2015 — 31 December: Thursday

And here we are teetering again on the brink of yet another solar circumnavigation. Towards the end of this one I shall officially become an Old Age Pensioner1 (though I suspect there's a politically more correct euphemism for that status in these vastly more enlightened times). My quarter of a century in IBM now all seems to have been rather a long time ago.

Perhaps it's time to change the "Main Title" of pages on this ¬blog :-)

Meanwhile, I shall sup...

... a celebratory morning cuppa. I'm marking the successful "automated-by-Brian's clever Python" generation yesterday evening of a list of my DVD and Blu-Ray film titles after extracting them from Kodi's SQLite DB, and doing a trivial (less than two minutes) amount of manual post-extraction cleanup of the generated SHTML file. It's a long story, but then it's a long file, too.

TV programmes and series are next on the list to be tackled — the fact that these are either recorded off-air or have multiple episodes (or in some cases both) poses extra "handling" issues as I've yet to decide quite how I wish to present them. And finally there are all my music files, but let's not go anywhere near those this year. I know all this data is still all malingering in there in two further SQLite DBs, somewhere, just waiting to come out and (be) play(ed).

It's colder this morning, but dry and bright (so far). Breakfast beckons before any new adventures.

Domestic godhood

Though I'd duly noted the change (delaying by one day) in this week's (black) bin collection I still only managed to put out my bin an hour or so before the lorry lumbered noisily around a few minutes ago. But then since I barely manage to fill either colour of bin above the 25% mark each fortnight it wouldn't have mattered overmuch. Having a "family-size" bin while now being a single-person household helps...

A chum reports...

... that he successfully contributed one minute's worth of "film of paint drying" in a recent KickStarter campaign to produce a film that would force the UK's film censors — who prefer to be called "classifiers", of course — to watch what eventually became a 732-minute epic of exactly that. Since they watch no more than seven hours in one "session" that's now going to soak up a couple of days on the part of more than one "classifier". It's a protest by Charlie Lyne at the cost of submitting a film for certification...

A late lunch, and a spot of more edifying watching is now on my menu.

Well, that's irritating. "The Blood Oranges" turned out to be silly rubbish, and "Copenhagen" featured a brilliant portrayal of a young man playing such an unmitigated and obnoxious jerk that, just as with Kevin Spacey's rôle as the lobbyist (Jack Abramoff) I just simply couldn't bring myself to watch it.

Found (or, maybe, re-found?) a non-Flash speed test site:

non-Flash Speed Test

Tosh and Super Tosh

I have been here. I have come back. I may visit again; then again, I may prefer to let my intestines strangle me first...

But I have only eleven of these titles, dagnabbit! I'm missing "Blue" for some reason.

As a New Year's Eve...

... special treat I'm allowing myself not one, but two, small lumps of dark chocolate with chilli. Yum.

  

Footnote

1  As opposed to merely being an IBM retiree. The financial difference being a little over £100 a week, I gather! Hopefully that's more, rather than less. It amuses me to think the UK State Pension is three times higher than my starting salary in the I.T. industry was back in February 1974. (£35 per week; however did I manage?) Ev'ry little helps :-)