2011 — 18 September: Sunday
There's some jolly, jaunty music1 on BBC Radio 3 as I wait for my morning cuppa to attain a state of perfection. Just as well: the weather is not much to write home about. The "chatter" (even on '3') has now gone from asinine to asiten, so it's back to my own little stock of audio resources, I fear. Foobar2000 to the rescue.
Misheard lyrics
Catching up on another NPR "All songs considered" podcast, I'm listening to a musician from Chicago called Andrew Bird and just caught one of the stranger lyrics I can so far recall: "She just woke up from the strangest dream an aubergine would ever know." He's a good whistler! [Pause] Amazon makes it very easy to grab an MP3 album to try, so my breakfast accompaniment is now his 2009 album "Useless Creatures".
And the sun has finally appeared. It's 09:28, so it's about time.
Morning moves
Having outfitted the little HP MPC in its smart new suit of Ubuntu 11.4 Unity clothes and tried things out down here, I'm now pausing for an 11:56 lemonses coffee break before moving it up into the reading room. I shall use it there with the venerable LG 18" screen (from my PC Shuttle days) that Christa used when the room was her study. That seems totally appropriate, somehow. It's a smallish room, and my "comfy" chair will be plenty close enough. I've also only just discovered that this screen serves as a two-device USB hub, so that's my keyboard and mouse neatly cabled.
Meanwhile, the Roku SoundBridge network music player is returning to the living room. Although it's happy to talk to the Firefly music server2 I was more taken with its Internet Radio capabilities. Besides, navigating a 30,000+ music track collection is more than a bit fraught with the Roku's two-line display.
What's that rumbling sound?
Food, Mrs Landingham. I need food. Now! ("Having a bit of a day, are you, Mr President?") Well, while searching in vain in Peter's room for the one kettle power cord I know I have somewhere (but now know isn't in that room) with a bent plug (useful for squeezing into tighter corners) I have found all manner of other useful and/or interesting stuff (including my soldering iron, the December 2009 issue of the now-defunct "Book and Magazine Collector" magazine with features3 I admit I probably shouldn't have stopped to re-read, and the registration code for a neat MP3 tag and rename utility I'd been wondering about re-installing).
I sometimes wonder whether my symptoms ADD up :-)
Moving right along (at 13:43) and now satiated, where was I?
Resting, after...
... my mighty labours, I thought I'd publish a photo of the latest appearance of the oft-mentioned reading room. My now 40-year-old Parker Sintique is once again down here, replaced by the green leather swivel chair you can see a fraction of here. It was very far from fun to lug upstairs4 unaided, let me tell you.
I have yet to follow in Gerard Hoffnung's footsteps and try out the echo.
You can just about make out the Banshee media player (loaded, at the time, with "Zoolook" by Jean Michel Jarre). I couldn't be bothered to struggle with the co-ax digital audio output having been many times baffled by Linux and its consistent failures to activate it in the past. So I've just used the analogue audio into the spare input on the minidisc recorder. Which reminds me, it will now be my next pleasure to re-jig the little system diagram of the upstairs setup, so I will still know how to drive it.
It's 18:48 and, following my light evening meal, I'm now feeling in need of a dose of "Northern Exposure". I'm just about to embark on Season Two. The sky outside has finally cleared up.
Bother!
I've now (21:10) confirmed, having dug out my co-ax to optical converter, its power supply, a co-ax digital audio cable, an optical digital audio cable, and an extra extension power lead, that Linux on the HP MPC is indeed blissfully ignorant of how to drive any digital audio signals through the internal sound card. Just as I suspected it would be, of course. So the question now becomes, can I be bothered to dig out my little external USB Creative Soundblaster box yet again and hook it up yet again? After all, it worked with the slightly older, slightly larger, HP MPC running Ubuntu 11.4 here a mere couple of months ago.
Of course I can. <Sigh>