2010 — 8 December: Wednesday
Not quite such an early night as I'd intended1 and a curious dream about (of all places) IBM Hursley set in, and featuring a guest cast of blasts from, the really quite distant (very early 1980s) past. Yet Christa was already dead. My subconscious manages to astonish me from time to time.
In more recent news...
... it's around 07:49 and obviously cold out there. My hot cuppa is helping counteract that and clear the cobwebs generally.
Good grief! Penguin have re-issued Andy Warhol's (absurd) diaries as a "modern classic". They have long been expunged from my shelves. Yet I still recall some of the content. For example, here.
Ever the optimist...
... I've just installed the Win7 64-bit version of iTunes on BlackBeast (and, I note, managed to do so without supplying my email to Apple as there was a direct download link to the 64-bit installer that bypassed their initial form). It's now busily feasting on the contents of the "My Music" folder which, theoretically, contains a reasonably well cleaned-up set of reasonably well-tagged MP3 files. The aim of this exercise (and it's not the first time I've battled with this particular batch of bits under Windows — let alone under OS X, of course) is to try the XML export of my library's details for some database experiments allied to my present mammoth "scan all your CD artwork" exercise.
I've now opened an account with the iTunes store to try out their "get CD artwork" option2 to see if I can curtail my home-grown enterprise. I rather hope this isn't classed as a purchase from the store... The things we OCD types do in futile pursuit of our hobbies, heh? During the sign-up process, it turned out I already had an Apple ID; logical, I suppose, given my mail-order purchases (of an iMac for example!) from their store, though I've no idea of its details. iTunes is now busily "determining gapless playback information" as it gently chews its way through 30,099 "songs" of which (I deduce) 29,681 are non-duplicate titles. Speaking of chewing, this could take a while, so I'm off for some breakfast.
It's 09:56 and a mere -1C out there now. Dismally grey sky, however, which I shall choose to ignore.
Bingo! A 47MB XML file listing of the music library about 90 minutes after I first installed the software. Now, where's my editor? (It was not smart to load it into IE8, but that was probably predictable.) 10:55 and I'm off for a burst of fresh air.
And I return to find the next invoice from dear Mama's care-home, an email from my optician, and an horrendous credit card bill (the one, that is, that I used to pay for my new glasses). Some days, you not only can't win, you can barely enter the race, it seems. Definitely need lunch and a cuppa. It's 13:36 and flippin' cold out there.
Who knew...
... when I set off on my second outing, that it would prove to be a mistake to leave my Polaroid clip-ons in the house? On today's flying visit dear Mama managed to forget both the "Cinderella" pantomime she sat through yesterday, and the name of her younger son (viz., Christa's husband, David). But I must say she perked up at the appearance of the next bag of choccies. As for the new glasses, I now have crisp distance vision minus the swirling effect that has characterised my four-year attempt to co-exist peaceably with the varifocal lenses. Of course, I'm now afflicted by "long-arm" condition when it comes to reading print up close. Several strikes, one feels, against the morons who espouse Intelligent Design.
It's now 15:35, getting horribly near dusk, and all I lack is a cuppa to warm the cockles.
Help!
Glancing at today's delivery from Mr Amazon — six CDs, each containing four vinyl albums3 — it's glaringly obvious (even to me) that I have now become my father! It's a shame he didn't live long enough to enjoy CDs; he would have been amazed by the technology. It might even have helped reconcile him to my choice of an incomprehensible digital career.
12 classic albums for less than £1 each. Incredible. [Pause] Judging by the way I'm yawning I'm either very tired, or very hungry. It's 18:08 so I suspect the latter. Feed me, Mrs Landingham!
[Pause] Brrr. -3C out there now. I've just watched "Room in Rome" — very nice little film, and with a nice bonus: music by Jocelyn Pook. And I've done the dishes, too. Whatever next? I could always resume the hunt for my one missing Colin Wilson (The war against sleep). I found the other two books I have of his, having finished his autobiography last night. (Lynn Barber interviewed him in The Observer when that was published.) Neither branch of Waterstone's seemed to have anything by him this morning, though, as I browsed casually round in Soton.
iTunes managed to find artwork for around 70% of my CDs, but the images are far too small and low-res to be of any use. Its indexing and data accuracy lacks a certain je ne sais quoi, too:
Nor am I sure I'm going to be able to do much with the XML file, though at least I've cut it down to a mere 37MB. But Gideon Coe has just told a small subset of the nation that his wife's ear-muffs were destroyed by a dog "and we don't even have a dog".
Peter's g/f called a few minutes ago just as I was in the middle of successfully unearthing not only the missing Colin Wilson book4 but also both the "hdmi in" to "DVI and SP/DIF" out box, its power supply, and another couple of those useful digital signal format converters. So I probably sounded slightly more vague than usual, poor girl. She's now aiming to call in sometime on Monday evening though I gather, before then, she'll have dragged Peter over to Bruges. Young people today, heh? He, meanwhile, is currently out with his workmates imbibing a certain amount of pre-Xmas cheer.
My digital finds all turned out to be moot, however, as I couldn't persuade an audible squeak out of BlackBeast. I suspect the problem is it wasn't finding anything to do an hdcp handshake with as I wasn't using the DVI video signal, just the digital audio. Bottom line: I'm thus reduced to using the BlackBeast headphones output plumbed straight into a spare analogue input on the AudioLab pre-amp. Sounds fine, and I'm playing "tunes" that way right now. So much for digital technology. Now let's hope the steam kettle still works. It's 22:53 and I'm heading rapidly towards a nightcap, as it were.