If anyone who is mutual friends with judiang and myself were wondering where Judi’s daily post was, well…. We had a connection to the ‘net once we arrived at the cottage yesterday afternoon (which, of course, only Judi’s warbussing computer could access), but, unfortunately, by evening, their cable was down. We checked a number of times, and no go until this morning.

Now the wonderful irony of all of this (we’re still using the connection from one of the neighbors – who, btw, has since said it was fine for us to do so) is that had my parents actually gotten RoadRunner for the cottage, we’d’ve had NOTHING last night. The cable to our cottage is down. And by down, I mean the actual cable connecting the cottage to the main line is broken and now wrapped around one of the nearby powerlines. Thank goodness we brought several DVDs with us!

So, on to updating y’all about yesterday. After we finished up at my house (where Leo was SURE that he now had 2 people to pet him all weekend – poor disappointed kitty!) we headed to Walmart to buy some supplies and groceries (chicken boobies for Sunday’s gathering – woohoo!) We were very good – we got lots of fresh fruit and veggies. And no snack foods at all. Ingredients for the vanilla ice cream, too. But for the steaks, we decided to try the frozen individually packed steaks that mom & dad like from Aldi’s.

Dunno if you have any Aldi’s groceries near you, but these are places where the cheap-ass food goes. And the one near us has really nice cheap veggies and fruit. I mean, $2 for a fresh pineapple! (We’d already gotten one from Walmart at twice the price, but when I went in, I couldn’t pass up a $2 pineapple! So now we have 2.) Judi stayed in the car and I went in. I bought a 3-pack of peppers (1 green, 1 red, 1 yellow), the last pack o’ frozen steaks, the pineapple, and a container of cream puffs. I swear, they leaped into my arms!

Onward and upward we then drove until we got to the cottage. And just as we finished getting everything out of the car, mom & dad showed up. So we sat around and watched the rain sitting high and dry in the 3-season room. Once it was closer to suppertime, I went out in the steady drizzle and started the fire. We opted to have hot dogs that night and steaks the following night. Mom cooked up the 10 ears of corn that we bought (for $2 – and they were the excellent Fulton Farms sweet corn) and I shucked (aw, shucks!). So with nicely charred hotdogs, loveingly grilled by Judi and I, and the corn, we had a lovely supper. (Since father only ate 1 ear, and mom and I only had 3 ears each, Judi had to take one for the team and eat 3 ears herself.)

Eventually the folks headed back home and Judi and I realized then the neighbor’s cable was down. Alas! So we sat in the living room and watched Life of Brian, which Judi had never seen before. She agreed that it was a funny movie. Then I came up with the great idea that if I could find a way onto the network, Judi and I could play a networked game of Diablo II. Alas, even sitting in the kitchen with my wireless card touching the window and pointing to the neighbor’s bedroom where the router is, I couldn’t get a stable connection for more than a few seconds.

So after the fruitless attemtps, Judi played Diablo with my Assassin and tried to kill Duriel for me. No success, alas, but perhaps another time. Judi opted to sleep on the air bed in the 3-season room, so for the first time in ever, I actually got to sleep in the bedroom when I have guests here. 🙂

Judi’s snoring away right now as I type this up. Dunno what our plans are for the day other than to have steaks for supper. I’ll probably bore inform you of the details later.

judiang arrived (a little late, as usual, thanks ATA!) and we’ve had a nice lunch at Cafe Anticoli’s and some of my decadent chocolate ice cream. She got to see a REAL country store (aka a store which is in the country). We bought 2 vanilla beans from the Spice Rack so we can make some decadent vanilla ice cream for Sunday.

We’ll probably go see I, Robot today and then hang out at the Lake. No idea if the ‘net connection is still available, but, hey, we can cope. 🙂

Just in case any of you are ever called upon to set up a school full of computers, let me suggest something that might make your life easier…

When you’re working on the music room, make sure the sound cards work on the computers before assigning them to the room…

(Thankfully, there are just 2 computers in the music room. But I didn’t even think of checking the sound until I was nearly done setting them up. Gee, thanks JVS (Joint Vocational School) for giving us computers with sound cards that don’t work! Swapped those two computers out with two of our usual computers (not from the JVS, in other words) and we now have sound.)

