2015 — 12 April: Sunday
My attempt to install the Cinnamon desktop1 yesterday evening lasted for as long as it took for the thing to crash (on initial loading, actually) and leave me in a vaguely desktop-ian "fallback" mode from which I managed to extricate a terminal and make the jump back into cyberspace and the haven of Xfce. Shan't be trying that again in a hurry.
In cheerier news...
... I hooked up my 3TB Samsung external backup drive to winkle out of it a few bits and pieces, including a nice, clear monospace font that had gone AWOL (its filename [though not its name] having slipped my memory), and a particularly nice image of a feather with drops of water on it...
... that I'd 'artfully' arranged on a log and then 'captured' with Mike's Nikon while on a walk a couple of years ago. It makes an effective desktop background (after slight trimming by the GIMP). I also cleared off the drive yet another set of unused Windows images. [Pause] It's still a bit on the early side for my young visitors to be "up and atom", so I'm currently enjoying my peaceful solitary morning cuppa and the early sunlight.
The day's misadventures still lie ahead. They're borrowing my sander and my arch-nemesis2 (the Black and Decker Workmate that has long been exiled to a dusty corner of the garage, where it cannot trap my fingers). Not, I add, for use here. But they forgot to bring back my long-handled garden snippers. (I could have done with those while hacking my way to a shed before their last brief visit.) Meanwhile, my teapot — the re-purposed Pyrex coffee filter jug — is unrecognisably cleaner than I knew it was possible for glass teapots to become. I've no idea what she did to it.
Oh, good grief
The latest petition from Avaaz tells me "The tobacco giant Philip Morris is suing Uruguay for having some of the best anti-smoking laws in the world". The obvious next step being to make smoking mandatory, of course. It was bad enough hearing a cigar maker in Cuba (interviewed on the BBC) audibly salivating at the prospect of the North American market being opened up, legally, to his noxious product. Isn't global capitalism a wonderful thing? The UK next, possibly... (NPR link.)
Guess where...
... we've just returned from?
Nice to see the sea, and it was sunny and clear. Hence, of course, the hordes of people filling up all but the more remote carparks by the time we got there.
And away they go (for the second time) having returned for an overlooked leather jacket and some toothbrushes after my hasty phone call.
Of course, one...
... can't visit the seaside without taking a small detour into the one bookshop that still survives there, can one?
Better do something about an evening meal, I guess. [Pause] I shall also be giving the Sublime text editor another chance to strut its stuff to see if I can reach a working accommodation with it. Peter rates it highly. I rate Peter highly...