I own 23 Monster High Dolls by accident

It's not as if I wanted to own 23 Monster High dolls for any particular reason, but after the first few, you start collecting them. It started innocently enough with a Draculara I got at Aldi's for about $8. Maybe it was $9. I had no idea what was about at the time. Just that the dolls were cute, different, certainly not common Barbie fodder. Then there was the Skulltimate Roller Maze Frankie Stein. Then perhaps I understood better when they showed some of the animated specials on Nickelodeon.

The gist behind Monster High is that all of the teen student body at the school are modern-day children of classic horror film monsters. And an underlying theme is that we should accept each other and ourselves, flaws and all. Sort of an anti-bullying idea there.

Then I saw the cat-girls, I mean Were Cats. I'll stick with "cat girls." And there's plenty of them. Somehow I managed to get Persephone and Meowlody (twins) at We B Toys when they still had them, but getting the 3 pack Fearleading set would prove impossible, as I refuse to pay extortion for them.

Next was a Venus McFlytrap in a swimsuit from an early set of those, hers being the best of the ones I saw. Only later I find out there's 2 versions of her according to the eyeshadow. One is pink, the other is green - being more desirable for collectors as it matches the on-box illustration. How do people find things like this out? (The McFly part of her name is a nod to the Back to the Future films.)

Out of the sets produced so far, I have 3 from the Scaris collection, with Clawdeen, Catrine DeMew (A Walmart exclusive and yes, a cat-girl), and Jinafire Long, daughter of the Chinese Dragon.

There's been some from other releases I kinda wanted, but I waited for sales and then they ended up selling out. Oh well.

The Wolf family has the most representation among the dolls produced, with 3 sisters and 1 brother, and mind you the boy dolls from Monster High are super hard to find most of the time. Of those I have Dance Class Howleen (younger sister), and Clawdia, the older sister. She wears glasses! I've been thinking of getting another Howleen at some point.

I have 2 Catty Noirs, one in her singing idol outfit and one in her Scaremester outfit. For that matter I have Jinafire in a Scaremester variety, too. I feel the creators of the CG animated specials missed out on a great opportunity to tell Catty Noir's story and show her in concert. Maybe I'm used to idol anime to think that. Oh well.

I have 3 Toralei dolls. Those include Field Trip, Coffin Bean, and Ghoul Sports (she plays soccer). Toralei was one of the earliest dolls produced, so Toralei in the original outfit fetches high prices anymore. There's also fashion packs for the dolls but I've not seen one lately. There's a fashion pack for her appearance in Scaris, which has yet to be released on DVD along with its 15 minute short feature. I had tried to get the Power Ghoul version of her at Target, but due to how Target stocks the shelves (or so I've read) she was always sold out. And if you went online, you'd see them there at rip-off prices. But the ones I have now, I have a short hair, pony tail, and long hair Toralei.

For Freaky Fusion, I have the Cleolei variant. There's one other of Toralei and Scara Screams but I prefer the one I have.

Elissabat is from the same set as Clawdia, the "Frights Camera Action!" special. She was another Aldi's markdown.

There's the Kmart exclusive 2 set, Rochelle Goyle and Catrine DeMew.

There's the Sweet Screams Frankie, the only Target Exclusive I managed to get on sale. She was the cutest of the bunch, so I'm glad with that.

And finally, a rarity I found at Big Lots - Draculara in what looks like a 60s inspired fashion for "Aren't these shoes just a Scream?" Cleo de Nile completes the pair, but to find either one at this point is kinda special.

So why did I collect these? Well, if Sailor Moon items or other anime figures were decently priced like they used to be, I'd have more of that instead. It's just that these dolls are freaky and cool at the same time. Sometimes you can't explain why you like something. And if you want to make fun of an adult toy collector, well then you have problems. My bills are paid and screw you for hating for no reason other than you're trying to make yourself feel superior when you're actually just jealous of other people being happy. Find the thing you like and collect it, just leave me alone. It's not like it's hurting you any.

