2008 — 7 December: Sunday
The colours may be a bit wonky on this faded old print, but the quality of Christa's smile remains invariant:
All the files transferred safely, as far as I can tell so far. But I've been fighting with the Linux sound output. I have analogue audio via headphone socket and "normal" output socket, but no trace whatsoever of anything remotely like a digital audio signal from the co-ax output. This is starting to annoy me. Still, at least there's no trace of digital "hash" mucking up the signal.
I gather it's going to be foggy and frosty later today. Deep joy. G'night, at 00:20 or so. I've had enough for one day. Time for my date with little Dorrit.
Blazing sunshine...
... and thick frost, at 09:44 — so, a quick breakfast, an equally quick channel-change away from the morning inanity of people yakking on BBC Radio 4, but no packed lunch to prepare as we'll go for a pub lunch today, somewhere along the South Downs way. Brrr!
Brrr! Indeed. It was -3C when I set off, and -1C when I returned about 45 minutes ago. Spotting the flashing blue lights rapidly filling my rear view mirror I took the Otterbourne exit off the motorway in case there was mayhem just a bit further along. I still don't understand why the inside lane is sparsely populated, the middle lane tends to be crammed, and the outside lane is almost as full, but moving just a bit faster than the middle one. My pint of "Speckled Hen" at lunch time was apparently off, but mine host gave me a freebie half as a topup... The walk was sunny, and the sky blue, but the daylight is strictly limited at this time of year.
Quis? Ego!
Having wrapped myself around a second warming cuppa, let's examine the Mounce for signs of today's earlier smileage:
Also just (18:25) rung dear Mama, who has enjoined me to bring "lots of groceries" when I come up, although I did get her to admit that, without a freezer, that could be a tad wasteful. (She actually does have a freezer, out in her garage, though I cannot remember why she doesn't use it.)
On such a chilly night...
... one's cockles are warmed by stuff like this:
But when there are so many people (such as the thankfully defeated Republican vice-presidential candidate in the US) who truly believe that dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time as humans, or that the universe itself was created six thousand years ago — or who spend millions of pounds on homeopathic remedies or magic crystals instead of real medicine — then we scientists simply cannot hide away in our labs.
And re-chilled by the suggestion that:
If psychoanalysis were a type of music, it would obviously be prog rock, as despite the fact it is largely a triumph of style over substance there are still a few gems hidden
among all the self-indulgent widdling. So why hasn't anyone made a Freudian prog rock concept album you ask? The answer is that they have, but we've just repressed it.
Scottish singer-songwriter Eric Woolfson started a band in the mid-1970s with ex-Pink Floyd producer Alan Parsons. Rather narcissistically, the group was named The Alan Parsons Project.
Have a care, chaps, you're talking about a band I love! "Glam Kraut Freud Rock, if you will" indeed!
It's 20:25 — on with the music track research...
Back of an envelope sizing... dept.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Remember those tedious mental arithmetic questions that kicked off "If it takes three men (and a dog) five days to dig a trench eight chains long and four fathoms deep" (or whatever Imperial nonsense units you fancy) "how long would it take C3PO with an atom blaster...?"
Well, it's just taken me 75 minutes to research and (excuse the pun) track down a mere 79 tracks on minidisc R003. If a chap has another 390 or so such minidiscs to go (not to mention another 160 or so stuffed with all sorts of spoken material snaffled off the BBC) is a chap going to live long enough to finish this insane task (which is, after all, merely a precursor to turning the things into mp3s)? Then there are all the remaining cassettes (which — see yesterday — are at least better labelled). Well, in most cases.
One has to wonder how Christa ever put up with me! Time (22:38) for a cup of peppermint tea and a bite of supper to keep out the (-3C) cold.