2013 — 11 April: Thursday

It's 65 months since Christa died.1 I still perform the occasional thought experiment along the lines of "What would she be doing now if I'd been the one to go 'pop'?" or "What would she make of my new state as a domestic god?" On that latter point, the washing machine is doing its thing, the crockpot ingredients are neatly lined up (in my head, at least), the initial cuppa is working its magic, and the only thing I forgot2 last night was to switch off the power amp. Little things, but mine own. (To misquote the Bard.)

"Your new day awaits you, Mr Mounce. Try not to waste any of it." Meanwhile, I would have thought inviting Argentina's President to the funeral of La Thatch might have been a smarter move for the diplomats. I just hope they don't invite me :-)

I've just bookmarked the Toyota UK Recall Checker page as, it seems, my front passenger airbag (which I surely hope never to see in action) may turn out to have a problem.

I was completely unaware...

... of Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" until I read this unrelated but rather disheartening piece, and then heard the same phrase used again on "Woman's Hour" while I was busily slicing and dicing my next piece of culinary heaven. (Actually, if you want "disheartening" you should also read some of the Amazon reviews of Deborah Kogan's book.) I'm sure it was dear Mama who used to say if you can't say something nice about a person, say nothing.

I've long wondered what on earth our transatlantic cousins have against socialised healthcare. Could this be an answer?

Timeless Whoppers

Oops

Turns out I also forgot about lunch — for today, and the next several — so I've just fixed that, too. I must say, seeing an ambulance parked in the Waitrose carpark and a police car just turning into it is a little disquieting. I wonder what the stats are on shoppers keeling over in an average year? I drove carefully out, and back home.

Fascinating...

... to some eyes:

With H.264 now the de facto standard for video downloads and streaming, there's a motivation to move up to the next version, especially if it means buyers can download comparable quality videos in half the time. It seems certain to be a part of "Blu-ray 2.0" whenever that emerges, and probably future ATSC TV standards, but the ability to get high quality video down off the internet is surely a stronger unique selling point than delivering 4K or 8K video on optical disc to an ever-declining number of consumers.

Tony Smith in El Reg


And something else...

... for Big Bro (or any other frequent flyer) to think about. (Link.)

Until a few minutes...

... ago, I had only two tracks by Nirvana (the original UK group, that is) in my little collection. "Rainbow chaser" (of course) and "Lonely Boy" (which came off a MOJO magazine CD in April 2009). Having managed to negotiate the minefield that is Amazon's basic ignorance of the existence of an earlier, non-Seattle grunge band called Nirvana, I now have another 21 tracks...

Nirvana 69

Even one called (I strongly suspect, mistakenly) "Requim for John Coltrane" :-)

  

Footnotes

1  I'm going to assume it's normal for people to recall such milestones along Life's little highway. If not... bite me.
2  Impossible to prove, of course.