Well, the Mets just got swept in a four game series in Puerto Rico. Yeah, the Expos are playing some of their “home” games there. And they swept the Mets. So the Mets are now in last place in the NL East, with a 4-9 record. With the second highest payroll in baseball.
Damn, they suck. And somehow the Royals are 10-1.
But enough baseball, I should probably talk about something else. Of course, I have no idea what that would be. I have done very little of interest lately, really. At least not much that I feel was exciting enough to write about. I’ve been working, bowling, watching far too much Star Trek (thanks to the Tivo and TNN), and cleaning up my apartment a bit. My parents will be here this Friday, so I suppose my place should look somewhat liveable. Only somewhat.
I think I forgot to mention a few weeks ago that the softball season has started. Unfortunately, it’s on Wednesday nights and conflicts with my bowling league. I decided to do both, softball and bowling each every other week. Two weeks ago was softball, where we lost 27-21. Last week was bowling, where we lost all three games, I think. From what I’ve heard, we lost last week’s softball game by the same score of 27-21. Wednesday night I’m playing softball again.
My webhost changed some of my settings for me, so my trackback pings are working now. I’ve actually now gotten one trackback, so I think I should be getting around to making the trackback page look reasonable. Maybe. Sometime.
I’d like to write more, but I won’t, for two reasons. First, I really have nothing else to say. Second, I need to get back to cleaning this place up.
I don’t know how I survived with my old Dish PVR 501. It really was just a digital glorified VCR. Tivo is so much more. Even without all the stuff I’ve done to it, it would be a vast improvement, but after I was done with it – actually, I’m not done yet – it is infinitely more useful. I put in a program name, it records. No setting up timers, no manual conflict resolution. Well, one manual timer, because The Daily Show listing information doesn’t have proper episode information, and I get three a day (and prevent other programs from recording) otherwise.
As if all that wasn’t enough, I can now telnet, ftp, and install software. I can access all Tivo features from my web browser. I can set up recordings, see what’s currently being recorded, manage all my recorded programs from work – or anywhere. I can, with a few simple commands, copy a recorded program from the Tivo to my computer. I can even have it show up on my TV screen when people log on and off of AIM, although that’s currently disabled until I make some changes to it. The only thing it doesn’t seem to do to my liking is play mp3s. The processor isn’t quite fast enough, and they skip too much (skipping at all is too much.)
In case you couldn’t tell, I’m very pleased with my Tivo purchase. With a pair of these (which I got on eBay), I can even use my Tivo’s remote from my bedroom, and watch TV there. I’ve programmed my receiver’s remote to do everything the Tivo remote does, so I don’t even have to move the remote around. To top all of this off, I’m going to be selling my old satellite receiver for more than I paid for the Tivo.
If anyone else is interested into hacking their Tivo, the two main resources I used to do it are:
And of course, don’t forget to visit the Tivo Community Forums
I’ve really been wanting to write about Vegas here for a while. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. I’ve wanted Vegas to get written about here, but not actually wanted to do it. That’s why it hasn’t actually gotten done. But now it finally will…
I’ll start right where I left off… Barstow. Andrew and I ate at the In-n-Out and then started back out on the road towards Vegas. Well, after playing with the cantenna a bit trying (and failing) to get online. I was able to see several different wireless networks, but not able to connect to any of them. We made pretty good time, and got in before 2. Most of the group we were meeting had split up for the night, so I just played with the cantenna from the hotel room in the Sahara, trying to get online. Again, failure. Same thing that happened in Barstow. I was able to see a bunch of different wireless networks (and certainly more than I could without the can attached), but not able to connect to any of them. Oh well. I didn’t really miss being online during the weekend… probably mostly because I was still on AIM the whole time with my Treo. After failing to get online, I went to sleep.
Woke up the next day around ten. We finally managed to get the whole group together around 11:30 or so, and walked to the Hilton for lunch and the Star Trek Experience. We all signed up for the Hilton’s players cards, so we got two for one prices on the buffet and the ST:E ride. As we were walking from the food to the ride, one of us won $500 at a slot machine, and he decided to pay for the ride for all of us (Thanks, Charlie!). The ride was very cool. First off, I think it was possibly the first ride I’ve ever been on where waiting in line didn’t involve just standing around doing nothing. The whole way up to the ride entrance has lots of cool Trek related stuff to read and look at, and we actually had to slow down to look at all of it. The ride itself was a lot of fun, and at the end they let you buy a picture of yourself with the crew of your favorite Star Trek series. Mine turned out awful, otherwise I might have actually gotten one. We all decided that Wil should go there and get one of himself with the TNG cast, since he’s not in the picture. We also were going to send him a postcard with himself on it, but never got around to it.
I don’t really remember what we did the rest of that day. Well, I don’t remember what we did for the next few hours, anyway. After that, I played some Caribbean Stud for about an hour, and then went to see Billy Joel and Elton John. It was a great concert, and I’m glad I finally got to see the two of them together, but now I actually know (instead of just assuming) that I like Billy Joel alone better. Still, it was well worth the cost of the ticket, and good to see Billy Joel live again. The concert ended fairly late, so we had a quick meal afterwards, and then went back to the hotel to get some sleep.
Sunday we just relaxed and wandered around, pretty much. I met up with Brian, a friend from New York who happened to be in Vegas working that weekend, and we gambled a bit. Other than that, I don’t really remember much of interest happening. It was fun just walking the strip and seeing the different hotels. We stayed there until around 2am, and then started the drive back to LA. We made pretty good time, until we hit the LA morning traffic, but still got back with plenty of time for Andrew to get to class, and me to drive back to Santa Barbara to get to work on time.
