Open/Close


Archive for October, 2007

I guess I’ll be a pirate for Halloween

October 28th, 2007 by joby

So this weekend we’re making the final push to finish the electrical work on the garage. It was slow going in the early afternoon we finished with one exception. It was very satisfying when we were testing the circuits and everything worked. That one final bit is the exterior lights, which have been a pain in the ass. At about 4PM we got back from our 2nd trip to buy parts (the third this weekend), with a possible solution. Of course with our work nearly complete something had to intervene.

To complete a bit of work I went down into my basement — It was then that the hippies attacked. I’m not sure what they were planning to do in the basement — drug induced orgy, drum circle, or just looking for something to sate their munchies. The fight was fast and furious, they were armed with with a wide assortment of musical instruments and drug paraphernalia while I was armed only with my tool belt of electrical equipment and a keen understanding of physics. The first went down quickly with a handful of yellow wire nuts he ran away screaming about bees; and the second a handful of staples. I then pulled my 25′ measuring tape to use like a weighted string and was able to take out two more (one armed with a bong, the other a before a hippie armed with a guitar was able to strip it from me, but when I smashed a hole in the guitar with my hammer he fell to the ground crying.

All that remained were the two female hippies: the first wielded a tambourine; and the second a bad acid trip made her freak-out. The tripping hippie went berserk slashing at me with filthy raged finger nails. I was just barely able to deflect her first frantic attacks with my needle-nose and thick pliers, but she was able to knock both from my grip. I then flung a pair of screwdrivers at her, but she was able to dodge the missiles. Running low on tools, I was getting desperate and sent my new circuit tester at her head. The black and red body with flopping probes hit her in between the eyes and sent her into

Unfortunately, I was distracted with the first female hippie, the second chucked her tambourine at me. The projectile hit me directly in the right eye. My glasses prevented the tambourine from damaging my eye, but the glasses where forced back violently and cutting me just under the eye brow. The flowing blood and sudden blow blinded my right eye. I staggered back in shock and pain trying to protect my eye and determine the damage. They took the opportunity to make their escape.

Jim (our neighbor) drove me to (and later picked me up from) Group Health’s Urgent Care where after 2.25, I was discharged with three stitches and a slightly blurry right eye. I would take a picture to document the injury but Aly took the camera with her to Orlando (work thing). So Adam, I’m sorry I didn’t make it to tonight’s Ritual Pumpkin Sacrifice. But at least I’ll have cool scar over my eye from a hippie’s tambourine — and not from a chuck of wood flung from my chop saw that ricocheted into my eye — it was hippies.

Happy Birthday Jon!

October 13th, 2007 by joby


Free Videos

October 1st, 2007 by joby

As part of the clean up I sorted through our old video tapes into:

1) Keepers

2) Keep until replaced

3) Someone might want but get rid of

4) Trash.

In #3 we have some “nice” stuff that people might want:

1) A complete video collection of Babylon 5 that aired on TV (except the last TV movie that was on SciFi but we won’t count that) — 28 tapes in all.

2) A mostly complete collection of Black Adder: All of Seasons I-IV (except the season III episode that Channel 9 lost) and the Christmas Special — 4 tapes.

3) Six tapes of Season 1 of Star Blazers.

4) Some movies: Battlestar Galactica, Armageddon, Godzilla (the Mathew Broderick one), Gettysburg, Girls Just Want to Have Fun (not to be confused with Girls Gone Wild), Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Saint, Star Wars.

5) Three episodes of STNG (though Aly might reconsider giving up them).

6) Some workout videos.

7) And not much more…

Just imagine you could own a collection of videos carefully collected by an obsessive compulsive that had to have them all. Anything that doesn’t get claimed will go to the dump or be donated.

A Productive Weekend

October 1st, 2007 by joby

We finished the siding for the garage, we still need to do the brick facade in the front and some detail work on the “detail” above the garage doors, but at least we’re done with the hardiboard (which isn’t the most fun material to work with). But that was Saturday morning. The rest of the weekend I:

1) Cleaned the bathroom

2) Fully upgraded my MythTV system: We’re now on 0.20.2 (the backends are Mythbuntu and the frontend is still Gentoo) and I also added the PVR 350 that was sitting idle so we have 5 active tuners. I’m also thinking of getting an HDHomerun to add 2 HD tuners, which would be nice for several of the shows we record (Heroes…).

3) Did the laundry

4) Cleaned and organized the basements — well made a good start at it…

I feel quite good about what I got done.

ROFL

October 1st, 2007 by joby

Probably the funniest 2 minutes of video: Unfastened Coins.