2011 — 10 May: Tuesday
I had to take things pretty easy for most of yesterday evening as the good ol' visual zig-zags kept wandering across my field of vision. So I ended up watching a couple of broadcast TV programmes Mike had banged onto a USB stick for me — HIGNFY and Graham Norton, both from last week (judging by the photos they both showed of the recent wedding among our blue bloods). Not much brain required for either, but amiable enough.
Meanwhile, about thirty years ago, to adapt a line1 we were poor, but we were happy in them days. Just out of frame to the left is our young son pulling the most awful face at being cruelly forced to eat a morsel of healthy scrambled egg:
Early start this morning 'cos I'm due to be sitting in Dr Fang's comfy chair at 09:00.
From time to time...
... I read something out on this great Interweb malarkey that crinkles my already-wizened features into an unaccustomed smile (some might call it a grimace). Here's one such "something":
Early last week... former Pope John Paul II was beatified, a major step on his way to sainthood. The Vatican's preoccupations and machinations in this regard are literally none of my business, although I'm inclined to applaud the whole rigmarole as an inoffensive act of organizational onanism,2 the sort of in-group self-pleasuring that provides innocuous outlet for energy and which, albeit unproductive, is at least un-harmful to the rest of us. If masturbation is the epitome of safe sex, beatification — and presumably canonization as well — represents its theological equivalent: Good clean fun. No blood, no foul.
It's bright and sunny (and only 08:18) so, with luck, I should arrive on time at my dentist. [Pause] I was invited straight in upon arrival, a couple of minutes early. There's one chipped filling to be reworked in a couple of weeks, news of my previous dentist's sailing adventures in the West Indies, and I'm back in time to help my co-pilot set about topping up the battery in his Peugeot 307 to the point — he hopes — where it will once again operate the sunroof.
Pass me the ammo, Professor
I always enjoyed what Molly Ivins had to say about political life in Texas, but I'm left wondering what she would have found to say about the legislation there attaching to a universities spending bill permission for holders of concealed handgun licences to carry weapons onto campuses. (Link.)
I've been offline for a while moving my Ubuntu server — the one that serves my internal web — upstairs to make it more get-at-able. It will shortly be re-jigged from 10.04 to 11.04 with the new Ubuntu release and I'd rather not have to grovel on the floor while sorting it out.
Post-dental treat
Chaps need — this chap, at least, needs — a treat after the dentist (even when all I've done is arrange another visit). So thanks, Mr Postie, for being the unwitting and rather warm-looking bearer of mine for today!
- The Martyrdom of Man
I browsed this briefly over at Roger's last week. This is a 1932 edition, sixty years after its first publication in 1872 - Goodbye Solo
Featuring Red West (former bodyguard to Elvis) - Frozen River
Set around the Canadian border and in Mohawk territory - Monster-in-law
Directed by the chap who made "The Ugly Truth", though it picked up some ghastly reviews - Road Games
A Jamie Lee Curtis film from 1981 that I've never seen!
It's deliciously sunny out there without being hot. And, at 12:36, my thoughts are now turning towards lunch. [Pause] As indeed, at 17:00 (and after a tea and cake with dear Mama) they are now turning more towards an evening meal... already.
Unlooked-for benefit
I didn't realise, until I moved it out of the living room, just quite how noisy the dinky little HP MPC — originally, and briefly, a Vista machine but now running Ubuntu — is. BlackBeast is, by contrast, essentially silent, barely rises above room temperature, and has bags of spare cooling capacity and empty space in its case.
"Why Pink Floyd?" Good grief!