2008 — 23 April: Wednesday
It's 01:00 and time for some sleep, having found that none of my present batch of USB memory sticks has the necessary "performance characteristics" (do they mean "speed") to boost my Vista system's booting time. No matter.
Fishing around
I'm not saying this morning's rain (as forecast) has influenced me, but I note that "Our descent from fish explains why men are so much more prone to hernias than women". There's both an explanation and an entirely safe for work (not so sure about breakfast) graphic here. It's 08:54 where I'm sitting, and the inaugural cuppa is working its magic.
The rain has now stopped. I don't have a headache, despite the last 30 minutes or so of Terry Wogan, and I could probably find some aspirin if I did. But this newly-discovered1 "Cectic" comic (by Rudis Muiznieks at cectic.com) would probably do the job without a prayer:
Its creator, I'm pleased to learn, keeps a pet skunk (though I don't know where). On the other hand, here's a Princeton gentleman with a Ph.D. who (on April Fool's day) told the world: "I've been pondering God's goodness and the way God uses pain to help us, well, repent — that is, turn our life around." He could, I suspect, rapidly turn me in search of the aspirin bottle. Mind you, this site raises endorphin levels (though whether intentionally or not, I couldn't possibly say).
Time to raise the blood sugar level, methinks, before pondering my next moves.
Did anyone else notice...
... that the £10,000,000,000 mentioned here has already become £12,000,000,000 in less than one week? As the nodding-head dog Churchill might put it: "Oh, yes." The late Senator Everett Dirksen (to whom the quote "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money" is often attributed — apparently incorrectly) might have had something to say, I suspect.
Lunch!
Having recently bade farewell to Roger after one of his welcome visits-for-a-chat and a cuppa, it's already time (13:15 or so) to turn my attention to the lunchtime frying pan. (I fear I'd let two of my recent Waitrose acquisitions both get too far past their respective "Use by" dates to be entirely happy about cooking them. I am still learning as I go along, remember.) Roger's been enjoying a brief respite from his caring duties while getting his recent chest pains looked into. Sensible chap.
OK. That was lunch. Mr Postie meanwhile has just invited me to renew a subscription to a magazine IBM thought I'd enjoy. They were wrong, but no matter. And Mr Toyota is still chasing his dead customer; this time he wants Christa to sell him back the car we only bought six months ago to give him a chance to "structure a highly enticing part-exchange price incorporating the very best Toyota offers which currently include 0% finance on many derivatives". I have left an entirely appropriate message for the young Sales Executive,2 and hope he will bear in mind that his particular outfit is now trading under a name owned by "Ponder Limited" before he makes his promised telephone call.
Snap happy days
Hearing that my main co-pilot spent some time at Sandbanks yesterday, here's a little "Do you remember this?" puzzler for my friend Carol in New York. Click the pic for more detail.
Still fishing around
Encouraged by La Glover's tasty example yesterday, I caught a pack of tuna steak while swimming around Waitrose a few minutes ago. Not that I expect it to go with the new bottle of bleach that seems to be required by the kitchen sink. And the next crockpot experiment, I've decided, is going to involve lamb and fresh mint (and a parsnip or two, in another first). Is there no end to this adventure?
Well, it's now 23:23 and I'm getting a bit fed up with my entirely self-inflicted DVD artwork scanning task. I've got as far as "Bob & Rose" "Bob Newhart Show, Season #1" for any completeists reading. So I've had a little break, eating the "make it yourself" vanilla cheesecake and choice of topping before it exceeded the two days past "use by" date. My safety margins are higher for meat products, it seems. Tomorrow, I shall have another go at the Factory Outlets in Whiteley Village; I'm on the prowl for a lightweight, weatherproof walking top along Gore-tex lines, without wanting to pay the sort of prices I remember Christa being appalled by when we browsed what was at the time a new "Gore-tex" shop down in Covent Garden many years ago now.
Mind you, Mrs Google Maps has just (23:48) drawn what passes these days for my diminished attention to five outlets within 2.4 miles. Including one basically across the road in the School Lane industrial estate. Right here, as it were, in River City... G'night.