Year: 2009

Big Snow Storm Covers Aiken!

Not really, more like persistent flurries dust us all day.

It was snowing lightly on the drive into work and once it became light, every time I passed a window or on our three shortened walks around the parking lot at break times there were widely scattered flakes fluttering to the ground. Heck at 4 o’clock quitting time the sun was shining, but there were still sporadic flakes tumbling down. But because our temperatures had not been cold enough for long enough nothing stuck, not even on the grass.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 100

How Cold Is It?

60 above zero:
Floridians turn on the heat.
People in Minnesota plant gardens.

50 above zero:
Californians shiver uncontrollably.
People in Duluth sunbathe.

40 above zero:
Italian & English cars won’t start.
People in Wisconsin drive with the windows down.

32 above zero:
Distilled water freezes.
The water in Bemidji gets thicker.

20 above zero:
Floridians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, wool hats.
People in Michigan throw on a flannel shirt.

15 above zero:
New York landlords finally turn up the heat.
People in Minnesota have the last cookout before it gets cold.

Zero:
People in Miami all die.
Wisconsins close the windows.

10 below zero:
Californians fly away to Mexico
People in Minnesota get out their winter coats.

25 below zero:
Hollywood disintegrates.
The Girl Scouts in Michigan are selling cookies door to door.

40 below zero:
Washington DC runs out of hot air.
People in Minnesota let the dogs sleep indoors.

100 below zero:
Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.
Wisconsins get upset because they can’t start the Mini-Van.

460 below zero:
ALL atomic motion stops (absolute zero on the Kelvin scale.)
People in Michigan start saying…”Cold ’nuff fer ya?”

500 below zero:
Hell freezes over.
Minnesota public schools will open 2 hours late.

This came from a fellow MMC’r who read it aloud to the Club when we gathered this last Saturday morning for breakfast on what has been the coldest day here all winter (so far) and Minnesotans had that last cookout.

I Need More Time

At work the password required for network access is good for 45 days and when you get down to 5 days left it will start reminding you each time you log in that your password is going to expire in “X Days.” ASCO also uses an AS400 for its business systems software and it needs a separate password from the one you need for the PC network. The AS400 password is only good for 28 days, that is not too bad, but the annoying thing is that it starts to remind your password will expire at the 14 day mark.

Why don’t they just go ahead and start reminding you when you get down to say…27 days left.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 100

I’m So Excited

A coworker’s dad got a new laptop and they can’t get it to print on their home network. They have pretty much same set up as I do: broadband modem, wireless router for the laptop, desktop PC wired to router with attached printer. The big difference is dad’s laptop has Vista. I tried to talk her through a few things to check, but no progress was made. She’s no dummy, except, like me, in matters of Vista.

On Thursday, I printed out a bunch of stuff I found on the net about Vista and network printing and after work we headed over to visit dad. I thought I asked, but maybe not in a way that was clear, but the two PCs were not networked at all. The laptop did have access to the interweb through the router though. The domain names were the same on both PCs, we turned off the firewalls, I ran the networking wizard on the XP desktop and I think I got everything right on the Vista laptop, but there was no connection made.

I came home and hit the back alleys of the net to find a copy of Vista so I could try loading it on my laptop and see if I could network it. It took until late last night get the full torrent downloaded (I guess there is not a lot of folks out there that want a copy.)

Today I installed Vista onto the recently vacated partition where the Windows 7 Beta resided. I connected to the wireless router, changed a few networking settings on Vista and I was in. My only snafu was setting up the printer, but only because Vista didn’t have a native driver for it. A simple download later and I could print.

I wonder what it would take to start over with the whole networking thing on Dad’s machine?

I’m so excited about this coming week, but I’m not sure what about more:

  1. A new episode of House on Monday,
  2. the swearing in of 44,
  3. season five of LOST on Wednesday,
  4. or Friday afternoon off.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 100

French Toast

The MMC meet for their monthly breakfast event here in Aiken at the Sugar Magnolia Cafe (not to be confused with Sugar Magnolia’s Cafe in Lompoc, CA) and we got a nice turn out of 10 people in 7 cars, 5 Miatas and a Sebring (which counts as two Miatas), a much nicer turn out than the November one there which was just Donna and I.

Frakking Sony DVD player. I spent most of the late morning and early afternoon trying to get William & Mary burned on a DVD. No matter what I tried, none of the 4 discs produced would do anything but play the No Public Display warning, the production company logo and the “pirating is stealing” PSA before halting and giving an out of region error message.

All the forums posts I found on the net said that the programs I was using should take care of the Region Coding. Then I searched for a way to set the Sony DVD player to region free and found that there were no sure fire way of doing it with my model, but there were a couple of ways that I could try that worked on similar models. Ha, close, but oh so frustrating.

I’m not sure what prompted me, but about 3 o’clock I took one of the, what I thought were toast, discs into the other room and tried it in the old JVC player. It worked perfectly….

The JVC was exiled to the back bedroom a few months ago because it was refusing to play DVDs or lock up with increasing regularity. We bought a Sony DVP-NS57P for $40 at Walmart to replace it and it has been great; until now. I’ve moved the JVC back into the living room, now the two of them sit on top of each other in the cabinet ready for anything.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 100

DVD Fun

Thanks Mark.

  1. Take the William & Mary Region 2 DVD in PAL format and run it through DVD Decrypter to copy it to your hard drive.
  2. Run it through VobBlanker to change it to from PAL to NTSC and save it to a new directory.
  3. Run those files through DVD Shrink 3.2, squishing the files (so they will fit on a single layer DVD) and save those to another directory.
  4. Finally burn this last directory to a blank DVD +r using ImageBurn.

Two hours in front of the computer and the DVD doesn’t play in the living room, the Region Code is still intact. I’ve got to delve into the process and find out where I strip the region code…tomorrow.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 100

Martin Clunes

We have been watching Doc Martin, a British TV show, about a stuck up surgeon from London who gives up his practice because of a phobia of blood to become a GP in a small village in Cornwall. Most of the humor comes from the fact that the doctor has zero interpersonal skills and is entirely incapable of telling anything but the truth and usually in a scientific/doctorly way which is usually unpleasant to the listener. Nearly all the remaining laughs are generated by some of the totally odd inhabitants of the smal seaside village, with just a few left over for the budding romance between the Doc (with which he has no experience at) and the school’s headmistress.

They have filmed 3 Series of the show consisting of 6, 8 and 7 episodes each. The first Series we rented from Netflix, but numbers 2 & 3 haven’t been released in the US as of yet, so we had to turn to Nigel who had copies available in the boot of his Vauxhall Vectra saloon that he could sell us. We are now down to the last two episodes of Series 3 and we will be finished. For now, they are working on a Series 4 that is supposed to start filming in May of this year, so maybe by the end of 2009 we will be able to watch those shows too.

Doc Martin stars Martin Clunes who is proof positive that acting matters more than looks to the English. While not what you would call ugly, more like eccentric, he won’t be making the leap to leading man in Hollywood soon. We have seen him a couple of times before, in William & Mary, a romantic comedy TV show and in Saving Grace, which ended up inspiring the Doc Martin TV show.

William & Mary ran for 3 Series and of course only the first two were released in Region 1 (the US and others). We ran through those 12 shows thanks to Netflix, but the last Series wasn’t available, even from Nigel, so we ended up buying the DVDs from Amazon in the UK. I was going to buy just Series 3, but a box set with all three Series were available for only a couple quid more, so I went for the set. Now I have to do some digital magic and rip the DVDs to my computer and stripping the region code. Then I have to burn them back to some recordable DVDs while converting them from PAL to NTSC. Wish me luck.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 100