The Worst Day of My Life - 5 years later

5 Years ago was the worst day of my life. It was the day my mom passed away after getting sick from something I caught from a visit to the anime club I used to go to. She had been waiting for her flu shot that year and hadn't gotten it yet. I probably wasn't the only avenue for what she caught, though her Caring Hands ladies were required to be vaccinated, so I'm willing to rule them out.

A strain of Swine Flu had been going around, and somehow I came down with it. I spent the weekend on the couch downstairs, working my way through 2 bouts of fever. I  was unable to do the things Mom needed me to do without her ladies there to help her.

Actually I don't know for sure what it was I got sick from, but there's not much left to guess what it was.

Where my Mom was, there's a big hole from her absence. Her empty bed is gone - not my choice. It's a choice I wish people hadn't forced on me. It wasn't costing me any money to keep her bed where it was. It wasn't bothering me to keep it. Even my younger sister said something along the lines of not wanting to come into the house and see the empty bed there, and then ended up not visiting a whole lot after all that anyway.

And then there's the emptiness in my life and in my heart with her gone. Part of my self-confidence also died that day. I don't know how I came through it. Those first 9 to 10 months was a very dark time for me. I spent nearly all the time crying, watching a lot of TV. I wasn't actively engaging in the things I did - I was just numbly going through the motions. I was ready to give up.

My social life also pretty much imploded about a month later, right on schedule. An accident and misunderstanding on Facebook led to some malicious cyber bullying which ended up imploding the anime club due to a selfish group of brats who had nothing better to do. It was "funny" to them. There's nothing funny in calling people something a name they aren't. And they wanted to blame me for that. No, that's all on you. Almost on cue a month later was also the email that closed the opportunity of just being "allowed" to attend one anime convention. It just amazed me how unprofessional some people can be when it comes to negative criticism.

I still have no answers to what happened this day, 5 years ago. Why hadn't we made better choices the day before and gotten Mom to a hospital? When did she actually pass away? I had seen her alive just before 1 p.m. and found her in bed and unresponsive around 3 p.m. I was upstairs messing around with a computer I was given and gotten running again. I don't even remember why I had decided to shut it down and go do some errands for Mom when I did. 

I would love to have some closure and some answers. And in some ways, I still have some shock, disbelief, and guilt from it. And I'm sure other people blame me, but Mom made the choices she did. I don't even know if I had been able to get her into a hospital would her life had been saved. Some people would say it's not good to dwell on what could have been, but it's been hard to get it out of my mind.

There's a lot of things from 2009 I would love to do over again and change. Maybe 5 years is long enough to have grieved over Mom. I feel angry at times thinking that my sisters might not have grieved long enough. I certainly haven't seen how they dealt with it a whole lot. I mean, it's not a freaking pet - this was our mother. People are born and die every day, but still you get only 1 set of parents.

Some people said I was in "bereavement" but I know there was some pretty deep depression in there. There were lots of moments I wished to get sick and have it kill me. That's not a good way to go. I have no idea how I got through it. Or perhaps I haven't yet. I haven't yet decided.

A year later my grandfather's cat, Griz, died. And just last year Mom's companion dog, Melody, barely managed to finish out 2013. Mom must have needed Melody more than I did. And odd to notice, but Ariel, the dog we had for some time before Melody came along, died 10 years ago in January.

But at the same time, Marmalade, a cat who found us in the middle of a snow storm in December 2003, has been with us for as long. 7 years ago, an evicted renter left us Negi, a cat that I took in and saved his life. And last year, while Melody's liver was failing, my older sister managed to catch and tame a kitten that a feral cat had given birth to on the property and raised before she and the other kittens were ultimately trapped and removed. She still has the kitty, and is perhaps the first life that was born here since we've been here.

The only memorial we could do for Mom was cremation and and loose collective of some friends and family the Friday of the week after. I had spent the next 3 days without sleep dealing with her online stuff. I managed to cancel 5 book orders she hadn't gotten yet and weren't shipped. I found out she had nearly maxed out a credit card she wasn't supposed to have. I saw her irresponsible and erratic payments she was almost making on it. I sent out a lot of letters telling people to sod off and they weren't getting anything.  In the meantime, I'm still waiting for something paranormal caused by Mom. So far, I haven't anything to report.

