If I Had a Billion Dollars --

-- the red light on my computer's mute key, f6, wouldn't go from functional to non-functional or vice versa every time my OS updated. And similarly, I wouldn't have to tell my blog software not to count my own pageviews for the blog every time I turned on the computer, because that box unchecked itself every time I turned off the computer. I can't afford to get a new computer every time one malfunctions, or get it repaired or other fancy rich-guy stuff like that.

If I had a billion dollars I'd have an EV and solar panels on my roof, and so would a few nonprofit organizations, courtesy of me.

If I had a billion dollars I'd have an extra-fancy strap on this watch, here, and I'd pay somebody to attach it to the watch because I'm really bad with that sort of fingertip type work.

If I had a billion dollars, I would finally find out what truffles taste like if you just eat one whole, as opposed to eating some food which just has tiny specks of truffles in it which you can barely see but which make the food irresponsibly expensive for you to eat.

If I had a billion dollars, I would finally know once and for all if becoming rich still leaves you unhappy. I strongly doubt that a billion dollars wouldn't make me very, very happy for a very long time, maybe forever. I think that people who say that money lacks such power simply don't have enough experience with poverty to appreciate being rich. And you'll notice that most of the rich people who say money can't make you happy do NOT give all their money away, and that that's not just because they are too kind to make others unhappy with money, but because they're basically full of shit, in addition to being full of money.

I just did an update, and the red light on my f6 key went from working to not working. I really like that red light when it works. That's what set me off into thinking about having enough money to own multiple computers and and an EV and solar power and to be able to give generously to causes I find to be good and to be able to obtain a truly fine watch band without giving it a second thought and eat all the truffles I could eat.

Here's to Fully Automated Luxury Communism bringing all of those things, and much, much more, to everyone on Earth, very soon. Cheers. First step: vote Trump out. I know, I know, Joe is hardly a Fully Automated Luxury Communist dream come true, but beggars can't be choosers and right now the choice is Trump or Joe, and Joe's a lot closer to want we want even though he's very far from what we want. The Communists in Germany should've voted for Hindenburg along with the Social Democrats in 1932...

Daydreaming About Extremely Expensive Watches

Lately I've been looking at pictures of expensive mechanical (that is: wind-up, no battery) watches and daydreaming about being rich enough to afford one. Just today I was looking at some of these pictures, looking at the ways some of these watches have of showing the time in more than 1 time zone at once. Looking at these pictures on my laptop.

And it occurred to me that a mechanical, no-electricity computer wouldn't be able to do very much. At all. Certainly wouldn't be able to show me pictures of watches costing more than I've ever made in a year. Gross. And my laptop, about as simple as new ones come, can show me the time in all time zones, and that's just a teeny-tiny part of a small fraction of what it can do. And then it occurred to me: the most advanced current mechanical computers: that's more or less what extremely-expensive watches are. Plus a lot of gold or platinum in many cases.

As regular readers of this blog know: I'm a pocket watch enthusiast. Not particularly interested in putting a watch on my wrist. I have an automatic (self-winding, no battery) Timex that I bought at a yard sale for 2 bucks, and I've occasionally worn that on my wrist, but never for as long as a day all day long. It's just uncomfortable to me. I don't know whether this is a neurological issue related to my autism. I also don't wear rings.

Not very long ago, all the extra features which often come with expensive watches, like multiple dials and stopwatches and whatnot, didn't interest me much. I just wanted big Arabic numerals, 12 of them on one dial and no Roman numerals or dashes or dots referring to numbers, and of course I wanted extremely accurate and precise and durable and rugged timekeeping. Basically, I wanted a Hamilton 992B,

but as far as I know, no 992B's have been made in the past 45 years. I started researching expensive new pocket watches, and I haven't been able to find many new high-end ones. Patek Philippe offers a couple of gold pocket watches in the $30,000 - $40,000 price range, and Bell & Ross

makes a few that sell for around $2000-$4000, and other than that, I don't know of any really good new pocket watches. The selection of good new ones, as far as I know, isn't vast. There is a vast selection of other new pocket watches, and in the case of some of those I'm not at all sure how well they're made, and in the cases of many others, I'm quite sure that they're cheap crap. It seems that there is this thing called steampunk, whose adherents often carry hideous-looking cheap wind-up watches which are meant to evoke the Victorian ("steam-powered") era. They don't evoke it for me. Generally speaking, watches which were actually made in the Victorian era look much better to me, and a lot of them are still running and keep better time than a lot of this new stuff. Anyway, because of steampunk and maybe because of other factors too, suddenly there are many new wind-up pocket watches for sale, some in the grotesque steampunk style and some which much more closely resemble regular watches. Some have a few superficial resemblances in appearance to things like the 992B, but they gain or lose more than 30 seconds a day. (That's not good. Less than 30 seconds every 6 months, when we spring forward or fall back, would be more like it.)

