2014 — 28 September: Sunday
I'm currently listening1 to what seems to be NPR's "From the Top" equivalent of what BBC Radio 3 calls its "New Generation Artists" — an 18-year-old Chinese girl playing a 21-string horizontal equivalent of a harp, tuned to its (original — dating back to about 500 BC) five-string pentatonic scale. I have to wonder what sort of music was being played hereabouts 2,500 years ago.
Aside to Christa
It would have been our 40th wedding anniversary today. My, how Time flies :-)
Christa in the early morning light, Beaumont, June 1974
How about a nice, hot cuppa? I've already sampled the dawn chorus, but it's not up to much.
That nominative determinism...
... strikes again, as a Tory MP I'd never heard off, named Mark Reckless, has twitched further to the right and joined the charmless set of Nigel Farage camp followers. While I might be persuaded the Tory leadership (if that's what it is) is "part of the problem holding our country back" I don't think I can quite accept Mr Farage as an improved alternative. (Link.)
A piece...
... in El Reg about the new film "I Origins" (followed by watching its trailer) sent me off to browse for earlier stuff by Mike Cahill, and thence to what became a slightly tedious trek through 47 screens in one of Amazon's "Two Blu-rays for £10" lists to see what else I might consider as an anniversary present:
- "Another Earth" is an earlier film from Cahill
- "Brothers" has an appealing cast, though it sounds like a bit of an emotional roller-coaster ride
- "Dazed and Confused" will replace a DVD I burned from a TV transmission of Linklater's film about 10 years ago
- "Mystic Pizza" will replace my original DVD — Julia Roberts from quarter of a century ago. What's not to like?
Time for some breakfast, methinks.
Seven or so...
... hours and 77.5 miles later, I'm back from a little seaside jaunt (with Len riding shotgun, and trying to get me to spend my money [as usual]) neatly in time to make a fresh cuppa and then catch a call from Peter who will be visiting with his g/f in a couple of weeks (just in time to lug in a birthday present, with any luck — and assuming I can think of anything). I also managed to acquire my next Jonathan Meades book without money actually changing hands in Waterstone's as my store card had built up enough 'capacity' to meet the, erm, charge:
Bournemouth was pleasantly warm, but visibility didn't extend as far as Old Harry or even the Island. For once, I dodged the motorway on the return journey coming back through Cadnam and Romsey. Northbound motorway traffic had been very heavy earlier in the day, so we played it safe. I notice there's a lot less sunshine inland, too. Plus many signs of autumnal colours in the foliage. Summer is well on the way out.
I think...
... I'm on the point of declaring the Win8.1 Pro 'snipping tool' just about perfect for purpose. In this case, the purpose is rapidly producing pairs of front and back cover artwork images for my video library, to feed into the DVD Profiler. Although (obviously!) I scanned the front and back covers separately, way back in the mists of time — circa 2008, for the most part, while I was in dire need of some mindless and numbing therapy — I then stitched the things together. Mostly for displaying on that little 60" plasma display screen at the other end of the living room for easy browsing2 and display purposes. The snipping tool makes it a doddle to unstitch the images quickly and easily, dropping them in 'front' and 'back' pairs into the DVD Profiler.
I also took (yet another) look at Classic Shell as a possible way of re-instituting the lovely "Aero" theme that (apparently) I am alone in liking. However, I really do not want all the silly Start button and cascading flyout submenus back on my system, being actually very happy with the separate Start screen that (apparently) I am also alone in liking. There's always one, isn't there? But it's not my fault if everyone else is wrong.