2009 — 30 November: Monday
Good grief. Next time I look up it's already 00:47. I just went to do the last dishes and to put the chain on my front door only to discover — naturally — that I hadn't actually unchained it all day. Is that the definition of a "recluse"? Or more a recognition of, among other things, rain and hail?
I'm vaguely planning a trip over to my chum Ian from my ICL days for Tuesday but he's obviously forgotten to check his email for a while. So that also makes necessary some supplies shopping later today, come hail or shine. And so to bed... G'night.
Just how delicious...
... can one Monday morning get? It's cold (4C), wet, and windy. Great unwalking weather. On with the show, I guess — it's already 09:49 and I need a 12 volt 50 watt halogen bulb after a late mishap. (Not the car, I hasten to add.)
Can you see every pixel?
I lack the two operating systems supported here. So I cannot try the Windows Media 'Center' plugin on offer. But then I'm also highly sceptical that there's enough (actually, make that "anything") worth watching on my 60" HD plasma in the low quality implied by the 2Mbps bit rate1 — mentioned here. If either, or both, the journalist Jim Martin and Freesat's managing director Emma Scott think that 2Mbps is enough for "high quality" (let alone high-definition) on a 60" screen then I'd dearly like a life-time supply of whatever weird substance they have been smoking.
I can only assume I'm not supposed to watch in fullscreen, which rather defeats the whole point of the already fairly pointless exercise, don't you think? Just because a thing can be done is not sufficient reason to do a thing...
On that grumpy note, I can detect in me the need for breakfast! And a second soothing cuppa. Must be the malevolent influence of the foul weather. 10:26 and still pouring, with added gusto.
Since NPR is currently discussing "research" into suicide clusters, and since my main co-pilot frets if I mention that topic, I've just switched over to the Dickens (Our Mutual Friend). It's one I haven't read, but it doesn't sound all that much more cheerful!
Re-listening to the marvellous Morrissey on "Desert Island Discs" (the podcast is only just over 30 minutes — the "rights" issues mean his various musical choices are sadly truncated, but all the chit-chat is still there) has cheered me up almost as much as the signs of blue sky and ceased rain. It's also a week since I treated myself to a picture of Christa, so here's another of my favourites, from June 1st 1974, in Oxford — the day of our first-ever picnic expotition:
Time (12:19) to nip out, methinks.
It's now quite a bit later (17:42 or so) and I'm back — obviously — having first done all the boring food stuff, then grabbed a bit(e) to eat, then whizzed down to visit Borders before the vultures had completely stripped the bankrupt shelves. In between trips #1 and #2 Mr Postie dropped off "Catch & Release" and I also managed to find a couple of items with 20% off, too. It's jolly cold out there, and the nearly full moon was very bright last time I looked.
Blood pressure rising...
While I agree the instructions here (for upgrading the firmware inside my Humax hi-def satellite PVR) are perfectly simple, the dead hand of the evil hdcp makes the process quite tricky. What can one do when one cannot get a screen display until one has finished the process but one needs a screen display2 to be sure when it is safe to intervene in the process in the way needed by the process? Neat, heh? So far, I seem to have been successful in upgrading the firmware "proper" but I have severe doubts about the status of the associated loader software. (Thanks a bunch, Brian!)
Sorted!
My day-trip tomorrow, that is — not my firmware upgrade. So, here's today's little haul of goodies:
I shall now decamp downstairs and watch and/or read some of these. It's 21:51 and the ever-entertaining Radcliffe & Maconie are just winding down...