DS part 10 - final part

I've accepted the blue model more or less. That doesn't mean I wont bee looking into buying another one in the hopefully then right color, but for now I feel like there are more important things to do. And I don't mean playing Professor Layton.

DS part 9

Well, as they say, it never stops.

To get you up to speed, four months ago I fell in love with a specific DS model.

Isn't it beautiful? As you know, I ordered it from China and found out that it was defective. Today I received the replacement unit and what does it look like?

See for yourself:

That's right, it's blue. They sent me the wrong color. At this point I'm really getting curious with what kind of shop I have been in business over there. I'd really like to take a stroll around their offices, probably DS consoles in various stated of disrepair all over while new ones are being brought in in the false bottoms of birdcages. Ah, Hong Kong...

I contacted them and wonder what their response will be. In any case, this unit works, so I don't think I'll be giving it up easily, otherwise it really turns into escalating commitment. If you excuse me now, I'm off to play Zelda.

Donald, again

Two movies with the great Donald Sutherland: Klute and The Eagle Has Landed.

Now on the first, there is little to say, it's a near-perfect thriller with intense drama and surprisingly deep characters. As the say: movies like that are no longer made today.

On the Eagle: Well, during watching it, I felt, that it was disjointed, boring, uninspired and most of all had aged pretty badly. The characters are somewhat stock (especially the Nazi's) and if it weren't for the extraordinary cast, this would have been a near unwatchable war flick, far closer to the Green Berets than to the Dirty Dozen. And while I still think that it has aged pretty badly; from the day-for-night shots to the laughable matte painting at the end, after it was over I thought, that it wasn't so bad.

Not in any way near the Bridge on the River Kwai, which kept me on the edge through the whole finale and still took its time for deep and faceted characters, but 'possibly good' in the 70's.

DS part 8

I got a letter today from a service organisation called GdSK, the "Gesellschaft der Schnellkuriere", asking me about import-taxes details concerning a shipment that's stuck in customs at Frankfurt.

So I hastily compiled all receipts I have (given that I don't want to pay taxes again) and mailed it to them. Let's see...

After all we are like traces in the snow,

We linger a while,

Then go.

--

She and me, it would have never worked out.

We were like snow and running water.

Made from the same stuff.

Yet utterly unable to coincide.

DS part 7

Now, I've been kind of lazy updating on the DS saga. As you know I mailed it back to the eBay-seller in early December and didn't hear much from them apart from "Ok,when we get it,we will inform you immediately,thanks".

After christmas (on 29.12.) I started to get uneasy and mailed them that I would have to turn to eBay and PayPal, if they didn't sent it to me (or at least answered).

I waited until Jan. 10th and prepared to turn to eBay for assistance. Once I logged in, i found a funny little message from my eBay-seller on MyEbay:

"we have received you package. Do you want it replaced or refund. We cannot refund shipping costs."

It was dated Dec. 16th!

Well, that's one of the joys of abandoning your old e-mail address (where eBay sends its messages). I immediately apologized and asked for replacement. The answer came on the same day: The package will be underway within a week.

Let's hope for the best, eh? But I'm not so sure this saga is over. There's still so much that can go wrong...

Weeeell

In a fit of nervousness I baked all stuff I have so far into the main TeX base. In fact, some details and clarifications aside, I thiiink the beast is feature-complete (in the sense that every feature is declared), but who knows. The thing with the duals is still in there at the moment and I am still unsure whether to leave it in there. After all, I just was shown a way to do it the correct way. Naoyoroshi...

On the other hand, I am a bit queasy about the lack of formalism in graph theory. There is to my knowledge no standard-book about infinite graphs, so I would have to develop the theory on Serre's notation. Even if I knew how to do it, it would still take weeks, if not months to do.

The reason I am devoting so much attention to this unlucky part of the thesis is that there is after all some sort of use to it - at least there is a use to having both graphs: Formulating Kulkarni's theory of Farey-Symbols. But what I need for that I still don't know. Some Jordan Curve Theorem would be great, but is difficult to come by for graphs (and I doubt its existence for multigraphs).

Well, I'm to 88 pages now and with details and clarifications I just might reach three digits. Kewl.

Five movies

Watched a few movies in the past two days:

1. Guess who's coming to dinner - hilarious

2. Paths to glory - Kubrick's eye is absolutely astounding

3. The Doomsday Gun - not really good, but acceptable. Kind of like Live from Baghdad, but without Michael Keaton

4. The Court Jester - hilarious

5. The Bridge on the River Kwai - Wow, what a finale

New Year

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, a new year.

All the best, get action!