This & that

I have a holiday tomorrow.  I mention this only because it's the first time in my working life that I've ever had a holiday on Veteran's Day.  I didn't even know about it until this past Monday, and in fact there were still a few people in my department who didn't find out about it until just this morning.  I lost the list of our scheduled holidays for this year, but I already have next year's and it isn't on the list for next year.  So I don't know what's going on.  Maybe they decided to add it at the last minute?  I don't know.

I got in a fresh pound of Bayou Night today, which as I have mentioned is my favorite pipe tobacco.  My substitute that was made simply by mixing up some Virginia and Perique was okay, but I had gone overboard with the Perique and was running out, so the last batch I mixed didn't have much in it.  Straight bulk Virginia is kind of bland and sweet.  Better than nothing (better than straight burley, for example [in my opinion]), but pretty boring.

I discovered on Netflix yesterday that there are two animated series made from Discworld books:  Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music.  Made in the U.K.  The first is made up of six 24-minute episodes, the second is seven 24-minute episodes.  I've read Wyrd Sisters so I decided to watch it first.  So far I've watched only the first episode--tried to watch episode 2 today but I was feeling quite drained and fell asleep.  Of course they aren't as good as the books, because Pratchett is so good at describing things, and his method doesn't translate well to the screen.  Still, I enjoyed that one episode that I did watch and am looking forward to seeing the rest.  Christopher Lee does the voice of Death, although his voice is electronically altered--deepened and echoed.  I don't recognize any of the other voice actors.  The animation is a little odd, especially in the way the characters' faces look--there seems to be a preponderance of reddened noses.  By the way, the TV versions of The Colour of Magic and Hogfather are also available for streaming on Netflix--two 2-hour episodes each.

I found a site called 19 Nocturne Boulevard that does "radio" dramas.  Today I listened to part 1 of their version of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" and I liked it.  It isn't just a straight reading of the story, but has been adapted to sound like a real radio drama, although made for downloading rather than broadcasting.  You can find it here.  It's in four episodes of about 33 minutes each.  They don't focus exclusively on Lovecraft, but on horror tales in general.

The cooler weather has made working much easier and nicer.  I got rained on a little Tuesday when that norther blew through, but not much.  The funny thing about Tuesday was, I went from using the air conditioner in my company truck to using the heater and then back to the a/c again before the day was over.

We are in the middle of a project of changing out old meters with new ones, so if you have a meter that's more than 15 years old there's a good chance it will be swapped with a new one before we're done.  I did my cycle 11 route yesterday--that's the one that's all alleys at Rittiman & Harry Wurzbach.  It's the worst foot route I've ever done and mentioning it can make meter readers wince if they've ever done it before.  My previous best time on it was 3 1/2 hours, and that was in the summer of 2009 when it didn't rain at all for a long time and nothing was growing in the alleys all summer long.  This time, because of all the new meters that had been installed, I did it in my fastest ever time of 3 1/4 hours.  Previously this year it was taking me 4 hours or longer.  That was the route where I attempted the video the other day.  By the way, a meter is supposed to be swapped out with a new one when it reaches 15 years or 1200 units (1200 centicubic feet).  There were quite a lot of 30-year-old (and some older) meters out there before this project started.

And if you live around here I'm sure you've already heard that the other w4t3r company has been dissolved and will be taken over by my company of employment.  I don't know anything about that and if I did I wouldn't be allowed to talk about it, so don't bother asking.