2010 — 7 January: Thursday
Just gone midnight, and time for sleep. Downloaded yet another upgrade to the Oppo Blu-ray player's firmware a few minutes ago, but I'll wait until I'm less sleepy before I load it.
Been another long day, too, somehow, though (I must say) the latest crockpot was delicious. Looks horribly cold out there. Yawn. G'night.
Today's acronym
i-MLSE — a cunning ploy to demodulate signals from higher-density Blu-ray discs on existing players. There's an IEEE paper on the technique from January 2002.
In other news, it's -7C at 09:57 though my main co-pilot asserts that his outside shed "reading" was -11C earlier. There's a light dusting of the white stuff over the bits I cleared yesterday, but it's damn' slippery underfoot, which is a good reason for staying inside my cabin. My cold appears to be on the wane (I always seem to get a little something extra after a trip to Dr Fang). And there are a few hints of sunshine out there behind the clouds. Time for the first cuppa of the day. And "Diamond in the snow" by Sibelius.
This is rather fine:
Harold Nicolson recalled a friend who, upon seeing two acquaintances disembark from a gondola in a scandalous tryst,1 averted his gaze so successfully that he plummeted into the Grand Canal. He told his rescuers that he was simply trying to spare the couple the embarrassment of being recognized. Excessive, says Nicholson, before turning to the Prince of Wales, the Shah of Persia (Nasr-ud-Din) and a dilemma over asparagus for better instruction. Given that it seems to have been plucked from PG Wodehouse rather than real life, it is not, perhaps, an anecdote that travels well over the years, but for boldly following the Shah's lead in masticating the woody end of the asparagus and ignoring the tip, the prince "earned for himself the title of the First Gentleman of Europe." Those were the days.
The bulk of the piece, actually, is about Bertie Russell. Mr Butterworth writes an excellent set of columns, including this analysis of Twilight #2. Who said statisticians were dull? Not me!
At least one neighbour has given up the attempt to get her light, front-wheel-drive, car up our icy hill, and slid gently back on to her drive. Don't blame her. Now, about breakfast, Mr Mounce? Man cannot live by tea and OJ alone.... It's 10:25 and getting sunnier at the moment.
Toast, for a change. Yummy. And I look forward to this afternoon's aerial misadventures, too. There was a lot of technology to admire in the TSR2 no matter how loathsome I find armed conflict. It flew from Boscombe Down one decade and one day before I married Christa!
No go area
Roger rang me a few minutes ago to warn me off any attempt to drive down his local hill for my next free cuppa. Since I'm already selfishly keeping my cold confined to quarters, and since my own local hill isn't even as steep as his, we agreed to postpone my next trip for a few days. The barometer has gone up, and the temperature has now (12:15) soared all the way up to -4C.
To stave off any incipient boredom, I've been looking at the lovely Andika font (from the same delightful people who gave the world Gentium a few years ago). It's a hobby.
Flash, bang, wallop...
A song from Tommy Steele, later a book title of an item long since melted from my shelves (Gavin Kent's 1978 book of Press photography), and — for the record — the correct Oppo Blu-ray video playback settings with the latest official firmware now loaded: brightness of +2 and contrast of -3. The remaining picture settings are at factory default. What a picture!
Now, on with the TSR2 play... While browsing some of the fascinating interviews here. I started with one from young Mr Fry. The transcript is, erm, in need of some good proof-reading:
Of course there have been good and fine religious people and the Dolly Llama seems rather charming. I don't know. It's terrible. I don't want to come over as some terrible anti ecclesiastical figure, but.
As I settle down to my evening meal, it belatedly occurs to me that it's dear Mama's 93rd birthday. Mind you, she's not thanked me for wishing her a happy birthday for at least the last two decades. It never got above freezing today, and shows little signs of doing so tonight, either. Brrr. It's 19:19 and I'm hungry.