2014 — 29 January: Wednesday
I hope to hear nothing but good reports from Christopher today regarding the post-op state of Our Mutual Friend Gill. They were both mightily relieved (as was I) yesterday evening to get to go home without the bother of an overnight stay in hospital. I can therefore "stand down" today's Mounce taxi service. Which begs the question: what shall I do with the unexpected free time? Thinks: I can't finish watching the remaining episodes of "The Bridge", series #2, as I did that yesterday! And am now on tenterhooks until the final pair become available (but read on).
One topic on...
... our most recent walk — interspersed with all the mud and blasted puddle-dodging — was what gentlemen of a certain age and, erm, predeliction (or should that be "bent"?) found to do in that distant era before we got our hands on PCs at home1 for their vast infotainment (horrid word) capability. In our case, we both concluded that the prospect of curtailed computing was now just simply too dreadful to contemplate.
Mike's elderly chum in Spain is not up for the task of removing his PC's hard drive and Jiffy-bagging it over for Mike to try to diagnose its problem and/or recover its data on to a replacement drive. And Mike is not up for the task of flying over there (again) "just to fix his PC". We self-righteously agreed that a certain minimum of mechanical willingness to investigate one's inner PC has to be a "given". Impasse.
I was thinking of this ...
... as, for the next three days, I'm bumping perilously close to the upper limit of my broadband download data cap for the month. I've actually blown the limit, and am left to enjoy the small amount in the "bank" that I bought last time this happened. Since several of my chums are currently on low, or even zero, alcohol intake since their Xmas binges (and since alcohol hasn't been a feature of my life since my 21st birthday cured me of it) I think I shall join them in (forgive the pun) spirit by turning away from BlackBeast and reverting to books, music, and videos temporarily. It's not as if I'm spoiled for choice after all.
My 'upstairs' reading at the moment is on the Kindle (ideal for bedtime because, if you fall asleep reading it, it tends not to hurt — or so I'm told by one who knows). It's David Mitchell's "Back story". Downstairs, the current choice is Nicholas Monsarrat's "Life is a four letter word". I've been finding there are (so far) many amusing parallels in their recalled experiences2 as middle-class children more than half a century apart. And, indeed, with my own.
Found an Oppo bug!
When "fast-forwarding" a video file streamed from the Synology NAS to the Oppo Blu-ray player, on resumption of normal play the video image all-too-often freezes while the audio continues on its merry way. The only work-around is to press "stop" followed by "play" at which point the player obediently resumes playing from the freezing point with perfectly-matched sound and picture. It's happened too often to be chance.
Recall (again) from Ian Fleming's Goldfinger that 'Mob' saying:
- Once is Happenstance
- Twice is Coincidence
- Three times is Enemy action
Following a chat with Brian, who encounters a similar behaviour in a related context, we've concluded the Enemy is almost certainly the multiply-damnable hdcp protocol handshaking.
Yesterday's (other) arrival...
... was tucked into my long-unused milk bottle container on the front doorstep, so I initially overlooked it:
Although this re-issue is a recent(ish) PAL 16:9 anamorphic pressing (from Holland), the video quality is far inferior to Mike's original NTSC DVD (though that is in 4:3 aspect ratio — with the usual nonsense about "This Feature presentation has been reformatted to fit your TV screen"). Swings and roundabouts. Grrr. It's still an amazing cast, of course.
Nothing but...
... good news regarding Gill from Christopher, I'm delighted to say. I shall lunch with them soon, I hope!