2011 — 4 June: Saturday
"Yesterme, yesteryou, yesterday" (Stevie Wonder) was playing as I finished resizing this photo of Christa and Peter. We were just back from a little local stroll in Old Windsor in 1980. It's not currently quite as sunny here this morning (at 08:35) but then yesterday was a bit over the top for my taste.
Let's see what the new day brings, shall we?1 I see from his overnight email that Big Bro doesn't read quite as carefully as he should — though his recent reading in Brunei included a care-home tale of woe reported in the "Daily Mail" (good grief). (Oh, and they were Blu-rays, Bro, not cheap nasty DVDs! And, yes, the first film was excellent.)
It occurred to me I actually don't need to run my Buffalo Terastation NAS unless and until I actually wish to do a data backup, so I've left it powered off so far this morning. It can get rather warm up in Peter's room if I forget to keep his curtains closed, and the little Ubuntu server2 PC may yet end up banished inside the airing cupboard now that the hot water tank is a discarded thing of the past...
Fiat Lux
A psychologist was amusingly defined as a chap who — when a pretty girl entered a room — observed the reactions of the other people in the room. I've just observed the reactions of a Highway Maintenance chap who was covertly watching the two long-legged, short-skirted blondes clambering into their low-slung car (parked, annoyingly, opposite my drive) while unloading my new reading light from his lorry (parked, annoyingly, right across my drive).
In earlier years, on hot late summer nights, I would often sit out on the patio, or the back steps, reading by the almost monochromatic light of the old sodium street lamp. After 30 years, it's being replaced by a higher-tech (and hopefully broader spectrum) fluorescent, though whether its increased directionality will still illuminate my night patio reading area remains to be seen:
Between typing this and uploading it to the web server I've also downloaded, paid for, and upgraded the level of my graphics application from Xara. I first used this in its RISC OS variant on my 4MB Archimedes back in 1990 or thereabouts, when it was still known as "Artworks". I've just used it to process the two images of the street lamps. Definitely a keeper.
My constant grin...
... as I catch up with a trio of podcasts from Mayo and Kermode is making my cheeks ache. And Mr Postie recently handed over a used copy of "Angels and Insects" — a film based on a book by AS Byatt. Christa and I had both enjoyed the only other one made — "Possession" — though opinions varied on its degree of literary fidelity.
And, remaining filmic, here's a nice quote I found an hour ago while browsing through my Taschen copy of "Billy Wilder":
Nobody talks about the picture, just about what kind of deal: Who presents? Whose picture is it? And all that totally idiotic crap! It's a world with ugly, ugly terrifying words like 'turnaround' and 'negative pickup'. (Although I think the two ugliest words in the world are 'root canal' — with the possible exception of 'Hawaiian music'.)
Ironic?
My decision (already implemented) to expunge my 2007-vintage iMac from my network and my computing life comes a day after Apple's market capitalisation (on the back of just about everything that is nasty and mobile in today's world, of course) briefly exceeded that of Microsoft and Intel combined. Not that I'd say "No, thanks" to a free iPad2, of course. (Link.)
It's been pretty warm today (25.4C at one point in the living room) as I relocated the Buffalo Terastation downstairs into what had been the iMac's corner. I note it's now 17:46 and I'm feeling a bit peckish. How about it, Mrs Landingham? A quick snack before the evening meal? Or an early meal? Decisions, decisions. I shall make a cuppa while I ponder.
[Pause]
Film #2 ("The girl who played with fire") is also very good. Two down, one to go.
[Pause]
Film #3 ("The girl who kicked the hornets' nest") brings things to a very satisfying conclusion. But since it's now 01:13 I'd better get some sleep. G'night.