Sunday, February 22, 2009

Latelies

We have entered one of those periods of time where real life takes over and the outgoing data feed thins.

What's happened lately?

- I'm wrangling to figure out how to get a free car home, a '92 Lincoln with a bad transmission.

- I'm in posession of a new 10 gallon air tank to assist with such retrieval

- Friday I come home to find water flowing down my driveway. 4 hours and $575 later, I've installed a new 40 gallon "energy smart" water heater, and have a brace of new plumbing tools.

- Friday, being handy was demonstrated to be a wonderful thing.

- I just finished hooking up one used intel Mac Mini to my big screen via HDMI. I cannot express just how absolutely freaking *gorgeous* the picture is, and it plays fullscreen 1080i video without a hitch, even streaming TV episodes from NBC.com and upscaled DVDs. Now I just have to figure out the audio portion.... and as much as I'd hate to not route through the TV for this, I may have to bypass. I like to use as few user steps as possible, and I've got it set up now that audio switches with the video source on the television, and the surround reciever stays on one source. I do this because my ancient surorund reciever's remote has *teeny* tiny buttons.

- I will probably very soon need to find myself a new cellphone. The buttons are beginnning to stick on my old standby. Damned thing's only 6 years old, can't imagine what's wrong...

That is all. I now resume my previous activity of watching Patton in HD.

8 Comments:

Blogger drjim said...

I bought a Harmony One remote for my system. You program it with a USB cable, and can set it up to run all your gear with very few button pushes. They also have some lower cost units if One is too pricey for you. Chameleon also makes good remotes at very reasonable prices.
Jim

11:41 PM  
Blogger Dr. StrangeGun said...

DrJim,

Well, as I have it set up now, I use the TV remote for power and input selection (rarely), and the cable DVR remote for cabley things. I don't really need a super-duper systems integration remote control, because I have everything set up for minimum input.

11:59 PM  
Blogger drjim said...

OK...thought you were looking for a "Do-It-All" type of solution.

12:17 AM  
Blogger Home on the Range said...

I had the hot water heater fun last year, on a day several people were arriving to stay here for a gun bloggers event. When the fellow put it in, a pipe gave way from an earlier botched repair by parties prior to my purchase of the home. So no water for most of the day and evening.

If things break, they always seem to do so at the worst time.

11:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Patton is an awesome movie.

9:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I use a Harmony 880 (the IR unit). Its been a marriage saver, really. You can find the 880's for as little as $70 for factory refurbs, or $100 new sometimes on sale. The 890 is the same model, but with a RF signal. Bit more spendy, but still nice.

Anyhoo, I've got a question, and its a short one, but a deep one. What in the world makes the 1911's so incredibly popular, given the amount of work that goes into them to make them as reliable as some other sidearms at fractions of the price?

6:58 PM  
Blogger drjim said...

Reliable? Both of mine go bang every time I pull the trigger.Feed them decent ammo, keep them clean, and they'll run forever. As far as accuracy goes, it was true that a GI 1911 could take lots of work to turn into a tack-driver, but then they were built loose enough to tolerate all the battlefield gunk that would get into them.
I don't think they're a pistol for everyone, as they take some training and practice to get the most out of them, but once you've used one for a while, you'll enjoy it immensely.

7:15 PM  
Anonymous Windy Wilson said...

"If things break, they always seem to do so at the worst time."
I think there is some sort of ESP-type link between household stuff and the hardware stores that carry the repair supplies.

And, as to your telephone, Take it back to the service provider, you should be able to get lots more years of use out of it. I have one from 2002 that is on its second battery (last year, btw), and while the keys have had the protective layer worn off and are a bit sticky, they do not stick.

5:09 PM  

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