Fun With Tech?

Friday.  9.15 a.m. I always have a problem trying to find a title for each blog post. I sometimes start off with anything which comes to mind, often a song title, and, as the contents of the post reveal themselves, I change it to suit.

It's really sunny and bright as I write this post. I have been out, as usual, with Alfie, and found it was dry. I have an idea it rained in the night. I'm waiting for my washing to dry. Most of it is in the drier and should be done by around 9.35 a.m.

Saturday. 2.00 p.m. Here I am, sitting here in my sitting room (do people ever speak of their 'lounge'? Is it middle class to have a sitting room? Is a lounge what you have in a pub? I don't know. If you're further up the social scale, perhaps you'd refer to a drawing room. Interesting thought. It always made me wonder what a drawing room was for. Not drawing, in the sense of drawing on a piece of paper. It's a contraction of withdrawing, when the upper echelons of society went after they'd had their dinners, the ladies probably went to the drawing room, and the men withdrew to the smoking room to talk about things such as politics without the ladies) 

The weather is more settled today. It's somewhat overcast, a bit dull, no sunshine and there is a bit of a breeze. Considering me almost into December, it's unseasonably mild for the time of year.

I went to Sainsbury's at around 9 o'clock this morning. It was quiet, which is one advantage of going early. I attempt to find a trolley which doesn't have wonky wheels. It surely can't be difficult to keep these vital pieces of equipment running smoothly. Just an occasional spray with WD-40 on each wheel would most likely prevent wobbliness (is that even a word?) Some squeak and others have one or two wheels which refuse to turn, or they bump along when you push them. 

There was only one operator on the manned tills when I came to pay. Why on earth don't they put on more operators, particularly on a Saturday, when there's bound to be more people shopping? It was the same last week when I was in John Lewis's and in the restaurant. Just take staff off other areas. I think they are attempting to wean people off manned tills and onto self-service. The problem is, whenever I use them there is a problem. It always seems to happen, the old thing of 'item unknown' or' 'item in bagging area' or something really strange and unnecessary. They still need someone to be available when there's a problem, as there was this morning. The confounded thing kept going wrong, and I had to have a staff member come and deal with it. I think the machinery is far too sensitive, for whatever reason.

The same situation as I've mentioned before, since they've relocated many items, but I'm beginning to adjust to the new locations of many items I buy. 

10.30 p.m. I've been watching one of the 'extras' on the three-set DVD, 'Lord of The Rings.' It turns out that there is an 'extended' 'Director's Cut' set which has around 30 minutes of material which was excised from the original theatrical version of the films. I want to get this, if it's still available. I have read the novels around four times, probably once every decade since the 1970s and each time I read the books I find something which I didn't notice on previous readings. The Peter Jackson films, which this three-DVD set is directed by, are about as close to what I envisioned the look and feel of the books as you could get and are a remarkable work of sheer genius. It's incredible to think that it's twenty years since the first film was released.

Wet and Windy Weather

Thursday. 7.35 a.m. I could hear the rain and the wind during the night. As I write this, it's a good deal calmer, but when I took Alfie out, it was raining. 

Friday. 6.00 a.m. Where did yesterday go? Is that really all I wrote? Just one and a half lines? Well, let's see what today brings.

It's freezing and miserable, and I can hear the wind howling around the building.

12.15 p.m. You may recall, that is, if you read my blog posts regularly, that I bought a shelf unit from Amazon and then constructed it, the intention being that it would go in the pantry cupboard (for want of a better name for it.) and then it would be used to store a lot of cooking materials which wouldn't fit in the newly-fitted kitchen cupboards. The things that were removed from the old kitchen cupboards before the workmen did the work on the kitchen at the beginning of July (I can't now believe it's that long ago that the work was done.) have been stored in a variety of boxes and bags on the floor of my bedroom. I cleared out the collection of boxes that were used to deliver things from Amazon and have been cluttering up the pantry cupboard and could have been taken to the tidy-tip in Bleak Hall. But I thought of an alternative way to dispose of them: to break up the boxes and put the pieces in recycling bags which can be taken away by the dustman on their weekly visits to Dexter House. I began this around 7 o'clock this morning, as it seemed a good idea to get them out of the way. Now done and taken to the bin storage area. The shelf unit is now in place in the pantry cupboard and a lot of extraneous stuff taken out and will be sorted through and stuff selected for either keeping or disposal in some way or the other. So, as you can imagine, I'm very pleased to have done the work and the results seem very good. Now I can begin the job of sorting out the remainder of the stuff in my bedroom and then put it on the new shelf unit.

2.30 p.m. I have steam-mopped the kitchen floor. I haven't done it in ages, and it now looks spotless. The Vax steam mop is really efficient and far better than using an unhygienic mop and bucket. It dries so much quicker and you don't have to deal with a smelly mop and then empty the dirty water out.

Saturday. 7.00 p.m. I've been sorting out some of the stuff which has been parked in my bedroom. Quite a lot has made its way onto the new shelving unit, although some of this stuff has been binned as it has gone past its 'best before or 'sell by dates. 

There's not much else to report, except I have started watching the first film in the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, 'The Fellowship of The Ring' which I have been meaning to watch as I'm something of a Tolkien fan. I must have read the books at least four times, probably reading the entire trilogy at least once every decade since the 1970s, and recall reading it when I was an A.S.M. at Liverpool Playhouse in 1971. I had a paperback edition and have owned the trilogy in various editions over the years, but don't have any of them now. The Peter Jackson films really do the books complete justice and are more than satisfying, more or less achieve the impossible and the whole look and feel of all three films portray the characters more or less how I imagined them to be. Ian McKellen as Gandalf was born to play the part, and the CGI work on Gollum is brilliant.

Sunday. 3.05 p.m. A very mixed sort of day on the weather front today. It has been raining this afternoon but then the sun came out, and I managed to get to my target of 10,000 steps, recorded on my Fitbit. That's around 5 miles, which is a good amount of steps.