I was planning to write about some of the stuff I’ve done since Vegas here, but this entry is kinda long, so that’ll have to wait.
I’m sitting in an In-n-Out in Barstow waiting for my food. Posting from the Treo with KABLOG. After food, it’s back out on the road towards Vegas.
I finally have my digital cable installed (and the guy who installed it used to live in the apartment next to mine. Funny.), so my Tivo is now actually useful. I couldn’t be happier. It really is an amazing little device. I’ve ordered my TurboNet from 9th Tee and will soon start doing cool things with it. For one, I don’t have unlimited local calling (because I never use my landline) so I don’t want to keep the Tivo connected to my phone line. It’s fairly simple to set up to the Tivo to get the listings over the internet instead (still with Tivo service, not circumventing that in any way.) Then, I want to get TivoWeb running and let me, among other things, control my Tivo from my Treo. Couldn’t get any geekier than that. My satellite receiver goes on eBay as soon as I get back from Vegas.
Michael has notified me that trackback pings to me don’t actually work. I’m looking into it. Maybe when they work, I’ll get around to make the trackback pages not be so awful. They really need work.
Oh yeah, before I forget: I bowled a 548 last night (194-176-178). Not bad at all.
Guess that’s it. Goodnight.
Toilet
I forgot to mention here last time that my toilet was nice enough to go and break on me this weekend. This is what became of the nice plastic flush handle.
So, it was off to Home Depot to pick up a new one, after I decided to stop being lazy about it (and realized krazy glue just wouldn’t hold). I picked up a nice metal one this time, so hopefully it won’t be breaking any time soon. Here’s me screwing it in… damn thing was reverse threaded and I didn’t read the packaging – took me like ten minutes to figure out why I couldn’t do it.
And here’s the completed job. And it actually works. I can flush my toilet again.
Cantenna
I got the pigtail and other miscellaneous parts for my cantenna today, and put it together. I got it working reasonably well, once I figured out that I have to push the pigtail connector all the way into the wireless card. I saw 9 or 10 networks pointing out my window, most of the with no security. I was able to get online easily with three of them, and didn’t try any of the others. I’m pleased.
Everyone always complains about getting a window of 4 or 6 hours to wait for the cable company. They gave me a nice 2-hour window (8-10am) on a weekend, so I was pretty happy with that. And then they didn’t show up. So I called them, and it turns out they had no record of my appointment whatsoever. This reminds me of the frustration some players face when dealing with offshore gambling sites, even those kasyna akceptujące bitcoin, where issues like non-payment or lack of customer support can occur. I’m annoyed because I woke up much earlier on a weekend than I normally would have, and I have to be at home Thursday between 6pm-8pm now. It’s not really a big deal, because I don’t have the Tivo yet, so I won’t be canceling the satellite service yet, but I’m still really annoyed. At least I’ll (hopefully) end up with a $20 credit on my bill because of it. They say if they’re late for an appointment, you get that… since they didn’t have a record of my appointment, I don’t know. But I’d better get it.
While dealing with the cable company was frustrating, it did give me a chance to multitask during the unexpected downtime. I used those extra hours to initiate a Georgia real estate search, browsing through potential new homes. The convenience of sifting through listings online contrasted sharply with the morning’s earlier disarray. Despite the day’s rocky start, I found myself immersed in virtual tours and neighborhood statistics, making the most of the time that should have been spent waiting for the cable technician. It’s amazing how technology can both complicate and simplify our lives – one moment it’s a missing appointment, the next, it’s the gateway to finding a dream home in Georgia.
Not much else interesting since I last posted here. I had two baseball fantasy drafts this weekend, for a total of three fantasy teams I’ll have for this season. Exciting life I live, isn’t it?
I’m going to Vegas this weekend. In preparation for that, I’m going to be building myself a cantenna. The parts are on the way, and should show up this week. I don’t expect it will take longer than 10 or 20 minutes to get the whole thing together. Now I just have to get a can to use with it…
I should probably be getting to sleep, so that’s all I’ll say for now.
I want to avoid talking about war as much as possible, but felt I should at least let people know that I’m know we’re at war. That’s all I’m going to say on the subject.
Wednesday night, of course, means bowling. Threw a 536 tonight (175-189-172). Not bad, but it should have been much better. I had a total of 6 open frames, 5 of which were a single pin. And they weren’t the ten pin. I picked up 5 or 6 of those, and never missed it. No, I had to miss the four pin, 4 times! That’s just ridiculous. I did managed to get it once on a spare, but only with the 7 pin standing as well. I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t hit it today. The other single pin spare that I missed was a 6 pin. I was happy with my scores, but not really happy with how I got there.
Major League Baseball has cancelled the season openers that were supposed to take place in Japan, for the safety of the players and everyone else involved. As much as it sucks (especially for Japanese fans), I think it was probably the right decsision. So baseball season doesn’t start for a little while longer, but it’s still coming up pretty soon. I can’t wait. The NL East looks to be a competitive division this year, and the Braves are (finally) looking vulnerable.
Nothing else to say. Sorry.
|
All content Copyright © 2002-2009 Alan Penner Powered byWordPress, Penner Hosting and Superb Internet |
 penner42 |
Redistribution is permitted under the terms of this Creative Commons License |