2014 — 10 November: Monday
Having woken up only a few minutes ago1 I'm listening to what remains of Harry Shearer's "Le Show" on NPR. I also need to visit Mr Postie's cave to winkle out whatever couldn't be shovelled through the letter box while I was out on Saturday. That will keep me going for a bit. The youngsters spurned the food I'd bought in for them, too, which has led to a temporary surplus in Mother Hubbard's cupboard.
I've just noticed...
... (the large, empty, battery symbol was a clue) my much-neglected Kindle is gasping for an infusion of electric juice. Not surprising. I don't think I've used it since about a day after getting the SHIELD Tablet PC and putting the Kindle App on it. I can be very fickle with my toys.
I shouldn't have...
... said that, as it turns out my toys can be very fickle with me, too. I was trying to answer a question in an email, and to do so needed to access a particular music track on one of my NAS drives. Oops, Windows failed to map it. And the network symbol had a dirty great red "X" through it. But the lights are on. Reboot Windows? No change.
Switch off the NAS. Disconnect it. Notice the spider detritus. Give it a good sucking. Take out and inspect the two 4TB drives. Glare at them. Put everything back together. Plug everything back in. Switch it back on. Dirty great red "X"... no, wait, it's now working as before. In between discovery of the glitch and its apparently successful scratching I also nipped out to pick up Mr Postie's pair of undelivered items:
This is the 25th anniversary Blu-ray of "Full Metal Jacket"2 that I imported as the only way I knew I could get hold of the one-hour documentary extra on its second Blu-ray by Jon Ronson: "Stanley Kubrick's Boxes". That originally aired on "More 4" a while back, and was very interesting. Since it also made passing reference to the BBC radio SF drama "Shadow on the Sun" that Kubrick had been interested in filming I am pleased to have it on Blu-ray.
Len (who kindly dropped by after his swim to see if I was still struggling with the Synology NAS) has recommended I watch "FMJ". He says it's worth seeing once, and he was certainly right about last night's "Montana". But when did it become so long past lunchtime, dagnabbit?
Life after...
... seven years without Christa remains just as baffling, though I have no fresh thoughts or insights on the topic. I can certainly switch away from the depressing music on BBC Radio 3, though :-)
Should I...
... watch this before...
... or after, my evening meal? [Pause] After was a good decision. Fascinating film. One of the organic farmers filmed, a chap called Joel Salatin, the owner of Polyface Farms, Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, was both amusing and amazingly philosophical in his outlook and approach. He was explaining how everything is a cycle and the part his pigs play in the composting process:
Why use machines, and petroleum, when you can just let the animals do the work? And this again honours and respects the pigness of the pig. And allows the pig to fully express its pigness ... creating the philosophical
building block for honouring and respecting your gifts and talents, or even another culture's gifts and talents. I mean, a culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure to be manipulated by whatever
creative design the human can foist on that critter will probably view individuals within its community, and other cultures in the community of nations, with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling-type
mentality.
The chicken... she's an impenitent rogue! She's our free spirit.
Just wonderful stuff.