I wanted to mark this day with family, getting together and remembering Mom, but it seems like I'm the only one who wants to do it. So I typed up this blog entry. 5 years ago, everything changed, and I still miss Mom.

Be the curator of your things

I recently cleaned out the top drawer of my dresser looking for my Suzumiya Haruhi solar-powered Flash Plates that I bought at an anime convention some time ago. The problem with them (and why I stopped using them) was the way the Mikuru Flash Plate had come off the little soft-metal hook connecting it to the keyring. It had dropped off and cracked a corner which I had fixed with super glue at some point, but it was off its keyring.

Also going through the drawer, I found my $50 Canadian bill miniature replica in plastic, a souvenir I bought and used on my keyring, also broken due to use. I promised myself I would fix that, but I hadn't yet.

I also found I collect pens and batteries. Not intentionally. It just happens. Good thing I have a digital voltmeter. I tested all the ones I found and threw away the weak ones. A number of them were still good strong batteries so I kept them. I tested the pens I found and tossed the ones that wouldn't write easily. I have no idea how I ended up with them.

But getting back to being curator of your things. This means make sure your collection of things (or collections) are in a presentable shape. Not broken. Useable if you so wish. I took up the task of seeing to it that my mini replica Canadian money keychain thingy would at least have a way to be attached to a keyring should I choose to use it that way again, and the Mikuru Flash Plate was attached to its keyring as well. (The sorting of pens and batteries is also a part of this.) The keyrings for the Flash Plates had these additional little spring rings that I could use to attach things to them, so the remainder of the spring loaded but easily broken hook was clipped off and the little ring used. It looks good.

I found a Sailor Venus decorated battery powered travel alarm clock that lost its adjustment knobs on the back and leaked battery corrosion residue on the battery terminals, which explains a lot why I haven't used it in years. I would take it with me when we went to Anime North. It was set to go off at 7 am, because you shouldn't sleep in late while in Canada. I cleaned off the corrosion and it works again, but I still need to figure out how to replace the time set and alarm set knobs.

Realizing my Gekota mascot strap also used that same annoying hook thing, I used an extra mini spring ring on that, too. I had already used super glue on the pin that screwed into it. I had lost a number of Sailor Moon mascot keychain figures because these little attachments would slip out. I lost 2 Super Sailor Jupiter mascot figures because of this.

Make sure your collection or set of something is complete. Fix what can't be easily replaced right away. Restore what can be repaired. And replace what can be inexpensively replaced.

I also made sure my collection of Tamago-chi toys did not have batteries still inside them. One of them I bought while in Canada one year (2006) and the Ura-Tama came direct from Japan. That really impressed a few people when they saw how more sophisticated its program was.

Some of the objects I dug out of my top dresser drawer might not have been touched in a while, but it's not hurting me or costing me anything to keep them. But that doesn't mean I should let them look like crap.

The Internet Data Bill of Rights

Something I thought up:

The Internet Data Bill of Rights

1. All Data Is Created Equal.
2. All Users Have a Right To Equal Access to All Data
3. No single ISP may decide who gets access, nor control the speed, nor the limit to that data.
4. Thou Shall Provide Free Native Network Access to Usenet Newsgroup Servers.
5. Thou ISP shall provide reasonably priced access to unlimited high speed data.
6. Thy ISP is not allowed to invade the privacy of its users IP Addresses, nor throttle the data by use of any software from a user's device connected to the network.
7. Thy ISP shall not decide on a whim to use alternate Domain Name Servers in an attempt to thwart access to websites any entity finds objectionable.
8. All Users have the right to fair market ISP competition; no single ISP may pay illegal kickbacks to local governments to block out competition.
9. When such conditions are unable to be met, be it through equipment breakdown, sabotage or damage, or an act of nature, the ISP owes it to its users to explain the problem, offer credit on bills for inadvertent denial of use of the service, and attempt to correct the problem as quickly as humanly possible.
10. All ISPs must maintain the maximum speed and data capacity of their networks, and also prove their claims of both, and must continually find ways to exceed those requirements without continual unjustified rate increases without also finding ways to reduce rates.

