Knight Rider In Derby On A Leap Year Friday

This week I passed my driving test. I continue to be very happy about it, even now, five days hence.

Today it is raining, and it is cold. I need to go to the Post Office. Not the one five minutes walk away, but the one on the other side of town near the train station where all your parcels end up when they inevitably don't fit through your nostril of a letterbox and the postman still hasn't figured out that your front door bell doesn't work. That one. And it's raining. And it's really cold. Siberia cold.
Northern Norway (recently inaugurated) Seed Bank cold.
Ice sculpture of Jack Nicholson in the maze at the end of The Shining cold.

The car is parked about five minutes (walk) away in the opposite direction of the train station. It occurs to me now that Knight Rider really had no clear domestic application in Los Angeles (is that where it was set? Well, if not, this applies to anywhere where one could wear an open leather jacket with nothing underneath and not get a cough) beyond showing off, and the novelty of having a car with good old dry English charisma to keep you awake on long journeys, or break the tension when your adrenaline level and chance of dying is high.

Were one to have Kit (the name of the car in Knight Rider) in Derby, on a rainy Friday in February on a day that only exists once every four years, one could use the small 'fob' that comes with your keys to request Kit to come and pick you the hell up. Then you could vent spleen on how cold it is:

Me: "Blimey it's cold."
Kit the car from Knight Rider: "Good afternoon Biff. I can confirm that it is indeed 'cold'."
Me: "It's flipping deep space cold."
Kit: "The current temperature in deep space is -500 degrees centigrade. The correct term for this level of cold would be 'sub-zero'. It would be incorrect to compare the outside temperature here with that of deep space."
Me: "Right."
Kit: "Where would you like to go today Biff?"
Me: "Post Office please."
Kit: "The Wardwick or Midland Road?"
Me: "Midland Road please, Kit."
Kit: "Has the postman still not figured out that the bell doesn't work?"
Me: "No, not yet."
Kit: "What an absolute tool."

Brand Name Dilemma

15:01

It is Friday at one minute past three in the afternoon.
I am working in the internet in my front room.
It has started raining. It's gone dark. Like there's been a powercut in the sky. I didn't have the light on, but now I can't see anything.
It's snowing as well.
I am moving the laptop monitor towards my notebook to read my list of things to do. I really can't see a thing.
I hope this isn't permanent.
I'm putting the light on.

365 Films: January

I made some resolutions when 2007 became 2008 (this took approximately two days).
Looking at the list, most of them are actually tasks. Not tasks...more like projects. Definitely not targets.
One of these projects is this one: to watch 365 films in 2008.

I like films. That's one of my reasons for doing it. If I didn't like films I probably wouldn't bother, unless I really wanted to like films. Even then 365 of them is not a little extreme (that's one a day).

I don't think I saw enough films in 2007. That's another reason. I am a hoarder. I hoard and collect things. This isn't exclusive to objects. It applies also to things like 'knowledge' and 'culture'. I wouldn't mind staying in a bit more in 2008. I was out a lot in 2007. There are many reasons.

Here are the films I watched in January (there are 31 days in January and there are 31 films in this list, which means I'm on target.) I enjoyed every single one of these films:

1. Dirty Dancing, 2. Before Sunrise, 3. Before Sunset, 4. Sense & Sensibility, 5. Twenty-Four Seven, 6. Blade Runner, 7. Meet The Fockers, 8. All Quiet On The Western Front, 9. The Great Train Robbery, 10. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, 11. Who's That Knocking At My Door, 12. Survive Style 5+, 13. Primer, 14. Zodiac, 15. I'm Not There, 16. Tideland, 17. Elf, 18. Spellbound, 19. The Beat That My Heart Skipped, 20. Rain Man, 21. Falcons, 22. Helvetica, 23. Inner Space, 24. The Last Kiss, 25. Spiderman Three, 26. Zeitgeist, 27. Cinema Paradiso, 28. Lives Of Others, 29. Bubba Ho-Tep, 30. Shopgirl, 31. Hallam Foe.

Some of these films I had seen before, but that isn't an issue. But if I watch any of them again in 2008 they won't count. That's the rules.