Saturday, January 05, 2008
Jay: Happy Anniversary
To Mike and Esther, Deb’s brother and his wife, who are also celebrating four years, having done the deed three days after us.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Deb: The Biggest Loser
I started to watch it again, and when they were doing the intros and the mother and son came on and mom insisted that her kid looked like her because she’s a terrible mother, I turned it off. Because science is cool and I can’t take all of this bullshit anymore. *headdesk*
Anyway, tuns out that I was way right to do so. I don’t think my blood pressure could have taken the rest of the episode, per Jeff Jarvis, anyway.
Just remember, that blood pressure spike would have had nothing to do with having to endure outrageous stupidity...it would have been brought to you by TEH FAT!
Honestly, I’m starting to really enjoy having given up TV again. Thanks, WGA. I *heart* you.
Deb: OK, bonus post.
I gave up voting because I couldn’t answer this question: if it is obviously wrong for a single person to use force to organize people in a way that is pleasing to him, why is it right for a sufficiently large group of people to use force to organize people in a way that is pleasing to 51 percent of them?
Jay: Happy Birthday
To my former sister-in-law, Noel, mother of my oldest niece and nephew. She is 54 today. This would also have been her mother’s birthday.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Deb: The end of the world is well and truly nigh.
If I hadn’t given up voting as a bad job all around, I’d no doubt find myself supporting McCain as the least bad of the lot. Hear that? That’s the sound of the ice in hell crackling as it forms.
*sigh*
And yes, I know, Fred, Fred, Fred. But even after I’ve frozen hell by endorsing admitting the relative non-suck of McCain (remembering, please, that I think every last one of them is a horror for wanting the job at all, never mind the tactics used to get it), his snowball? Passed right by while he was sitting around contemplating the run. Besides, the problem with being repeatedly compared to the Great Conservative God is that nobody can live up to it.
Not that any one of the GOP contenders would recognize true conservatism if it bit them on the ass.
Fred’s problem is that the idea of Fred is awesome. Fred, though? Maybe not so much. Which isn’t entirely his fault: I don’t think there are very many actual conservatives left in America, though there are an awful lot of people who think they are conservatives around.
Mitt? Makes John Kerry look like a possessor of strong convictions. Besides, I *hate* perfect candidate hair. But really? What I hold against him most is that now that purchasing health insurance is mandatory, my premium? Went up 20 percent this year. And since we chose to prioritize this month and pay the rent, we are now not just temporarily uninsured, we’re also criminals. Because, you know, feeding your kids is a bad thing. And if you have an off month or two, you should be subject to mandatory receipt of government benefits and all of the baggage that implies. Because being in job flux is such a rare thing these days, which makes it immoral, right?
I never, never thought that within my lifetime it would be considered wrong NOT to take a government benefit. Because it’s stealing to take the risk of having a hospital bill you can’t pay, but it’s not stealing to take government healthcare money to cover that risk. Because government healthcare money comes from where? The magic money tree they’ve been growing on the dark side of the moon?
Er, yeah.
Wasn’t there somebody else in the race, too? Some guy from New York? Do I even have to go there? His authoritarian impulses make McCain & Co.’s attempts to rewrite the first amendment look like certifiable good-guy-ism in comparison.
So yeah, McCain. And I’m going to go shower now, because even the thought makes me feel dirty. Good thing I’m not a Republican. And if you’ve made it this far, you’re probably glad by now that I don’t vote any more. Maybe I’ll tell you about that sometime. For now, though, just let me chime in with a “thank the FSM that New Hampshire is over next week and I won’t have to watch campaign commercials for a couple of months.”
See ya.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Jay: TV Problems (Updated!)
I mentioned recently that the hand-me-down TV from my father seemed to be dead, in the form of UHF no longer processing a signal. It had started as bad sound on some stations, before becoming pure fuzz. We haven’t swapped the smaller TV back into place yet, given that there’s nothing to watch, really, and the TV displays DVD perfectly. That’s 95% of its normal use, to the point where I thought of keeping it for the kids for DVD viewing only, rather than trying to dispose of it or return if for a refund. Heh. Yesterday the sound starting flaking out on some of the VHF stations, so the assumption was it’s dying the rest of the way.
Last night Deb noticed it was getting signal on some UHF channels. No sound, and the best of them barely usable, but clearly UHF was not in fact dead, as it had appeared.
I just played with the connections and at least briefly managed to get sound, but it didn’t really change much. If I unplugged the antenna entirely, there was nothing, so the antenna does something, and its signal gets through the splitters and cables, however badly. The connections are all solid, and I put the mess of cable and splitters back on the shelf, though likely no harm existed in the way it was hanging.
So. Any opinions as to whether this is likely to be death of the antenna, or a cable, or a splitter, rather than the TV? Again, DVD works fine. I don’t believe we have tried a tape since the onset of the UHF problem, but that would have more in common with the antenna than does the DVD, which plugs one to one into the TV. VCR is the reason for the splitters in the first place. Tests would be to play a tape, and to record something, anything on a UHF station and play it back. Dang, I should have thought of this before. It’s no different from computer troubleshooting, the way you can rule things in or out. All I had thought of was trying the other TV with the antenna and cables, but the VCR processes incoming TV signals from the antenna independently. If VCR to TV is clear, then if antenna to VCR is clear, we’ll get clear tape of UHF via tape and know it’s the TV’s UHF processing. If UHF to tape is fuzzy, it’s probably the antenna. If commercial tape to TV is fuzzy, it’s probably a splitter or cable problem.
