Phlegmatic

I've been ill (and off work) since Monday night. (Please, no hugs.) As Tuesday should have been my first day back at JOLF after a two week break (which itself was only two days after a week and a half holiday), I am expecting to fend off the odd semi-snide remark when I finally do return to work hopefully sometime next week.

I blame Denon's technical writers for my illness.

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I had seriously considered replacing our elderly main television earlier in the year. In its day, it was a very, very good television and it's given us six good years. But, it's only standard definition and an annoying flickering* that could previously be cured by turning it on and off again now seems more likely to reappear.

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Problem:
Having bought an audiobook online ('A Game of Thrones' by George R.R. Martin, unabridged, read by Roy Dotrice - 33 hours, US$40 from audiobooks.borders.com) and downloaded it in .mp3 format, I find when I import it to iTunes that iTunes won't recognise it as an audiobook. Presumably had I bought it from the iTunes store (I would have, except that they don't sell it), iTunes would have known it was an audiobook and would have filed it appropriately.

( Cut for yet another rant about how annoying Apple is, followed by the solution )

I was thinking* of buying one. I enjoyed using this thing http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kodak-1451491-Zi6-Pocket-Camcorder/dp/B001U77PUA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1246213359&sr=1-1 at the You're Hired! final, but as you'd imagine, the quality ain't great (just about good enough for me to put together a highlights reel for YouTube hopefully).

I'd assumed that camcorders capable of proper television quality with nice optical zoom lenses and built in hard disks would be a lot more expensive, but this Sony one http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-DCRSR37ES-Handycam-Camcorder-Built/dp/B001PGXA0K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1246213685&sr=1-1 isn't actually that much more in absolute terms.

Is there anyone out there who knows about camcorders and would be able to comment? The reviews look good.












* Anyone who knows me well will know that this is only the start of a complex research and procurement process. I've been thinking of hiring a qualified procurement professional to help with this sort of thing. If only I knew one...

Well, not exactly wild, but certainly frisky. I've borrowed one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/KODAK-Zi6-Pocket-Camcorder-black/dp/B001U77PUA/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top from work. Can you guess why?

Anyway, to put it through its paces, I took it with me when we walked the dogs in Tavistock this evening. Lots and lots of ponies. In a way, they are Dartmoor ponies, since they're ponies and they're on Dartmoor. Really though, they're Shetlands. Anyway, lots of them either had foals or looked as if they were about to. So I filmed some, and uploaded the video to YouTube:



Incidentally, the small stone hut you can see briefly off to the left was designed by Lutyens.

After several years of arguing that I didn't want one, I have finally succumbed to peer pressure.

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They breed you know. Speakers that is. I've just counted how many we have in our living room.

It's nineteen.

NINETEEN!

Nineteen is:
a) the average age of a combat soldier in the Vietnam War and
b) a hell of a lot of speakers for one room.

Is our living room abnormal in this respect?

How many speakers does the typical living room contain?