Fixing my Kuroneko Figma

For some reason, a week or so ago I was inspired to buy a Kuroneko Figma I found on the Chinese shopping site DHGate for only $16.90 and free shipping. Figma figures are very detailed and have lots of articulation. They're also rather easy to break as the plastic joints aren't always made of sturdy plastic. Also they tend to run $30 and up, but in general they're not exactly high price expensive. A comparison brand to Figma would be Revoltech. I have 2 of these and they run about $20 or so.

At any rate, the packet for my Kuroneko Figma finally gets here and I tear open the package. Hmm... the box shows some scuffs and wear. It's used. I don't exactly remember seeing this important piece of info on the DHGate page, but whatever. Then I get to finding out why Kuroneko was so cheap.

The pieces for the neck joint keep popping apart. The left elbow joint proceeds to crumble apart into 4 pieces as it was stuck together, presumably with glue, and didn't move freely. The left leg fell off due to the hip socket crumbling apart. And the right hand refused to stay on the wrist joint due to manufacturing irregularities.

Now, there IS a burgeoning market for replacement Figma joints. You can get on eBay and find random assortments of varying sizes and prices. But being the person I am and having the skills I have from my years of building figure kits, I decided I would fix Kuroneko's problems myself.

Examining the neck joint, I see one part has a bit of a crack on one hub piece. I tried using Testor's plastic model cement on it, but this plastic doesn't respond to that well. So I tried another trick - heating a straight pin tip and entrenching the tip in the pin of the other piece, then trying to bend it at a right angle. This way the wire of the pin would act as a retainer and prevent the joint from popping apart.

I managed to get this to work and reassembled Kuroneko's head. The pin later fell off to my annoyment, but the joint remains together. Apparently, the pin of one joint piece that goes through the hub of the other is spread apart enough to hold it together. It moves freely, too.

The left elbow joint was more of a problem. The insert pins ripped off the rotating joint parts and I had to dig them out of the arm pieces to which the joint belongs to. So I had to fix each piece before putting the joint back together.

Again, Testor's plastic model cement was not working, and super glue would work but it would not be strong enough on its own. So I decided a figure kit technique would work - use wire to support it internally. Wire thin enough to work came from bread wrapper twist ties. I got out a candle, heated a wire tip and worked it into the pins. I had to use a straight pin to help with the process of burying the end in the plastic. And I had to do this for both ends of each bit of wire I was using with super glue. Both insert pins eventually got reattached to the joint part it went with.

Then there's the issue of making sure the joint is going to rotate freely which required some fine grit sanding. After all, if the joint isn't going to move freely, it will rip itself apart again. Then came the task of not only putting the rotating joint together, but keeping it together. Again, I used a bit of heated wire tip bent at just under a right angle, and managing with needle nosed pliers to entrench the tip in the plastic. If I could avoid super glue at this point (and screwing up the joint), I was doing just fine.

The left hip was the most difficult to figure out. I tried a piece of pen tip barrel plastic from a spent ball point pen, but it ended up crumbling when I tried one way to attach it to the part I also had to pull out of the upper leg piece so I could work on it. My 2nd attempt was to sand down a little piece so when it was super glued to the insert thingy (no idea what Figma parts are called), it would fit. Also sanded out the inner diameter with my rotary tool so the ball from the joint would go in this repaired piece and cut a slot in the top like the old part had.

Seeing the ball go into the repaired socket for the hip and then stay inside it was worth the work (over an hour or 2) taken to make these fixes. The right wrist will get some wire work as soon as I can find out where the little wrist joint piece flew off to when it flipped out of my fingers. The little bugger of plastic shouldn't be that hard to find... but it's a tiny piece of plastic.

Having a rotary tool to custom prototype repairs like this is both handy and fun. You just have to not give up until you get the results you want. Maybe I'll get a photo of one repair up here.

In order to clear up the confusion around here...

I had the chance to connect Mom's original HD to another computer and recover data I thought was lost due to the CD burner making the computer not boot correctly. Here's a note I printed up for the ladies who came in to help Mom with food and such. You can see why this note was necessary. The date for this text file is Aug 20, 2009.

