It’s Monday, and we start a new unofficial tradition by adding the purchase of vending machine hot chocolate–a treat for the Kinderbesten to start the day with–to our ritual Monday morning visit to the gas station.
I take an early lunch at work so I can visit my local Thingz store, which has yet another sale on. I come back with another knitted cushion, and two mammoth fluffy cushions (they are literally called mammoth cushions, though fortunately not made with actual mammoth fur). I am very pleased with my new cushions. The Kinderbesten are equally pleased, and instantly divide up the spoils amongst themselves, leaving me with a single, sad, knitted cushion.
I let the cushion thing go: tonight is all about the Game Of Thrones finale–or, at least, it’s supposed to be. About ten minutes into the episode, my download begins to stutter. I try the same file on the two other devices I have that can stream from Plex. No dice. I try loading the file onto a USB stick and playing it directly. None of my devices will even read the file: it’s dodgy! I go and search for a different version to download. I find one, but cancel it when it tells me it’ll take three hours to download. I don’t have three hours: Monday night is my one night in front of the TV, and things are getting critical.
I try downloading the same file again, thinking something might have gone awry in the download. It takes about twenty minutes and, unsurprisingly, delivers me exactly the same file that I had before. I notice that the file plays fine on the PC, via Plex. I try playing it on my iPad. It appears to play fine. And … continues to play fine. It’s not exactly the widescreen, surround sound viewing experience I was expecting for the finale, but it’s surprisingly acceptable. I can see myself starting to watch more things on the iPad after this.