2009 — 16 August: Sunday
I don't much like being a widower, and I freely admit I'm still some way from being a merry one. But,1 I'm delighted to be a pensioner. There are many good features, chief of which (of course) are plenty of free time in which to potter about, and absolute freedom from any further servitude to "the man" whether in IBM or elsewhere. And, bless her, Christa was equally delighted when I retired, even though we only had six months together before her rapidly deteriorating health became just about all I could think about. Funny business, Life...
Tonight's picture is one I managed to sneak of her in the Old Windsor kitchen, when she was snaffling a Mars bar.2 I love her expression here:
Personally, I think the inventor of chocolate deserves the Nobel prize. I'm still turning up the odd little cache of goodies even today! That's my girl.
G'night, at 01:37 or so.
Drat!
It's 09:40, moderately warm, moderately sunny, nice and quiet. What's wrong with this picture? Well, I think I may have run out of procrastinatory excuses to delay slapping on the top coat of paint on the upstairs window frame. I shall still check the feather warcast, of course... Glumly, I can report it's looking good (bad). This was not what I had in mind for my world-class pottering regimen.
For crying out loud! I am concluding that Victoria Coren is as classy an act as her late father was. Source and snippet:
There is simply less reason to cry if you have only a few yucca plants to keep alive. The only thing we non-mums have to worry about is the futility and loneliness of an empty, barren life and the ultimate termination of our bloodline when we start rotting in a council-funded grave which nobody visits. And that just isn't as bad as having to sit through Shrek 2 for the 87th time while an ungrateful toddler wees in your lap.
As for Shrek 3... But "manic pixie dream girl"3 (MPDG, naturally, aka Natalie Portman) is a new one on me. I shall have to wait until next month, it seems, to find out what one of the producers of "Juno" has come up with next, as described here.
At least I don't have to wait that long for breakfast, or my initial cuppa for that matter. Here we go again. Leaping into inaction.
Open, as in guvmint
Does the filetype suffix here give the game away? (Just asking.) I'm amused to note the name of the MP at the bottom, but that's just a hangover from IBM in my case, no doubt.
Aah, Ingrid Pitt. Now there's a non-MPDG if ever there was one. Catch her later.
Despite...
... having had 1,000+ days to get used to this non-working life of mine, I have to admit (albeit grudgingly) that there is a certain satisfaction on the completion of a household job, particularly when it's one I detest as much as I do when it comes to clambering up a ladder and slapping paint on wood. Still, at least I had the foresight not to put the milk into my cuppa, so I was able to nuke it back to my preferred thermal state and can now (at 14:29) enjoy it, and the fact that I fitted in a foody gathering expedition earlier — the smell of the paint is currently a bit of an appetite suppressant, though.
Now here's an interesting chap.
And God said "Let there be less dark"
My little bedside light's bulb blew yesterday. It's a 40-watt halogen. I already had a spare, bought in John Lewis the last time it blew (back in September 2003). I picked up a fresh two-pack in Waitrose this morning so I still have spares ready for the next blow-up. Same manufacturer (Philips), same packaging, but some subtle differences:
- now £3-50 instead of £4-95
- now 285 lumen instead of 460
- now 1,000 hours instead of 2,000
- now energy code "G" instead of "E"
- now made in Peoples Republic of China instead of Germany
So it costs less, but produces less light, lasts half the time, and is less efficient. And this is progress?
Tonight's meal is getting agitated in the oven as I type. I'm also delighted to report that I've cured the slight case of digital video "tearing" (by dint of simply waggling the hdmi lead more firmly in place) and once more have everything routing through the Edge scaler. This is goodness. But now I have a hot date with some lemon chicken, while I try to work out the meaning hidden in the "Subject" line of my latest note from Val over in Stockholm. It's 18:31 and there's no sign of any rain to interfere with my paintwork. (Bro, I put another coat on the downstairs window frame, too.) Gosh, this is exciting!
Time for a flickery pixel or two downstairs, methinks. In the West Wing, perhaps? It's 21:54 and still dry, but also almost pitch dark out there.