2010 — 19 August: Thursday
Of course, the sooner1 the delivery van from Staples turns up, the sooner I can get some much-unneeded exercise lugging around and unloading some of my cartons of books from storage. Meanwhile, a cuppa helps.
I note over 92% of the "Error 404 - page not found" results from my little server so far this month are in response to misguided attempts to hack into my server's PHP which (to slightly misquote Henry Reed) "I 'ave not got". Or not on this domain, at least. Still, at least the "attack figures" are finally dropping.
Apparently...
... my relatively newly-developed ability to fit my car into the garage is already passé. Source and snippet:
...those people who still take the trouble to manoeuvre their car into its little home are surely doing so more for a feeling of comfort than any practical purpose. "It's a slightly generational thing," Beeny says. The garage has become the architectural equivalent of the tea cosy, in other words, and every bit as hip.
Where did I put the tea cosy, I wonder?
I bet my bicycle-riding son in London doesn't have to put up with this disgraceful treatment. The human male brain is a wonder to behold (if you can first magnify it to the point of visibility in some cases).
It's not just cars that can be subject to recall. 380,000,000 eggs? No yolks, please. (Source.)
I've just discovered...
... that I really hate being forced to stay in and wait for a delivery. Not that the weather is very encouraging at the moment. It's 11:15 so I hereby declare it "lemonses" time.
I've also just discovered the Next Name is Natty Narwhal. (Source, for what it's [Shuttle]worth.) And that a shopping mall in California allows patron A to speak to patron B only if patron A's written application to do so has been submitted to the mall's security office four days ahead of any such conversation. (Source.)
Amazing what you can find in the Washington Post. I think it's time I re-read my "Sandman" saga :-)
Hooray!
Young Tom from "UK Mail" has just helped me heft all eight packages into the garage, and I'm now studying the contents of one of them as I belatedly make that cuppa. It's 12:18 and my appetite will also need some attention fairly soon. This is going to be a fun exercise.
Does this sort of junk...
... really rake in the punters?
Later
Just had a call from my cousin while she's taking some more interior photos of dear Mama's house in Wombourne. Leigh's company will be handling the sale; all proceeds will be going into that little-known charity, the dear Mama care-home fees fund :-)
Every little helps.
Everyone's an A* these days...
Youngsters today are apparently getting steadily smarter. The "A"-level pass rate has increased for the 28th year running. (Source.) What other possible explanation could there be? Perhaps that should be one of the questions set in these school examinations :-)
That reliable artist Ron Cobb offered his own opinion several decades ago:
The man's a genius, with or without "A"-levels. I wonder how many youngsters have any idea what a reel-to-reel tape recorder is? Or can describe the bias and equalisation circuitry needed to get something approaching a linear audio response across the audible range of the human ear — the subject of one of my freelance hifi magazine articles2 nearly 35 years ago.
One bookcase is assembled and in place — seven still to do. Time (17:22) for my next cuppa. I'm parched.
Last time I heard the word "disaggregation" I was an IBM employee (in what seems, now, the dim distant past). It crops up again on page 200 of the (actually quite interesting) Ofcom report (a PDF file). A few pages further along (page 207) are buried some "cost per listener hour" figures...
... that "only go to show" just how big a fib was behind the spurious BBC management arguments advanced in favour of shutting down BBC 6Music recently. I haven't seen "Ulster" spelled like that before, either.
I've just discovered the second bookcase is fractured. The third is OK. Staples online customer support will be on the case shortly. Right; well past time (19:30) for some food.
I am not a number...
Having just enjoyed another three episodes of West Wing it somehow feels right to see another, very weird, chart from that Ofcom report:
Are "print media" the modern cool term for "books", do you reckon? Apparently, nearly one third of us are asleep by now...