Sunday at Tabby's Place: Kozmo

 Kozmo (3623)

And Another

Surprised myself by doing more than usual.  Cleaned up some cat puke on the basement steps and followed that by vacuuming the steps, which likely hadn't been done in months.

Four pangrams in today's Spelling Bee, and I found them all.  Some days PG does the majority of the solving, but today wasn't one of them.  

Last year, I bought a program for editing video and creating/assembling royalty-free music, but had difficulty using it.  Maybe not so much that I couldn't learn how, but just not having anything to say.  So I did nothing with it until now.  

But last night, I set a simple task, cutting one 30-second slice from a longer file.  Not simple, as it turned out.  Dragging the file to the edit line produced an error that the file used a codec not compatible with the program.  Googling that message led me to a set of freeware codecs that I installed.  Using them along with Handbrake, which I'd installed last year along with the video/audio program, allowed me to finish the simple task.

I'd put together a list of chores for my day off Friday, but after supper I decided not to wait, and took the leaf blower and snow shovel to the shed, then weed-whacked the brick sidewalk in back of the house.  With the red maple dead and the zelkova dying, there aren't going to be as many opportunities to use that leaf blower.

Another Day

PG woke me up about 20 after 8, and I immediately got up and walked to my office down the hall from the bedroom.  

Close to noon, a FedEx truck delivered a box and packing materials for me to return the laptop and peripherals to my former employer.  It should be interesting.  They want their phone, but if my new employer doesn't provide a modem pretty soon, I won't be reachable by phone.  

PG wasn't feeling well enough to go out, so I went alone to Wegmans for milk for both of us.  Spotted and bought their last Lindt chocolate ganache Easter egg for half price.  Enjoyed it, but didn't desire any more.  I don't know what's happened to my appetite for sweets, but it has to be good that I don't crave them at this time.  

After work, there was a chapter of Age of Ambition, a chapter of Charlie Chaplin's 1922 book My Trip Abroad, and parts of Chaplin's 1923 movie A Woman of Paris and 1988's Bright Lights, Big City.  That's all the culture I want for now.  Next, boot up the laptop and put it all down in writing.  Then find something on YouTube to listen to and play a few games before going to bed. 

Another Good Day

From 9:00 to noon, prepared photos for upload to the Flickr account for Tabby's Place.  After that, lunch, a little shopping, and home for reading, streaming, and live TV until supper.  Then reading about a couple of photography techniques I'd never heard of, listening to an episode of The Great Gildersleeve (Water Commissioner of Summerfield), and scanning Twitter until now.  It's time to make the bed and lie in it.

Yesterday at Tabby's Place: Malora

 

Malora

Maybe, maybe not

Out the window of my office this morning, I saw a bumblebee hovering close to the window.  It wasn't motionless, but it stayed close enough that I could see it or its shadow on Nora's cat tree in the morning sun.   

I thought, "Maybe it's a drone."  

Top Milk?

Top Milk:  referenced tonight in a commercial for Postum during an April 1943 episode of The Aldrich Family.  "Serve it with top milk," they said.  Never heard that one before.

Also today in time travel:  A Twitter post said that on this day in 1947, Jackie Robinson played his first game at Ebbets Field, an exhibition against the Yankees.  It mentioned that Robinson went 0 for 4, yet drove in 3 runs.  That's all I had to hear; next thing I did was go into the TimesMachine and look it up.  The story from the 4/12/47 Times said that Robinson had two scoring fly balls, but didn't mention how he got the 3rd RBI.  

And as long as I was there, I skimmed the paper and found Bosley Crowther's positive review of Charlie Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux.  

There's a difference here, you know

In my 9-to-5 job, I sometimes make decisions based on whether something feels right or wrong, yet my paycheck depends on whether the results are correct, not on how anything feels.  

In my volunteer work, there is no absolute other than whether something is good for the cat or bad for the cat.  When I take pictures of them, and there is more than one take to choose from, the final decision is based on one absolute (whether the eyes are in focus) and the rest of it is dependent on how it looks, whether one take feels better than the rest.

I don't like analyzing sentences, but I can match tenses and collective status because it feels wrong when it is wrong.  In high school band (my only extended period as a musician) I used the sheet music largely only as a guide.  "Oh yeah, the notes go up here," and then I recall what it sounds like at that point in the song and play the part from memory.  

Something Different

All-day rain yesterday, heavy at times.  The day still went by as quickly as they all do for humans my age, but... 

Searching for a change of pace, I put on Netflix, found a documentary on French singer Johnny Hallyday, and promptly fell asleep.  I awoke at 8:30 with three half-hours done and a message onscreen asking if I wanted to see more.

Then Tivo, Scenes From a Marriage, recorded from TCM's 31 days of Oscar.  Liked it better than The Seventh Seal.  

Then grasping at something, I picked up the iPad and brought up the Open Library app.  Opened The Education of Henry Adams and read it for awhile.