2014 — 26 November: Wednesday
My little toy (see yesterday) has left its "Sortation Facility" and is (as of 08:38 this morning) "Out For Delivery". So the driver has obviously finished his bacon butty and stubbed his fag out in what's left of his fried egg. I've jumped the gun1 and reworked the system diagram for my reading room.
Here's a picture of the new toy...
... whose colour will (I admit) do little to brighten up yet another grimly-Novemberish day. On with the show. In with the tea. Alas, no bacon butties here in Technology Towers.
I've just read...
... a piece in what purports to be "America's most influential journal of religion and public life". It is quite thoughtful (though based on a premise I personally find irrelevant). This almost made me smile:
But I took more away from the paragraph of Facebook and Twitter stats that immediately follows it. I am ever more out of touch with the modern world.
Literally :-)
I've never...
... had to consider the problems posed by literary agents, despite earning my crust as a writer throughout much of my 'working' life. Just as well, it seems:
Really, some of what I read on those agency websites was enough to make a grown person cry. "What type of platform do you have for speaking about the issues in your book? What is your access to the media or to major experts in your field? Have you written the next such and such? Would your story fit perfectly on the blank cover of a magazine?" My answer to all those hopeless questions was None, none, no, and no. Why would I want to write a book just like one someone else has written, and couldn't I go on the Charlie Rose show after my book has made me an international celebrity?
Shades of William Goldman's wise and witty assertion about Hollywood: "No-one knows anything."
Among Mr Postie's goodies...
... was a Taschen Catalogue inviting me to spend £135 on an "XXL" new version of the same book I bought just over eight years ago in Blackwells when Christa and I made our last trip to Oxford. Namely, the wonderful collection2 of Winsor McCay's Little Nemo, 1905 - 1914. As I remarked at the time, that acquisition definitively caps my McCay collecting.
News of further goodies can wait while I open up the just-delivered Marantz box to let the temperature of its contents rise a little, and make myself a bite of lunch. My hunger overpowers even my tech-toy-neophilia.
[Pause]
The Marantz is on...
... the network, its firmware is up to date, I've renamed two of the inputs to "Freeview" and "Minidisc", specified just a front pair of speakers, and unhooked the Dell screen that was making 'setup' a great deal easier. Now that I have its MAC address I can do something clever with Internet Radio courtesy of a Marantz web site (that I must first register with, of course). It should enable me to select a suitably interesting set of stations from the thousands blathering away out there all day and night. NPR will do to be going on with, of course. I shall be keeping the Marantz on the top of its little stack of kit as it seems capable of generating a fair amount of heat, as well as sweet sounds. But I'm very pleased so far.
Less pleased with my Texan ISP. They seem to have dropped molehole's external website down a drain (or worse). I've asked Junior to get on the case. Next job? A fresh cuppa, of course.
Thanks, Mr Postie
It's hard to believe that David Lodge's novel was a TV series 25 years ago.
I bought my original copy3 in mid-September 1988, having managed to persuade the sales girl in one of my many regular book shops to sell it about a week ahead of its official publication date.