2014 — 2 May: Friday
And just what has been keeping you from your breakfast this morning, David? Well, let's see. The belated realisation that this is another blasted Bank Holiday weekend sent me scurrying back out to scoop up the crockpot goodies I dipped out of yesterday (having got to my shop too late). The belated realisation that tonight marks the arrival — for a stay of currently unknown duration — of Peter and Peter's g/f also concentrates the mind and prompts a few more supplies than my usual.
Then there was the downloading of a gigabyte or so of Nero's finest Platinum 2014 edition, which (now that it incorporates both a Blu-ray player and an equivalent of the DVD Maker facility that Microsoft saw fit to cunningly remove from Win8) struck me as a bit of a bargain with the ever-larger discounts with which Nero have been steadily trying to tempt me1 for the last 18 months or so.
Still...
... at least I had a cuppa before I set off. And on my return I've also found time to browse this quite tasty little charmer.
Into every bit of ...
... good news must fall a drop of bad news. The good news is that Nero's BD player behaves impeccably on my copy of Ridley Scott's "The Counsellor" (after the mandatory Nero ritual of checking for updates, installing them, rebooting, and rechecking). But the bad news is that I now have an infernal Java VM sitting somewhere on my — until now — uncontaminated PC, dagnabbit.
Having worked up...
... an appetite lustily cursing Audi and Volvo drivers on my way back from Soton, I think I'd better have a bite of lunch — it's already 13:48, somehow — before I do any serious tidying-up around Technology Towers. As long as there's a path to their bed they should be OK.
[Pause]
Now that the crockpot is on autopilot, and the next batch of stewed plums, cranberries and blueberries is cooling, I have a choice. I can commence clearing ops, or I can nip over to Roger & Eileen to blag a cuppa and a biccie.
TTFN
The Demon Barber...
... is the one being interviewed for a change:
I'm puzzled by these young things who believe that if they eat x, or don't eat y, they're going to live for ever. And you sort of think, are you sure you want to? You're not having much fun now — so why do you think you'll have more fun when you're 80? On her living room wall is a piece of art she loves, which reads: "I went to the doctor, I said, 'I want to die in my late 60s, early 70s, probably of a heart attack. What do you think, am I going about it the right way?' The doctor said, 'Nobody has ever asked me that before.'"
While Mr Postie...
... was meandering around, just waiting to hand over the middle item here — a film highly recommended to me by my friend Steve, who gave up running "Pinpoint Music" to go and live in a redneck state in the US of A — I was busy buying the two books...
I had actually also picked up the memoir I'd mentioned by the neurosurgeon Henry Marsh, but a couple of minutes of browsing convinced me it would make me very angry, from time to time, and probably very sad. I may yet revisit the title, as I found the PBS film I saw last month of his work in the Ukraine utterly compelling.
Blimey! Six years since my last visit and a subtly-changed URL. I know a couple of chaps who'd enjoy poking around this vault. Plus me, of course.