I left work a couple of minutes early in order to get to the dentist on time.
When I went in for my check-up on Friday my regular dentist wasn't there, so another dentist was filling in for him. She was the one who decided that I needed to get a crown, but apparently nobody made any note of which tooth it was supposed to be for. When I got there today my regular dentist was back, and his assistant took an an x-ray of the tooth that they thought was the one.
After looking at the x-ray, the dentist asked if I knew which one it was supposed to be, as the one that was x-rayed apparently was not it. I said which one I thought it was, he checked it out, and another x-ray later my mouth was numbed (mostly; more on that in a bit), some impressions were taken, and he was hard at work grinding down the tooth I suggested.
My mouth was mostly numbed because after having had so much dental work done over the years I've built up something of a tolerance for/immunity to novacaine. I get all of the unpleasant aspects, like losing feeling in my face and lips, but the tooth being worked on never gets fully numb. Fortunately I've also got a pretty high threshold of pain, so while the experience was unpleasant it wasn't unbearably agonizing.
After getting the temporary crown put on I made the appointment to get the permanent one put in, and was on my not-so merry way.
On the way home I stopped at Best Buy to pick up Sin City on Blu-ray. The cute-ish and altogether too young girl who rang me up was totally on auto-pilot as she went through the motions of being pleasant and asked all of the required questions (Do you have a Rewards Zone card, credit or debit, etc.). It reminded me a little of working in the call center when I would just shut off my brain and unthinkingly repeat my opening script (Thank you for choosing America Online, high-speed technical support. My name is Jon. Before we get started I'm going to ask you a few questions. Let's start with your screen name. Will you spell it for me please? Thank you. And may I have your first and last name please?) over and over again.
After finishing things up she explained about the online survey listed at the bottom of the receipt and how filling it out could win me a $5,000 shopping spree, and circled the information with a marker.
When I got home I glanced at the receipt on the table and noticed that she'd circled the information with a little heart. I said, "Aww, how cute." Then I looked at it again and saw that it wasn't a heart, it had just looked like one from an angle, so I said, "Okay, fine; don't circle it with a heart. Now I don't like you anymore."
Then I laughed.
Then I laughted some more.
Then I questioned my sanity.
Then I concluded that there's really no need to question my sanity, as at this point I already know the answer.
Showing posts with label blu-ray. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blu-ray. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Nixon/FDR '08: Change You Won't F***ing Believe!
As I’d forgotten to burn the DVDs the night before, Scott and I didn’t actually watch any Riff Trax movies yesterday.
Instead I picked up Iron Man on Blu-Ray and we watched that.
(Specifically, I got the two disc Ultimate Blu-Ray edition, in the Target exclusive Iron Man helmet disc case.)
We also watched the season premiere of Pushing Daisies, which, as always, was wonderful.
To mark the occasion, I bought a cherry pie.
In case you haven’t watched the show – And why haven’t you? It’s wonderful! Why do you hate joy? – the pie was appropriate, as the main character is a pie maker, and as such pies often figure prominently into the plot.
While I was at Target I also picked up the super mega happy fun fun (or whatever it’s actually called) Blu-Ray edition of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I haven’t seen it, but it looked funny, and Apatow and company haven’t let me down so far, so, since it was right next to Iron Man, I figured I might as well grab it and add to my Blu-Ray collection.
At one point I got a phone call, and as my living room phone had lost sync with the base station, it didn’t ring, so I had to answer the phone in the kitchen, since I didn’t want to go upstairs to one of the phones that has a caller ID display, and it was at least theoretically possible that it was something important.
Turned out to be the survey people who keep calling me and whom I keep hanging up on (last night was no exception). I believe it’s the same people who have been calling people and asking who they’re going to vote for, then, if the person being surveyed is voting for Obama, asking a bunch of loaded hypothetical questions like “Would you still vote for Obama if I told you that he eats babies?”
I said like that, but not actually that. Mostly they’ve been talking to Jews and asking them if they’d still vote for Obama if they knew that he supported a bunch of anti-Israel policies.
