2010 — 9 June: Wednesday
Heck... midnight again, already. I've been watching those daring eagles. 42 years ago, that film was made. Amazing. I remember going up to London from Harpenden by train to see it on its first release.
Ho hum. G'night.
I never know whether to be...
... pleased or dismayed after the Microspit security elves have had their monthly trampoline session (52.9MB at a glance) all over my Windows boxes. Though, in truth, I've only ever so far had one breakage as a direct result of their depredations. Despite my best endeavours to keep the two machines more or less in step, there's a two-patch discrepancy in the "score" this morning. I'm going to be generous and assume it's a difference between XP Home and XP Media Centre edition though quite why I need a patch for Windows XP Tablet PC .NET Framework 1.0 SP3 boggles the mind. I could search out all the KB articles but Life just isn't long enough.
If nothing else, it eats into my carton-stuffing window of opportunity before the plumber breezes in demanding his next cuppa. It's 08:16 and we're having one of the showers the lady on BBC Radio 3 predicted mere minutes ago. Now I need a second cuppa...
Having had one of those...
... occasional epiphanies, it occurred to me that if I don't redecorate1 the house now2 (roughly speaking) I never will. I can safely predict this, as I haven't done any serious decorating hereabouts in 29 years so far. (With the honourable exception of our bedroom after waterbed disaster #2.) And we tackled the Old Windsor house together, somewhat before Peter appeared on the scene. I (still) draw the line at wallpaper, however. The stuff that looked so good in the samples "book" ended up resembling a migraine-inducing seismic activity trace after we'd put it up on one wall of our bedroom. We raced into action and removed it within a mere two decades or so.
Houseproud or what? (I'd have to go with "or what?")
Another blast-from-the-past dept.
The picture from my very first IBM security badge, in July 1981. Good grief!
Compare and contrast the December 1977 variant back in the ICL Old Windsor days:
Told you Christa was a squirrel, didn't I?
My word, this little idea...
... has rattled quite a few cages!
Mind you, I once read that it would be cheaper and more cost-effective to melt down all weapons and turn them into frying pans with which to whack one another over the head as necessary. In between cooking, that is.
Progress, of a sort
It's just turned into the afternoon, and carton #152 is safely tucked away. [Pause] While the plumber's away... the Mounce can grab a quick bite to eat... and stuff another batch of cartons. I've also sneaked the car back onto the drive to leave him (a much more experienced driver) the task of manoeuvring past the BMW that belongs to the Polish bricklayer who is repairing my neighbour's little patch of brickwork. And sprawling somewhat on to my drive as he works. I'm not being as unkind as it may sound: I calculate he will finish and depart before Brian gets back from his lunch break.
The carpet in the hallway has been the next victim of the sharp knife. But the underlay was in very ropey condition having been gently dribbled on for some time, it seems, by the hall radiator. Oh, such good fun! I see the "typo" count has been going up. Oops. [Pause] 14:50 and carton #158 is ready to roll... Yes, I promise you a fresh cuppa when you get back!
Tonight's little fun task...
... will be to clear as much as possible from the front of the living room (that is, the end that's stuffed with A/V kit and loudspeakers, not to mention a little 60" plasma screen) to let the plumber loose on the radiator there, and the one in the almost adjacent cloakroom, across the hallway on the other side of the front door. Such good fun. Still, it makes a change from stuffing books into cartons. This may well turn out to be my chance to relocate that shiny new shelf from Christa's study down into the living room. It goes nicely — visually — with the wheeled trolley3 that now makes moving the plasma screen around a piece of the proverbial.
Fingers crossed, therefore. Meanwhile, it's 16:07 and has been getting steadily warmer and stickier. The sky is now blue with a few fluffy white things floating around. A bit like summer, in fact.
Later
It's 19:34 and I need some food before I start moving more kit around. I've cleared much of the stuff from the back of the living room out into the garage, to make room. I've also fought with, and won against, a set of brambles after one made a misguided attempt to take an eye out. My normal approach towards Nature is one of "live and let live", but there are definite limits, and now there's a large pile of severed thorny horrors to go down to the 'tip' when the next round tuit comes along. (Actually, the simple process of leaving two fairly neat piles of such debris alone for getting on for two years more or less solves the problem itself as I've discovered green stuff slowly evaporates.) For my pains, I'm now sneezing, of course.