2011 — 25 June: Saturday
By some strange process, it's now once again after midnight and "Huey" appropriately just played the 1971 JJ Cale1 track. It seems to have gone rather cold, too. And there's some rain supposedly heading this way. No matter. Here's a nice, warm "mother and son" photo to tide me over until breakfast:
I still have that little black travelling alarm clock, by the way. Mind you, one of my first acts as a retiree was to remove the battery from it. I wake up when it suits me, these days.
G'night.
Isn't there a mild irony...
... having read the item here about "the age of distraction" in being invited to follow its author on (I assume, I'm not a member of the twitterati) a twitter feed. Or is that just me?
A growing shakiness...
... made it clear an early lunch was on the point of becoming an urgent physiological necessity. So although it's only 12:34 a tasty tuna sandwich is embarking on the complex and (I hope) beautifully co-ordinated biochemical processes described here. I recall first reading about this chap in one of the segments in the fascinating "Stranger than Science" paperback by Frank Edwards that I digested in the early 1960s.
Load balancing is a...
... fine art when arranging books, unless you have the luxury of substantial metal shelving and reinforced concrete floors. Plus, unless you don't mind spending minutes / hours / days browsing2 for 'X' and getting sidetracked by 'Y' or 'Z' en route, you also have to make at least a token attempt to keep related items more or less close together, or so I'm told.
I suppose I could adopt the approach of the late Mike Watts and label shelves and boxes, with some sort of index pointer system. It seems a natural approach for my audio and video material but since I can generally recall where I was when I bought each book I usually get by with my "mental" catalogue. Besides, I rather like both the serendipity of re-discovering 'Y' (or, indeed, 'Z') and the Holmesian "thickness of archaeological layers of dust" method. I am retired, after all.
A point I touched on in a chat with my favourite cousin when she rang after lunch as a means of alleviating her boredom. She was waiting for would-be house buyers to show up at a property she's trying to shift for an amount of money that comfortably exceeds my lifetime earnings. Why are all my relatives so much wealthier than me, I wonder? Recall Big Bro's little pied-à-terre — I call it that since he only seems to spend about two or three weeks there per year at the moment — he sent over a photo of it back in September 2009.
Actually, I know perfectly well why there are wealth discrepancies. a) Christa's initial cancer in 1983 completely revised what I regarded as important in life for the rest of our time together. My career didn't even come close to making that cut. b) As independently discovered by kindred spirit Colin Wilson:
Of course, I spent far too much on books and records. In July 1961 I note that I had 5,000 books and 1,500 records in the house. By 1963, I had 10,000 books and 4,000 records. Today I have about 25,000 books and the same number of records. This probably goes a long way towards explaining why we never had any money.
Ouch!
The new Clint Eastwood film "Hereafter" is doing a grand job of taking my mind off the roof of my mouth. (Tonight's meal was a bit too hot when I started eating it. Haven't done that since the hot "soup of the day" incident at the Hilltop café back in December 2007. Serves me right.) I also now realise why this Blu-ray was so cheap; it contains over 10 minutes of unskippable advertising material and trailers before you finally get to the "Top menu". I find this extremely irritating when that happens. No doubt at the end it will also warn me not to be a video pirate.
Far from it. In fact there's not a single extra on the Blu-ray; not even a scene index. Just a glorious picture, fabulous sound, and excellent performances. And music by Clint himself, if you please. Cool.