I must underscore that I'm not really well-informed about all of the new inexpensive ($10 to $500 dollars or so, that's not a typo, it's 10 with 1 zero) watches. I don't know whether there is inexpensive quality stuff somewhere in there amongst the dreck. One can only hope. [PS, 2017: Among other quality low-priced watches, there is the Seiko 5, widely regarded as the most watch per dollar or Euro that a person can get these days.]

Back to me daydreaming about being rich and able to afford a top-notch new gold or platinum watch.

Since there are so few high-end new pocket watches, I've been looking at high-end wristwatches. And I've actually begun to grow intrigued by all the fancy stuff which didn't appeal to me not long ago. Fancy stuff referred to as "complications" by the makers of extremely-expensive watches. Lately, to my own surprise, the complications and offbeat designs have begun to intrigue me. Accuracy, precision and reliability continue to be what I want most, but I'm changing to an attitude where I might actually like some complications too.

And more recently than that it occurred to me that just because a big heavy gold or platinum wristwatch has a band, it doesn't mean that I would have to wear it on my wrist instead of carrying it in my pocket. Of course I could carry a big heavy hunk of precious metal and precision horology in my pocket if I felt like it, even if it came with a big glorious heavy precious-metal band usually used to wear it on one's wrist.

If I could afford such a thing, that is. So let's keep talking me up for that Nobel Prize, everyone, shall we? Thank you! You know, once I'm a Nobel Prize winner, and able to actually buy a gold Omega watch (or platinum? Does Omega make platinum watches? I'm having trouble finding them if they do), I might not have to buy one. Because of the Tom Petty Ab.So.Lute.Ly Backwards Law of Microeconomics, winning a Nobel Prize might actually make me rich and famous enough that Omega would give me a new gold or platinum watch.

And wouldn't that be cool beans with awesome sauce.

I Sometimes Do A Sort Of Reverse Walter Mitty

That is to say, instead of imagining feats of great boldness like the timid Walter Mitty does, I daydream about how my life might have turned out if I had been much less bold and much more sensible: talked back less to teachers and professors and bosses, for example, or become an accountant, or consumed much, much less alcohol and recreational drugs, or just in general not been so incredibly stupid so very often.



Once in an interview Jack Nicholson said: "I want everything to be exactly the way it is." I think that's wise. Because everything is exactly the way it is. And how better to be able to cope with everything than to eagerly embrace its reality? Maybe it's not wise, but... insubstantial to the point of nothingness. Or perhaps it's simultaneously both. Maybe it's the sort of point those Zen guys are trying to make. You may ask, But how can you make yourself want anything other than what you actually do want?

And at this point, generally, I want to just get away from the Zen guru and get on with my life. Am I rejecting his wisdom, or enacting it quite well?



I don't know, but it does seem that I still barge ahead recklessly in some ways. Several times on this blog I've quoted bob Dylan to the effect that "I try my best to be just like I am." Everything: that includes me, of course, and wanting everything to be exactly the way it is... Hm. Hopelfully I barge more effectively in some ways than decades ago. I don't get drunk all the time any more. I haven't had a drop of booze in 2015. And I don't miss it. I'm barging recklessly onward into the Anonymi Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolymitanorum at the moment. Recklessly attempting to more accurately memorize the chronology and picture the topology of the first Crusade. Okay, I guess I have calmed down a bit in some ways. Hagenmeyer's edition



contains maybe 5 words of apparatus for every word of text, and in the past I've verbally abused critical editions which seem to entirely lose track of the text about which all of the fuss supposedly is -- but Hagenmeyer's introduction and footnotes and indices are actually not completely useless. (They're in German except for long citations from various Latin works, so get multilingual already and get with the program.)

As you can see, I'm still not an accountant, and no, I don't currently have a university job or a fellowship, I haven't had either in 23 years. Still hopelessly reckless and impractical, from some people's point of view. But you see, I'm trying to be just like I am, and to convince you that that's a very good thing. Nobody else is going to do it, nobody else in the whole wide world ever could. Is it reckless? Or is it the only thing I possibly can do?