Owari

Colossalcon is over. I am tired. Not looking forward to going home even though I want to be on my way home now.

Vibrating HD? RR out at the same time

I making this post so I can get some help on what might be a bad hard drive or not. Called home to see how things are and I get told that at some point the computer froze and the HD was vibrating. A whir~click is bad but not vibrating? Mom had to shut it off at the power strip. At worst we buy a new HD at best we also put in 2G RAM.

Hhgttg Kalahari arcade

Don't waste your time or money in the "arcade" at the Kalahari. The games supposedly take tokens, but in order to get them you have to buy a card to swipe at a token dispenser only to find out very few games actually take tokens and that your card now has no credits. Yeah each token is 50 cents and most games take more than one. A complete ripoff!

Badge!

Getting my staff badge this year was so much easier ~ My name was on the list!

Just about ready to travel to Colossalcon

Had trouble falling asleep last night and then realize I had forgotten a few things. That always happens. I thought I had included a needle and thread for emergencies that require a needle and thread. And then there's the paper cutter I forgot. I really should have brought one of my MP3 players. Instead I used the cell phone with a plug in handset and listened to the FM radio. One thing I didn't know about FM radio signals is that they embed some amount of digital text in the signal. I found at least 7 radio stations receivable in the area that ID themselves or also include song title and artist name. I guess some high end car radio receivers can display this data, but this is the first time I saw it, even on a cell phone.

I'll keep looking for the needle and thread. I know where my money is. ^_^

I guess for all the things people remember to pack, there's a few items they always forget.

And then there was the disability check that didn't arrive when it should have. It better be here today dammit. Not a good sign for the weekend.

Yell until at last finally it sinks in

I don't know why I have to yell so much at my mother. Maybe it's because
of her attitude with some things.

Last week, after waiting longer than necessary, she got her Narnia
Caspian DVD in the mail, something she bought off Half.com. Only there
was no return address, and the DVD was a bootleg burn with a paper label
I could peel off which hasn't been just yet.

I got on her case about it, to stop playing Pogo right then, get on her
account at Half.com and lodge a complaint. Instead she just kept playing
Pogo and the more I yelled at her to take action this moment while the
thought was still fresh, the more she just got mad at me for yelling at
her. Unless I yell at her, the least likely it is that the message will
sink in. So anywho, for what seemed like an eternity, she finally gets
on half.com and contacts the seller. I told her to say that what the
seller sent was an illegal bootleg copy with a paper label and we can
tell when the DVD is a burn (it's usually some shade of purple) and that
paper labelled DVDs are not going into our players ever, and she wants
her $6 (supposedly) back. Well, the seller hasn't replied in all this
time, so she's finally going to seek justice from half.com.

Then tonight of all times, she's giving the dog a Greenie. I don't know
if people know what a Greenie dog treat is, but she seems to think these
are damn good, but at the prices in the store for some variations of
Greenies (like $32 a box) I'm buying what is sensible (though $4 a bag
for a bunch of these things is not as sensible as 99 cents for regular
crunchy dog treats at Aldi's). But for some reason she has to blurt out
that she ordered some "real" Greenies. But for the godforsaken fact what
I have been buying at the pet store IS a REAL GREENIE. WHY DO WE EVEN
BOTHER BUYING THEM IN THE STORE IF SHE INSISTS ON WASTING MONEY ON THEM
ONLINE??? Says so on the damn package GREENIE. The logo matches. Oh but
she goes on to say it's the one that "exercises the jaw more and cleans
the teeth". Um... What? Doesn't it say on the ones (she calls them
biscuits but they are REAL GREENIES dammit) that these do that, too? WHY
DO I EVEN BOTHER!? Anyway, that exchange brings on some yelling by me,
notifying her that $32 is on a dog treat is overkill. It's an
unnecessary expense, but for some reason it just does not sink in with
her.

Part of the problem is when she finds out she's got some extra $$$ in
the bank, she tends to spend it wastefully. I can't get through to her.
I think it was last night or earlier today when she mentioned buying one
of those stupid upside down hanging tomato planters. ARGH!! WE DO NOT
NEED IT!

