 So many people do their household accounts, taxes, whatever, by computer these days. Thus my delight in sussing out (after several years at it) the way to get the lovely pictures I knew the programme had was a kid's finding the Easter egg.
You must bear in mind that when it came "bundled" with the first iMac I couldn't resist, 'Tous Comptes Faits' made me think of contes de fées. I honestly long imagined it was some fairy-tale story game to set against the ferocious Nanosaur (now a comic book)! So what I discovered, while being perfectly simple, was unexpected. Last month, I got rid of a final credit purchase -- I've learned to hate credit, as a rule -- and TCF gave me a charming rendition of how much went into the pockets of Apple and my bank to "upgrade" to an eMac and roaring Jaguar, the blue bit being revenue from the Mac I sold at the time. You can't quite read it? Never mind. Apple wins hands down.
Since I've now learned to do sums down to fine detail and will be embarrassing enough to put bits on the worldwide web, it's a pity TCF only seems to make charts work for 12 months, not two years.
 Why? Well, the first part of the week was dire, a great fight going on in my guts now that I've just begun treatment for Crohn's disease, so I couldn't get out and was embarrassed, on making a reappearance at the canteen for lunch, to be asked loudly, in front of all and a few sundries, why I looked so red. I'd only walked just down the road!
By way of revenge, since the Pizzeria Pernety has been my lunchtime eating hole and local gossip shop while I've been off sick, I'd like to blow up this picture of 24 months' spending on restaurants, but there in particular, and stick it up in their window so that everybody can benefit from seeing just how much they rake out of me and during which seasons the most. The past two or three months are unrepresentative.
I was rather hoping the graphic would also prove beyond argument that their prices have risen unacceptably since the switch to the euro. Then those of us plotting to set up a Club of Regulars and Advocates of PP (CRAPP) would have been better placed to negotiate very special rates. N'est-ce pas, messieurs, dames?
Thence, I went on foot to Odessa Street in the heart of Picadilly Circus (aka Montparnasse) to see how Tony was getting on, since my remarkable old friend had 'phoned to say he'd be happy to talk to somebody who was even more out of sorts than the heat and the pollution have made him.
zzz
 The chivalrous fellow is off on another of his awful family adventures at what he calls the "sparrow-fart" hour tomorrow morning, this time to England for a golden wedding -- and he doesn't plan to hang around, not with all those mainly younger relations. I cheered him up with the thought that, if they haven't launched another one already, the SNCF may stage a Eurostar strike especially for him. As it is, he's already expecting to be diverted via Brussels on the way to his Kentish destination.
Tony was raging, however, at the Beeb, for inflicting the damned cricket on Radio 4 listeners only an hour or so after the Today programme. Yeah, we know we're lucky to get R4 at all, but they don't have to rub it in with the trailers saying what a gripping game it is. And I was angry at them for switching on LW to parliament and fox-hunting again slap bang in the middle of a heated exchange between Today's 'Harrumph' Humphrys (May reference) and some government twit over the Iraq row between the BBC and chief Labour spin-doctor Alastair Campbell (Beeb, yup, profile of the man).
With cable I can overcome such hassles by switching to the computer to listen to FM. Tony prefers dial-up for his Mac and puts up with cable TV, where he risks having to look at the faces of politicians in full eruption.
Apart from the internet radio I've been going on about of late, last night I signed up to this Audioscrobbler thingie I've mentioned. For Macs, it works well with iTunes, simply telling people what you're listening to and vice versa. It's fun. When you're in, you find a host of details based on the idea of discovering something new based on your own musical tastes.
Pushing 900 people were online while I was, but the best part of the site was down for an overhaul (still is). Neither this nor the next are very good screenshots (done with the free Snatcher(from eFritz), which is great "beta" software, but not fine resolution, we now find, if you ask it for .jpg format among the several offered). You can see enough to tell that Radiohead is, for now, far and away the most popular band among the growing community of "scrobblers", followed by the Beatles, Weezer (huh? sorry, but who?), Smashing Pumpkins and Metallica (that list is 250 long).
It may be interesting to see how it changes as people join up. If they do.
 It'll be more interesting if and when the "realtime stats" page is working again, to say who's listened to what in the last five minutes. But I'm not complaining. There are some most intriguing things the site does for you with Java applets and many other ways of comparing tastes.
I doubt that the man behind it all, one Richard Jones, is a secret agent for the record companies trying to find out who's got what, to sue them to the hills and beyond for "theft" with peer-to-peer programmes. He's a student who last month announced, with pride, his newly minted B.Sc. (Hons.), First Class. In any case, all files on my machine, are, but of course, my own...
For different operating systems (Mac, Windows and more), different means of telling the site what you're up to are available from the superb (open) SourceForge project, which offers iScrobber for Mac OS X among other options on an Audioscrobbler file list.
Once installed, logged in and active, you get what's shown here in your toolbar (with the last five tunes I'd upshipped then, I guess I must been in an unusually sentimental mood).
Given the pathetic way it took it out of me to get even as far as Montparnasse (but I remain confident this is an interim phase pending the increasingly frightful prospect of being really thoroughly probed in two weeks' time), I'm still staying pretty much close to home, though I do plan to drop in on friends more, as I can. Be warned.
I still have all kinds of subject matter, but people and their antics remain the most diverting.
zzz
To the louts and layabout lasses:
So my "ansaphone" has played a very nasty trick on me. It seemed to have been relaying the news fine, which left me astounded when France Télécom's synthetic lady announced I suddenly had 11 new ones after spending a few sunny hours with Tony. The" why" of this I'll sort out with them tomorrow; today I must apologise to some well-wishers who have been doing so since July 20!
Finally, I got the messages. Now Thomas at the factory tells me people are thinking about a "collection" for me. I'm not having that. What a notion!
Unless, as I murmured in T.'s sweet little ear, they raise enough to get a Power Mac for Marianne.
The treacherous swine immediately yelled out to AFP's English Desk at large, "Nick says he wants a Power Mac for his daughter."
I tell you guys, I could hear all those groans and shudders down the 'phone and know exactly who protested!
No collection. Nice of you, but do you seriously imagine I plan to start being nice myself when I come back? You are henceforth warned that all lifestyle changes called for by my ailment will be for the worse.
You have still not sent me the Algeria pics. Nor the wedding dress pics. You know exactly who I mean. All "bloggable" offerings are welcome. I think -- hope -- that tomorrow, I may finally get some Nigeria pics.
I'm very grateful, really, for all the kind thoughts and words. But if you want to know what's happening in my corner, a lot of it's here already. And the last little tweak I plan was finally achieved yesterday, to help people get around.
 Yes. I know the picture is a confession that Micro$oft still lurks on my machine, but I do have to be sure IE can handle my work. And while TCF works fine in OS X, I like excuses to "go back" to 9 sometimes.
Despite a decent template from Atomz, I still had to swear a lot and fiddle with 'orrible HTML for 2 ¾ hours to give the faithful 3 ½ a full search engine, more or less as I wanted it.
It seems to work, lies in wait on other pages, rather than further cluttering up the home page should a simple search not come up with the available goods and bads, and gets automatically updated once a week unless I remember to do it more often.
If you type "Entrepôt", for instance and with or without the accent, you'll get a real reason to drag yourselves down to my part of town. It ain't me. Oh, and the reason the result comes up twice is that one listing heads straight to that day's log page, the other to the monthly archive. Your browser tells you what's what.
Seek and ye shall find.
Usually to your cost.
10:38:37 PM link 
|
|
postbox