(Oh, in a similar pique of irony, the computer gods had one of the art room computers stuck at only 16 colors. Just what I needed to cap off the day – an art computer with broken video. Thankfully, that was a quicky fix, unlike the music room computers.)

In other news, 48 new computers arrived today! Woohoo! Dad got them all unpacked (which just amazes me) and I’ve started setting up the master computer for most of ’em. I also finished the art room, music room, and junior high math room. (I spent yesterday, however, working on the art room and music room, so it isn’t as impressive as it sounds.) Tomorrow, I dunno if I’ll work or not. I will pick up judiang from the airport. YAY!

Oh, and I have just been talking with elsaf on AIM. She’s at the hotel (she’s in Los Vegas for a writer’s convention), but alas is relying on dial-up. Yay – she got to Nevada OK!

Ever since our trip to Cambridge, Mass, where I had some truly decadent bittersweet chocolate ice creams, I’ve been wanting to make some of my own. I did a half-hearted search online, but had pretty much decided that I wanted to try the Chocolate Truffle Ice Cream recipe from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book, a book that elsaf gave me for Christmas when she got me the ice cream machine. It uses a ganache, which is scalded cream on melted chocolate. I used Ghirardelli’s bittersweet chocolate for the ganache and Hershey’s cocoa as the cocoa. I noticed that Hershey also makes a Dutch Cocoa, which I might have to get some time. I believe that’s another bittersweet chocolate.

So last night, I made the concoction (and it was fun to lick the bowl) and this morning I froze it after cooling it in the fridge over night. And after lunch, I had a couple of scoops. The verdict? Damn, it’s mighty fine! Dad assures me that I’ve exceeded myself. I think mom might think it’s too rich. (She’s only had a quick spoonful so far, though.) I’ll let judiang tell you what she thinks of it when she comes this weekend. I think she’ll be impressed. It knocks Friendly’s Forbidden Chocolate ice cream out of the race, I think. And it’s so damn creamy and smooth! Gah! You just can’t argue with a cup and a half of heavy cream in your ice cream! (This is NOT low-fat by any means of the imagination. And I don’t give a f*ck…)

Mmmmm – ice cream! Gotta love it. (I’m thinking of making some ice cream for Sunday, when my folks, aunt, granny, and cousin join Judi and I at the Lake for cards and eats. But I think I’ll go with decadent vanilla. Aunt Becky said she might bring brownies to go with the vanilla. Mmmmm – brownies!)

Um, is this a good time to admit that I finally got my weight down to where it was before the first time Judi visited me this summer???

My dad tells me that one definition for insanity is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Well, today I had first hand experience that computers are responsible for insanity.

I actually got 3 rooms done today (yesterday’s goal was 2). Well, I say done, but one room has a newish computer with a dead power supply, so I have to wait on the replacement for it. Another room has an oldish computer with a bad power supply (more about it later) and we’ll have to order a replacement for that one as well. And the third room I need to reset most of the computers to send print jobs to the right place (I was too tired to rectify that before leaving today). So yeah, 3 rooms done today. 🙂

My first example of insanity has to do with Clean Slate. In a room of 21 computers, all cloned exactly the same, 15 gave a blue screen of death when shutting down, 2 gave a blank screen with cursor, and 4 shut down properly. Funny me for figuring they’d all act the same, seeing as how they were all identical…

OK, you say, “identical” isn’t the best way to describe any two computers. There are lots of little variances here and there which could cause them to behave differently. Yeah, yeah… I’ve got more stories where that one came from.

Today’s new and exciting problem was a computer that decided to have a Himem.sys error on start up. Indeed, it had the error twice in a row. So why did I bother turning it on yet again? Well, cuz the third time it worked! Did I do anything differently? Nope.