In order to clear the confusion around here:

1. When making a sandwich with the deli-sliced lunchmeat, 
    sandwiches are typically made with 1 or 2 SLICES of meat.
   This Does Not Mean Enough Slices to Stack up to 1 Inch in Height.
2. When dishing up cold Meatloaf leftovers as lunch, such as
    a sandwich, a PIECE refers to a SLICE, and as such leftover meatloaf will typically be sliced.
    This Does Not Mean The Entire Remaning HALF of the Meatloaf if it is Not Sliced!

3. If there is a Baking Dish with Pieces of cooked Chicken Breast
   in the fridge, A Lunch Does Not Mean Both.
   Each piece will make a sandwich And Someone May Be Saving Their Piece.
Measuring utensils and the like go in the drawer under the Microwave.

Breakfast bowls (purple, most of them) go in the cabinet above the dish drainer.
Mixing and other bowls (various colors) go in the cabinet door above the right sink.
If unsure where a bowl goes, leave it in the dish drainer.

Funnels go in the drawer under the microwave.

If unsure where something goes, put it on the stove for the time being.

Plastic Jugs for Water use - If over by the sink, it means I'm trying to remember to rinse them out with a touch of bleach before using them. It's OK to leave them there. I do not save milk jugs or non-diet drinks in jugs.

This list may be updated from time to time.

-----

I would come home to find things in the wrong place. Nobody would ask where things went - to me, things would go missing until I found them in places I would never think of putting an item. When in someone else's house, ask where things are, and ask where they should go.

I had totally forgotten about the missing pieces of chicken, but I still remember the meatloaf incident as well as the missing lunchmeat.
 

The thought of Meatloaf in any form still makes me mad

Last night I made a meatloaf of ground turkey, spinach, mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese from a recipe I found that my mom had printed out some time ago. I looked over the list of ingredients and deemed it within my interest zone and a way to use up the frozen spinach I've had in the freezer for a few years after making a cake with spinach in it (it came out a nice green) due to seeing it made in an episode of Ojamajo Doremi #, if I remember right.

It was some sort of stuffed turkey meatloaf (Murkey Teetloaf?) and it had been the first one in a while that I made, because the last one I made disappeared so quickly it made me mad. 

I was still working or something when I made it (a ground beef variety, likely from a box dinner thing when they were still being made) and Mom and I had it for supper one night. Being a guy, if there's one thing I like, it's cold meat loaf sandwiches the day after. The ketchup is already on the thing - just cut a slice, slap it between 2 slices of bread, and deliciousness is granted.

Only the last time I made it, it was on a Friday night, which means on Saturday there would be left overs or something. Either I left for work or went off to do some sort of thing on that Saturday. Mom had her helping hands ladies coming in to help her with things, and I guess her lady that Saturday helped her with lunch.

Now, I have no idea what the exact details ensued about this lunch, but I imagine that Mom asked for lunch, probably with "a piece of the leftover meatloaf" or something. 

Here's where I get angry. THERE WAS HALF OF THE MEATLOAF LEFT. HALF - Not A Piece. Most sane people would call it a SLICE. Most people would CUT A SLICE FROM LEFTOVER MEATLOAF - Much like the way people CUT SLICES FROM A LOAF OF BREAD.

SO ANYWAY - My mom likely asked for a Meatloaf Sandwich, comprising of SAID PIECE OF MEATLOAF and bread. The lady who helped her that day SERVED UP THE ENTIRE REMAINING HALF OF THE MEATLOAF. Apparently, that's a Piece of Meatloaf to her. MY MOM SAID NOTHING. She could have spoken up like "Uh, that's half of the meatloaf. Not a piece (slice)." BUT NO. SHE SAID NOTHING.

I get home from whatever, mouth expecting the deliciousness of a cold meatloaf sandwich - and there's nothing. It's GONE. IT'S JUST FUCKING GONE!!! Mom made no qualms about it, and it took more than a few minutes of loud ranting to find out what the fucking hell happened. 

