suck.  Basically they shit on their base because they hate the competition.  Now don't read this to mean I hate Apple, I don't, I own an Imac and have my music on 2 Ipods, but I also own a Dell desktop and a Dell laptop.  I use a Samsung Galaxy tablet and a Garmin phone.  Each one fills a need I have.  Too many limit themselves by deciding one product is more holy then the other.      Wrong.  The maps on the Garmin phone are better then those in Google Maps, I know because I used both to go to a Team Depot and found that Google had me wondering around on dirt roads way off from my destination.  What did I do?  Plugged in my Garmin and wow, there was my destination less then a mile away on a well traveled highway.

So why does Apple have this big hair up its ass?  Because they want to own market share.  It's all about domination.  They failed with Apple TV because, well, there is such a better selection out there.  They think they're golden because there has been no Ipad killer.  Unfortunately for them the Ipad has already peaked.  When ever somebody releases a new product they actually lose market share since those customers buying a Kindle Fire or a Galaxy note or even new Nook being released shortly are choosing those products over Apple.  The slow death has already arrived and they're doing everything they can to deny it.