2008 — 28 Mar: Friday
A week, it seems, of unbroken inaccuracy in the BBC's weather forecasts, until this morning's depressing rain. Yesterday, I didn't do more than poke my nose outside the front door a couple of times. Today, I need to do some more shopping for food, at least. I'm predicting a couple of miles therefore, regardless of the rain. There's also a distinct possibility of a couple of items courtesy of Mr Postie — including, I hope, the new KVM switch to help me unentangle the desk here.
Meanwhile, on with the DVD artwork scanning. I'm nearing the end of titles starting with "A". I can also see, from a quick skim of that list, that a) some of my artwork has mysteriously ended up in the loft instead of in my neat system of folders downstairs, <Sigh> and b) I need1 to deal with the boxed sets that don't even have separate artwork. <Double Sigh> The Windows Vista "slide show" facility has obviously been developed after looking at the sort of things built in to Mac's OSX, and that's no bad thing. So I shall not only have a permanent digital photo frame facility (for pictures of Christa, for example) but also a searchable set of DVD covers to help me recall such minutiae as the fact that Kevin Bacon appeared in National Lampoon's "Animal House". The scanning is essentially mindless and mind-numbing, which is also no bad thing frankly.
I have yet to try connecting the hi-def satellite box output to the new 24" screen. Its DVI input claims to be hdcp compliant, so I could also presumably hook up the new Panasonic PVR which also produces upscaled output. I have to observe, though, that although the video test sequences contained within Vista's Media Centre application for setting up your TV screen are superb on the 1,920 x 1,200 display, the bits of Freeview digital terrestrial signal I've watched are nowhere near as crisp. Can we say "not yet ready for Prime Time?" — in my opinion, at least.
Mass man... dept.
I find news (or should that be "news"?) bulletins depressing. So at 10:00 this morning, after hearing of the eleventh murder of young people in London this year, I switched over my channel to the calmer waters of Radio 3 while turning to a new essay2 on the New Criterion web site. So now — naturally — I'm even more depressed! See for yourself. My underground comix hero Ron Cobb did a drawing in 1975 that perfectly illustrates life "at the forest's edge", by the way. It even featured an IBM high-rise office block. Here's a (deliberately) low-resolution copy of the second of the two panels (the first showed a few medieval peasants migrating in the other direction from the forest to a single castle):
More spookily, I see that I attached to it3 a quotation from Freud's Introductory Lectures ("We believe that civilization has been built up, under the pressure of the struggle for existence, by sacrifices in gratification of the primitive impulses.")
Cobb is, by the way, also a vexillographer by virtue of his design for a flag featuring his public domain "Ecology" symbol.
Time for more brekkie. I've enjoyed a large, juicy grapefruit (as did my keyboard, alas) but man cannot live by grapefruit alone. My goodness me, I do hate rain sometimes.
Lunch? Already?!
Time flies rather faster than passengers through Heathrow Terminal #5, it seems. Today's New Statesman contained a little "seed packet" that offers different food for thought:
I thought the bar code was a particularly fine touch! (Andrew Niccol's Gattaca struck me as an excellent movie. It's just over ten years since it was released in the UK.)
Life lessons #1... dept.
My life without Christa is (as I may have remarked more than once) an ongoing learning opportunity. For example, today's (delicious) lunch was one that I would have spurned had she prepared it for me. (Well, not quite true: my basic philosophy was "If you cooked it, my love, then I'll do my best to eat it!") Anyway, mini chicken breast fillets (a phrase that can be parsed in a number of ways) with a Moroccan apricot and almond sauce has just demonstrated that, a) just because a sauce contains yoghurt (which Christa loved) does not render it instantly fatal, and b) it's definitely time for me to treat the kitchen to a new, non-stick, frying pan.
Life lessons #2... dept.
OK, 'fess up. Who knows why they've stopped selling frying pan lids? No-one in Waitrose seemed to, for starters. Still, I now know I can return the two new fluorescent strips to B&Q any time within the next 80 days or so. (That's £5-94 minus petrol money in the bank.)
Next learning opportunity? Tonight's IBM Trivia evening.