Still. Thoughts until I get around to testing more?
Update:
I didn’t even have to test recording through the VCR, since duh, the VCR processes incoming signals and feeds them to the TV live if it is the active device and not just recording on one channel while you watch another. I played a previously recorded tape and it was fine. Then I saw what the reception of UHF looked like upon stopping it. Beautiful. If anything, better than normal.
Conclusion: It’s a specific cable or splitter that affects the antenna to TV routing but not antenna to VCR or VCR to TV routing. I’d have to look back there to see which that must be. I may even have a spare cable around, but I’d have to find it, and buy a splitter. All we really have to do for now is watch the TV through the VCR feed. That becomes an issue only when we return to having shows opposite each other that require the TV and VCR to be used on separate channels.
Jay: Happy Anniversary
To us! One of the earliest and best known pairs of bloggers to meet and marry entirely on account of our participation in that medium. It’s now been four big years, with the fifth being the one where the dust clears and we mold the future into a useful shape.
Here is last year’s post, which contains links to the posts from back then about getting married and containing pictures.
And yeah, four years also pass like nothing. It’s sometimes shocking to think Sadie will turn four this year, and she’s half teaching herself and half being taught by us the alphabet and beginnings of reading already.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Jay: A Wee Bit of Henry
Here’s a sample of the recently accumulated pictures of Henry Adam that need to be turned into a “yes, we take pictures of him too” post. This in particular is from a rapid fire set that could be put up as “the many moods of Henry,” shades of something I recall doing with pictures of Sadie’s face at a certain age.
We have somehow managed not to get many pictures that show that he is the happiest baby ever. This is an exception, and by no means unusual. By contrast, when you see all the serious pictures of Valerie, well, she usually looks serious. After all, she’s studying us and the world. We saw that on Christmas. While even Sadie sat back and allowed Christmas to happen to her, Valerie studied and analyzed it, filing the whole thing away. This also fits with her “Baby Einstein” thing. She started out cutely saying “baby baby stein stein,” or “baby steinSTEIN.” Which itself was pretty clever, but she practiced and practiced and in a matter of a couple days was usually saying “Baby Einstein” as clearly as any adult. Sadie has more vocabulary, if not by that much, but Valerie is usually far clearer. Sadie says “Care Bear” and it sounds like “cowbell,” which is amusing, but she keeps doing it no matter how many times we’re like “what?” We have to remember that’s what she’s really saying, and she’s lazier about improving or being clear. But I digress. See what happens? I try to do a quick Henry post and the girls interfere.
But he doesn’t mind. He loves his sisters. Especially Sadie. He just worships her.
Jay: Large
The “2007” folder of pictures from the camera is 27.9 gigabytes.
That does include some zips that haven’t been deleted, and duplication in the form of copies of pictures modified to go online, but still.
Update:
By comparison, the other folders in the folder where we keep pictures and other stuff shared on our network are…
(Hey, Henry just rolled over while we weren’t actually watching!)
(He also found his feet today, playing with them for the first time this afternoon.)
Before 2005 - 1.12 GB
2005 - 5.56 GB
2006 - 6.96 GB
A random folder of other pictures, graphics, backups, work files, etc. - 2.28 GB
I just created a 2008 folder and moved the files in the root of the share to a folder, then decided to move all the “not designated with a year” folders to one folder to be even neater. While “before 2005” is kind of a catch all, how appropriate that there are four completed folders by year, since the 2nd is our fourth anniversary.
Jay: Kids and Kid Accessories
Here are some more mostly Christmas pictures of the girls. Henry being photogeneric last night should follow at some point.
Valerie with her pony and then, I believe on another day, looking all intense. More than usual.
Such a wonderful Toy.
“Hey, let’s experiment on your Slinky and see if we can destroy it completely before Christmas is over. We’ll hold mine in reserve and destroy it before the year is over. C’mon, it’ll be fun!”
And so they did.
Jay: Today’s Agenda
Reorganize the freezer
Clean out the refrigerator
Clean out and reorganize some cabinet space
Put stuff that didn’t fit into cabinets and reorganize counter space as a result
Add stuff to freezer
Make pea soup, or else freeze the ham bone and make chili
Wash the latest dishes
Possibly work on kid’s program (which I am in the mood to do as I drink my coffee, so hey)
Get the kids occupied with that for a while if possible
See about mounting whiteboard on office wall
(Firefox spell check hates legitimate compound words beyond all reason.)
Work on the office reorganization and cleanup project, including filing
Determine what I will attack tomorrow, though that’s largely set in my mind already
Post some stuff here and there
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Dave Browning.
Jay: Looking Forward
To a better year in 2008.
Good riddance to 2007.
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