2009 — 4 March: Wednesday
Well, Mr Woss liked "Watchmen"... Time for tonight's picture of Christa, Peter, and dear Mama. It dates from 1984, I rather think. And if I'm honest, I miss Christa's cheerful smile more than just about anything:
Christa, Peter, and dear Mama in 1984 or so
The weather forecast (as of 00:14) is sounding more than a bit grim. I think I shall pop downstairs, wrap myself around another cuppa, and finish watching Bee movie. It looks very nice upscaled on the new screen. G'night.
It's the glorious unpredictability...
... of Life and, in this minor case, of the weather, that gets me every time. The sun is blazing down out of a clear blue sky, but the roof tiles suggest a spot of freezing has been going on until quite recently. I think I shall venture off BBC Radio 3 and onto the Home Counties fascistic channel for the 09:00 bulletin. A chap has to know what's going on. Specially now that the uni-ocular Hibernian savant (as one of my chums recently described him) is not only the best special friend of the new chap in the White House, but says he's not going to run away from sharing some of the blame for the financial crisis. (A decade as the prudent Chancellor, remember...)
As for other unpredictabilities, there I am, surfing around (in this case) the New Scientist site where I encounter (quite deep within an interesting PDF file) today's new word — "typosquatter". If you venture down this particular rabbit hole, you're on your own, chums. Take a (blue) flashlight:
For example, typosquatter John Zuccarini registered slightly misspelled domains like cartoonnetork.com and dinseyland.com. Zuccarini also perfected "mouse-trapping" — disabling web browsers' back buttons and "x" (close) buttons to prevent users from leaving the explicit sites. Zuccarini was ultimately sentenced to 30 months in prison for deceptively showing explicit material unrequested, in violation of the federal Truth in Domain Names Act of 2003 (Edelman, 2003).
On a not completely unrelated topic, I think it's a pity someone cannot fix the relentless tide of spam arriving at my rarely-used1 Google mail account. I admit and admire the effectiveness of the filtration, but I still get exasperated at the way global email is being rendered a lot more sluggish than it could be. And I now have a regular email contact for whom I have to use Google mail as her own email service (Hotmail) has already blacklisted my relocated email server. <Sigh>
Breakfast, methinks, and a second cuppa.
Ethical Quotient
Not just the title of an excellent SF short story, also a measure of my response as I contemplate (over late "lemonses" at 12:13 or so) the dilemma posed by young Mr Postie this morning. My initial venture into the world of Blu-ray software consisted of a carefully thought out "3 for 2" order ("2001", "Stranger than fiction", and "Layer cake") from Amazon's Jersey supplier. Instead of "Layer cake" I've received a four-DVD set of Brideshead Revisited (excellent TV, of course, in the John Mortimer scripted 1981 production). So excellent, that it's many years since I bought my own three-DVD set. The price difference of this mistake is only a couple of those worthless pounds, too. I think I shall sit tight, but salve my conscience by not opening the shrink wrapping on the Waugh story until I next feel like a dose of Sebastian. That way, if the seller contacts me in the meantime, I can return the goods "unopened".
Ringing the changes
Back a few minutes ago (it's now 16:53) from a jaunt down to Burley and a roundabout route back, taking in tea and a slice of mincemeat tart at Carlo's (scene of a turquoise ice cream ingestion last May). Aside to Christa: Tony Martin's Ringwood bookshop is now a "Jaegar" fashion shop. <Sigh> I guess he, too, must have retired by now. It's cold, but quite bright. Some amazingly dark clouds hovering around, though.
Speaking of which, I (still) do not think I am depressed. But I've just been listening to Vivienne Parry investigating post-natal depression. And I now realise (from some of the descriptions) that that could very well have been what briefly afflicted Christa when Peter was very young.
Prolonged prediction
Well, it's actually turned out to be just short of two years since I said it wouldn't be too long before I rewatched the film I've just delightedly re-watched. I had no idea then — of course — that next time I'd be watching it on my own, with the (very) minor compensation of enjoying it in full high-definition on the new screen. Stranger than fiction indeed! But Christa and I both enjoyed it last time round. And I enjoyed it again tonight. Time (22:23) for a spot of supper, I think.