Archived News starting from 05-25-2005 and earlier
BlogAfter getting back from vacation, my
XP Media Center was not
recording shows anymore.
Duane informed me his media center is not
playing any shows but
Steve has had no problems whatsoever. The apparently random occurences had me convinced it was a software problem so I decided to reload from a previous backup instead of trying to troubleshoot it. Once I had re-imaged the machine, I noticed live TV would randomly black out. After a few reboots it would work again. I checked to make sure I was getting consistent signal from the cable line and have decided it's a problem with the
tuner card. The blackouts would explain the lack of recorded shows since Media Center just quits when there is no signal. It could just be a faulty card, but
Steve has not had to reboot his machine for almost a month. He does not allow his machine to suspend which means it's on all the time. Bad for power bills, but apparently good for stability and possibly hardware components as well. I'm sure my machine has turned on and off at least 2 times a day for the past year and all that power cycling may have also affected the tuner card negatively. My suspend is off and a new card is on order. I'll see if this theory holds for the next year.
I came home today at 6:40pm to find the maple tree in my front yard
significantly smaller than I remembered. Fortunately Missy was still hacking away so my first thought of a tree rebellion was ruled out. I've
checked the polls and found this was a well received change with over a 90% approval rating. She did such a good job I let her trim up all the other trees and weed whip my entire yard with an electric model and a cord too short to reach everywhere.
Every year, for the past 3 years, my work gives everyone a Las Vegas vacation including hotel and airfare.
This year was the longest one yet spanning 4 days and 3 nights. I had grand plans to visit Hoover Dam and Area 51 but they were squashed by a persistant sore throat that air conditioning and desert air did not help. Fortunately
Brian suggested playing Blackjack which turned out to be some good advice. I wound up with an extra $50 in my pocket just by sitting at a table for a few hours. According to the majority of those that went, it's the game with the best odds. I found out
some people left with over $800 so my $50 victory was quickly overshadowed. The volcano didn't erupt as regular and the pirate ships in front of Treasure Island are now some kind of teen drama but other than that it's the same Vegas as before.
My GPS software told me to drive up I-77 instead of I-75 to return home. I never question technology so naturally I'm
following the route it told me to
presently. Missy has been driving for 7 hrs straight now and keeps asking for a break. I told her I have important things to do on the laptop and to shut up. Her sacrifice is bringing you this update, so appreciate it accordingly. My right rear tire is leaking air in protest of one too many SCCA races, so if I don't make it back the tire most likely blew up on a bridge and we fell 300 feet to our doom. Totals for the trip so far: 6 dead semi truck tires, 4 dead animals, 3 tanks of gas, 12 Hondas revving their engines at me and 5 vehicles with rainbow stickers (significantly less than our trip down, but we aren't north of I-80 yet).
Today concluded my annual
Florida Vacation. The trip down was my first time driving straight through to Florida. I drove 7:00pm to midnight, Missy drove midnight to 7:00am, then we alternated before a necessary 2hr nap at a rest stop. Total time was 23.5 hrs (including the nap/gas stops). A visit to Cocoa Beach revealed my favorite restaurant, the Moon Hut, had been sold to a mexican eatery which was rapidly raping the historical significance of the place. I was able to get some photos and make my peace before it was completely destroyed. Ironically, our favorite Mexican place, Azteca II was also shutdown. Is nothing sacred in my beloved Cocoa Beach? Fortunately, the Josephs were available to comfort Missy and I in our time of need. They live on a main street and one out of every five cars blast the song
Gasolina while driving by. Tim quickly made an MP3 CD of the song for me so we could fit in as locals, which we blasted anytime we drove somewhere. We were also allowed to wear the official
Clown Around Orlando wig and got several politically incorrect balloons by Tim. A trip to the Magic Kingdom completed our Whorelando visit, after which Joseph and I grappled heterosexually with his wifes approval. I can only hope that tomorrow FEMA will declare Michigan uninhabitable due to excessive depressing weather and my time in Florida will be extended.
I was sent a link at work today about the 2003 movie called
Malibu's Most Wanted. Not surprisingly, I had never heard of it, and now that it's over 2 years old I can talk about it and maintain my elitist non-conforming reputation since it's borderline commercially expired. The main characters name is B-Rad and that's all I know. According to the few people who have seen it that's all I need to know. I still plan to watch it just to see if the creative minds that came up with B-Rad have any other talents to share with the world. After all, I've been Brad for 27 years now and never came up with B-Rad on my own. It took a movie like this to open my eyes.
My
Cougar has
EBC Green Stuff brake pads as recommended by the SCCA instructor I had run my car last year. I quickly learned they run much hotter than normal brake pads. Unfortunately I learned this after I installed them and consequently, my rotors warp every 5,000 - 10,000 miles. Once the warping starts, I have to get them turned pretty quick or the steering wheel starts to shake out of my hand when I stop. It's only $20 to get them turned, but taking them on and off becomes time consuming so I decided to get some "serious" rotors. Enter the
Power Slot Cryo-Treated Rotors. They are "warp resistant" and are designed for full ceramic pads. I
installed them and they definitely
look sweet. Hopefully I can keep my car off jack stands for another 50,000 miles this time.
At the request of Stavos, the
GnomeCam has been adjusted to compensate for the growth of the japanese maple in my front yard. You have
Missy to thank for the fantastic view.
Stavos told me about
this game and I hate him for it. I just can't stop playing it. It's not even that good of a game. It's the same command and conquer 3rd person type game as Dune 2000, Starcraft, and every other game where you build an army to attack the other guy with. There's only so many variations you can make on the concept, and this one is reusing about 90% of the games that came before it. Still, it's now 2:30am and I'm just now getting the will power to pull myself away from the computer. My only explanation is that they inject subliminal messages during the explosions to keep me playing.
I have an
MSDN Universal subscription through work, which allows me use of every Microsoft product on up to 10 computers at work and home. Unfortunately, due to some paranoia at said place of employment, I'm unable to obtain my login for the subscription and get the latest
Visual Studio 2005 Beta. Enter
Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Beta 2. While a mouthful, it's a totally FREE (and stripped down) version of Visual Studio 2005 Beta. Both use the new
Microsoft.NET 2.0 framework which has oodles (yes, oodles) of new features that make working in the old version seem tedious. A user navigation control I spent over an hour building is now of course a standard item in this new release. Eventually, you will just type what you want into a text box and Visual Studio will return a compiled application. No need for designing or coding. Probably the next release. At any rate, to quote ABC speak, "Now, more than ever" you should download this
latest beta.
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