![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ateolfI discovered that my software had given my old built-like-a-tank disc drive different settings and it was set to the fastest and least reliable level and that's why it was going so much faster. When I put it at the same level...well, it's kind of confusing. One of out three times it did still seem faster (not so crazy fast) but the other two it seemed about the same. Hard to tell precisely as speed varies from disc to disc depending on how long and how long the individual tracks are and how many tracks, etc. But given how noisy and cumbersome the old drive is, I figure I won't do any more ripping from it unless I encounter another weird scenario where I have to. But it is very nice to have a backup tank that can work when these newer drives don't.
Okay, now it's time to blather on about something else! I finished reading The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer yesterday. My reaction was mixed, I guess. Some of the tales are very good and some of them aren't good. I do wish I could have read it in the original Middle English instead of the translation I had (but it's what I had!). What little I looked at the original was very readable (I'm sure there would be more words here and there that I wouldn't understand but mostly I could understand what I saw pretty easily) and I liked the tone of what little of the original I read better than this translation. Also, the translation mostly omits the two prose tales. It gives summaries, but not the full text. I mean, I guess I know they're supposed to be boring (and the last one, The Parson's Tale, is just a straight-up sermon, not even trying to be a story, just a lecture mostly about the seven deadly sins, and even reading the summary was pretty boring-as-hell, but still! I'd have liked the chance to be bored reading the whole thing).
In the afternoon Mary Beth and I went up to the Dixon. The big exhibit that took up most of it was works of Doris Lee. I wasn't familiar with her stuff, but most of the exhibit was very good. I liked her early stuff, then she hit a period where she first brought in more element of folk-art and I wasn't as much into that era (I mean, it was alright) then as it went on she slowly started mixing in more abstract elements and I started liking it more in the middle (and even more by the end) and then she'd continually throughout her career break out more and more towards abstraction. (Hey, I'm a sucker for abstract art!) And of course we got to see the permanent (mostly) Impressionist collection in the back. Mary Beth even bonded with the security guard over the Judith painting. In the smaller contemporary wing there was an exhibit of paintings by Emily Ozier (mostly on a theme of her mother's immigration from Cuba as a child). Lots of bright pastels, Impressionist-influenced (but with its own distinct mark), and a whole heaping of texture from mixed media and clumped-up paint. Looking at pictures of some of the paintings online only gives a little bit of a sense of it since you're not getting any of 3D element. After art, we walked around a little bit on the grounds. It's cold and wintry but not too bad. A nice clear day. Later we went and had dinner at Pho Saigon and it was delicious.
Okay, now it's time to blather on about something else! I finished reading The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer yesterday. My reaction was mixed, I guess. Some of the tales are very good and some of them aren't good. I do wish I could have read it in the original Middle English instead of the translation I had (but it's what I had!). What little I looked at the original was very readable (I'm sure there would be more words here and there that I wouldn't understand but mostly I could understand what I saw pretty easily) and I liked the tone of what little of the original I read better than this translation. Also, the translation mostly omits the two prose tales. It gives summaries, but not the full text. I mean, I guess I know they're supposed to be boring (and the last one, The Parson's Tale, is just a straight-up sermon, not even trying to be a story, just a lecture mostly about the seven deadly sins, and even reading the summary was pretty boring-as-hell, but still! I'd have liked the chance to be bored reading the whole thing).
In the afternoon Mary Beth and I went up to the Dixon. The big exhibit that took up most of it was works of Doris Lee. I wasn't familiar with her stuff, but most of the exhibit was very good. I liked her early stuff, then she hit a period where she first brought in more element of folk-art and I wasn't as much into that era (I mean, it was alright) then as it went on she slowly started mixing in more abstract elements and I started liking it more in the middle (and even more by the end) and then she'd continually throughout her career break out more and more towards abstraction. (Hey, I'm a sucker for abstract art!) And of course we got to see the permanent (mostly) Impressionist collection in the back. Mary Beth even bonded with the security guard over the Judith painting. In the smaller contemporary wing there was an exhibit of paintings by Emily Ozier (mostly on a theme of her mother's immigration from Cuba as a child). Lots of bright pastels, Impressionist-influenced (but with its own distinct mark), and a whole heaping of texture from mixed media and clumped-up paint. Looking at pictures of some of the paintings online only gives a little bit of a sense of it since you're not getting any of 3D element. After art, we walked around a little bit on the grounds. It's cold and wintry but not too bad. A nice clear day. Later we went and had dinner at Pho Saigon and it was delicious.
