2010 — 7 July: Wednesday
I smiled last night, on glancing through next week's issue of "Radio Times", to see that film critic Mark Kermode1 shares my great enthusiasm for the Twilight films and books. Good man! And I laughed this morning on reading Big Bro's overnight email,2 and getting the chance to reply satirically. Meanwhile my dear friend Carol is roasting over in New York in temperatures touching 40C in the Hudson valley whereas my little digital thermostat on the wall of the hall tells me it's a pleasant 21C hereabouts. It's certainly rather grey out there. Suits me.
It's 09:16, the initial cuppa is a thing of the recent past, and there's a crockpot to be assembled today. A change of meat, and stock, but an invariant set of veg. Why change a winning recipe? And speaking of winning, I shall cast an eye over Uncle ERNIE's little web site at some point today just in case he's felt in a mood to offset some of the costs of the central heating, water softening, cooking, carpeting, or vinyl covering (let alone offsite book storage) that have done so much recent damage to my widower's mite.
You never know :-)
Alas, a mere £25 — but every little helps. Time (11:19) for a rather late breakfast while the stuffed crockpot does its thermal thing.
Should I feel guilty?
We're compromised from the start. Evolution favored meat-eating primates, enlarging their brains and enabling them to live in more and more complex and survivalist societies that today extend our life spans, provide genteel habitats, and produce philosophers who have the wherewithal to object to the very components of their own existence.
Lad who lunches
After a spot of much-needed retail therapy — to be revealed in due course — and a swiftly-gobbled pie and salad plus ultra-healthy pink grapefruit juice, and popping a signed-for Special Delivery round for "her next door" I'm off out into the wilds for a cuppa with my main co-pilot. This might be my last chance for a tad. I've also received, but not yet opened, a mysterious postal item addressed in a well-remembered "Pinpoint" font. Data discs, heh? Thank you, Steve!
It's 14:50 and cloudy but warm out there.
Lad who dines
The crockpot was very tasty. Now I've confirmed that my newest toy does indeed share its remote control signals with its earlier sibling. You may recall I spent several months and quite a few pounds in the first half of 2008 trying (ultimately unsuccessfully) to wriggle my way round the damnable hdcp protocol that thwarted all my attempts to get a hi-def video signal displayed on my previous plasma screen despite it being of more than the necessary resolution for it. Some of those pounds went on the first release from Humax of their HD Freesat receiver, which lasted less than two months before being traded out, as it were. I redipped my toes in the Humax waters within a week of getting the new (hdcp-capable) 60" Kuro plasma screen back in February 2009. This time I opted for the hi-def Freesat PVR (to whose digital audio output I'm listening right now as I type).
Why the addition to the A/V stack? Well, I have been getting tired of the increasing dropouts from the radio signals piggybacking on our ever-more crammed, ever lower bitrate, digital terrestrial TV "Freeview" system. On the theory that Freesat(ellite) has more bandwidth, I switched over to listening to my Freesat box — and also was thereby reminded that it carries a rather larger range of radio stations, too. Nary a dropout, so I decided to treat myself to the lower cost box for permanent use as a UK digital radio.3 Thank you, John Lewis (more points on my card).
On with the replumbing, then. It's 20:19 and has still yet to rain.