Well, it’s been a little over three weeks since my last proper update so I’ve forced myself at fingers-looking-like-a-gun point to write another.

If you’ve been paying attention you might remember that I’ve briefly mentioned before that I’m getting a new power-chair — things in my life that I look forward to have a habit of going horribly wrong if I talk about them too much beforehand, so I’ve purposely kept my mouth shut on the details about this. However, the order has finally been placed (after my local friendly Wheelchair Services got their arthritic pet tortoise to sort out the paperwork) and the company supplying the aforementioned item have provisionally promised a pre-Christmas delivery. I say “provisionally” because two days before my order went in an American company placed a similar order … for a dozen chairs. Arse. Still, I can wait. It’s what I do. And I’ll tell you what: tick follows tock follows tick follows tock.

My current set-up is: motorised chair in the house giving independence and freedom; manual chair out of the house causing dependence and frustration. The new fandangled ride is an indoor and outdoor chair so I’m looking forward to being able to help on supermarket trips, go shopping at my own pace, pay for drinks at the bar and buy tickets at the cinema — the latter two of these are of particular significance as a couple of the people I frequent those places with find it amusing to refuse to take my money and to push me to the bar/counter. Vengeance will be mine … oh yes.

On a geeky note, I finally got hold of the latest version of Apple’s operating system: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. I’ve been using it since Monday and, whilst there are some rather annoying changes that have been lambasted on all the usually Mac websites, I am on the whole liking it. Stacks is great apart from the way the icons are shown in the dock — I’ve used the “create a folder with a space as a name and set it’s icon as the one you want to see” approach. I’m patiently waiting for an updated version of Candybar so I can assert proper control over the look of the desktop — I like things to look how I’d like so I don’t have to rely on reading folder names as I find it takes me a little longer to focus on a word than a picture.

I’ve yet to use Spaces and I’ve a feeling that I probably won’t for a long time yet — I have a habit of closing unneeded applications because I’m so used to trying to keep everything streamlined for maximum efficiency. I guess I need to get out of that habit as the 2 gigabytes of RAM in my MacBook are rarely more than about two thirds full and the processor only ever breaks a sweat during a HandBrake session.

The much-complained-about dock and translucent menu-bar haven’t really registered on my radar — I always keep my dock on the side (it’s widescreen, not tallscreen) so it’s still good ol’ 2D, the menu-bar on my MacBook hasn’t been a problem and the one on my iMac has stayed opaque for some unknown reason. Hmm.

The reason is no longer unknown: Mac OS X 10.5: Menu bar appears solid instead of translucent. (Via Daring Fireball.)

I’m expecting a couple of pre-ordered items to arrive next week, namely Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on DVD and the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King complete soundtrack — the former I’m pleased about as I enjoyed the book (although it’ll have to be really good to surpass The Prisoner of Azkaban) and the latter … well, I’ve been waiting patiently for that for a year now and to say I’m looking forward to it is a bit of an understatement. Ooh, can’t wait!