I can haz Victory of Eagles!

The days are long and the nights short, but the temperature's not high and there's quite a bit of wet stuff falling. It must be summer. It hasn't been all wet and gloomy though. I missed a fairly successful astronomical society observing evening last Wednesday, mainly because hay-fever was still making is presence felt, but I did stick my nose into the pub before sunset to have a chat with folks. The pub was surrounded by scooters, presumably as a result of a scooter club's evening out.

The 'Tun on Thursday evening was a good (if somewhat muted) gathering of folks, and I'm glad I went.

At Friday's customary games evening we played Carcassonne Discovery, and Albert won. The catch with that particular variant is the small meeple count. On at least one occasion I placed a tile and only then realised all my pieces were in play and I couldn't take advantage of the new territory. Albert's winning margin was, I think, equal to the points he scored by being able to take over one of those.

On Saturday we held the annual astronomical society barbecue in my garden. The early rain gave way to fine but slightly breezy weather which was almost perfect for a barbecue. On a few occasions the breeze was strong enough to threaten the umbrellas, and a few paper plates went soaring, but a good time was had by all.

On Sunday the wet weather returned. It rained so much that I was tempted to stay in bed most of the day. Just as well the barbecue had been the previous day. The wet weather has also made journeys to work on Monday and today a bit unpleasant, and considerably slower than usual. The forecast has warned of "A months rain in 24 hours" so things could yet get more interesting. If the warmer sunny weather returns after all this rain then the garden is going to grow like crazy.

( Attending Erin's and Rand's Virtual Wedding Shower, sewed my first Monster Doll, squirrel from Sue & Tom, manly things, caving and getting a Twitter account. )

A while ago, I got some Philips headphones which are supposed to reduce the ratio of outside noise to signal.

They do -- by boosting the signal. There's no detectable noise reduction when I turn it on. It was a pretty cheap set, so I didn't expect high quality, but I don't consider cheating acceptable.

I am distinctly unimpressed with Philips, which probably bought the product from some Chinese company and slapped their label on it without bothering to check it out.

http://www.cartoonlabs.com/comics/index.php?date=2008-07-09&show=sinfest

Sinfest
Tatsuya Ishida

"It's an old human habit -- living off the road kill of the planet. There's evidence, for example, that early humans were engaged in scavenging before they figured out how to hunt for themselves. They'd scan the sky for circling vultures, dash off to the kill site -- hoping that the leopard that did the actual hunting had sauntered off for a nap -- and gobble up what remained of the prey. It was risky, but it beat doing your own antelope tracking.

"We continue our career as scavengers today, attracted not by vultures but by signs saying 'Safeway' or 'Giant'. Inside these sites, we find bits of dead animals wrapped neatly in plastic. The killing has already been done for us -- usually by underpaid immigrant workers rather than leopards."

-- Barbara Ehrenreich, "Liposuction: The Key to Energy Independence", 2008-06-23

Thanks to the commentators on bigtitch's LJ review for the all too appropriate title above. Yes, it was pure hokum. I never expected anything else, from the Radio Times articles and the source - these are the people who failed to do the background work that would have made both Hustle and Life on Mars a tad more accurate - though they've been forgiven that by an audience that either wasn't born in the 70s or doesn't have the (theoretical) knowledge of the 1920s con game. Selling Bonekickers to an audience that, if not Chronicle regulars, has mostly at least seen Time Team was never going to be an easy task. Adding the layers of Indiana Jones and Da Vinci Code may have seemed like a good idea at the time - I just wish I knew what the series creators were on (so that I can avoid it).

I'm not even going to attempt to dissect the corpse - though I did wonder why the first reaction of the archaeologists to the disparate finds (saracen coins, medieval metalwork) wasn't a quick check of the local housing records to find a Victorian collector who might have seeded the site...

Nevertheless, its still better written and more exciting than Torchwood (not, I admit, a difficult task) and error-spotting is going to be an entertaining way of spending Tuesday evenings. Should I worry that my favourite character is 'Dolly'? And that I have the urge to write fanfic just to get the details right (which is my usual reason to fanfic.

OTOH there's Part 2 of the TW/Primeval crossover to finish...

Been finding my channel surfboard running aground on the show 48 Hours. This is a program which focuses on two homicide cases, flipping back and forth between the two (for no real reason other than to accommodate the ADD viewers), and the title stems from the theory, which they disprove time after time, that if a murderer is not caught within 48 hours of committing the crime, chances are slim that  he/she/it will ever be caught & convicted.

