My B.S. May Finally Pay-Off

Sorry I didn't blog yesterday but I got into a project that took longer than I thought it would. I removed the light fixtures from the outside of the house (porch and garage) and painted them. It was very windy so I didn't dare try to paint them without removing them. I set up a tarp in the garage because I couldn't even paint them on the black asphalt driveway because I do not think much of the paint would have reached their target. It's funny that, while I type I am looking at the black spots that still remain on my fingers. Also, yesterday was Poultry Monday so I cooked turkey breast and made mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy; it was the beginning of Fall Training for Thanksgiving. Tonight is Race Tuesday so I think I will make turkey tacos or burritos or gosh darn quesadillas. I am leaning toward the gosh darn quesadillas. I also did the grocery shopping yesterday so, if you're hungry, now is a good time to stop by. Dang it I forgot to get Chinese-style extra hot mustard yesterday.

I hope the wind dies down a bit today because over the weekend we put up vines on that shelf I installed above the garage door earlier this Summer and the wind made a shambles of them. I want to re-position them and secure them in one way or another (probably brown twine). Cha Cha noticed this feature on many, many homes and buildings in Europe and we wanted to be the trend-setters in the States - at least in our part of the Lower 48 or, if you prefer, the Contiguous or Conterminous United States. I think it looks really nice and we have a lot of viny plants next to and around the garage so it was not that difficult.

I know a LOT of "The Police"

While I am writing this I am listening to The Police station on Pandora. They have always (well, since I first heard them anyway) been my favorite band. I never really thought about it but I have been to dozens and dozens of concerts but I never saw The Police live. That is a shame because I am fairly certain that I won;t get that chance now. Going to concerts of famous bands is kind of senseless for the consumer now that I think about it. They rarely sound as good live as they do on a recording and you have to deal with the driving and parking and crowded arenas... Sporting events are kind of the same I suppose though I have been to hundreds of those. It's just a numbers game! I think we support our favorite bands simply by buying their albums (MP3's these days). I wonder how the musicians get compensated from things like Pandora? I pay monthly for Pandora because I don;t want to hear the commercials and I like the ability to skip more songs if I choose to. Do artists get paid for the amount of people who ad them as a station or by each of their songs that I listen to? You knew I would have to check didn't you? According to an article in Billboard Magazine the artists do, indeed, get royalties from their songs played on Pandora. The payments go to a company called TechCrunch who then pays the artists. There are a couple of groups that are getting $2 millions dollars per year from these royalties and several making $100,000 a year; they call them "performance fees" probably for some tax loophole or something. Coldplay and Adelle made $1,000,000 each in 2012 and Drake and Lil Wayne each made $3,000,000 that same year. I subscribe to one of those four artist stations - can you guess which one?

I am going to head to our library today for research for my book and, if that doesn't turn-out as I hope, I may go to the Northern Illinois University library. I have decided to go a different direction with my story. I am going to make it a fiction novel based-on an amalgam of many different real stories. My favorite stories are based-on real events so I will use real events as my foundation but attribute them to my made-up heroes/heroines and some historical things that actually happened with my embellishments. As long as I change the names and am up-front that this is what I am doing I am sure that is acceptable.All fiction has to based-upon something. I just like writing, history and making stuff up and I like stories so, what a great way to combine some of my favorite things? I think I may go down and volunteer to help with events at The Egyptian Theater today; I have lots of experience in what they do probably need help with there. I went down last week but the box office is only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 14:00 - 18:00. I was there on Friday.

Hah, Coldplay is on The Police station right now - ca-ching! Maybe Coldplay and Adelle and Lil Wayne and Drake secretly own Pandora and they sprinkle their songs into every station even close to their genre? See, there I go with my fiction writing. Sometimes fiction turns-out to accidentally be true.

We did not record a new podcast (Dirty Laundry Podcast) this past weekend. Cha Cha only has three weeks left in her class and she had a big paper that she needed to work-on. We will get there but it may have to wait until her class is done. It is always easier in the Winter anyway because you we don't feel guilty that we should be doing something in the yard.

Time to quit and get some things done around the house. It looks like the winds have died-down so maybe I can get those vines reattached? Muchas gracias for stopping by - Muchos Appreciado. Have a great day. TTTT...MITM (out) TA!