Needless to say, I didn't make another meatloaf for mom since that happened. And if I had, I resolved to at least SLICE UP THE DAMN MEATLOAF AND FREEZE SOME OF IT. 

So making the stuff murkey teatloaf last night still made me think of that and rage. At least this time, nobody's serving up an entire half of it.

Internet On again!

I don't know what knocked out the cable modem, but someone did a little magical checking of things and it's back on. Yay!
 

Internet Out!

Internet modem not getting a connection. Looks like it'll be out for 2 days until a tech can get out here.

Uninspired lack of updates gets some motivation

So what happened during the Month of May and June? Well, I gave up trying to figure out which other capacitors in Mom's Magnavox MX 36 inch CRT still need replacing, which in all equalness would likely end up meaning I needed to find another part to replace, something other than a capacitor. As my luck would have it, at the beginning of May, some electric company line workers came to the door to let me know they would be shutting off the power towards my end (and the house in turn) for about 15 minutes while they worked on the transformer on the pole. My only thought was "My Mom's TV won't survive being off for that long..." even though I've been woken up in the middle of the night due to a storm-induced power outage, pleading for the electricity to recover some hit points and come back. Which it did.

This time, I wasn't that lucky. The MX wouldn't turn on long enough to stay on. So like back in February, I got on Craigslist, and unfortunately the other 36 inch CRT TVs I had seen weren't on there anymore. I had to settle for a 32 inch Magnavox TV for a pittance. Let's summarize it this way: I'm not ready for a widescreen LED or LCD or whatever TV just yet, and I'm not in that financial league to afford one anyway.

This TV had been stored away for a while, unused. It's compatible with my current Magnavox remotes, so that was a big plus. It is also 4 years newer than my mother's TV, so it lacked some features I will miss, and some we used for an all too brief time. Picture in Picture was nice. The Over the Air Digital TV Guide stuff was neat, but since the switch to digital TV, is now sorely obsolete, which is a shame. I had finally figured out how to set the ZIP code so it would get the right program info to display.

At least now if I should happen to want a 36 inch TV, my Exploder has enough room for it. And it's best to transport a TV with the picture tube facing towards the back seat and across the width of the vehicle. Otherwise it'll flip over to the face of the tube as soon as you make a left or right turn.

There were several times during the month of June I felt like posting an update, but for some reason I felt it not that important. Maybe there's something to copypasta from my Foosebook postings. Oh well.

The main reason I felt like writing something was discovering how to soft-cook or it could even be called poaching an egg in the microwave.

You need:
1. Egg
1 Tupperware plastic hamburger keeper (sold in sets with the press handle)
1 slightly bigger thingy to put over the keeper

Break the egg into the keeper. Do not stir or scramble. Instead, quickly puncture the yolk. Bonus points if it doesn't begin immediately to leak out. I like some pepper on my egg, so season with pepper as you like.

Carefully place into microwave. Hopefully you have a turntable. Cover with the slightly bigger thingy. You want to keep whatever steam is released during the cooking time in with the egg so it doesn't dry out.

Here's the tricky part. I have no idea what power level the microwave beams its energy into the cooking area, but suffice to say this. I set it to cook the first time for 11 seconds, then lift the cover to see if the white of the egg has begun to coagulate due to the cooking energy. The edges should have cooked first. After inspection, cook for another 11 seconds. More of the white should now be cooked. Then I cook for another 11 seconds.

Now at this point, you could have all the egg white having cooked and turned white and the egg yolk yellow is no longer visible. It could be only slightly jiggly at this point but somewhat hot. IE you have a "cloudy" egg and not Sunny Side Up. If So - You are done! I typically assemble into a sandwich with mayo and cheese on one side, and the egg, carefully pried out of the burger keeper thingy and laid face down on the other slice of bread. The yolk is sufficiently cooked but still a bit liquid. Sometimes I can get it to just creamy but not solid. I've yet to have a problem with getting sick, so take that as you want.

If the egg is still Sunny Side Up and jiggly, cook for about 9 to 10 more seconds for a 4th time. I've tried blasting the egg straight through in one go, but I ended up with a bit of uncooked egg white in the middle somewhere. Doing it in short bursts appears to work best.

