I want to go fly a kite


March 7th, 2008

I want to go fly a kite.

When was the last time you flew a kite?

Feeling Better


March 6th, 2008

As you might have guessed from the lack of whiny, grey-boxed posts, I’ve been feeling rather better lately. I turned a corner about a week or so ago, and rapidly went from being miserable most of the time to being not-miserable most of the time. I don’t know why; probably my natural recovery mechanisms finally kicking in. I’m still nowhere near where I was before Christmas dropped those two bombshells on me, mind you, but I’m hugely better than I was a couple of weeks ago.

Aside from the occasional bouts of sheer misery, though, there are a couple of lasting effects. First is that I’m still really fragile, and anything sad will set me off. This is the exact opposite of the way I usually am, so it’s weird. The second is that I keep catching myself walking around with my fists clenched. I have to make a conscious effort to relax my hands. So clearly there’s still some anger that needs to be worked out.

HD Transition Complete


March 5th, 2008

Okay, this is the last post on the HD transition, and that’s because it’s finally done! I started talking about it way back in September of 2006, and I’ve been upgrading in bits and pieces ever since.

Well, the last piece is in place. I got the TiVo Expander, and I switched all of my season passes that could be switched over to the HD versions. I can now play games, watch movies, and record and watch TV shows, all in HD.

Now there’ll be more interesting posts, I promise.

RIP Gary Gygax


March 5th, 2008

Gary Gygax is headed off to visit the Outer Planes.

My life would have been much less interesting without him. Not only do I still play Dungeons and Dragons every week, but his invention laid down the basis for all of modern role-playing, not just tabletop but video game as well.

Here’s a very nice tribute from Order of the Stick.

CableCard


March 3rd, 2008

Okay, I’ll stop with the “Transition to HD” posts soon, I promise. But that’s because the transition will be finished soon.

I got the CableCard installed today. It was stupid that I had to be home at a particular time and have a cable guy (two guys, yet) do it, because literally all they had to do was slide the card into a slot on the front of the box, and then call the cable company to activate the card. Stupider yet was that the reason I had these guys come in and install the card was that it was free to have them install the card, or $50 to do it myself. Which is completely backwards.

Anyway, I can now watch and record HDTV. It looks freaking awesome. Unfortunately, it turns out RCN only provides about a dozen HD channels–the networks, the major movie channels, and some sports channels. So most of the stuff I watch will still be in SD. But the stuff I do record in HD will look really great. And, of course, that’ll include the Olympics when they roll around, which has really been the impetus for the whole transition.

Now all I need is a bigger hard disk for the TiVo, and I’m all done.

Car News


March 3rd, 2008

Lexus should come out with a new luxury car called the Nexus. That way businesspeople and lawyers could drive a Lexus Nexus.

Trust me, if you were a business type, you’d be laughing right now.