Glad I stopped. They were incredulous. There's another music store in Mountain View? And it's right across the parking lot? And you've got band instruments and books and reeds and recorders and guitars? We had no idea... Forget about all those boxes of violins for now. Flyers to print. I scanned in my new Yellow Pages artwork and printed it out black and white on the laser printer. It's about three by six but that will do for now. Got 'em a good stack and still managed to get that and the deposits done before opening. Now to check out the violins...

They're not bad at all. I can see exactly where they cut costs. The strings are mediocre quality at best and there was zero shop adjustment. I have to shape and fit the bridge myself. Takes about twenty minutes. Well, not quite. The pegs slip pretty bad also - they were never shop fitted either. Add another twenty. Well, it's still a fair deal. They passed some of the assembly costs on to me. For the price, I'll gladly trade the time to tweak each one. I don't need to sell them today or tomorrow. But I will have to find a few cubic feet to store them...

Phone rings. It's the mysterious violin lady. Haven't done business with her for months. The new violins come from elsewhere. Need any violins? No, not today thank you. When should I try back? Next week? If you want... How's business? (Probing...) Oh, not too bad. OK bye... Why does it feel like you can't tell the truth? I'm seeing someone else thank you... You'd think she would've figured that out after hearing the same thing for three months.

A dead ringer for Paula Jones. Dressed in full hunting attire. High heels. Black mini. And the bra is definitely un-natural, what there is of it. This creates a dilemna. To admit that my knees are weak puts me in about the same category of person as Slick Willy. But that's OK, because it wasn't my knees that were affected. And I'm not the president of a big ol' country and I'm certainly not married. But no matter. She walked away before I could offer to show her how to play a cello.

And Elton John has decided to lend his voice to Janet Reno's campaign for Florida guv'nor. Wonder if she'll ever come out of the closet. Didn'tja' ever notice that there was like never a Mr. Reno? No public information anywhere that she's anything but an unwed spinster. I seem to recall a lady pal that got into a couple of pictures. Nobody talking. The Justice Department was a good job for her. She can keep a secret. I dunno' about guv'nor of Floridia.

And whatever happened to that Ben dude and Al what's his face? Don't worry about whether they're alive or dead. The same forces which drove them still exist. But let's look at this from an engineering standpoint. They would like to create version 2.0 of their product [terrorism]. But ask anybody who has ever worked on version two. It's completely bug-ridden from the outset because the marketing folks each have their particular favorite features. 90% of these new features will not work as advertised on product launch. The engineers are now coming back with estimates. Well, let's see. Destroy something like, uhm Minneapolis. We might be able to do it, but it would take like seven or eight years of planning. And a lot of cash. But for a hundred-fifty bucks we can get rid of that gypsy shop down at thirty-fourth and vine. Where they make those little bottles of - love potion number nine...