2012 — 7 November: Wednesday
I'm pleased to see that sanity appears to have prevailed1 in the North American election result. I shall raise a celebratory cuppa. In other, slightly less momentous, news I see that my software nemesis2 is offering to restore the "Start" button to my Win8 system for a mere $4-99. I barely notice its absence, so why bother?
There's much...
... to be said in favour of completing my latest round of foodie shopping shortly after 08:35 — the only downsides are the impatient commuters rushing out of various junctions into my sedate path, the relative coolness (+2C), and the undeniable fact that I forgot (in the haze of gentle fatigue possibly engendered by my second film yesterday evening — that oddly beguiling 'parallel universes' tale Sliding Doors) to pick up a fresh carton of Cheerios.
I can't remember what else I forgot, which is probably just as well. Breakfast will probably revive the neuronal circuitry.
On the continuing glitch front, the Flash plug-in regularly crashes (though only in Firefox) and Microsoft's latest optional driver update for my HP LaserJet fails to install. Since I've already proved the printer works fine, I won't worry too much.
And now that I have a desktop digital radio (see yesterday) I shall also tweak the arrangement of my audio system to feed the Freesat audio via the DAC input on the Audiolab CD player (rather than the Freeview). It brings a couple of extra radio channels with it.
Oliver Sacks...
... is a class act, whom I've been reading3 for years. Here's a well-conducted interview. Source and snippet:
In 1962, he took a residency at UCLA, where he became a regular at Muscle Beach and set a California state weightlifting record with a 600-pound power lift: "I was known as Dr. Squat," he says, "which rather pleased me." And he continued to motorbike, riding solo and loaded with amphetamines as far as the Grand Canyon, stopping only for gas. One day, a patient paralyzed from the neck down and blind from neuromyelitis optica heard Sacks was a biker, and asked to come along for a ride; with the help of weightlifting friends, he abducted her from the hospital, strapped her against his own torso, and rode up and down Topanga Canyon.
I shall be getting "Hallucinations".
And, having just upgraded Chrome to v23 I am moving over to it from Firefox for the time being as the continual crashes of the Flash plug-in are just too much irritation for one chap to tolerate. I'm already using IE10 as my Google Mail 'portal' for precisely the same reason. The new Chrome is slightly slower on the RoboHornet Pro test I mentioned yesterday — a little odd as (unless I mis-read the Google blog item) one of its new features is the offloading of rendering to the GPU on my graphics card. Maybe they really do only mean video.
My "lemonses" was just briefly enlivened by a phone call from Debbie at the care-home to warn me they are once again flying the yellow plague flag marking — this time — some tiny 'gastric' invaders. At least I now know what my latest mobile ring tone sounds like. I'd forgotten Peter's g/f had made it less "discreet" (at my request) so I initially wondered what the devil the odd noise in the middle of my string quartet was.
Do you suppose...
... there are any implications for an evolutionary theory regarding the unaesthetic trend towards the all-too-common use of All Important Initial Capital Letters?
My, some people do some quite penetrating research :-)
Mr Postie was...
... somewhat tardy today. No matter; the Amazon conduit still flows. Firstly with the initial trio of "Inspector Montalbano" novels:
And, for my viewing delight:
The plot holes in Prometheus have been bugging me, so I've picked up the 3D edition as that's the only current legal route to the many hours of extras. "I may be gone some time."
I've been waiting...
... far too long for the new album...
... (only the second) from the wonderful Anna Domino of "Snakefarm". Well, I think a decade or more is a plenty long enough pause — I also note that the first CD ("Songs from my funeral", which I bought in 1999) is now selling for £32-75 unless you go for one of the Amazon market sellers.