I used the same sort of “well, might as well” behavior concerning the second bad power supply of the day. This power supply doesn’t seem to be giving enough juice to things. Case in point – the computer was actually on when I came into the room and I didn’t notice. For one thing, the numlock indicator wasn’t on, and this particular batch of computers has that on if the computer is plugged in (doesn’t even have to be on). The fan on the processor was running, but the fan for the power supply wasn’t. (So that’s why I didn’t notice the machine was on.) I actually unhooked the harddrive from it! No beeps or anything. (I didn’t discover the “on” thing until later when I went to put the harddrive back in). Cloned the drive in another room, brought it back, hooked it up (and went “ooops!”) but nothing happened.

I later stuck that nicely cloned harddrive into the machine next to it and then had its drive cloned (it was being a bear too, but for other reasons). After I installed this second HD into the misbehaving computer, I turned it on again, just for grins. (Cuz I am, after all, insane!) And guess what? Everything came on. The P/S fan, the CD-ROM, the HD – as if nothing was wrong. So I access the computer and change the name of the machine to suit it’s computer number and room number, and it reboots… But of course, doesn’t come on. Gah! Well, I’ll get a replacement P/S and hopefully things will be OK. (Though I’ll probably have to change the computer name again – it tends to revert back if it doesn’t get a proper reboot.)

So today, don’t talk to me about computers. I’m not in the mood. They’re making me CRAZY, I tell ya, CRAZY! :-p

I dunno how people can work 8 hour days during the summer… Summer is a time for goofing off. Work if you have to, but, man, 8 hours? (Spoken like a true teacher…. Where during the school year, we would KILL for an 8 hour day.)

But, despite my lazy summertime ass, I did work 8 hours today. I had a goal and, unfortunately, to meet that goal, I had to keep on working. Alas, Clean Slate still isn’t working, but I called and they said they’d sent my e-mail on to the developer. Gee, that’s pretty, um, powerful. Hope they can get a fix for this – the teachers will not be happy if the computers give them a BSD every time they shut down.

So tomorrow I have a goal as well. (You’d think I’d’ve learned my lesson today, wouldn’t you?) I’m going to finish 2 rooms tomorrow (gah!) and maybe I’ll remember my headphones so that I can listen to the latest Big Finish audio. I have 11 more days available for working (though I have more than enough hours available – I’ll run out of days before I run out of hours and if that’s confusing, I can explain it if you’d like). Sheesh – 11 days to get the rest of the school ready. I think I’ll just curl up in a ball until August 25th…

My dad occasionally preaches at the First Universalist Church of New Madison and today was one of those Sundays. There was actually a pretty decent crowd there despite it being the last Sunday and July – and the temperature was VERY reasonable. (Astonishingly so – dad even started out by wearing a jacket!)

Anyhoo, on to the crux of my post. I like UUs cuz they let folks like us in. We’re (the ‘rents and I) rather liberal in the Christian sense – so much so that describing ourselves as “Christian” is something of a misnomer. (More Jesus, less Christ…) My sister is lesbian and Mennonite, but they’re more than happy to have her come for church. They let dad preach about the parables of Jesus (which is his current kick) and come up with wonderful ideas during the “talk back” session. Heck, the fact that they have a “talk back” session is great. Today for the prelude, we listened to the pianist play “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess. And one of my most favorite pieces played during the offertory was “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime.” The fellowship after church is very friendly and welcoming. Very much an Open Table Fellowship. They don’t switch off their brains when they hang up their coats. (I’ve been to some churches where they do that – alas!)

Now, these are not all exclusive to UU churches, but they’re all things that make me feel welcome in a church setting. So though I won’t go every week (it is half an hour away – and the other UU church that dad preaches at from time to time is even further away) I do enjoy the time spent there when I do attend.

TISWAS was a children’s series in Britain from 1974-1982 and was rather madcap and zany. My interest in the show, as you might imagine, stems from the fact that Sylvester McCoy guested in it from time to time (as Sylveste, not Sylvester). If you go to my TISWAS page, you’ll see some images of Sylv from the video release TISWAS: The Best of the Best Bits. The second video, More of the Best Bits, had very little Sylv in it at all. But there was a third video release out there which eluded me for the longest time: TISWAS Comedy Capers. Thanks to ebay, I finally procured it. Thanks to my kitchen renovation, however, my PAL VCR was no longer functioning. (All the power going on and off while we tested for the kitchen power lines caused the machine to die a silent death.)

