2013 — 7 February: Thursday

Who knew my daily diary jotting would be bumped down the prioritised task list by the need to stew some more cereal topping? Let alone by my semi-whimsical decision to give the execrable iTunes the next in a long series of last chances to play with the newly cleaned-up set of music files.

Return of the Prodigal Son(g)s

Not only does iTunes take just over an hour to load and digest1 my files (where WinAmp manages in just over 10 minutes) it's apparently mislaid five of my tracks. Precisely which five (out of 44,673 [or is that 44,678?]) is going to remain one of those niggling unsolved mysteries.

There's a tad of supplies shopping to be done before today's lunch date. It's cold but bright out there. Brrr.

Just how many...

... guvmint angels can actually sidestep the truth while dancing on the head of a pin, I wonder?

Additionally, while targeting a specific person for killing sounds an awful (sic) like an assassination, the paper assures us otherwise, reasoning that "In the Department's view, a lethal operation conducted against a U.S. citizen whose conduct poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States would be a legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban."

James Joyner in National Interest


And black, of course, is white.

Later that day

I shall have to see if I can make today's lunch last me for the rest of the month. (The house buildings and contents insurance bill had to be settled, blasting a nasty dent in the side of my "budget" this month.) It's only money. Besides, it's time to note this morning's delivery:

Blu-ray

One of our (many) chat topics touched on the desirability of dying in debt, which (we agreed) can be a tricky matter of timing. Perhaps I can get myself committed to one of the charmless Magdalene laundries and be looked after by a nice, sympathetic Catholic nun? I already know how nice fresh Guinness is.

Later still

It's a not very balmy +2C out there as 22:30 approaches. Len's theory was that we're being sheltered from the worst of the Arctic blasts by everyone North of us getting it, as it were, in the neck. My observation is that it's simply sh1tty weather at this time of year. I've set the central heating room 'stat to 19C and the boiler seems well able to cope.

With luck, I won't need to break out my secret weapon: the ski suit :-)

And I've tentatively arranged a free cuppa over with Roger & Eileen for late afternoon tomorrow. They keep their house warmer than mine.

It is, of course...

... impossible to have too much storage space. To that end, and given the new generation of cheaper, higher-capacity hard drives that have come along at sensible prices, I've decided to treat BlackBeast to a couple of internal upgrades. I wonder how long 6TB of space will take to fill up? We shall see...

Meanwhile, iTunes has yet to disgrace itself. Wonders never cease. G'night.

  

Footnote

1  It's spent the last half an hour "Determining Gapless Playback Information" which sounds frightfully impressive. Wise to its ways, I've already forbidden it to go snooping around the web looking for artwork as that can take it all day.