2012 — 17 May: Thursday
David Fincher's remake1 turned out not to be quite Mike's cup of tea, so I'm now its owner at a bargain price. I thought it did well in its own right (as did the remake of "Let the right one in" a couple of years ago). But I still don't understand why Americans find it so hard to watch films with subtitles.
An early appointment with Mr Fit-that-is-Kwik beckons, so I shall head for bed.
While I prepare to load an...
... earlier-than-usual breakfast, I'm willing to entertain theories as to why the German import of the American film "Timescape" (spotted and ordered last Sunday) arrived yesterday (via Holland) in a French edition with 'Anglais' audio:
What a Webbed World, heh?
Two new tyres later...
... and a mere 40 minutes including travel time, I'm feeling somehow rather safer. Tread softly!
I shall shortly take them out for a little (non)spin when I rendezvous with young Len for a bite to eat somewhere. It's grey out there, but not actually raining. And Mr Postie has just dropped off a little guilty pleasure for later inspection. I suspect it may well be one of those "so bad, it's good" titles. We shall see.
Surely no film containing Jennifer Beals can be wholly without redeeming features. Can it?
Two meals later...
... I'm going off the air for a while to make some adjustments to BlackBeast and exactly how exactly what is hooked up to it. (I have a new toy.) TTFN.
I picked up the new toy (a 3TB Seagate USB3 external hard drive) after I'd driven Len down to PC World in Hedge End after lunch for us to inspect their range of flat screen TVs. Sadly, he's no nearer making a decision, though the choice — and comparative cheapness — astonishes me. (Not that there's much being broadcast that is [a] in hi-def, and [b] worth watching.)
The hard drive delivers data transfers at up to 180MB/sec depending on file sizes. Not bad at all. I've also added a USB hub back into the mix, to carry the keyboard, mouse, scanner, and printer all on one USB port. I figure that leaves bandwidth free on the other ports for heavier duty data transfers. Turns out I only have two USB3 ports, but that's an easy fix further down the line.
R.I.P. Donna Summer
She provided some of the livelier background music to a freelance book about packet-switched networks — or maybe the ICL 7500 Series system software? Memory mercifully fades — that I wrote while over in Germany on a fortnight's holiday in the summer of 1977. That was, of course, back in the days when I could write a book from scratch in a fortnight.2 Nowadays, it would probably take a week just to find my pen :-)