2011 — 30 July: Saturday
I'm putting my Ubuntu box and its audio wrangling1 on "hold" for the time being. The next task is to finish work on what was Christa's study. It's already a comfortable reading room, but could do with a proper sound system up there. Time, too, for the next round of the great domestic filing system, which can probably be squeezed in there somehow. We shall see... It's just possible that I may have found a real-life use for a Tablet PC up there, too, but that can easily take its time.
The first cup was drunk, quite early (it's now 07:27), to the accompaniment of cool drizzle out there this morning, and the news that we'll finally get to hear, or at least read, some of Tricky Dickie's previously sealed Watergate-era testimony. Only moderately interesting nearly 40 years on, of course. As I mentioned, this diary entry...
Up at six to finger-lick the day's news on Watergate.
... revealed Isaac Asimov's keen interest at the time. Mine too. It was an extraordinary slow-mo political and criminal train wreck. Fascinating to watch power unravel.
Breakfast, Mrs Landingham. I need breakfast!
Having, literally, cleared...
... the 'ground' I'm pausing now — it's a rather later 11:11 — for half a grapefruit and a cheese and Marmite 'sanger' to stave off the shakiness that always means it's been too long since the last batch of calories. Then, suitably refreshed and re-energised, I shall struggle up the stairs with my spare second metal and glass hi-fi shelf stack, and plumb some of the spare kit back in. I intend to use the miraculous little "Rock Solid" speakers. It won't be their first time upstairs, but it will be their first time in what was Christa's workplace. I shall also use one or other of my Freeview boxes as a digital radio. My Denon CD/tuner/amp (though without bothering to plug in an FM antenna) and a minidisc recorder should be enough to complete a decent system.
There are some notes here of the previous version of a system upstairs. Doubtless they will get updated at some point :-)
Belatedly realising...
... that it's now a bit later I've just zapped, and devoured with gusto, one of my emergency packs of "Home reared beef in black velvet porter with potatoes" that I keep for use when it's either too horrid (icy, for example) to go to the shops, or when (so far it hasn't happened) I'm too ill to go out. I have to cycle through the things from time to time, of course, so I dug out the oldest pack (best before end June 2011), lightly toasted a slice of the new "interesting" bread, and dumped the stuff (for want of a better word) over it, much as I once enjoyed a very similar meal in an Orkney cottage back in 1959. (The [sensible] idea of using bread as a plate was new to me back then.)
Yummy. Now (14:56) I can resume battle with my domestic upheaving. After a cuppa, of course.
Hark!
Hear that? It's the sound of victory. Or, at least, an extremely acceptable quality of CD playback upstairs. I shall also hook up the minidisc recorder and then leave it at that for a while. To get either (or both) satellite and UHF antenna signals in place — for digital satellite radio and digital terrestrial radio respectively — will take more (re)wiring than I currently wish to undertake.2 Besides, both those signal sources are in place in the living room where the main sound system lives. Let's not get carried away...
It's 16:53. What's next, Mrs Landingham? Another cuppa? Sure! [Pause] I'm delighted to read a Tory MP's robust response to what looks to me awfully like a pond scum sucking journalist's smear attempt. Anyone who can dance with Nigel Kennedy at Ronnie Scott's is OK in my book. Besides, I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that she happens to have been asking pointed questions about hacking and blagging — whatever that means. (Link.)
And Microsoft has an unsoft spot for GMail, it seems. (Link.)
I must say...
... the lad (whose minidiscs from his university days are all now kept in the "reading room" as he has migrated fully over to MP3s) has excellent taste in music. And the Rock Solids are very well suited to the size of the room, driven by the 40 watt Denon. Oh well, it's getting near time for yet more food. And there's a walk on the cards for tomorrow, too. It seems to be turning into a sunny evening.
I'm just "back" from a quick virtual spin in BlackBeast with Ubuntu 11.04 replacing Win7. Strictly in demonstration mode. At some point (possibly when BlackBeast was getting its lobotomy reversed recently down at Novatech) the option to boot from the optical drive must have been moved down the 'list' and, since I'd had no need (or desire, frankly) to wade in the muddy waters of BIOS settings — a smelly mangrove swamp only slightly less unfriendly than the Windows Registry, in my opinion — it wasn't until Brian dropped a hint in my direction (when I was describing my recent Wubi woes) that I thought to check. Completely unfussy test drive; very encouraging.
I have it in mind to build myself a mini-BlackBeast and dedicate it to Ubuntu, so I was interested to see how the six-core AMD processor behaved. Actually I've also been reading all about the new AMD Llano, with a 4-core CPU and a Radeon GPU integrated on the one die. Very promising. Right. Time to raid that kitchen again. It's 19:12 already.
The filing system is now in place, but as yet unpopulated with data. Deep forthcoming joy, no doubt. But not tonight!