E-Bay rush

I used e-bay for the first time in years the other night to find myself a new amplifier. My old Sherwood amp (from 1984) died a couple of months back. I used the conventional wisdom (lore) of waiting until 1 minute before the close of bidding, and whacking in my highest offer.... but although I was winning the bid for another 20 seconds, I was surpassed by a trivial amount, and so I wacked up another $10, and squeezed ahead in the last few seconds. It was quite a rush! Got me a nice Luxman '70s number for $185.50, and now I'm waiting with baited breath for the postie.... |<

Conflation of Science Fiction and History

I made an embarassing faux pas today, emailing an obituary of the Tongan King to a Samoan friend. The main reason I transposed Tonga for Samoa in my head was that I'd been reaing Rudy Rucker's Realware recently. The obituary had mentioned several technological advances made by the Tongan King, including support of geostationary sattelites over Tonga, which are echoed in the novel, but in the novel the setting is Samoa, and the charachter is the Samoan King of about 2050 (who's in a relationship with a 'Moldie', which is an intelligent piece of peizoplastic, supported by various chemical reactions in its symbiotic fungi).

Sorry Ron!

Windy Today

I got blown off my bike on the way to work today... luckily I was just about stationery, so I put out a hand and a foot, and got off with a light palm scuffing. |<