2011 — 13 April: Wednesday
Having recently been so impressed by the film "Inception"1 I decided for the first part of yesterday evening's entertainment to revisit "Batman begins", which Christa and I took Peter to see in the cinema when it came out in 2005 or so. So now, a cheap double Blu-ray of this and the follow-up are on their Amazonic way to me. And then, having also recently enjoyed Anand Tucker's "Leap Year", I decided to give his earlier "Shopgirl" a chance. It's a rewarding, albeit somewhat melancholic, piece based on Steve Martin's novella. Good performance by the lady from "Stardust" and "Temple Grandin", too.
So that's brought me to 00:55 or so. Time for some beauty sleep. G'night.
What's happened to...
... all that lovely sunshine? Still, I now have a Friday walk plugged into my calendar. And Iris is my lunch date for today. Hot gossip here I come! :-)
It's 08:20 and I've just been reading an email from Mike telling me his 4TB RAID5 data recovery woes and outlining his new 8TB RAID1 solution. My own recent hardware failures are far less spectacular, but I'm on optical mouse2 #3 and am now deeply suspicious of one of BlackBeast's USB sockets. I'm also increasingly suspicious of the fact that I haven't seen any electricity or gas payments flowing to my new supplier since switching, but at least that's an issue with their software, not mine. I'm going to assume they raid my account quarterly though I thought it would be monthly.
Damned Yankees
The American Library Association has just released its latest annual "Top 10" list of books our cousins would like to ban from the Land of the Free. Source and snippet:
"And Tango Makes Three" is an award-winning children's book about the true story of two male Emperor Penguins hatching and parenting a baby chick at New York's Central Park Zoo. The book has appeared on the ALA's Top Ten List of Frequently Challenged Books for the past five years and returns to the number one slot after a brief stay at the number two position in 2009. There have been dozens of attempts to remove "And Tango Makes Three" from school and public library shelves. Those seeking to remove the book have described it as "unsuited for age group," and cited "religious viewpoint" and "homosexuality" as reasons for challenging the book.
I never know whether to laugh or cry when contemplating the mindset of would-be "banners" of almost any stripe. I think my own books hit list would probably include both the KJ bible and the Qur'an. Take out both of those (and their followers) with the sort of extreme prejudice they themselves all too often demonstrate and the world would be, at least, a different place. I wonder how long before AC Grayling's new opus makes the hit list?
Mr "Dilbert" has an amusing "Saturday essay" about what he calls "real education". (Link.)
Next adventure
Back from a brief supplies run with not really enough time now left for a cuppa before setting off again to meet Iris. It's 11:21 and still not yet raining. We shall attempt a short post-prandial walk along the river if we don't chatter for too long in the restaurant (which is what we ended up doing last time).
Since our rendezvous is at Brambridge, here's a photo I took there quite a few years ago :-)
I don't expect the 'chuffa' will still be there.
Somewhat later
A nice natter over lunch, followed by a gentle stroll for a couple of miles up and down the Itchen as far as Barbara's bench, getting back to our cars just as some mild drizzle was starting. Thanks, Iris!
This lasting power of attorney lark over dear Mama's business is rather longer drawn-out than the granting of probate was over Christa's estate. Today (as expected) one of the entities expecting to collect their next direct debit from her wrote to her (proving, incidentally, that the snail mail redirection is working) to moan about non-receipt. So a swift phone call, a scan of two pages of the PoA form, a trip down to the Post Office, and Robert is my father's brother.)
There was some rather more interesting mail, too...
I bought the Donna Summer compilation purely for the two classic disco synth tracks.3 "I feel love" helped keep me going as I was writing a freelance book for ICL while on two weeks holiday4 in Meisenheim in 1977. American Forces Network (which Christa loved to listen to as a child) kept playing it when they weren't playing the blasted "Star Wars" theme. Ten years later, I was knocked out by Robbie Robertson's first solo album, and am listening to this excellent new one as I type. Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood both feature on it. The film looked promising, too.
I'm to have an overnight guest, it seems. One of the cases Peter's g/f is working on has bubbled back up to the top of the legal stack, so she should show up quite late this evening to "crash" briefly ahead of whatever it is she has to do tomorrow. I have just hacked a narrow path through the urban jungle that was blocking easy access to Junior's bed. Now, where's the damned Dyson?
This has been interesting, but even though the protagonist was Hergé's real-life inspiration for Tintin's chum Professor Calculus I'm now ducking out to watch my new film. It's 20:37. [Pause] Good film, with some great music, too. Speaking of which, I've played the Robbie Robertson CD twice now, too.