Micks' Musings

England against India is on Foxtel tonight and it started being shown at about 10.45pm. However the match started several hours earlier. This is one of the things that annoys me about live sport. Why delay the telecast when what was on was prerecorded and old sports shows? And if they must delay the telecast then why not just show a quick highlights package of about five minutes and then go to live coverage? I would rather get to watch two or three hours of live coverage than the full match if it is delayed. Live sport is what I want!

We have all finished the Deathly Hallows. When will we ever see anything like Harry Potter again? Will people ever queue up again for a book like they did for the final Harry Potter book several saturdays ago? I am reading the Philosophers Stone with Christopher. It really is a magical (pun intended) book. We are all better off that it was published and we got to travel with Harry and his friends on their journey. It made children read, what can be more magical than that?

I queued up for an hour to pick up the last Harry Potter book this morning. Some people were actually upset at the length of the queue and asked how to complain. If the queue had bothered me I would have waited until the afternoon however as I had pre-ordered and wanted the Hedwig toy I was prepared to queue. An hour wasn't very long and most people were happy to wait even those with little muggles in their arms! We won't see Ellen for a while!

Actually a few things have happened in the last week. Mum and Dad returned from their jaunt around Europe, I have had a weeks holiday and it has rained for most of the week. People are starting to complain about the rain! Canberra is still on level 3 water restrictions and the dams have only crept back up to about forty percent of capacity but after about a month of rain (not all the time or we would be having floods like they have had in other parts of Australia) it would be nice to see some sunshine for more than half an hour at a time. It is also cold so that adds to the misery!! The bad news about my parents Europe trip is that my Dads new digital SLR (camera) was stolen two days before they were due to return. Unfortunately he had a single large capacity memory card so he also lost all the pictures that he had taken. This has made me rethink getting a really large memory card and to stick with smaller cards for when (Louise would say "if" at this point) we go on holiday....

I had to build a new computer when the motherboard in my personal computer developed a few faults and is being replaced. So I have been trying out Windows Vista. I must admit to being underwhelmed. Different versions of the Video drivers have caused lockups at inconvenient moments (is there a convenient moment ?), the Aero effects are nice but I turned them off as every time you run a non-compliant (with Aero) program the display flicks off and on (annoying!!), the explorer directory window will not show the total size of the files on the status bar unless you select all the files and the details view has had all the items changed and about 500 extra items added. Duration is now called Length, Dimensions is now two items and so on. Installation is improved over XP but it really depends on your hardware. I could not get all the hardware supported for an ASUS A8S-X motherboard until I installed XP first and upgraded to Vista. Trying to install XP drivers for the motherboard and othe...

"My Grandma Lived In Gooligulch" was very good. Well worth seeing. We went to the Kingston Miniature Railway and had a good time. Auntie Anna was there for a short while but went home to bed as she was not feeling very well. Chris, Louise and I went for a train ride on Bunyip, a miniature steam train, and Chris and I went for a ride on the Santa Fe. Later Chris, Louise and I went for a ride in a full size diesel railcar at the Railway Museum. Whose birthday was it? Mine or Christophers? Arabella thanked me for linking to her blog. Arabella is my niece. She is 9 and three quarters and a blogging veteran.

This weekend we have a number of things planned for the new teenager in the house. On saturday we are all (if we can persuade the two oldest teenagers to come) going to "My Grandma Lived In Gooligulch". This is a stage adaptation of the Graeme Base book. Then on sunday it is party time at the Kingston Miniature Railway. Great fun for a steam train enthusiast as the little trains are all (mostly?) steam driven. I reckon Chris and I will get a all day pass each!