Tales From The Crypt - Friday 19th August 2022

It is Friday and it is also a working day. Pig's bum.

Not much is happening here today.  I'm expecting my replacement printer to be delivered so I'm sure I'll be having fun installing that later.  It also means I'll have to do some tidying, cleaning and reorganising (a small amount!)

Sure enough, the printer arrives early afternoon but I have to leave it for now as I'm very busy at work.

After work, the fun begins and after giving up on the mobile app that's supposed to make installation easy (easy if you like going round in circles!) and doing it manually.  The printer was set up but still had network issues. It turns out that when you install the printer you have to choose either an Ethernet LAN connection OR a WiFi connection, it doesn't support both at the same time. The default is WiFi but the installation guide gives no indication of this. Eventually, I found out that if you connect by wire to the LAN you have to turn WiFi off on the device. Someone needs to rewrite their instructions. I defy anyone who is not reasonably IT literate to work this out. Anyway, after that shenanigans, it now works and I have printed a letter. Looks good. Allegedly the ink supplied with it can last up to three years. Let battle commence!

It's been another normal day for E with calls from the dietitian and pharmacist from the GP surgery.  After the latter call, I realised I'd omitted one of E's meds from the new list, though nothing serious, thankfully.

Spoke to Q a few times during the day. She's flying from Perth to Brisbane (around four and half hours, different time zone) which means that though all our chats were on the same day for me, the final call we shared was on a different day for her (tomorrow, in fact). Tomorrow today! Who says tomorrow never comes?

Over dinner (sons 1 and 2 are out tonight (leaving around 10 p.m., duh!)) I watched a documentary called 'I Dream of Wires', which is a history of electronic music and the synthesiser (analogue, especially). It's a documentary from the United States (I'm not allowed to say America anymore, otherwise son #2 will chastise me. If you are from another part of the American continent you may not be happy being lumped in with people from the USA, necessarily. Not that there aren't many wonderful people from the USA, of course. I'm even lucky enough to know a few of them!) and thus only narrowly avoids the idea that there is only one country in the world when telling this story.  Not only that but there's something about the voiceover that is a little irritating. Nevertheless, it's an interesting documentary despite the  US bias. I'm guessing they must have experienced some licensing issues (or made the doco on the cheap?) because little of the music spoken about  features in the soundtrack. This was particularly irritating when they talked about the legendary album 'Switched on Bach' by Walter (now Wendy) Carlos.  Son #1 was with me at the time and it would have been good for him to hear some of it. I must admit I don't like the album. In fact, I can't see the point of it other than as a technical exercise to demonstrate the capability of the Moog synth. (Moo-g (like the cow noise) or Mo-g (rhymes with rogue), no one seemed to agree, but the latter pronunciation seemed to win!)

Morton Subotnick (look him up, if you don't know) said something along the lines that he was trying to make new sounds and explore new areas with electronic instruments rather than recreate existing music and thus didn't think 'Switched on Bach' was very interesting, despite the sales it had. I tend to agree.

Boys gone now, time to clear up before heading upstairs.

I was already on the bed (not in it, strictly speaking) when Q and I last spoke, though it was early in the morning for her. Tomorrow.

Coconut Cream / 'Safety Net' / (Single)

[[I believe the video was shot in and around Sydney, which Q will be off to in a few days time.  I say 'believe', 'cos I've not been there (yet), but I'm pretty sure I saw the Opera House and Harbour Bridge which are pretty iconic. ]]