2012 — 24 June: Sunday
Unsurprisingly1 it was the plot of "Contagion" that was still running through my head this morning. A sign of a good film, in my opinion. I was pleased to see — though failed to recognise — Jennifer Ehle,2 with Demetri Martin as her sidekick, too. It's time to re-watch "The Camomile Lawn", perhaps? I expect the next film in which I don't recognise her will be "The Ides of March". I failed to spot her in "The Adjustment Bureau", after all :-)
Overnight rain has now (08:33) stopped though it's damnably moist out there. I wonder if that's why my Internet connection has just dropped? Cuppa, please!
Time ticks on...
... and I'd better pack my lunch if I wish to eat down in the New Forest on today's little jaunt. I'm thinking the rest of yesterday's sausages in a sandwich, and some fruit. Gourmet Mounce strikes / strides again.
Queen Victoria? Really?
Golly. Who wielded the pen, I wonder?
"I don't mind as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses."
I made the mistake...
... of reading an email from a chum who's in some video distress at the moment. This was before quickly diving into my refreshing post-walk (a pleasant 6.6 miles, with no showers, but somewhat sticky towards the end) shower. Maybe it was the effect of the shampoo, but I found myself conducting a thought experiment3 the upshot of which is that I've actually found a way to remove my Audiolab pre-amp from my system:
Not that I want to — but I wouldn't have thought it was even possible — and it turns out to be trivially easy! My Sony digital minidisc recorders are truly versatile audio switchboxes as any input signal is sampled, converted and presented to the analogue output whenever they're in "record" mode. And I can use the recording level control as my volume control for the signal going out to the power amplifier. The only thing I "lose" is the LFE feed to the subwoofer. And I can live without that. Neat!
Even though my chum has now partially sorted out his problems, I think I shall have to try this just for the hell of it :-)
[Long, and extremely frustrating, pause.]
Scratch that idea. The Panasonic Blu-ray refused to play nice; the Humax hi-def channels looked grand, but the audio from them is beyond the 'reach' of the minidisc recorder. The Oppo Blu-ray, Netgear media player and PC audio all behaved perfectly. I couldn't even be bothered to try the FreeviewHD box. All is now back as it was. Almost. This time there are no signs of video tearing from the scaler, so I've kept it in the system, on probation.
It was all much easier in the good ol' analogue days...