2014 — 31 December: Wednesday

The Met Office currently disagrees with the good German technology screwed to my freezing front porch. For by no means the first time. The discrepancy being a small matter of 6C; it's -4C out there (the thick coating of frost is a clue) and the website asserts it should be +2C already. Brrr. I shall delay my little expotition over to Mr Postie's Cave of Undelivered Delights until at least after I've had some breakfast.

Last night's...

... entertainment? Rather than dipping into that unseen Peckinpah Western (Len had warned me it "was a bit brutal") I chose to revisit a Kevin Smith film that Christa and I saw just once, a decade ago. It turned out I clearly had not remembered1 it too well since I went in (as it were) with fairly low expectations and came out delighted:

Jersey Girl

The witty dialogue and well-crafted domestic situations made me laugh several times, which I honestly don't recall doing back in 2004 — perhaps because I hadn't then seen the gorefest that was Tim Burton's version of Sweeney Todd! (Thanks, Gill. The nightmares did stop after a while. And I had a meat pie for lunch yesterday, too.) I'm happy to revise my overall opinion of the film, and agree with the tagline that young Kevin wasn't allowed to use ("Only a jaded prick wouldn't like this movie") on the posters. I quite enjoyed the previously-unseen extras, too.

Now, about that breakfast. [Pause] Guess who forgot to stew some more plums, cranberries and blueberries? And who do you suppose is now approaching the end of a bag of sugar that was "best before end" 2011? Better get some more in before Big Bro next drops by.

And there I was...

... thinking Free Will was tricky:

If there's something in the environment that's like an agent — that you can treat as an agent — this changes the game. You have to start worrying about feedback loops. If you plan activities, you have to think: "If I do this, this agent might think of doing that in response, and what would be my response to that?" Robinson Crusoe doesn't have to be sneaky and tiptoe around in his garden worrying about what the cabbages will do when they see him coming. But if you've got another agent there, you do.

Daniel Dennett, "interviewed" in Salon


A badly proof-read piece, by the way.

(my) Life is full...

... of little circularities, beginning with my meandering route (on foot) to the Postal Cave using paths unexplored since Christa and I used to walk them together. Today's (would have been yesterday's, had I been in) haul:

Blame it on Rio, Invaders, Nothing but the best, DVDs

In between...

... trading gentle barbs with a female relative over the miniscule size of an emoticon she's appended to a couple of her NY greetings iPhone emails...

iPhone emoticon

... the example above shown only after first magnifying my normal Thunderbird display size with 10 consecutive presses of the Ctrl/+ keys — I've also been busily unloading my washing machine (I very nearly forgot) and consequently also pondering the sad, sad state of my latest batches of laundered polo shirts.

I suppose the fact these (basically seven-plus year old) shirts are all now falling quite literally apart at the seams at the same time at least shows I've been cycling each of these old friends through my wash-dry-fold-wear2 sequence equitably. Either that, or Eastleigh has started added some cotton-eating / cotton-picking enzymes to my water supply to perk up the clothing industry.

Entropy. Everywhere I look... nothing but unkind entropy. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold! <Sigh>

To be fair...

... to me (if no-one else) I did mention this title as being inbound, in April 2013. But I forgot to put up a thumbnail. Easily fixed:

Joe's Apartment

Lois McMaster Bujold claimed it gave her the idea for her glorious "Butter Bugs" and the tearfully-funny disastrous marriage proposal / dinner party hosted by the hapless Miles Vorkosigan during "A Civil Campaign". (As I remarked at the time, "if you have to ask, you probably don't want to know".)

  

Footnotes

1  Liv Tyler was, as ever, very easy on the eyes, and there's a delightful cameo from Will Smith as himself. Good to see the late George Carlin, too.
2  Keen-eyed readers will spot the absence of an "iron" action in this now well-practised sequence.