It's a well-produced show. Excellent production values, they make an effort to protect the innocent and have amazing cooperation from the detectives. Tonight's adventures were in Cincinnati and Miami. One thing they had in common which freaks me out is nobody is read their rights, and suspects are treated as guilty. In Cincy, they have a black 17-year-old being browbeat by two white middle-aged detectives who think of themselves as surrogate father figures. The kid should be in Juvenile custody, he should have a lawyer in the room with him, and the detectives should be looking for evidence - they had none at all - instead of trying to obtain an illegal confession. All they had to link this kid to the case was his name was given by a guy who was shot running from the scene, who another witness identified as "not the shooter". The other witness had no idea who the shooter was. They had no gun, no fingerprints, no nothing, yet they were totally convinced they had the right person. And this was a month after the murder - in 48 hours they had nothing.

The Miami cops also had no evidence, but they did have the husband of the victim caught telling the truth about being in Georgia at the time of the shooting. He was on a military base in Georgia, and his alibi was confirmed by the officer of the day. They went to Georgia to interview a woman in prison who claimed she was the husband's lover. I don't see why they wasted taxpayer $$ on a junket to GA when they could have asked local detectives to conduct that interview. It did bring them closer to suspecting the husband of *something*, but there was no evidence - only the victim's prints were on the car she was found shot in, there was no gun found, no witnesses.

One of the minions at Toyota of Sunnyvale called my cell phone while I was at work, asking for the VIN number of my car. "We have it one number off", she said. She apparently thought I was with my car still on the the premises. I told her I was not near my car and not likely to be near my car until after work. She asked me to call next time I was near the VIN number, and hung up.

A couple of hours later, the cretin who messed up my repair job the first time, and who had written down the wrong VIN number left a message on my cell phone telling me "that was some letter you wrote" and asking me to "do him a small favor" and phone him on his cell and leave a message with the VIN number, so he can file the warranty repair claim, and to remember to speak clearly and slowly.

No way, Jose. The car was in your shop twice, you should have checked its warranty status before you worked on it, which meant entering the VIN number into the warranty database system. For all I care you can pay for your mistake out of your unearned salary. Not that he will, since I can think of six different perfectly legal ways for a car dealership to find out the VIN number of a vehicle which has been brought in for a warranty repair.

The only conversation I want to have with this bozo is him telling me how to access the under-dash fuses. If he calls and catches me in person, I'll rip him a new one.

At last :)

deborah_c bought my Troubadour octave mandolin off me last month, which, while I enjoyed, isn't really big/deep/resonant enough for what I want (it seems to suit her perfectly, so life is good).

To replace it, I've acquired a Blue Moon large-bodied bouzouki from Hobgoblin, which I had them fit with a cheap and cheerful Belcat pickup -- normally this fits externally, but they've fitted it under the soundboard and drilled a hole for a jack socket. With the addition of some decent heavy strings, it sounds awesome - instant Steve Knightley.

(Note to anyone else eyeing one - they come in two versions, and the newer shipment have a truss rod - do not try putting heavy strings on the older ones, because you'll bow the neck!)

As for the for sale, I'm rationalising my collection of odd stringed instruments, and the following are surplus:

• Antoria electric mandolin - sunburst, single pickup, volume and tone controls, f-holes, pear shaped (not in the bad sense :) ). Pictures available on request and I'll restring it for you. £100 or near offer.
• No-brand (as far as I can tell it's a Gremlin or similar import for Hobgoblin etc) laud - basically it's a Spanish six-course/12-string mandolin. It should apparently be tuned AEBF#C#G#, but I keep mine in GCFBbDG (guitar capo 3) - sexybass has a similar one he keeps in DADGAD or a transposition of it. Quite light steel/silver strings, kinda mediaeval-looking. Again, pictures on request once I've bought it some new strings. (You can hear it on "Theoden King" on my 'The Oak, The Rowan and the Wild Rose'). £70 or near offer.
  

The bout of insane creativity continues - that's 5 sets of lyrics in 10 days. (See previous LJ entries if you don't believe me)

Part of it is definitely down to having the Moleskine, and carrying it with me everywhere - being able to scribble down ideas, snippets whenever I can is really helping. I'm also sure that the quality of said little notebook helps - it's nice having something that looks and feels good to work in. And telynor is dead right about a fountain pen too. :) Having picked up a black Lamy Safari at Rymans yesterday, I've discovered two things:

• it makes me write slower and neater, because
• writing becomes a joy, above and beyond just a means of getting words down on paper. I find myself writing things down more!
  

I haven't owned a fountain pen since senior school (barring a few calligraphy pens at university), and I'd forgotten how tactile and pleasant the act of laying ink down on paper with a nib is compared to using a biro or even a gel or fibre tip.

fphcom is looking for non-Christians to answer some questions for a religions class project. The theme is what it is like for atheists and "antagonists" growing up and living in Kristian Amerika. Her original plan was to ask people to videotape their answers, but it looks like it may end up being written. Reply on her page here, please.

... and it contained stories by Alexander B. Potter, Fiona Patton and Nina Kiriki Hoffman!