2012 — 26 January: Thursday
Waking very early to the sound of heavy rain1 I admit I may have uttered a mild oath before rolling over and resuming my travels in the Land of Nod. Though they didn't take me as far as Australia, whose day it apparently is. Who knew?
The pre-breakfast cuppa is at hand, the messy game of guvmint-sponsored Poo Sticks is two-thirds complete, the Ubuntu 11.10 desktop system up in the reading room is, once again, fully patched, I'm listening to "Essential Classics", and there are some hints of blue sky in gaps between lots of dark clouds. What's next, Mrs Landingham?
How about a trip round the Smithsonian? (Which, by the way, contains a book wot I wrote.)
Idiocracy
I bought my DVD copy of this strangely chilling comedy just over five years ago, and got the round tuit needed to watch it a couple of months later. Today, my friend Steve G (who used to run the Pinpoint CD shop in Beastleigh) was kind enough to have Amazon send me a copy with this 'gift note' attached:
It seems to confirm what I thought at the time — particularly after reading a couple of accounts of the way things have been going with Newt Gingrich recently. Unlike his opponent (who merely has "supporters") the delicious Newt has "believers". Altogether scarier. Talk about "The Marching Morons". Unfunnily enough, on our last walk Mike and I both agreed we'd neither of us now wish to revisit that fine country despite both having enjoyed business trips and holidays there in former times.
Still, at least the same post also brought me my corrected driving licence.
It's not exactly...
... warm out there, but my next set of ingredients for a burst of crockpotted wizardry is now safely gathered in. I forgot the vinegar (but then I also forgot the eye of newt, so that should balance out). And I couldn't get to the pancakes because a lady who considerably outweighed me was parked there and I decided not to wait. It's 15:41, still actually quite sunny, and my next cuppa is close at hand. Meanwhile, the stewed plums are quietly cooling. Little do they know their fate.
My son was...
... kind enough to buy me (I assume) a first quarter's subscription to the "LoveFilm" service for my birthday. As it turned out, I looked over what they had to offer and decided it wasn't for me, so I simply ignored it, and their subsequent email bombardment. After December, however, the bombardment became a constant complaint that they were unable to collect money from an expired card, and they had therefore been forced to de-activate my account. I asked him to fix this, figuring that the simplest way would be by cancelling the subscription that he'd arranged in the first place.
Today, a few minutes apart, I got the latest whiny reminder followed by an agreement to cancel. Here's what Junior added separately after I'd emailed my thanks:
That was a hilarious conversation. They tried to get me to change my card details to an unexpired card so they could take the money for a service that hadn't been used. Then when I explained that there really wasn't any benefit to my doing that, they agreed to cancel my account as a gesture of good-will.
I agreed with his conclusion: People are funny!