2008 — 6 May: Tuesday
It's 01:27 and way past bedtime. I've been trying to sort out the MP3s and (re-)discovering far too much good music, albeit not uniformly well-tagged. But it will have to remain in that state for a bit. Three cartons of lofty CDs left to re-rip. And a walk looming on the near horizon, even (possibly) in shorts if the weather forecast is to be believed. G'Night. And thanks for the pension, IBM!
The blinding light...
... up in the sky behind the curtains suggests (at 08:53) that it will be a sunny walk indeed. Brekkie therefore being tucked into with what passes, these days, for gusto and sandwich prep will commence shortly (though not using short bread, paradoxically). Radio traffic reports are suggesting chaos has resumed and Mr Postie has just told me that the Toyota's RAC cover expires in six weeks or so (this is actually the cover we took out on the Aygo, not the [later] Yaris and I have no idea if it transferred to Junior — I'm assuming, since the letter is addressed to Christa [yet again] that it didn't). So I predict a clarifying missive exchange on that front. I do wonder vaguely how many different bits of Toyota need to be told about Christa's change of mortal status before they get the message.
I scanned another photo from that 1976 contact sheet. The technical quality is poor, but my then 31-year-old Christa's smile was as broad as ever. She was a very happy lady, I'm glad to remember, relaxing here in an ancient (and huge) armchair we'd bought at auction for about £2 or so:
I may yet rescan this as colour and let Photoshop loose on it to get back to monochrome. Turns out the Epson scanner is a bit "weak" on its greyscale capability.
Eight hours later...
... and safely through the 7,000 mile barrier, I'm back from the West Meon walk via the fresh cow juice and bits'n'bobs shop. The front porch thermometer was reading 33 C (in direct sunlight) when I put the car away. As for the walk, Mike summarised it thus to our absent third party: it was a delightful walk, unfortunately spoiled in places by 4-wheel drive vehicles that had torn up the pathways, and in other muddy places in the woods where horses' hooves had minced the ground up badly. However there are alternative routes available, and the GPS came to our rescue in guiding us through an unmarked trail through a wood!
I think "trail" is a bit of an overstatement personally but apparently that makes me a "wuss".
I also got to examine at first hand both the colour differences between my Canon and Mike's Nikon, and the curious signal "tearing" on certain material (but consistently) from a 720p signal delivered from his Blu-Ray player and converted from component to RGBHV before being fed to his projection system. That's coming up to the 8,000 hour mark on all three tubes which — in dog years, as it were — is 80% of the (dare I say it?) projected lifespan. But if he can eke another few months out of it while enjoying reasonable pictures from both his SD and HD material he'll then feel happier about replacing it. There is no trace of visible line structure at this resolution (low-end Hi-Def) when the projected image is 122 cm high (a mere 96% taller than my puny 50" plasma) although, obviously, there is less visible detail than the 1080p image on his 52" Samsung LCD screen. Still, he feels it's the best picture he's yet managed to squeeze out of this kit (a Sony G70) since he bought it.
As the same RGBHV signal steadfastly refused to display via the Samsung's "PC" input we're left not knowing whether the flawed signal is an artefact of his Blu-Ray device (unlikely, one would hope) or the component-to-RGB converter or the projection system. Life is basically one long example of Heisenberg at times.
"What's next, Mrs Landingham?"
It's time now, at 18:03 or so, to sink the next cuppa and do something about the grumbling sounds from the inner man. I'm predicting the last of the current crockpot batch with a mango and pineapple treat for "afters". I spurned a kindly invitation to a rather hotter Mexican style meal over in Winchester that Christa, bless her, would have enjoyed enormously. Ho-bloody-hum. But it was a lovely walk. I'll examine the photos after the meal.
Amazon have just told me (by email) that an item I ordered in January has been cancelled and my gift certificate refunded. But when I try to ask them how this works, they are rejecting the very order number they have been quoting to me. What's a chap to do? I need more blood sugar!
I'm a sucker for a nifty graphic. The New York Times gang have been looking at US consumption and inflation stats. Here's a portion of their tasty graphic — I've zoomed in on just the foody bits, because I'm hungry!
Very neat. Unlike today's Freesat launch. None of the four supplier websites is exactly bulging with kit or information. Or wasn't last time I looked.
Still, it seems Love's Forever Changes has been re-mixed and re-released in a new double CD format. Music (and the radio) is doing a lot more for me than TV at the moment. Mind you, looking out around the little housing estate here at a large variety of flickering screens, it seems mine is a minority opinion. 'Twas ever thus. Time (20:55) to check the green bin and see if they've managed to remove some of the flood of cardboard packaging that I've been steadily ignoring in the back end of the living room for several months. Better put some more clothing on first, of course. Plus, it seems tonight is going to be nice and clear for star-gazing.
Interesting factoid
The New Yorker has come up trumps again. This time, in a review of a couple of books on the history of technology:
At the peak of Britain's Industrial Revolution, only one employee in ten worked in a factory. Also, industrialization happened differently in different places: in the United States, telegraph wires followed paths cut by railroads; in India, the telegraph came first, because British civil servants needed to get word of rebellion more than they needed to travel faster. And, for the whole of the nineteenth century, more Americans spent their days doing housework than doing any other kind of work.
Terrifying factoid
Did you know you can study for a BSc (Hons) at the University of Westminster... in homoeopathy? Not to mention an MSc in Chinese herbal1 medicine? Source. (Comments have been pretty vicious.) Mind you, comments in the BMJ have been pretty vicious too. Source.