2009 — 1 March: Sunday... rabbits!
When I got home about 10 minutes ago (at 01:10 or thereabouts) I thought at first something ghastly had happened to the car's engine or its air-con, but it turned out to be the noise of grinding and welding on the local railway track. What a sociable time for a gang of shouty workers to be working their overtime, heh? Good job I'm not yet trying to get any sleep.
Tonight's picture of Christa shows her with Big Bro in about 1984:
Last night's film (after cheese and nibbles with Andrew) was, indeed, "Hancock". Very amiable tosh. Now Mike has lent me several Blu-ray titles to try out (and my first three are on their way over from Jersey already, too). G'night... at 02:48 as I reluctantly stop (re-)watching Across the Universe in glorious 1080p/24. Yawn!
Grey day go away
As of 10:13 it's looking quite dull, but still dry. Trains seem to be thundering past the house with their usual vigour (though their loud hooting suggests there may still be some workers further along the line, as it were). My NZ chum has just sent me an interesting link that does a "let's scratch the surface" comparison of 15 online photo editing tools — many of them free. I find myself primarily using Fireworks (for cropping, resizing and exporting) after initial "adjustments" (shall we say?) in Photoshop Elements. For graphics creation I am very comfortable with Xara Xtreme (but then I did start1 using its ancestor [Artworks] on the Acorn platform nearly 20 years ago).
Right! There's enough sun to merit a gentle stroll. I'm off.
(Much) later
Junior's called a few minutes ago (it's now 21:39) to let me know of his safe arrival back from the ski slopes of wherever it was he went. I'd thought he wasn't due back for another week, which suggests time has flowed even faster than usual, I guess. Still, it's good to know he's back safely though he tells me he's wrenched one of his knees somewhat. Mike and I enjoyed a stroll up St Catherine's Hill, then back down and along the water meadows near St Cross. Mostly pleasant sunshine, but distinctly chilly at times. We may yet walk again tomorrow as we only clocked up three or four miles today. Depends on the weather, of course.
While I'm delighted by the combination of the Blu-ray player and the screen, there is what you might call a settling-down period as I accustom myself to two, large, remotes with astonishingly many buttons and miniscule labels. Plus — as I was discussing last night — I have to wonder why every hi-def disc has to have its own set of menus, navigational structure, et al and exactly why they can't get some user interface experts on the job, rather than some of the graphics-mad youngsters (idiots would not be stretching things too far) to whom the job has so far been entrusted.