2014 — 13 January: Monday

More rain to come — if the early crop of clouds can be trusted to deliver — before the next walk tomorrow. <Sigh>

My morning cuppa...

... helps distract me from the fatuous "discussion" on the UK's national radio "news" show with a chap from the outfit that counts occurrences of taboo language to assess the appropriate age classification1 for films and videos. [Pause] There's a (food) storage cupboard that is beginning to groan with emptiness, and I also need to embark on my next crockpot. No rest for the wicked, it seems.

I was mostly unaware...

... of the Human Connectome Project. I am perfectly content knowing that my remaining time on this planet will have run out before whatever it is that goes on inside the grey jelly holding my ears apart can be uploaded. Life is one thing; a virtual afterlife (and, what's worse, one without Christa) is something entirely different and rather lacking appeal :-)

I don't like...

... to whine, but my speedy route through the self-checkout tills this morning was disrupted by the need for a human to check my age to ensure I was old enough to have bought my usual 250 ml bottle of dry white cooking wine. Given this contains 59.97% de-alcoholised wine and I eke it out over four or five crockpots... Besides, the age check process consisted of a casual glance. I was told the same check is applied to chocolates containing liqueurs.

Oh, joy!

One can now take a self-administered "Gerocognitive" exam. I failed Q#4, never having bothered to learn the difference between a nickel and a dime. I also noted an ambiguity with Q#3, though I suspect by "ruler" it didn't refer to a Head of State. Of course, if I remember correctly (!) I have a blood relative with memory and thinking problems...

My memory is...

... obviously faulty. When I did a spot of file clean-up I discovered that Microsoft's IE 11 web browser had notched up several hundred temporary Internet files despite my having no memory of running it for quite a while. Closer inspection revealed it had updated itself with a whole slew of security fixes all by itself three days ago. Should I have a bad feeling about this, Obi-Wan? Is one even allowed to expunge the Empire's favourite browser?

Meanwhile, from the hints being dropped about Win9, it sounds as if the return of a "proper" Start button and the inclusion of a function2 that allows the fancy (or some might say stupid, in a desktop ecosystem) but ghastly3 Fisher-Price tiled modern Apps to run in what the world will insist on thinking of as "proper" or "conventional" windows is to be tried in a desperate attempt to lure businesses into an upgrade / migration manoeuvre. I say "desperate" because if, in the interim, somebody offers me a lightweight 20" high-performance hi-res Android tablet with adequate connectivity, I could well be tempted.

My bedraggled...

... postie has just delivered that rarest of cinematic items — a good film with Sylvester Stallone in it:

Assassins BD

It replaces my original 4:3 aspect ratio PAL DVD and, with luck, Warner Bros won't even have bothered to lock this American import Blu-ray to Zone A. The (excellent) film dates back to 1995, after all. When Lana Wachowski was still Larry Wachowski.

This morning's threatened rain has turned into this afternoon's quite heavy hail.

The Blu-ray...

... was indeed Zone-free. I'd forgotten quite how hyperkinetic bits of the film were. Given it was directed by Richard "Lethal Weapon" Donner I should have known better.

  

Footnotes

1  It's not just the UK, of course. There's an episode of "Bones" (Season 3's Player under pressure comes to mind) that was first held back for a year because of a mass shooting at Virginia Tech, and when eventually shown was trimmed because of its use of (correct) medical terminology while dancing gently around the edges of college students' unpleasant sexual behaviour.
2  Already available in Stardock's "ModernMix" App.
3  Personally (as I've said before) I think it wouldn't hurt Microsoft to demonstrate a little humility. The basic Windows operating system lurking under its fancy 8.1 Pro disguise is perfectly acceptable and handles all the applications I choose to use.