Saturday 6th February 2010 - Barmen Never Understand My Dreams

          As a result of my expeditions last night, I now have a good place for breakfast.  It has an extensive and varied menu, bt everything comes with a pile of pancakes.  I sat facing the window, and a constant stream of ladies in black tights came jogging by.  It was so continuous at one point, I thought it might be the floor show, but I think it was just that kind of neighbourhood.

 

          When my laptop got stolen in Philly, it wasn't much of a problem.  I had been quite rigorous in uploading all my material every night to a Google server.  So there was no way I could lose anything.

          During breakfast, I got a call asking for some notes on some of my researches.  I happily agreed, and understood there was a quite tight deadline.  "Oh, yes, I can manage that".  I had no sooner settled down to the task than the Motel network went down.  So I was cut off from all my papers.  Usually, this just involves rebooting the main router, but, of course, on this occasion, it was a more serious problem.  By the time I had extracted a bit of honesty from the support line, it was really too late to go anywhere else.

          I had noted that the wonderful library downtown opened on Sunday for a few hours (you don't see that very often) so I thought I might just mosey down there, take in some of the scenery, and still be able to deliver on time.  If that doesn't work, I'm in a nest of motels, and it's usually possible to stop in a parking lot and pick up an unsecured signal.

 

          Later that night, my favourite barman let me down.  It being his night off, he had thoughtfully conjured up Meryl Streep to look after me.  But he had either not listened to, or was unable to believe the "grown-up" bit, because she had been spectacularly rejuvenated.  She was also obsessed with squeezing lemons.  Whenever she had nothing else to do, she took to the lemon-squeezing machine like she was in the gym.

          The Good People of Birmingham (which is a brewery) like to describe their beer as "hopshine", hoping to lend an air of historical illegality to it.

          There is clearly something going on about bingo in Birmingham.  There are court orders flying about, halls are shutting, and at least one sheriff is saying he will prevent state troopers from raiding halls in his county (sounds "wild west", doesn't it?).  It will turn out, no doubt, to be about tax revenues.  Which is, of course, making the natives restless.  The Birmingham News has the "Poarch Band of Creek Indians", in the shape of the CEO of PCI (I wonder what that might stand for?) Gaming, telling us what their plans are.