Things I Did Yesterday 10/01/10

I'm typing this in blogger, using the Chrome browser while waiting for an application designed to allow desktop management of my Android-powered phone to do its initial setup. I'm Google's mutt, it seems. Should I be scared of how much they know about my habits? Anyway, yesterday they were fully aware that I:

- Worked. Got up quite late, actually, so didn't get much time before work. Just read a few feeds on my phone over coffee, then headed in.

- Frustrating day on the till, though it was still pretty quiet. Managed to get a few bits and pieces done, though working on the Redbridge library standing order is always a bit fiddly and annoying. So many different splits in terms of branch, age range and content, with no doubles.

- Came home after work and had some nice dinner. Didn't really do much that I can remember. Rather uninspired evening!

- Watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for the first time in years. I have such fond memories of the film: queuing outside the Odeon in Leicester Square in the pouring rain to see it at the London Film Festival (with Ang Lee Q&A), then the jaw-dropping impact of that first fight scene. Alex had never seen it and I had a real hankering to watch it again lately, so we popped that on. Unsurprisingly it's still a great film, in fact one of my best of the decade, if I were so inclined to make such a list. It's all wonderfully arch, an action-packed melodrama which pays respect to the best of classic martial arts films, while tipping its head to the likes of Zhang Yimou. One notable thing about this viewing: I watched the English dubbed version for the first time. Alex is dyslexic, so watching subtitled films is a bit of a pain for her. Not that she can't, of course, but she really has to concentrate, which kind of takes her out of the movie. Now, I must admit that I thought a film as big as this would have had a fairly slick dub version, but it really was - with a few notable exceptions - appalling. Still, you do get used to it, and the film is good enough that it soon doesn't matter so much.

- Hit the sack. Tried to start the final book in the Jonathan Maberry trilogy, but quickly decided that maybe I needed a little break, and perhaps should read something a little edifying next, instead. In the meantime I read the latest National Geographic, which has a great article about the Inner and Outer Hebrides that really made me want to head up there and see them.