We have a leaking bathtub faucet, and I will make an attempt to get her
to go in and share the cost of parts and maybe a plumber to install the
thing in the coming weeks. I still want to install it to learn how to do
it though.

Anyway, I yell and I yell common sense at her, and I'm going to yell
until I either get court-ordered control of her finances or she finally
listens and gets the idea without getting angry. It's because she does
what she does that keeps pissing me off because that's how we ended up
losing the Euclid Ave house and where we are now.

She refuses to take responsibility for her actions. She's got all this
cross-stitching stuff she bought and hasn't touched any of it now that
she's got a lot of time to do something. Why don't we sell it? (well,
for one thing eBay doesn't let people use money orders for payment
anymore, so that kills my use of eBay for good.)

It makes me wonder if I would miss my mom if she should happen to die at
some point. Parents aren't supposed to be asshole pains in the butt.

On an unrelated note, a paper labelled CD that I could not get read at
all in some DVD capable drives copied just fine in my mother's Dell with
a CD burner. Not a single problem pulling all the files off. But the
Win98SE box's drives? 50% read until it got errors. Even the other Dell
that I'm going to return at some point when they're ready for it had
problems. It has a DVD combo CD burning drive. Not a chance. I've had
this CD since 2003, and only now did it occur to me to copy it off
because of the paper label. I wonder why the CD burner drive did what
the DVD drives could not? Maybe a bigger laser beam for a better read? I
dunno. The main thing I wanted off was a 598MB MPG video file and that
came off no problem. Nice.

Suddenly Morels...

Thousands of them!!

Plumber's Epoxy Putty - does it work?

For some time now, well perhaps a couple of years but only recently did
this get really bad - there has been a leak at the cold water supply
pipe to the faucet control knob to our bathtub. It started out as a
smallish leak around 2007, and got progressively worse since then. In
the past month or so, it's been leaking at the point that you can hear
the water dripping inside the wall. Yeah, not good.

I got annoyed finally, and decided I would do something about it. And do
something I did. First part involved how I was going to get in there and
see what's going on. Turns out that was easier than I thought! There
were 3 screws holding the wood panel on to the back of the wall area
where the faucet knob thing is. Once I had that off, I had direct access
to the problem.

One note in passing: While we waited for an independent contractor to
re-pipe the house a couple of years ago, in the process of putting in
new pipes to our bathtub, he accidentally reversed the hot and cold
sides of the faucet. It's like he put the knob in upside down.

Anywho, got the panel off and I see the leak from the cold water supply
part. The contractor had re-piped it up to a point, but it should have
been redone throughout. PVC hooked to metal pipes that went into the
faucet.

I had bought Amazing Plumbing Goop at Lowe's. This was not a job for
that. I'll be getting my $4 back for that as soon as I can.

Instead, went to a local hardware store for a tube of their plumber's
epoxy putty. This is the same stuff hawked on TV as Mighty Putty, though
not as expensive and probably better than that cheap crap as seen on TV.

This was definitely a job for epoxy putty. Turned off the water, sanded
the bits I needed to sand, and dried and wiped everything off. I cut off
the bit I was going to use (about 1/3 of the stick I bought) and kneaded
it with rubber gloves on. It turned a uniform gray and got warm and
tacky, like the instructions said would happen.

Then I made sure to get in there and forcibly smashed that putty all
around the bit that was leaking. Hopefully it's not leaking on the hot
water side - I'm hoping that it's not, but I will see soon enough.

I'm letting it cure overnight. Some people have reported it not working
for them, some people said it worked just fine. It depends on how well
you prep the surfaces, how well you worked the putty, and other factors.

I'll be happy just to have stopped that damaging leak. The epoxy putty
seems to be doing what it claimed it would do. It's been around for a
long time, so apparently enough people have gotten it to work. Seemed to
stick to what I wanted it to stick to. We'll see!

English version of Daiso Okonomiyaki recipe for the microwave oven

Finally finished doing a decent-enough translation of the recipe I got
with the Daiso okonomiyaki microwave oven cookware I got. You'll have to
convert the metric measurements yourself.