So there you have it. My version of poaching an egg in the microwave.

The sort of shocking thing I didn't expect

Going through some of my burned DVDs and finding out that some, especially my older discs, have developed some sort of foggy residue on the data side. It wipes off with some spray cleaner and tissues (and air duster for the resulting detritus) and the disks still play. It may be due to the plastic chemical makeup for the cases used, as it affected all the different brands of media used in the cases. Some of my more recent cases and burns haven't yet shown signs of this odd fogging.

DVDs in cake boxes and the single slim trays don't appear to be affected at all.

At any rate, I finally found some place offering scratch protective adhesive inserts much like the one I got in the jewel case for my  Sailor Moon 1st season BGM CD. I am of the opinion at this point that the fogging can be prevented by keeping the data side away from the plastic case.

I'll be getting more supplies to clean the other fogged DVDs. Even though the single slim trays are ideal, I like to label my discs with printed inserts. It's a tradeoff I'll have to figure out.

Various things and whatever (I'll come up with a title later)

Still trying to start up my computer services business. Right now I have a sick Win7 desktop that is going to get a HD clone and transplant, then I have to fix a corrupted user profile. The HD going bad likely was the cause of that and I have 2 ways to get that user profile to work again. If I just restored the profile without a new drive, it would just go bad again.At any rate, IT'S MY FIRST NON-FAMILY, NON-FRIEND CUSTOMER!! Yay.

I still have a little work to do on the laptop I've been working on. The parts got here and the flux pen did its magic on the one broken off post I wanted to re-attach. Now to get the energy to remove the varistor, clean up the area and work on getting the new varistor fluxed and tacked in place. I have the thermal transfer stuff for the heat sinks. I truly hope after the time I spent on this laptop that it still works.

I need to get another O ring for the DVD drive I was handed to work on because the size of the one I got in the first place doesn't offer enough grip for the motor and mechanics to disengage the magnetic disk clamp from the top of the drive housing. So it needs to be smaller.

And then the power supply board for a DVD player a friend dropped off got the capacitors replaced (the originals had leaked everywhere) and I have to check more of it because when I put it back in place, the player wouldn't turn on. So I missed something though I'm sure the capacitors were installed and soldered in correctly (they're polarized electrolytic caps). It started out not being able to eject the DVD... I was hoping that the problem was with the power supply board and fixing that would help. One problem at a time.

But I'm more excited about a Flash Video file I was able to grab. It came with closed captioned subtitles. At first I thought I wasn't going to be able to grab the data for it, but I found the link for that data. A simple Java application turns it into an SRT file, and then I was able to turn that into a stylized subtitle file. Subs, got.

The video file was more of a pain in the butt. VLC played the video just fine, but conversion to AVI with one tool I like resulted in the video playing too slowly and got out of sync with the audio but somehow the subtitles remained in sync with the audio. Odd. I ran it twice before trying something else, after making darn sure I told it what I wanted it to do.

So I used another tool and got a raw MP4 from the original file, but that tool saw it necessary to insert 70ms gaps in the audio it converted, so the later parts of the conversion played out of sync with each other. But I was able to convert that to a subbed AVI where the subs were in sync with the video. I figured I'd do what I've done before - grab the audio from the original file as an MP3, remux with Virtual Dub and it would fix the problem with the audio - Which It Did!

So now that I can make a final subbed video with everything where it's supposed to be, I will spend some time fixing up the subtitle file. I got to about the 36 minute mark and ran into something that needs another style defined. By that point, I was too tired to continue, so I'll finish that soon but not now.
 

I might be able to fix this, too.

Working on my 2nd laptop so far. It's a Dell Inspiron 2200 found in the trash. With a replacement power supply and a DVD ROM drive put in that was found with it, it powers on and the screen is good.

Today the replacement hard drive arrived, and so I plunked it in and let Windows XP Home Edition do something with it. The BIOS saw it and knew the capacity (40GB). So I let the installer format the drive. It gets to 86% and then the power drops dead.

