October 30, 2006
24 Dusk
Once of the contrivances of 24 I always found rather amusing was speed at which evening would fall. As the series is spread over the course of a day, dealing with the rapidly changing light at dawn and dusk is obviously problematic, so the solution was clearly borne of pragmatism: Simply send the characters indoors for the best part of an hour, and then let them emerge into darkness at the end of it. It's so obvious what's happening that it almost feels like a nudge and a wink from the producers of the show to the audience - "We know, we know, but it's the best we can do. Just suspend your disbelief and go along with it m'kay?"
Why do I mention this? After a few months of gradually failing light in the evenings, it seems the one clock change on Sunday morning finally proved the tipping point. I stepped out of the house earlier this evening into near complete darkness. Quite a change from the dusky grey I would have emerged into last week. That, plus the fact that the temperatures have plummeted over the last week or see lead me to conclude that winter is well and truly on it's way. Still less that two months to go before the winter solstice arrives and things start to brighten up once more...
October 26, 2006
Is it here yet?
Well, I'm finally on my way to joining the Mac owning community. Apple announced their latest revisions to the Macbook Pro series on Tuesday and my order was in minutes later. I've been hankering for a new laptop for some time, since I'm currently dependant on my work laptop which is far from ideal (even aside from the fact that it's current stuck running at 600MHz and refuses to recognise any cd's/dvd's). I considered buying one earlier in the year, but the general rule of thumb with Mac products seems to be "wait for the second revision" and given that there were a few reports of problems initially, waiting seemed the wisest course. Even if it did nearly kill me. Patience is for people who don't mind waiting!
I was also hoping that waiting would see a bump in specs, primarily in memory capacity, hard disk space, and screen resolution. I was rewarded on two out of three fronts. Maximum memory is now 3Gb. I was hoping for 4, but three is a definite step in the right direction. I consider it important since I've never owned a laptop I didn't wish I could stuff more memory into towards the end of it's life. Similarly with hard disk space. I'm disappointed that Apple didn't up the screen resolution however. It's still 1680x1050 on the 17" model I ordered. I can live with it, but I was hoping for 1920x1200, the same as my work laptop. In lieu of anything higher I've always found 1920x1200 to be an acceptable resolution to work with. More pixels would be better, but then given that most people seen unable to read the text on my screen as is, I doubt there'd be much of a market. Still with the next version of Mac OS X sporting support for resolution Independence I was hoping we might have seen some improvement on this front.
The biggest downside now is having to wait. And wait. Irritatingly, although Apple's website claimed that I could expect delivery in 7-10 days when I first placed the order, this jumped up to 15 as soon as I was finished. I've been compulsively checking my order status since then, and it's not changing! 3 weeks has never seemed so long.
I do wish Apple would pull their finger out and get around to opening an Apple Store in Edinburgh already!
October 13, 2006
Previously on...
I feel I should be reciting this in the manner of the brief clips that precede American tv shows to remind the audience exactly what happened in previous weeks. Not that my blog has a complex enough plot to warrant such a bit of frippery, just that bit of catching up is in order after my unusually lengthy absence.
You missed, for example, my mum being proved right as I got soaked to the skin one day and promptly caught a cold the next. Whether there was any such connection was something I'd argued over with her before as I was sure I'd read an article somewhere which disproved such a link. I stood, coughed and sneezed corrected. The moral of this particular story is obviously "listen to mother".
You missed my taking my magical slippery slidey shoes on a tour of London over a pleasingly wet English weekend. I was most happy to discover that I was able skid and slide laps around Leicester Square. Which I did with some frequency, weaving in and around tourists. The gaps of surprise I received after some close calls and the round of applause from a group of Asian tourists rang in my ears long afterwards. I actually ached the next day which came as a surprise. I exercise regularly enough that I don't ache these days. The last time I ached like that was after taking up spinning classes in the gym back in, ooh 2000. I wonder if there's a new exercise regime in this? Slidercise perhaps? Maybe I should apply for a trademark?
You missed the delight I felt when I finally managed to roll a ball onto my elbow and keep it balanced there (it's harder than it sounds), and the subsequent dismay I felt when I next attending juggling to find the most awesomely skilled contact juggler there as well. Had I not spent most the night watching him in wide-eyed bewilderment I would probably have felt embarrassed to be standing in the same room as him. He was truly astonishing, performing a large number of tricks I hadn't witnessed before with some aplomb, and once more put my meagre (albeit much improved) skills into in stark comparison. Still he was kind enough to comment on the state of my balls, which he thought were impressively shiny. Ironically enough, I thought they'd gotten a bit to scratched recently and were due for a good polishing, thus proving that if I was not the most skilled contact juggler in the room, I was at least the most anal. :)
You missed my discovery that I may actually be a whole inch taller than I've believed myself to be all these years. For some reason I've long thought myself to be 5 feet and 6 inches tall when in fact I may stretch to 5 feet 7 inches. I've yet to have any independent confirmation of this, so I'm still taking this news with a grain of salt. To be honest, I've always thought 5'6" to be a perfectly good height and I'm not sure I really want to be any taller than that.
You missed my kitchen flooding. That wasn't fun. Since I moved into the flat, I noticed that a small amount of water would occasionally bubble up into my sink, usually when someone in the flats above mine were doing their laundry. It happened rarely and caused little enough trouble that I didn't fret much over it. Not even when I sat in my living room and heard the sink gurgling. Of course, when the sink continued to gurgle and I started to become slightly concerned. and when water started overflowing the sink I positively panicked. Thanks to several towels (and some winter clothing I was forced to turn to after running out of towels) and the services of an emergency drain cleaner (god bless google!) there was little damage from the flood. I now own several more towels for use in case of an emergency which says a lot about my priorities: Candles and matchsticks? No. First aid kit? No. Towels? Yes. Douglas Adams would be proud.
There was more of course. There's always more really, but I think that's a fair enough sampling to be getting on with. I apologise for not posting more and for not posting more often over the last month. It was good to have a little break from trying to blog on a daily basis and I think I was feeling the strain a little. I'm still not sure I'll be posting daily for a while yet, but I'll try to keep you up to day on the important stuff.
How are you all anyway?