One Man's Notes

You know, there’s only really two important bits of tech a journalist needs: the PC and the phone.

We’ve been without our office phones for four hours now. It’s been a pretty relaxed afternoon here at work. Mind you, it’s always pretty relaxed on a Friday. The news team barely ever put in an appearance, as the issue’s already gone to bed. That just leaves us dedicated features types bashing out our 1k+ of insightful prose. Hell, by early afternoon we loose the production folks to the pub.

I’m teetotal boy this evening though, as it’s the Suffolk drive for me. Vive l’iPod!

The new Star Wars movie? Tremendous fun. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

That’s all I have to say on the subject. It’s just a mass market movie. It’s really not worth all the words that have been devoted to it in Blogs, magazines, Livejournals and papers. But it is worth a few quid and a couple of hours of your time.

I wish it noted that there are good day in life and there are bad days in life. A day which starts with your mobile phone being nicked from your bad while walking from the gym to a meeting has all the makings of a bad day. However, I’m seeing Lorna for the first time since Sunday tonight, so I’m rather hoping it’ll evolve into a good day. Let’s hope, eh?

We’re meeting up in London tonight to see (you guessed it) Attack of the Clones. Lorna is quite excessively excited and I can’t help but be carried along in her wave of enthusiasm.

In the meantime, people might like to read this spoiler-free interview with George Lucas, from the UK’s The Guardian newspaper. I think it makes some very interesting points about what he’s trying to achieve.

After four hours in Ipswich hospital, we have learned that Mum does not have a problem with her retina. She merely has Posterior Vitreous Detachment, which means the jelly that makes up her eye is shrinking. The problems she’s been getting are the result of the shrinking jelly tugging on the retina and optic nerve. All should be well again in six to eight weeks. Back to London this afternoon, but for now it’s off to the pub for lunch!

After a two hour drive through the driving rain, I’m here in Suffolk. It’s odd to be here on a weekday evening again, but not unpleasant. Mum’s gone to bed, and I’m bashing out a feature for the magazine, as I won’t be in the office to do it tomorrow.

The iPod was a marvel on the way up. Hook it up to the cassette that comes with Dr Bot’s iPod Connection Kit, put that in the stereo and then put the iPod on random play, and the driving tunes are sorted. It made a difficult drive in the dark and pouring rain much, much easier.

My brother is proving that he is his mother’s son by getting increasingly panicky about tomorrow. He’s really scared about a repeat of last year, which seem out of proportion given what’s actually wrong with Mum. Still, the poor boy’s under a lot of stress right now (self-inflicted admittedly) and I think it’s getting to him. The financial stretch of doing up this house is making him insecure and the last thing he needs is another threat to his family. Just as well it’s only a retina problem.

Hmm. Better get some sleep. I need to drive to the hospital at 8am tomorrow.

Looks like I have an impromptu trip to Suffolk ahead of me tonight. Mum has a problem with a partially detached retina. She may need operating on, so it’s off to Suffolk I go. Let’s hope it all goes easily.

This is a bloody good idea, and what’s more, it came from Ireland.

Let’s recycle those bags!

This is a better site for people in the US.

Those of you who recall my rant about CDs which won’t play in PCs or Macs might want to check out this site, which has more information about what I’m talking about.

Damn you, Sony!

There’s a guy who can’t be older than 21 or 22, thin and geeky looking, snoring like a complete bastard. Concentration slipping….

Time to turn up the volume on the iPod, I think.