Problem: I knew the DC power jack was loose, so this was no surprise as it finally got warm enough with a hard drive in to affect the thermal expansion properties of loose power jacks. So I decided that I'll get the thermal grease later - I want at that damn power jack! So I get it apart and the last step - getting the motherboard out - was stumping me. The Internet Archive kept a copy of the Dell service manual for the 2200, and wouldn't you know it - one glance at it, then back to the motherboard and it lifted right out!

And the culprit - nearly no solder on any of the power jack bits on the circuit board! I also saw one other bit that broke off and will fix that, too. Now to remedy this and get it back together to the point just before putting all the heat sinks on it so I can get Arctic Silver on it.

I want to see this machine work.

Fixing it looks pretty good right now

I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE IT TURNED ON AGAIN!

And all I changed (so far) was a single capacitor.


I had done extensive reading to determine what was wrong, and many times a 100uf 200V capacitor next to a transformer would be a good place to start. I bought one off Mouser.com because Radio Shack didn't have the part in a local store (as usual) and the price on Mouser was excellent.

At least I managed to save Mom's TV, for now anyway.
 

Fix it or replace it?

So for the past so many months or so, I've left the Magnavox MX big screen on all the time due to the last time the electric went out and I had a hell of a time trying to get it to turn back on. And wouldn't you know it, the generally fucking unreliable Ohio Edison managed to drop power for about 4 minutes last night and the TV was off and unwilling to stay turned on this morning when I got up. It does its click, light up the green LED for half a second, click back off, and a "thub" sound from the speakers when I try to turn it on. The backup supply that listens to remote signals is working, it just isn't staying on.

I realize this thing is 18 years old, but it still works fine. Well, the picture was just fine. I still want a big screen tube-type TV. Extensive research online yielded info in that the TV has some stupid circuit protection feature. It's supposed to protect the unit in case of over voltage conditions, but in this case, it's an under-voltage condition. I've strongly suspected a capacitor (or 3) that have aged and are off their measured values as capacitance is concerned.

There's one by the high voltage transformer in the power section. Lots of notes that turn up specify this very capacitor's uf and voltage rating, and this is certainly in that spot. I wish I could find precise schematic and service manuals for free on the web.

"Why don't you replace it with a flat screen?" I really don't have the kind of money that a flat-screen TV requires and I'd like to avoid putting one on a credit card. I want something with composite video input and there's no guarantee the model I'd want for my price range would have that.

As it is, I could find suitably sized tube-type big screens on Craigslist or perhaps local pawnshops, having found a couple of candidate TVs online. One of them is 5 years newer than this one. The prices aren't so bad either. It just requires a fair bit of driving to get them and the needed muscle to get it inside and placed.

The parts I need, should I need more than one capacitor, run from $2 to about $20 or so. It seems televisions, even the newer flat screens, all get power supply problems and capacitors usually are the components that go bad because the manufacturers use cheap ass capacitors with shoddy formulations. And in some cases, they just dry out for some reason. I'm trying to avoid thinking about other components that I've seen replaced in some videos I watched online.

Fix it or replace it? Both options are available. I'm going to try fixing first, then when it's not so cold and static-electric prone, re-check my replacement possibilities if that's too tricky.

I just wish things would stop breaking or dying around here.

How to read Japanese 1.2mb formatted 3.5inch floppies

1. Get some Japanese 1.2mb formatted floppies (Wedding Peach Screensaver, for example)



2. Have a floppy drive that can read these floppies. For this purpose, I selected the TEAC FD-05PUB 3.5inch USB floppy drive since the Japanese company website explicitly says it can.



3. Have a computer with a BIOS that understands and mentions such formatted floppies in the CMOS setup screen. Make sure the Administrator password is cleared or you'll not be able to change the floppy reading setting or enable reading 1.2MB floppies.



4. If using Windows 98SE, find the drivers for the FD-05PUB. This drive exists in other designs, so my drivers came from an Imation website page.



5. Copy driver files onto Win98SE hard drive, plug in USB floppy and have Win98SE find and install the driver.



6. ?????



7. Profit.