Well, thanks to my burning desire to have enormous credit card bills this summer (dunno why I have this desire, but I sure have been buying a lot of shit!) I bought a replacement for my dead JVC multistandard VCR. And today, I hooked up the new Toshiba and it works like a charm. So my first task? Watch my new video!

Sylv is only in one sketch in the entire video (though the video, as all of them are, is very entertaining), but it’s a good ‘un. It’s a Party Political Broadcast for the TISWAS Party. And I’ve got, for your amusement, a couple of clips and the audio track. The audio is an MP3 (which includes an image in the encoding, for those of you with MP3 players that can display album art). You can access the audio here.

Here are 3 screen captures from the sketch.

Sylveste promotes the TISWAS Party.

Sylveste is all wet!

Now, I know Sylv once played the Pied Piper, but this is ridiculous… 🙂

What I should do next is do some new captures of the other Sylv sketches from the other TISWAS videos now that I know more about image fixing through products like the wonderful Paint Shop Pro.

(Yes, the LJ icon is not in season, but it’s a picture from TISWAS, so I had to use it!)

It just amazes me that I can be sitting here in my den in Ohio and playing a video game with indefatigable42 in Canada and judiang in Chicago – or even gordon_r_d in Scotland! Amazing! We’re playing Diablo II with the expansion pack. Tonight, I’m playing a Necromancer. (I named him Ned. Why not? My Assassin is named Anne and my Sorceress is Sorry Sally. My paladin is PalanWithAl – a nice pun on a Squirrel Nut Zippers song.)

Ah, the Internet – an amazing thing!

(How’s that for a Judi-sized post?)

Looking at my feedback right now (my ebay username, oddly enough, is trinalin) I’ve noticed that my Feedback Score (59) is exactly half of my total positive feedback (118). No, I don’t go accumulating loads of negative feedback (for shame!) Actually, it’s indicative of how many frickin’ Sylvester McCoy photos I now own. Most of the duplicate positives are from the same seller, who sells Doctor Who photos on occasion. And I’ve bought a fair few number of Sylv pix from this guy.

I have recently successfully purchased two non-Sylv items from ebay. One seller was great at giving feedback. (Like a number of sellers, however, he doesn’t give feedback until given feedback in return – a policy I sort of understand but still don’t like much.) The other seller, with a rating over 12,000, rarely seems to give feedback. (We’ll call him Mr. Stingy for now.) And it’s sellers like him that really annoy me. My own rating would be at least up to 75 by now if it hadn’t been for lame-ass sellers who didn’t give me feedback even after I’d given some to them.

But I did get feedback from Mr. Stingy in this circumstance. He’d sent an e-mail after shipping my product and mentioned how he’d get my feedback up once he did his “update.” And if it had been a week without the feedback arriving, I should send him an e-mail. Well, when the item arrived today, I wrote a very polite e-mail thanking him for the smooth auction and stated that I will be happy to give positive feedback once he did his update. By golly, he had done an update before I got back from work! (I wrote the e-mail while home for lunch.) And I’m one of the few folks who’ve been given positive feedback in his recent sales. Pretty selective update, if you ask me. (judiang got something from this seller too and I’ve given her the same advice that I followed, so hopefully she’ll get some feedback from this guy as well.)

You know, if you’re going to be an ebay business, you should follow the ebay custom. Give feedback to your customers. Don’t leave ’em hanging. Yeah, I’m still a bit sore that I’ve been screwed out of positive feedback on a few occasions, but one of the people who recently ordered from Mr. Stingy has 0 feedback so far. Poor buyer! New ebayer buyers probably don’t think to hold feedback for ransom – heck, I certainly didn’t when I began. But they should – they should insist upon getting some feedback.

So for those of you who ebay – if you’re selling, don’t be stingy with the feedback! And if you’re buying, don’t be afraid to insist upon it! Good luck with all of your online auctions and caveat emptor!