Pieter Casteels

Pieter Casteels (1684 – 1749)

Mozart: 9 Variations sur un menuet de Duport en Ré Majeur, K.273 (Aldo Ciccolini)

I started writing the post I published yesterday on March 10, 2012, and it is dated accordingly.  Technologies!  It deals with Alexandre Dumas, père’s novel about Marguerite de Valois.  He wrote a novel about her entitled Queen Margot or La Reine Margot.

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I hope that when I finally grow up and know which month and which day we are, I may also have a better understanding of new technologies.  At the moment, as soon as I am somewhat familiar with a gadget, a new one is put on the market and mine has become obsolete.  It’s called “planned obsolescence,” which is quite the trouvaille (find), for the manufacturer.

The same is true of kitchen appliances.  They are made to last approximately five years.  Where appliances are concerned, most of us are currently too poor not to purchase the very best with a lifetime warranty.  In the long-term, you will have paid the higher price because of your numerous calls to the technician.  Remember that he or she does not come to your home for less than a $100.00.

As for your furniture, chose the classics and chose something you know you can live with.  If it is the last fad, or dernier cri, stay away.  As well, buy bookcases that have clean lines just so they will match your cat’s Louis-Philippe day bed.  At any rate, what you need has probably been discarded and might be sitting in the basement or in the attic, if you have a basement or an attic.  Your parents bought it in the 1950s or 1960s.

In other words, do not do as Mr Toad does, i. e. fall into temptation, except a few.  Mr Toad is the main character in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908).  He goes crazy when he hears the siren of a car and puts himself behind the wheel of a vehicle that is not his.  He lands in jail.

You will not land in jail by purchasing the latest, but you may run up a debt because by now you have the essential credit card and using it does not feel the same as taking ‘real money’ out of one’s wallet.

My computer is fairly new, but there will soon be a ‘better’ product that I will require because my nearly new computer will be a dinosaur.  My computer has become essential equipment.

Pieter Casteels

March 13, 2012