2007 — 30 Mar: with an accent on accounts
Part 'n' of my grand pensioner plan will swing into action later today, as I start the (frankly, boring) process of switching a few accounts around with their associated standing orders. So please don't anyone tell me anything bad about A&L until I've finished. Aaah, the sweet illusion of control over my cyberspatial finances. Now, what's my password?
On a different topic, I wonder if anyone else found the accents in Channel 4's "Wedding Belles" as hard-going as I did. By the end of my Polytechnic career I was fully tuned into "Geordie" but I've never had the necessary in-depth exposure to what I assume was "Glaswegian". I shall just have to persevere with all those episodes of Still Game which are, at least, rather less dark than last night's drama. I note there's already a DVD available, but I hesitate to speculate quite what the "deleted scenes" section might contain. Excellent drama. Series #3 of "House" was light relief in comparison.
Mind you, Mr Postie dropped off a copy of John Cuneo's "nEuROTIC" (sic) yesterday — a small book of cartoons that begin, more or less, where Siné and Tomi Ungerer leave off. Edward Sorel is quoted on the back cover: "... I had no idea just how artistically rewarding it could be to have your mind in the gutter." Some of us, of course, are looking at the stars!
En passant (or, "Socket to me")
I got asked for an A/V receiver recommendation. There is much to drool over here on the Pioneer VSX-AX4ASi-S (such a catchy name):
Though, on page 90 of the manual, we find that The Phase Control technology... provides coherent sound reproduction... for an optimal sound image at your listening position. Sounds like a bit of a throwback to Sony's attempts to produce a wider stereo sound stage on their portable cassette radio recorders over 33 years ago — I know; I was there! In fact, it reminds me of the time I reviewed a set of quadrophonic headphones. Those were the days.
As others see others department
Der Spiegel's (English language) web site has a nice piece on how Germans regard Americans. Given "der Spiegel" means "the mirror" I guess that's only right and proper.