2008 — 6 January: frosty Sunday
Time is now 10:00 and, with a cooked brekkie on board, it's time to make a sandwich for consumption on the walk, venue still subject to change. But at least I know I will need my boots. Report1 to follow. (Pension, too, I hope!) (This) man cannot live on my late wife's uncashable ERNIEs alone!
Home again, temporarily... department
To my delight (and mild relief) Junior called me to confirm their safe return to the UK, so now I know the noise this new mobile makes when it's called! Reception loud and clear halfway up a 300 foot hill outside Stockbridge, in an inch of so of mud and ice — we retired chaps really know how to live it up, you know — and just after correctly identifying a nice young lady as a Kiwi from her accent. She actually looked just like a twin of one of my nieces, but grinned hugely at not being mistaken for an Australian. These Kiwis do get around, don't they? I also got attacked by a pheasant, and have a neat row of six beak marks on my right calf to prove it! We mentioned this to a huntin' shootin' type lady out walking her dogs and she not only knew the bird in question, but opined she would shoot it at the next available opportunity. Amazing people one can meet when one gets out of the house!
6.5 miles or so later, we returned to Winchester for some HD TV experimentation. That will resume shortly, back in Winchester, and after a meal. The "problem" seems to be a system glitch on 1080p playback, but we don't yet know if this lies somewhere within a 10m hdmi cable, or in the bowels of the PowerDVD software running on Mike's PC so I'm taking over my new Panasonic HD DVD recorder2 as it, too, offers an upscaled 1080p output via its own hdmi socket. (Said output works perfectly on my system via my DVDO iScan HD+ scaler, but only for about 0.1 of a second before going to a blue screen. Yet the Humax Hi-Def satellite signal works fine. Mind you, that's a mere 1080i.)
When the picture isn't glitching, it is superbly detailed and crisp. I assume the ATI Radeon graphics card drivers are still being revised (as is the Power DVD software, of course). Can we say "Not quite ready for Prime Time?" Of course, domestic Blu-Ray and HD DVD players will all work perfectly(!) I'm sure.
Freak Zone
Why aren't you listening to BBC 6Music's "Freak Zone" right now? You'd enjoy it if you're of a certain age; trust Uncle David. Mahavishnu, David Axelrod, Wishbone Ash. What more could you want?
Right. Quick change of shirt, doff the even muddier trousers, and off I go again... Mind you, the motorway traffic going north looked pretty horrid as I came south an hour or so ago. Fingers crossed. I shall go up to Otterbourne and scout it from there. The film I suggested we watch was All about my mother — not my mother, I hasten to add, but the 1999 Almodovar film. Mind you, I'd forgotten quite how many people die during it, but I remembered both Christa and I enjoyed it when we watched it in Southampton's "Harbour Lights" cinema, as it used to be called. And it went down well with the three of us.