King of Portugal

211.4lbs. C'mon 210lbs why do you mock me so? I want to change the chart and it is just killing me.

Today I am going to focus on something other than weight loss because, quite honestly, it bores me at the moment. This just might be the most random post I will ever make. My head has felt like a basketball since yesterday and I am a bit under the weather. The girls endured this same illness weeks ago and I am now just finally getting it. I place the blame on all the sugar I ate on Saturday, I really do, because I didn't start feeling a little like crap until Sunday afternoon.

Despite all of that, we got quite a bit done Sunday. My lovely wife painted a whole room, trim and all, and I organized my vinyl collection and set up a more audiophile friendly system to listen to it on. Before, I had everything running through my laptop and honestly sound cards on computers stink at reproducing sound (unless you pay for an expensive one). Now, everything is running through this high end Sony receiver I bought years ago. The wireless speaker system my wife bought me for my birthday now sounds awesome. And my computer sound is tied into the receiver as well. Here is a picture of the new and improved system:

See? It is completely mobile and we can move the speakers anywhere we want in the house. I also hooked in a high end recordable CD player I had laying around. Why I went with my computer for all my sound needs all these years is beyond me. The difference in quality is striking.
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You know, when I am sick, I can really see one of my biggest flaws; I assume everyone should know what I know. Am I saying that I am some sort of genius or something? No. I just make this leap of faith that everyone in the world knows every inane esoteric fact that I know. My friend Lee once said that talking to me at times was like having a dinner conversation with Dennis Miller. I do have a habit of throwing off odd references and expecting everyone to know what I am talking about. I also have a bad habit of finding something of interest and researching the living daylights out of it. I read voraciously and to a fault. My self editing on this blog alone tells me that there is something wrong with me on an intrinsic level. I put a reference to the Milgram Experiment in a paragraph above and deleted it, that's how bad it is.

It's not snobbery, I feel that everyone has this inherent knowledge about everything. It's quite the opposite of being a snob. As Rudyard Kipling once said, "I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble." Somewhere deep in my brain, I just assume that there is a basic knowledge set where everyone knows the minutest detail of every subject known to man. Like today, I was puzzled why someone did not understand latitude, longitude and geospatial mathematics. Because you know, like EVERYONE understands geospatial mathematics. Please don't make me explain geospatial mathematics because I already did about an hour ago using random dart boards in a convoluted extended metaphor. Sadly.

Does knowing geospatial math make me smart? No, in fact, I think I am dumber for having devoted a good part of my brain to it (and my brain hurts people) but that is what folks pay me for. See, you probably, most certainly, know something that I don't which is some sort of useful skill or some cool thing I could never imagine. Just don't tell me about it because, as I said before, I will research the living shit out of it. If the NY Times still employed fact checkers (I am assuming they don't after reading some music articles in the 'Old Gray Lady' recently, harumph!), I would have found my true calling in life. If my whole life was devoted to randomly researching things I would be as happy as a clam.

This deep flaw I have also makes my emails seem like letters from crazy people when I am sick. I don't stop and think about anything and my metaphors just get more wildly off balance. My poor wife has to deal with this on a daily basis but probably much less so than when I am ill. She has had to hear my weird fever gibberish in the past which to me makes complete logical sense. "Well if salamanders can master whole limb regeneration, why can't I? I don't have the right protein in abundance!" You know I think I could just make stuff up out of whole cloth and be at about the same communication level I am when I don't feel right.

I even thought today's video had nothing to do with this post - at first. I just wanted to hear some Al Stewart. But strangely, by doing so, I found out he is playing very close to my house March 17th. It's funny because I just told my family how I wished I had gone to see him years ago when he was here. I am not sure why my first choice was King of Portugal, it just was. In the description was his upcoming date here, a few city blocks away. Weird. In the end, that bit of randomness made it the perfect choice for this post entry after all.