2014 — 8 September: Monday

A reassuring email1 overnight suggests the asteroid missed NZ. Next excitement? Make sure my pension this month didn't miss my bank account so I can nip out and buy some fresh food.

Now here's a name...

... I've neither heard nor thought about for probably 50 years :-)

Mr Mxyzptlk

All my passwords are pronounceable, and don't come from the seventh dimension (if memory serves). Not that they live in any dictionaries.

[Pause]

Back from the hunter-gathering (or more simply shelf-scooping) in time to hear Stephen Fry. But do I really want to?

End of an era

I've just cleaned out and closed the last of Christa's various accounts. She'd banked with this particular outfit since coming to the UK in late 1973 to work at Royal Holloway College, but I have no need of them. It's possible to be too sentimental about these talismans, it occurs to me. Meanwhile, just as I was on my way out for the second time before lunch I intercepted Mr Postie, thus avoiding one of those "While you were out" cards...

Phantom Tollbooth DVD

Since I'm still working my way through the annotated edition at my own pace, this burned-on-demand DVD can sit on the back burner for a while. It's fair to say that the delicacy of the original Jules Feiffer drawings has not made its way through the cartooning process unscathed. No matter. I've been chortling over this, too:

XKCD What if? book

Though how much longer I shall be able to put off starting Lev Grossman's second "Magicians" title remains to be seen. It's already sitting there on my Kindle, practically bouncing up and down.

I only found out...

... when I spotted a forthcoming collection of Ry Cooder soundtrack albums that there's a film called "Alamo Bay" about a little-known incident on the Texan coast involving conflict between the natives and some incoming refugees from Vietnam all trying to catch shrimp from the same area. Directed by Louis Malle, too. Can't say it sounded like much fun, but I bet the music is grand.

  

Footnote

1  From Big Bro.