2012 — 24 November: Saturday
Well, the threatened storm has yet to manifest itself, but it's certainly unenticing out there.1 I shall keep my head down, and continue to enjoy all those glorious "Sounds of the '60s"... well, most of them. As quite often happens, the BBC web page has named its genial host "Brain" Matthew. I've yet to track down these "avids" that he mentions, too. I assume they are a variation on Wogan's "togs".
I shall also be investigating what, exactly, is entailed in "refreshing" an installed Win8 system as I'd vaguely prefer to embark on my newest OS relationship with a pair of clean slates (as it were) on my laptop and desktop PCs. Isn't it odd that the concept of a slate (which I, for one, last used over 55 years ago) still lingers on? Or perhaps it's me that's lingering? :-)
Time for breakfast.
At first glance...
... I thought this image might have been related in some way to Ridley Scott's "Prometheus", but it's more amusing than that:
Although I read one...
... of Syd Field's perniciously-influential books nearly two decades ago (mostly because it looked in some detail at four real screenplays, three of which actually got made into pretty good films)...
... I never really seriously considered screenwriting as a career. Unlike this amusing chap :-)
I now own about 25 screenwriting books, a drop in the bucket of the over 1,500 Amazon claims to carry, but a substantial part of my modest library. While their titles line my bookcase, I wouldn't be caught dead reading any of these books in public. Perhaps if it were a digital copy, and maybe if I lived in another city, like Seattle or better yet, Sheboygan, and then only if I could sit facing the door with my back to a corner like a mafia don. But here, in Hollywood: no chance. Something about my relationship with the gurus shames me enough that I dare not let them outside the discreet confines of my apartment.
As I wait patiently (but hungrily) for my lunchtime salad and salmon quiche to lose a little of its refrigerated chill I've been looking back over all the previous Novembers I've now 'enjoyed' in retirement — seven, if you count the current one. I must say, I find them all to have been severely lacking a certain je ne sais quoi in the "fine weather" department. In the case of the current miserable specimen, although it's crept up to 9C out there, what was drizzle earlier is now definitely rain. Still mighty yuk. And it's almost dark enough for indoor lights. Wonderful.
At 18:49 it seems to have decided to be filthy weather for the rest of the day. No matter.
As much for my own edification as anything else, I've now documented (here) the sometimes fraught process of upgrading both BlackBeast and my laptop PC to Win8 Pro. And how I've now activated and am running both systems quite legally on the same Product Key (a neat trick which I somehow doubt Microsoft intended me to achieve).
My thanks to Ian in NZ for this lovely "human porpoise" YouTube link. I loved it. And it certainly beats the miserable weather we're enjoying here this evening.