Let’s see if I can come up with thirteen things you don’t know already…

1. I find myself often going a couple days without eating any meat.
2. I love snow globes!
3. One of my computers has been shutting itself off for no reason.
4. I have three dogs.
5. As a general rule, as a concept, as a technology… I loathe e-mail.
6. I collect words.
7. One of my favorite technologies is bulletin boards.
8. I eat one cookie every day.
9. The whole web2.0 thing is one of the biggest scams going.
10. I have six DMV registrations.
11. The Red Sox will win the World Series again this year.
12. I’m a political moderate.
13. My sister just shocked the hell out of me by forwarding around a Snopes article I sent her in response to a stupid message she sent around last night.

How did I do? Did anybody already know any of this stuff?

If you’re back-to-school shopping and haven’t gotten your new computer yet, let me help you out with that…  :)

The all-new iMac. Beautifully redesigned 20- and 24-inch models from $1199.

Here’s something I found on the YouTubes. Now if only I could teach that new DVR to play these things…

If you’re not building a MythTV DVR, just skip on by.

I had some trouble over the weekend I figured I should share.  If you are reading this in the future because you’ve googled for trouble with MythDora, Hauppauge PVR-150, LIRC, serial IR, mode2, irw, etc. — well, welcome to you, time traveler.

Here’s how it started.  I bought a Hauppauge PVR-150 tuner card because it has the IR blaster built in.  The new DVR I’m building is going to drive my cable box (Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2200, I believe) so I need a way to change its channel and then suck the signal off of channel 3.  The PVR-150 has such an IR blaster that you connect and point at your set-top box.  It also has an IR receiver, and it comes with a remote control, and MythTV is easily configured to use this remote to control the operation of the DVR as a whole.

And that’s how I set it up.  First in my office, I got everything working with this one tuner.  Then I moved the system to the basement.  I got all of the S-Video stuff set up (Radeon 9600 — be sure to comment out the VideoOverlay line and replace it with an OpenGLOverlay line).  I got all of the IR stuff set up.  And a tip of the hat and thanks to Techie Bytes and Mark’s Braindump for the how-to on getting that set up.  It seems that the Hauuppauge PVR-150 can’t control the Scientific Atlanta 2000 without some tweaks, which are very straightforward and easy.  I was using the gray Hauppauge remote to control the system and the system was controlling my cable box.

But as most of you know, I don’t live in my basement, and I don’t watch TV in my basement.  So I’ve got S-Video and audio lines running up to the living room and and an IR extender (wired, that I built myself, thank you very much) running down from same.  So I took my remote control upstairs, pointed it at said gadget and… NOTHING.  Something strange about the Hauppauge remote, it does NOT work with my IR extender.  Huh.  And thinking about it now, that should have been a red flag, right?  Huh.

But that’s OK, because I needed to move the other two tuners from the existing MythTV system and I really needed to put a new 320 GB hard drive in there to replace an older one (yeah, I should have known better, and it was, in fact, giving Smart errors).  And while I’m robbing the old system, I take the serial IR receiver and install it on the new system.  Don’t ask me where I got it, I think it was from Germany.

Now since I had everything configured to work with the Hauppauge remote and the SA2000 blaster codes, I just kept that in place and continued, but configuring the serial IR receiver in place of the one that’s built into the PVR-150 card.  No problem.  I used mode2 to test that it was working, and indeed, I was getting a good stream of numbers, indicating that the signal was being received.  Next step is to test with irw to make sure that the buttons are being processed correctly.  NOTHING.

I’ll spare you the sweating, the swearing, the twelve fucking hours — YES, just about that long — of configuring, re-configuring, sweating and swearing some more.  Let’s just cut to the revelation I should have known all along.  You see, when I copied over the lircd.conf from the old system and I set that all up and then I grabbed the remote I’ve been using with that old system (it’s actually a remote from an old PrimeStar satellite box, codes copied over to a really fancy learning remote).  When I tested with mode2, lots of numbers.  When I tested with irw… YES!!  So to make a long (weekend-long) story short, the Hauppauge remote DOES NOT WORK with EITHER the IR extender I built OR with the serial IR receiver.

Like I said, I should have known when it didn’t work with the one that it might not work with the other.  But here’s the lesson I’m sharing: DO NOT ASSUME THAT ANY REMOTE WILL WORK WITH ANY IR RECEIVER.  It turns out it’s just not the case.

