2013 — 7 August: Wednesday
Another cool start, and the sluggish buzzing of (probably) a wasp discouraged me from drawing back the bedroom curtains this morning. No rush.1 I shall have a cuppa before checking the "fishing" nets. Meanwhile, I shall trawl the digital nets.
For various reasons...
... I spent some time yesterday afternoon swapping the upstairs and downstairs CD players. They have subtly different characteristics and capabilities, and I suspect I wasn't making full use of the newer Audiolab player up in the reading room. The system diagrams are updated.
I don't care...
... how pretty the drop capital is. Just the opening paragraph of this piece ("Reaffirming the Utility of Nuclear Weapons") of modern US military "strategic thinking"...
... is quite enough to sicken me. What a truly stupidly smart species we are. "Pinnacle of Creation"? Don't make me laugh!
I was much more amused by finding that Lawrence Block had chosen no less than five opening sentences from five separate "Parker" thrillers as his favourites. I think my own favourite remains Heller's "I get the willies when I see closed doors". Pity about the rest of the book, though. (Link.)
Time for my lunchtime rendezvous. Toodle-pip.
I have no idea...
... nor, indeed, any great interest in, exactly what process one of Brenda's Customs & Revenue goons uses to work out which packages to slice open for their snooping "duties" but I trust they weren't too shocked to find the now finally-released (and currently playing) CD of excellent jazz2 I mentioned a while back. (The one by Timo Andres, played on "Late Junction".) It turned out to be cheaper to import it, even with shipping. And, despite said goon scrawling the dollar price (incorrectly) on the outer envelope, I escaped paying duty, which is (of course) a Good Thing. Particularly since Brenda's other gang of goons in the Royal Mail now charge £8-00 just for collecting said duty.
In other equally delightful "delivery" news I also found these two items waiting patiently on my doorstep when I got home from a pleasant lunch, afternoon ice cream, and rambling chat, a few minutes ago:
A snip at less than a tenner in total. One will be my evening entertainment. I last watched them (both) with Christa and these DVDs replace my DVD-R copies from 2007.