Well, it has been a pretty busy week and I have had to take a break from writing for a few days. I am back, however. Do not expect an update again until Monday because Josh, Nate, Joe and I are going to be in Toronto playing in the Santa Claus parade so I will be indisposed.
The weather is great here, in Ithaca, today. The sun is shining and there is a light breeze. Today is the big day that Harry Potter: Episode I releases in theatres. I already have my tickets for the 10:40pm showing at the Hoyt’s 8 at Pyramid Mall. Got them just after noon. This should be really good. I told you all that I was reading the first book in the series last week. Well, I managed to finish it (it doesn’t take all that long to read, really.) It was pretty good. It is fun to read. I am looking forward to reading the next books. I already own the first three books. Last week I had quite a bit of time to read so I also managed to read Issac Asimov’s “Foundation and Empire” and “Second Foundation”. Let me tell you, even if you aren’t a science fiction fan, you should try reading the Foundation series. They are really amazing books. You will never expect anything that happens. I really suggest reading them. I should also note that Dominica has been playing the new Harry Potter PC video game over the last week and is now addicted to it!
Yesterday, I took Phil to Soundworks in Rochester for the first time. It was his first exposure to a real high end audio shop. He walked away with a whole new theatre system! We got him set up with an Integra receiver and a full B&W speaker system. He is pretty happy. Everyone will be happy to know that the audiophiles have converted another one! (Resistance is futile!) I am hoping to be able to do some serious upgrading to my system pretty soon. I am going to trade in my Paradigm Studio Reference 80’s for some smaller B&W’s that make more sense for the places that I live in.
So the RX-7 is FINALLY out of the shop again. It has been sitting at the old house for the last two months waiting for someone to look at it. Nate, Bob and Loopy pushed it about three miles down to Varna where we got it into the shop. It is running now and is heading for Rochester to be winterized tomorrow. That will be the end of it until next year. I am still waiting on word about my 2002 PR5, I am hoping that it comes in soon. My Buick is on its last leg. A fuse blows all of the time so I have to drive with a beeping sound and no gauges. That is quite annoying.
Don’t forget that this week is Thanksgiving! Turkey day on Thursday. For all of you, who know who you are, the annual gang Thanksgiving dinner at Nick Tahou’s is still on. I am going to be in Ohio early that morning but will be driving straight to Rochester to meet everyone.
I am putting in some time working on the new look of Sheep Guarding Llama. I am doing the design in a program called the GIMP on Linux. I have never really worked with graphics before, and I have never really worked with this program at all. So, this is proving to be both a challenge and an educational experience. For anyone who wants to try out the GIMP, it is free and available on many platforms including UNIX, Linux and Windows. You can get your own free copy at www.GIMP.org. So far, I like it. But it is quite hard to use. So you will probably have to spend some serious time getting the hang of it. It was driving me crazy for a while. I am going to be looking for some feedback on how everyone likes the site once I start getting the changes up. Hopefully I can get something posted tonight.
In internet news today, Netscape Navigator has announced version 4.79 and Opera (Josh and my favorite browser) is beta testing version 6.0.