A couple more things while I’m at it.  I mentioned the Option “OpenGLOverlay” “on” that belongs in xorg.conf for the Radeon 9600.  I should also say I was having performance problems and seeing all kinds of errors when I ran mythfrontend interactively — something I do very much recommend so you can see if you’ve got any other fixups to do.  The system warned me that I was going to have trouble displaying video at 1024×768 resolution.  Oh shit, I thought.  And I’ve changed the screen resolution to 640×480.  But I was still getting audio dropouts and seeing the dreaded “prebuffering” warnings.  So in the playback settings, I’d never tinkered with this setting, but I thought I’d give the separate GUI/video playback modes a try.  Turns out that you can set the resolution of videp playback down to 320×200 — I think that’s the default.  When I did this, it was like magic.  Playback still looks great and the audio is superb as well.  So if you’re having video jitters and audio droputs, consider the lower playback resolution and that might solve all of your problems.

Well that’s how my weekend went.  I hope that posting this might save somebody some time and trouble down the road.  And if not, at least I’ll remember all of this for next time!  :)

There are only so many hours in the day. There are 80, in fact, but that’s a story for another post.

I used to get up at 4:30 every morning and work out. I guess it started with my elliptical machine, E.T. And then he broke. LOL, I probably exceeded his capacity. Hey, stop laughing — it’s not funny! OK, it’s a little bit funny.

And then I bought that recumbent cycle. Lame excuse for an exercise machine that POS is.

And then there are the treadmills. Well, I guess I really only needed one of them. But running just sucks for my tendonitis, so that’s out.

And that’s what happened to my early morning workouts.

So something had to give and I’ve kind of mentioned it before. There’s this fitness center, complete with super-cute fitness lady, but she’s not part of the story. And they’ve got bikes — good ones. They’ve got elliptical machines. They’ve got steppy machines — wicked torture devices, those.

But when am I supposed to do any of that? Well if you ran off and read that post I linked to, you might have noticed the couple hours for lunch. Sure, they’re only eighteen-minute-long hours. But still, on the 24-hour clock, that’s nearly 40 minutes wasted.

And I have I ever talked about my RLF’s and the lunch time? I just got really tired of them. The most inane conversations about football and golf and women in sweaters and black pants. I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I was blowing off lunch more and more.

And then it hit me. Bird, other bird, stone. So as soon as my boss takes off for his 90 minutes of God only knows what he does at lunch time — that’s when I head downstairs and work out. With a shower, it ends up taking a solid hour plus out of my day. I grab something and eat it at my desk. As long as I’m looking busy when boss-man strolls back to his office, it’s like I never left.

So I’ve made some adjustments, but it’s definitely worth it. Those RLF’s and those 45 pounds (so far) — I don’t even miss them.

Note to self…

# If you want to enable PAM authentication, uncomment the following line
# PAMAuthentication yes

# If you want simple Unix (/etc/passwd) authentication, uncomment this
UnixAuthentication yes

Before I did this, I couldn’t FTP into my DVR.

Oh, the file is in /etc/pure-ftpd/pure-ftpd.conf, by the way.

Don’t ever plan a beach vacation in New England for the end of August, I always tell people.

But it’s so hot in August, it’s the hottest part of the summer, they’ll tell me.

Do what you want, people, but when you get to the middle of August, fall can arrive at any moment.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you.  No way.  I love fall.

Yesterday we were working outside and Wifey was bemoaning the wind.

“Bite your tongue,” I told her.

It was low 70’s and sunny.  Just the most beautiful day you could imagine.  Especially perfect for doing yard work or anything outside.

If you’re dressed for it, that is.  I don’t know if it’s an old saying or just something we say.  There’s no such thing as too cold.  There is only under-dressed.

I was wearing jeans for the first time in weeks — months, really, when I think about it.  They’re getting really loose.  I think I’ve got some smaller ones I should try wearing.  Not as a mark of accomplishment, really, but as motivation to make them too big, too.  The long sleeve t-shirt I’m wearing today was too tight to wear just a few months ago.

And if I sound like I’m bragging, I want you all to know that it took some time, but I did finish Friday’s Times puzzle.

LOL, it’s no wonder my audience has become focused to just the most elite of readers — yes, that’s you!  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Funny story about the building of my DVR — based on MythDora, in case I didn’t mention that.  Now stay with me, this is good.  I’ve got my cable box connected to the system, which means that when I want to record something on the cable box, the system needs to tell the cable box to change to channel whatever.  Well there’s this wire that has a little infrared doohickey on the end and a sticky tape.  So I leave the sticky tape on and just point the doohickey at the cable box and nothing happens — channel doesn’t change.  Then I spend a few hours poking at the drivers and modules and what’s loaded when and blah blah blah.  Google some more and it turns out you must remove the sticky tape because it’s clear and the sticky tape side is where the infrared signal comes out!  Doh!   So now it’s working just great.  Phew!!

Gotta run — it’s cloudy out, but wonderfully, comfortably chilly!

Let’s see. If I’m not talking about Angel, I’m bragging about my crosswordial prowess. You people must just be so fascinated. Hey, anyone with a sleeping disorder they want cured?

