Can You Make Bras Out of Copper?

MUSINGS:

Wake up and smelt the copper!

With the most populous countries finally trying to industrialize beyond
the 19th century, the demand for raw materials is on the rise. If you've been paying attention to the news, you know that this has resulted in quite a crime wave of all kinds of metal, new and used, being stolen and sold for scrap.

I just heard about 11 dorks in Burnet County - well, 10 dorks and onedorkette - that over 6 weeks lifted 9000 pounds of miscellaneous crap (miscellaneous scrap, hear it how you want) valued at $10,000.

Wow! 150 Bucks a week! For breaking and entering, heavy lifting, truck driving,working late hours, and I don't know about these anodized-aluminum-brained bums, but a lot of metal thieves are digging up buried cable, pulling installed wiring (sometimes even live wiring!) and cutting copper pipes with the skill and accuracy of guilded apprentices, and meticulously disassembling things like bleachers and street lamps. And they're watching metal prices with better accuracy than accomplished white collar commodity brokers, to maximize their resale value!

If you're gonna work that damn hard, couldn't you just get a real job?Or maybe steal something a little easier to handle?

Then I read about the Victoria's Secret store in Fairfield, Conn. that lost about $10,000 worth of merchandise in 3 thefts over 17 days. All in bras! Sounds to me like them Yankee crooks might be a bit smarter (though I'm not so sure about the store manager.)

In the latest theft, they were stripped of 50 bras valued at $4000. Earlier this month they reported that someone lifted 100 bras, from the ”pink collection,” also valued at $4000, and another theft of “seven to eight drawers full of reversible bras” valued at over $2000. (I thought all underwear was reversible. Mine is.)

Now, I don't know if those prices are wholesale, retail, or the one-for-two special, but, empty or
filled, that's gotta be a lot lighter than 9000 pounds of scrap (and more fun to handle.) Of course those folks in Fairfield need to find out just who's getting into Victoria's Secret drawers. Sounds like a job for a J. Edgar Hoover wannabe to go undercover to get to the bottom of being left topless, and find out just who's getting into Victoria's Secret drawers.

A lot of states are hurrying to combat the scrap theft epidemic with legislation that puts more “ID and report” responsibility on scrap yards than even pawn shops are subject to. For example, in Arizona, for any transaction of $25 or more, dealers will be required to provide accurate descriptions or photographs of the materials, visually verify the seller identity against a valid picture ID, record the name, address, and driver's license number, AND GET FINGERPRINTS!

Just where to fence your booty when your cup runneth over with brassieres is not exactly a snap decision, so if this epidemic in Fairfield keeps up, they're gonna have to step up mall security in asimilar fashion to curb it at the source.

“Excuse me ma'am, do you have a receipt for that bra you're wearing? No? I'll just be confiscating that, then, and I'll need to dust THESE for prints...”

Authorities are pretty sure the garments were stolen for resale, and not to satisfy a fetish.
In an unrelated article in the Billings Outpost, “Sheep Rustling on the Rise in Montana; Witnesses report suspect fled in truck with Connecticut plates...”

----- David Dunn

Live Music Podcast

We taped my little acoustic trio at our BB Rover's show, and here it is. Live from the patio. This show is from May, 2008

David's Got Gas (Maybe)

My friend David Dunn, who owns BB Rover's here in Austin where we play sometimes, is a funny, funny man. So with his permission (I would say with his blessing, but I don't think David has the credentials to bless anyone) I'll be occassionally posting his musings. Enjoy.

MUSINGS:

Thanks to military research, NASA, and some corporate bucks thrown at some high-powered university research facilities, sitting in the cockpit of our cars has us surrounded by technology that matches, or perhaps even exceeds, Captain Kirk's gadgetry on the bridge of the Enterprise.
I can't remember which auto maker a few years ago (Lexus? Lincoln? BMW?)recognized how we consumers equate status and just how far ahead of the Joneses we are with our car's technological bells and whistles and digitally enhanced shiny objects, by dropping a bundle on a commercial designed entirely around the car's clock. The commercial was of course narrated by a guy with an English accent, the other automatic indication of uppity-ness.

A car might come with a GPS that can tell you exact longitude, latitude,and altitude with a discrepancy tolerance of +/- 1.5 gnats' asses. According to a recent TV ad, the computer on the new Lexus can parallel park the car for you while you sit and watch. Or if you can't afford something quite that fancy, maybe you have a 24-GHz, dual-beam radar sensor mounted on your rear bumper telling you the exact distance of any object (larger than a gnat) behind you.

On-Star can diagnose your engine, or call 911 if the air bag deploys, or an operator can remotely
unlock your car if you need 'em to. That last one's scary to me! They know who I am, where I am, my car's VIN, and probably my credit rating and social security number, but who and where are THEY? For all I know it could be a UT defensive lineman with an off-season part-time job!

Sorry, but this is a long-winded buildup to: “So WHY THE HELL can't they tell me how much gas is left in the tank?”

I've yet to be in, see, or hear of a vehicle with an accurate fuel gauge. It can't be that hard, guys. It's possible to literally talk to some cars and get them to turn off the burglar alarm and to turn on the sprinkler system before pulling into the driveway, but if it could talk
back, and you were to ask it, “So how much gas is left in the tank, car?” it's answer would be, “oh, somewhere between a quarter and 3/8ths, I guess? Maybe you oughta fill up once more before you get to grandma's house, just in case. Turn left for Chevron at the next intersection,83.4 feet."

Please! I want Gallons! If you want to include an estimate of miles or minutes, that's fine. Why this intelligence-insulting archaic practice of making it look like we're getting great gas mileage for the top“half” of the tank, then sucking it down to just above “E” in half as many miles, so fast you can watch the gauge move, and then hovering around the “E” so that the only way you can find out just how far below“E” empty really is, is a method of trial-and-error, otherwise known as “running out of gas.”

The technology's there. I know it is.

I mean, do you ever hear this? :

Pilot: [crackle -click] UH, Houston, this is Endeavor. Are we cleared for re-entry?

Dispatcher: Cloud cover's pretty low, Endeavor. Lots of visibilityissues. We're gonna have to delay you another day. You OK on fuel?

Pilot: [Tap-tap] Looks like it's down around an eighth, maybe just under.

Dispatcher: Roger that, Endeavor. Maybe we oughta get you down sooner.Let me see how it's looking over at Edwards or White Sands.

Pilot: Naw, we're OK, Houston. I get at least 21, maybe 21 1/2 orbits below the “E.”

Dispatcher: OK, then. But Hey, guys, better check the craft for debris before reentry. The starboard bow cam is giving us a visual on some kind of deformity on the windshield.

Pilot: Yeah, I see it. Looks like some kind of little bug we hit during
liftoff. Wow! You can see that gnat's ass all the way from Houston?[in the background, off-mic]

Copilot: [tapping] I dunno, Scott ... looks like less than a sixteenthto me...