She has entered the building

11°C, rain

A day for mortgage hunting. Important, necessary and will save over £7000 over the next decade, but ultimately boring. What else can you do on a wet autumn day at home. I have a slide-rule here on the table.

Day’s best feature- Bessie is home, she seems well and was striding in a springy way round the vet’s when I walked in and she recognised me. she’s been there for four days now. It was sad to be here without the ol’ girl. We thought the worst was going to happen, but she is reinvigorated. Awww.

We Need To Talk About…

13°C, clear, fresh colourful

You know a good film when you talk about it on the way home, a great film has you chewing over it all of the next day too. We Need To Talk About Kevin had this effect on me today. We saw it at FACT in Liverpool last night. A very nice Cinema, but sorry Liverpool, it’s not as stylish as The Electric in Birmingham. Immediately, I was struck by how clear and sharp the picture is on these modern digital screens, especially on the adverts oddly. The films idea is well documented on the web, and in many places, more articulately explained than I could. I am, however, glad that I didn’t ready many reviews before going, the final culmination of the plot revealed itself to me in the film, not in the papers beforehand.

The best thing for me was that I didn’t feel patronised by this film. The plot appeared in small clues, amid pictorial sequences and focus on details of the characters’ lives. Each of those pictures would have stood as a ‘short’ in itself. The tension slowly built up throughout, images added on top of images seen earlier in the film. The whole story was fed to us, no need to spell out the plot and tell us what each bit meant. We worked it out for ourselves.

A dog with cancer

13°C, lighter winds, some sun. CK:29 miles

She’s been ill for a week or so now. A second vet can’t now find a lump, the first thought it quite large. Maybe now she is getting some treatment, her belly is fuller  that lump is obscured when feeling by hand. I haven’t done any such probing. she has (sorry for the grisly details) black diarrhoea which sounds like there’s blood in it. I hope that this hasn’t been triggered by us feeding her sausages, minced-meat and such. Dog food is quite bland, but the change could be the problem.

I have to face the fact that this may be her last winter. She is 13 years 11 months at the time of writing.

Four Gigs

15°C, clear sun.

Nerdity– fitted new RAM to my main computer, doubling it up to 4GB. Windows XP only recognises 3.66GB, but that’s still a huge increase on 2GB. There are some technical reasons why you don’t get to use all 4GB, but upgrading to Windows 7 should reveal it all.

The first two runs crashed out with a blue screen, but I’ve changed settings in the BIOS, and the last run worked without a hitch. Microsoft FSX seems to run a little faster now, but I didn’t test it very rigorously. It has a latency of 5-5-5-18, but I don’t really know what that means right now. I have a little book though.

Nerdlessly: the pond has built up edges on the lower side, it now has a water butt full of water more than this morning. A good few hours effort, it’s great to work outside on a clear sunny day. I need to plant some grasses round the rim to stabilise the bricks + mud around the shore.

Caught something.

5-12C, light cloud, fairly calm.

I have picked up something, my legs were so empty today that I got to work late. No other symptoms, just minimal energy. It’s like this before a cold, but then it’s like this before clearing up again. Wait & see.

Why the need?

18°C, Light SW, mostly sunny. CR:63 miles

Why the need to park like this? There is a guy in the corner house that has a pushchair for two kids. I presume he has to divert into the road, but that’s okay because your car is all white and perfect and lovely and new and you are so so proud of it. And it cost you all of your money.
This was on a quiet residential side-road. There is hardly any traffic on this road, the other parked cars provide some form of shelter and swiped side-mirrors are not a problem here. I can see that you have folded the mirrors so that people who have to squeeze passed don’t hurt them.

alcohol isn’t to blame

This says something interesting: BBC. The author draw parallels between alcohol belief systems and mythology in religions. In effect, she’s arguing that alcohol is used as an excuse for bad behaviour here in the UK, in contrast to other countries where there is no visible link. Personally, I worry about its authenticity but the idea that we Brits should be responsible for our behaviour regardless of how much we’ve drunk is useful. “It’s not my fault, I was drunk” holds no truck with me.

vestibular syndrome

17°C, sunny with building wind.

Bessie has been diagnosed with vestibular disease. It’s her inner ear that is at fault and it makes her feel vertigo, hence the nausea and poor balance. Some cure can occur after the injections that she’s had- antibiotics, anti-nausea & something else. If it’s part of a more general condition the outcome could be grim. We’ll know by tomorrow.

Ol’ Bessie

18°C, strong W, thick cloud.

Old Bessie is not well. She’s curled up now and relaxed but is very unsteady on her feet this evening. She had a bit of a turn earlier, she staggered into the living room and could barely stand. Her head seems tilted to one side slightly. Thinking back, she wasn’t too agile this morning on her early walk either. I don’t know whether she’ll get through this winter. The vet says she is 13 years & 11 months. She has an appointment in the morning to keep.  An old dog that has me worried.

Animal Kingdom

14°C, grey sky.

Film: Animal Kingdom. Review. It had all the tension of a David Lynch film, I was gripped and genuinely anxious about what would happen next. The film contained violence but didn’t indulge in a butcherfest as some films do. It met my need for fine cinematography, sound-scapes and therefore mood. I recommend.

However, I’m having trouble with this TV set because it makes that high pitched transistor whine. It reminds me of those mosquito alarms.