I’m having great difficulty deciding what to cover today. On Friday, I arrived home to two packages that I’d been waiting for all week (and hoping to cover on Friday, as I’d expected them sooner). These were the Debian GNU/Linux CD I mentioned on Wednesday, and two CDs, AC/DC’s Razors Edge and Anthony Stewart Head’s Music for Elevators, from Amazon. Not only that, but yesterday I finished reading Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch, which I had hoped to review upon completion[1]. And it occurs to me that I had intended to go shopping today (I got a voucher for HMV and their sale, AFAIK, is still on).In light of all of this, I think I’ll leave it at:
Linux:
Tried. Failed. Tried harder. Failed harder. Tried again. Quit. I have, as I had before, a Pentium 133MHz with no operating system to speak of. That is, it has DOS 6.22, which I prefer not to speak of.
Music:
I like. Usually I like albums more as I grow accustomed to them. I know I’ll appreciate these two more in the coming weeks of hour-and-a-half bus journeys. Plus it alleviates for another while the guilt of KazaA.
Book:
Terry Pratchett is quite clearly the greatest writer that ever lived (may contain traces of hyperbole). The night watch, particularly Vimes, have been my favourite Discworld books since Guards! Guards!, and this one, though not the perfect example (as only Vimes is present, at least in his familiar form, for most of the book), is at least as good as the rest. The night watch books have the most compelling stories, ignoring the humour, of any of Pratchett’s work, while maintaining the same level of wit. A book consisting mostly of Vimes’ internal monologue was, in retrospect, overdue. Far better than The Fifth Elephant and, in my view, a return to form for the watch.
[1] I apologise for all of the Amazon links. They are just for illustrative purposes. I don’t mean to imply that they’re the only online retailer of value.