ode to portal... & the arguments for & against going backwards

spent the day alternating between playing the piano & lusting after portal 2 in a few different ways....

for example... for the last few hours i've been completely caught in this flash version of portal... E got in a little while ago & i was desperately stuck @ level 37 (of 40)...

& then before that i was devouring all the youtube portal 2 stuff...

from this to this... to this... it just looks amazing...

but i will need a more powerful computer... it's possible it will run on steam for the mac... and therefore on my lovely G5... which would be odd because i originally wanted to keep that computer just for the music... something i'm failing to do already...

& the G5... hmmmmmmm...

which is now running OS 10.5 so well... i'm considering going back to 10.4...

you see i got hold of something back then, something i wanted, and on trying to install it my mac told me i needed 10.5...

so i managed eventually to go up to 10.5... by which time i'd deleted (by accident) the desirable thing... a few weeks later and lovely D gave the desirable thing to me again (i'd given it to him on 1st getting hold of it) and i duly sat down and installed it... but after everything... it just refused to work... and a little bit of research (which i wish i'd done back then) told me that it wasn't only that i need 10.5... it was that i needed an intel mac... which i don't have...

so i looked at another - older version of the desirable thing... & it turns out that version will only run on 10.4...

also today i tried to do something which it seemed to me the only way i could actually do it would be to reinstall 10.5 - and therefore i may as well go back to 10.4...

and the piano playing?

alternating between a new composition & "we've only just begun" which i learnt for a student on monday and which i'm really enjoying singing...

x

finches portal dance

currently queuing for the finches... the 2nd monday in a row... after me & felinity came here for her 30th x

these days i'm playing portal... a game that's become free on steam (i heard about it on charlie brookers twitter)... it's great, it stretches my little computer...

i took a really slow train back from brighton last night, after a truly lovely weekend with grace & josiah, also catching a bit of mr dance, and a great actual dance/movement piece called expresso that josiah's downstairs neighbour was in... fantastic...

so i was on the train that took 2 & a half hours to make the hour or so long trip... i was a bit spangled (mark turned up just before i left & we piped a little before getting into a large one about israel/palestine) and i spent some of the time gazing at the fieldlines thing, some time reading, although i only had the new scientist with me & i was having trouble taking it in...

so i spent quite a bit of time in portal... it works better when @ home with my larger monitor, but it works ok with this little screen just so long as the character doesn't go into any really large rooms... i'm not sure if she can go into large rooms alright @ home, but for sure my little computer starts slowing right down when the distances get bigger with the little screen...

so for example i would be puzzling over this massive room right now but i know it would just frustrate me... hence blogging...

.............................................

ok, finches done, sat out in the dazzling sunshine after having eaten a pasta dish served up by the waterside cafe... thought i recognised a woman in with the funches as felinity's friend... with her daughter, who would be felinity's goddaughter if it was them... but i didn't make contact...

also a few finches landed on me a few times... put me in mind of the rilke poem about the birdfeeder...

very pleasing all round... and now i think about it.. i got a text yesterday from felinity showing me something she made from a book i made her get last monday while out for her birthday and she might be offering it to me...?

or she might be making another one for me... pictures when it arrives...

happy day x