Odds and ends

I have returned from Leicester. libellum's parents were splendid hosts, and there was much eating, drinking, and being merry. Hooray for Mythmas.

I'm currently attempting to dig my way through two dozen pages of friends' journal entries. When I reach the end of that lot, I'm going to get back to reading my book about 'Getting Things Done'. Some of you may spot a flaw in the logic there, but I'm not listening, la la la la la.

Found so far in my online travels:

I'm so going to this event when it happens. If you like early 90s dance music, go register your interest now!

Windows Vista's "Premium Content Protection" system is completely fucking insane. Please read down at least as far as the part where hardware manufacturers are required, if they wish to comply with the spec, to deliberately degrade all high quality audio and visual outputs to be "fuzzy" when viewing/listening to premium content. WTF?

Article from the NY times, reposted here: "Total organization is a futile attempt to deny and control the unpredictability of life."

http://xkcd.com/comics/christmas_gps.png <3

Unified Theory of Cars Denny Can Be In Possession Of

I forgot to mention earlier, part of the plan for visiting Leicester was that I booked a nice sensible hire car, (a) so that I could fit libellum and romauld into it at the same time (libellum's parents' reaction to being told that she had two boyfriends being to invite us both to Mythmas dinner, which was pretty good of them I thought), and (b) so that it wouldn't cost me the best part of a hundred quid to get to Leicester and back (the RX being a little thirsty on any journey - long or short, fast or um, faster *cough*).

Anyway, I booked either one of these:

(which is about as sensible as you can get)

Or one of these:

(which I spent the entire time between booking and collecting praying that I wouldn't end up with - not only do they look fucking stupid, but also I have an objection to driving anything from the same manufacturer as the car that nearly killed me a few years ago)

When I turned up on the day, they'd hired all of those out. In fact, they'd hired almost everything out. I was left with the choice of an automatic Golf ("I don't think so" was my response to this suggestion, to which the guy behind the desk replied "Yeah, fair enough mate"), or one of these:

(at the same price as the car I'd originally booked)

So apparently there's some kind of universal constant that says I have to drive a two door coupe :-P

Wasn't quite as fuel efficient as the plan suggested :) but it was definitely a lot more pleasant to drive, and surprisingly practical (on a scale of RX7 to Volvo estate, it probably scored about 6 or 7, when I'd have expected it to score something like 3 at best). In fact, when circumstances force me to part with the RX, I will definitely consider buying one of these to replace it.