2009 — 17 October: Saturday
By some weird process I don't fully understand, suddenly it's 00:40 and Junior is already fast asleep in the bed I was able to clear a path to through the clutter that had been collecting in his room.
Tonight's smile is from Christa (in Old Windsor) a mere 33 years ago:
Time to sleep. G'night.
While I wait to see...
... if I come down with whatever virus Mike seems to have picked up from his globe-trotting partner, and on the "let's think positive" assumption that my network outage may have been caused by my broadband supplier rolling out the increased speed they have promised, I've just retested the connection speed to compare it with the result last December:
No such luck! Mind you, Peter suspects we'll need to upgrade our broadband cable modem thingy first.
Marketing a book
I've only once even been asked about marketing one of my books (actually more of a brochure) but the New Yorker has a wonderfully frenetic spoof email to an author on the topic. Source and snippet:
If you already have a blog, make sure you spray-feed your URL in niblets open-face to the skein. We like Reddit bites (they're better than Delicious), because they max out the wiki snarls of RSS feeds, which means less jamming at the Google scaffold. Then just Digg your uploads in a viral spiral to your social networks via an FB/MS interlink torrent. You may have gotten the blast e-mail from Jason Zepp, your acquiring editor, saying that people who do this sort of thing will go to Hell, but just ignore it.
Misleading the public?
This chap (Craig Murray) has a classy blog. Very classy. (It even includes the infamous "interanal" that I used to watch out for in IBM "Internal Use" memos.) I recommend "Murder in Samarkand" — his fascinating account of his time as ambassador in Uzbekistan.
Thanks, Mr Postie
Long time since I last watched this excellent series from the chap who brought us the wonderful "Sandman":
It's jolly useful having a son about the house to send downstairs at the Postie's gentle rap when one is otherwise engaged.
We're back...
... from a nice lunch in Southampton's Oxford Street followed by a viewing of the new Disney / Pixar film "Up". I've forced a smoked salmon sandwich on him, and I gather he's about to set off for the Smoke. It's 18:25 and feels pretty chilly out there. It's just possible that I have the snuffly beginnings of a cold but what's one more tedious rhinovirus among friends? At least the central heating system is back online so I shall be able to suffer in comfortable warmth if necessary.
We also saw a trailer for a very promising-looking film: "Planet 51".
Somewhat later
It's 23:22 and I've declined the chance of a walk tomorrow (despite the promise of fine weather) until I see how my little virus collection expands as it lurches along from cell to cell. Intelligent design? Don't make me laugh! In fact, I'm taking myself off for an early night to let that well-proven treatment sleep work its magic on me. G'night.