And is today any exception? Oh yeah, and politics. It’s a shame that whole process is so closed. I’m seriously thinking about constructing a survey that would help people figure out who they should vote for, while taking the personalities out of it. And the catch pases. Is America ready for this, for that… I’m ready for experience and leadership, is there some of that?

Anyway I really set out to brag about finishing yesterday’s puzzle in under 24 hours. Thursdays are toughies, what can I say? I never thought I would, either.

I’m building another DVR. This one’s tougher because it needs to control the cable box and change its channel in order to tune into those scrambly digital channel. National Geographic is one of them. The French channel. The Showtime introductory discount for three months and then out it goes. That’s been frustrating because the channel changer part isn’t working. But I found a part on the interwebs that might get the job done. Stay tuned!

I mostly keep the politics out of here, but I couldn’t resist this one.

You’ve probably seen or heard about it by now. It turns out that in 1994, Dick Cheney predicted what would happen if we invaded Iraq. And it turns out that he was 100% exactly correct.

So what changed his mind? That’s what I’d like to know. I guess all along I thought he was the one pushing this war, but maybe that’s not even true. And if not, why didn’t he try and stop it?

When I first completed today’s NY Times crossword puzzle — the play against the clock edition — my ranking was in the 74% range. That is, 74% of the people who submitted their answers finished faster than my excellent sub-eleven-minute time. I think some of them have to be cheating, but that’s beside the point.

The point is that later in the day I looked at where I stood in the rankings. Some 170+ people had finished the puzzle in the mean time, around 120 of those faster than me. And so I moved up to 73%.

I checked a few minutes ago and about sixty more people have finished, but only about forty faster than me. So now I’m at 72%!

So you can see… I’m having a really exciting and productive Tuesday!! :)

Mattel recalls 9 million toys

First we poison our pets. Now we poison our children. Where does it end?

If I were developing a plot for a blockbuster thriller of international intrigue, I’d stay away from the China conspires to kill every American man, woman, child and pet story just because it’s too wild and unbelievable.

But is it, really?

And dammit, I need an eggroll right now. I really do.

The local PBS station is the only thing that comes in over my antenna. That’s OK, though. They’re playing from Pink Floyd’s Pulse tour. If I send them some money they’ll send me the double DVD. Am I just a sucker? I think I need it. The sounds, the lights, the colors. Take it all in.

Do you ever have the dream where you scream and nobody can hear you? I think maybe we just don’t know how to scream. Either that or nobody’s listening. But sometimes I can’t even hear it myself. Maybe I’m not listening either. It can’t possibly matter that much.

I figured out what’s so cool about this camper. It’s about the right size and shape to be the cabin of a cruise ship! An inside cabin, to be sure. But the seas are so calm. But wait, we’re just docked here in port.

Where would I sail, though? West to Montana? Is there an ocean there? Paved ocean. I’m the captain though. Somehow the trip just isn’t the same when you’re the master of the vessel. Even as a lowly member of the crew there is some time to sit back and enjoy the voyage. But not when you’re at the helm. On the sea, on the road, in port, in my own back yard, it’s 24×7. Don’t let go of the wheel, ye might run aground.

What if life were different? Take a right at the lights where you usually go straight. One direction is the office, the other the library or a bank. Do you borrow a book or rob the bank? They have libraries in prison, don’t they?

We watched another strange movie — Stranger Than Fiction, this time. I liked this one, too. An interesting story, told in such a quirky way. You have to check this one out, too. What can I say? Maybe I’ll have to make you all Netflix friends!!

The TV station is begging again. I want to become a member. I live two hours a way, but I hardly ever, really never watch my own local PBS station. Not since the kids graduated from Barney to the Wiggles and beyond. Nickelodeon, I think they’re getting my money these days. “Contemporary music,” the dude is saying. Can I pay money to have a sock stuck down this guys’s throat?

Thank you gifts! A tote bag! No, the double DVD. I need it. It has Dark Side of the Moon on it. I’m so getting that. Call that number right now and pledge your support.

I’m typing this on my laptop and I’m having a terrible time getting an internet connecton over my cell phone. I think I need to reboot my phone. Sometimes that helps. It’s so unreliable, I can’t stand it. But it’s better than anything else I’ve ever used. My boss tells me I’m on the bleeding edge. He tells me that a lot. It actually works on me. What can I say?

Hey, how about the race… I finished in just over 32 minutes. Wifey had to walk a couple times. It’s funny, someone asked if Wifey was going to run with me. “Until I leave her in my dust,” I told her. Well the first time she had to slow down it was just about the one mile mark. I stayed with her, and that lasted about three minutes, I think. The second time was closer to the three mile mark and I took off. I had to. I’ve been training for so long and working so hard and I do it for me. That last quarter mile was torture. It’s got a mean hill and then you get to the three mile mark and you can see the finish line and there’s still an incline to the mostly-flat road. But you just keep kicking and through the pain you just find a way to get there. Ha, it’s kind of like life!!