2015 — 24 October: Saturday
I've mentioned1 my ability (if that's what it is) to become stupidly absorbed in something. Tonight, for example, having been experimenting with the bits of Kodi that pertain to Photos and Videos (rather than just to Music files) I've just noticed it's fast approaching 01:30 and I really should toddle off upstairs to get me some of that shut-eye...
Preferably before my head bounces off the keyboard. G'nite.
It doesn't help...
... one's sense of reality, awakening on a Saturday morning, to be confronted by a Stanley Unwin track on "Sounds of the Sixties". That's going to require coffee, rather than tea, for me to be able to process it. Hot and black, too.
Meanwhile, given the unappealing weather, there's Kodi to be experimented with. [Pause] I must admit, this wasn't quite the artwork I was expecting it to find for Walter Hill's film "48 Hrs."
More tea?
I could always...
... fall back on more primitive entertainment media:
Meanwhile, my new friend Kodi...
... is now contentedly chomping its way through my "Movie" collection, analysing each title and doing its best to match up artwork and related information. It's taken 30 minutes so far, and is now processing titles beginning with the letter "P". I shall then let it loose on the "TV" titles, though as many of those were recorded off-air I doubt it will do very well.
A tip of the hat to Brian, whose ever-improving Python skills enabled him to write a surprisingly-short piece of code to do all the preparatory work needed before I even invoked Kodi — reading my "Database" text file of titles data, picking up the corresponding CaseLogic folder location of each physical silver disk, and writing out a series of subfolders with "fake" .avi video files matching the actual titles I own on disk. It's then time to feed this into Kodi's own analysing function, which does all the data-scraping of artwork and information from an online DB of such information.
Remember, this isn't in aid of playing the material, though Kodi will obviously do that if I want it to. However, it will now give me a Linux-based way of browsing the titles, picking one to watch, and telling me where to find the actual disk in my "storage system". For example, this lovely twisted variant of Sherlock Holmes:
The only real difference between this and DVD Profiler is that all the data is held locally, and doesn't depend on my logging into my DVD Profiler DB out there in Cloudy Land.
It's not just me
Peter just phoned, to ask where the Toyota Yaris petrol filler cap control is. I deduce (since I handed over the car with a full tank) they've now driven 300 miles or so. I've managed about 1,100 in the Mazda in just a little longer.
I've now written...
... the "polite letter" I mentioned to the DWP. What they will make of it remains to be seen. I suspect it could run and run. After all, they thought I was the manager running the care-home that dear Mama expired in. There are some levels of deep misunderstanding that take a while to repair.
Still, I can learn from this. For example, next time I have a senile mother that I have to move into long-term residential nursing care I will, of course, take great care to emphasise that I'm only giving her address as mine for the sake of my own convenience.
I'm now back...
... from my stroll along Chalvington Avenue (to the post box) safely before a brief shower. We now have a largely refurbished pavement, but little sign of any significant work on the road, which is in poor condition. They've allowed themselves 12 weeks from mid-September, so who knows what they might do next? It's jolly inconvenient not being able to drive in and out of that end of the Avenue.
Nasty feeling...
... I've just heard the first fireworks of this season. I'm approaching the half-way point of the first novel of the trilogy. "They" didn't write books like this for me when I was a "Young Adult". [Pause] I could use a break from it.