1. 40 grams flour (wheat or whatever)

2. 50 cc dashi (fine powder dissolved dashi is OK)

3. Yamato Imo aka Japanese yam (potato) - a small amount
(Not sure what to tell you on that. I don't like yams, but I would
think you would peel and grate like a tablespoon of a yam if you like.)

4. 100 grams cabbage (cut small / shredded)

5. 1 Egg

6. tenkasu - as desired

I had to look up tenkasu. It's bits of crunchy deep fried flour dough.
The best way to describe it is the crumbs made when deep frying
batter-dipped fish at you-know-where, but failing having that on hand,
crispy rice cereal works as a good substitute! Or maybe any kind of
crispy unsweetened cereal that holds up. It's easy enough to make
anyway.

7. Red Ginger - as desired

8. Sliced Pork - as desired

Toppings - Aonori, bonito flakes, mayonaise, okonomiyaki sauce

1. Mix the first 3 ingredients together in a bowl. Fold in 4-7 and mix
well.

2. Arrange the meat nicely in the center of the bottom lid.

3. Pour batter over the meat, covering it completely.

4. Lock the upper lid on securely.

5. Cook in the microwave. Use these times as a guide in case your
microwave has a different power level, in which case your cooking time
will vary.

6 minutes in a 600 watt oven, or 6:30 in a 500 watt oven.

Remove when done, but flip the cookware over and put it back in the
oven. There'll be hot steam leaking out through gaps in the lid and will
turn into hot water droplets. Be careful not to burn yourself!

6. When ready, remove the upper lid. Top as you like in this order:
Mayonaise, Okonomiyaki sauce, and then with the aonori and bonito
flakes.

You can serve it on a plate or in the dish you cooked it in. I would say
be careful not to scratch the plastic as you cut and eat the okonomiyaki
if you do it that way.

And that's it. Daiso sells the okonomiyaki cookware on their website
from one of their California stores in packs of 5 for about $8 with
another $9 for UPS shipping, and is just the kind of thing you need when
you can't use an electric hot plate.

Sega Saturn emulators: Yabause

Last night I finally checked out Sega Saturn emulators. The easiest
among them to use is Yabause. You set it up and it goes and does it. No
plugins needed, though you do need to supply a Sega Bios ROM and a game.

I think it was meant to read game CDs directly, because I was testing it
with a game disk image file, and after a few times, the emulator refused
to load the image. Thankfully I had written it out to a data DVD before
messing with the emulator, and it ran the image off that disk just fine.

I had trouble trying to exit the emulator. On the PSX one, you just hit
ESC and it bows out of the way gracefully. The Readme file for Yabause
says to hit Q, but it didn't work. So among the times I had it running
full screen and having to use the XP Task Manager to shut it down,
something corrupted the disk image file on the HD.

I recommend you set it up to run as a window, about 700x525, and then
burn your backup images to optical media when using it with Yabause.

Others I tried were SSF and Satourne. Because of the AMD Athlon
processor, SSF wouldn't work. I read elsewhere that a certain
instruction set needed to be supported for SSF to work and Athlon
processors don't do that. That doesn't mean SSF wouldn't load and run,
it did, I just didn't get far enough to see what it could do.

Satourne looked complicated, but needed plugins which I may look for so
that there are 2 options for a Sega Saturn emulator. That's because once
Yabause is set up, it writes out an INI file, and each time you run it
after that first time, it doesn't throw up a config box to let you set
certain things again unless you delete the INI file. That's OK if you
use optical media and have each game on a separate disk. But if you have
more than one disk image on the same disk, you have to do something with
the INI file.

CORRECTION: Dreamcast game disks are what is known as a Megabit disk. They have a
different format and layout from any other kind of CD sized disk, and
you need a Dreamcast unit to read them if you want to make an image to run
on your emulator, and people have worked on this a lot. If you try to
copy a Sega Dreamcast game disk in a regular PC CDrom drive, you will get
the CD track only, usually audio, and nothing else. A neat way for copy
prevention by most but the exceptionally dedicated. I don't know how
emulators on a computer will read those game disks, unless they are
using images obtained elsewhere.