It’s all very similar to what the Bush campaign did back in 2000, calling people in the South and telling them that McCain had an illegitimate black child, which should come as no surprise, as McCain has hired all of the people who ruined his campaign to ruin his opponent’s campaign.
One of these times I might actually talk to them if they call and when they ask who I’m going to vote for, I’ll either tell them that I’m voting for Bill and Opus, or the Nixon/FDR ticket. If they point out that Nixon and FDR are both dead, and even if they were alive they 1. Would be ineligible to run and 2. They would be extremely unlikely to run on the same ticket, I’ll start to sob uncontrollably and scream, “Dead? When did that happen?” If they figure out that Bill and Opus aren’t real candidates (and don’t actually exist) I’ll accuse them of being lying dupes of the Lex Luthor/Pete Ross campaign and demand to speak to their Reptoid supervisor.
However, it’s more likely that I’ll just keep hanging up on them.
Speaking of McCain, though, apparently he’s decided to Say No! To Michigan (I don’t know, or care, if it still is, but the tourism slogan for Michigan used to be Say Yes! To Michigan), according to this article I read today (and am too lazy to find again in order to provide a link), and has decided that it’s a lost cause*. His campaign will stop running ads and will drop its direct mailings to Michigan residents and focus its energies on key battleground states.
In any case, I’m finding myself diving deeper into politics than I really care to, so I guess I’ll bring this entry to a close.
*Updated to add: Huh. John McCain and I actually have something in common.
Instead I picked up Iron Man on Blu-Ray and we watched that.
(Specifically, I got the two disc Ultimate Blu-Ray edition, in the Target exclusive Iron Man helmet disc case.)
We also watched the season premiere of Pushing Daisies, which, as always, was wonderful.
To mark the occasion, I bought a cherry pie.
In case you haven’t watched the show – And why haven’t you? It’s wonderful! Why do you hate joy? – the pie was appropriate, as the main character is a pie maker, and as such pies often figure prominently into the plot.
While I was at Target I also picked up the super mega happy fun fun (or whatever it’s actually called) Blu-Ray edition of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I haven’t seen it, but it looked funny, and Apatow and company haven’t let me down so far, so, since it was right next to Iron Man, I figured I might as well grab it and add to my Blu-Ray collection.
At one point I got a phone call, and as my living room phone had lost sync with the base station, it didn’t ring, so I had to answer the phone in the kitchen, since I didn’t want to go upstairs to one of the phones that has a caller ID display, and it was at least theoretically possible that it was something important.
Turned out to be the survey people who keep calling me and whom I keep hanging up on (last night was no exception). I believe it’s the same people who have been calling people and asking who they’re going to vote for, then, if the person being surveyed is voting for Obama, asking a bunch of loaded hypothetical questions like “Would you still vote for Obama if I told you that he eats babies?”
I said like that, but not actually that. Mostly they’ve been talking to Jews and asking them if they’d still vote for Obama if they knew that he supported a bunch of anti-Israel policies.
It’s all very similar to what the Bush campaign did back in 2000, calling people in the South and telling them that McCain had an illegitimate black child, which should come as no surprise, as McCain has hired all of the people who ruined his campaign to ruin his opponent’s campaign.
One of these times I might actually talk to them if they call and when they ask who I’m going to vote for, I’ll either tell them that I’m voting for Bill and Opus, or the Nixon/FDR ticket. If they point out that Nixon and FDR are both dead, and even if they were alive they 1. Would be ineligible to run and 2. They would be extremely unlikely to run on the same ticket, I’ll start to sob uncontrollably and scream, “Dead? When did that happen?” If they figure out that Bill and Opus aren’t real candidates (and don’t actually exist) I’ll accuse them of being lying dupes of the Lex Luthor/Pete Ross campaign and demand to speak to their Reptoid supervisor.
However, it’s more likely that I’ll just keep hanging up on them.
Speaking of McCain, though, apparently he’s decided to Say No! To Michigan (I don’t know, or care, if it still is, but the tourism slogan for Michigan used to be Say Yes! To Michigan), according to this article I read today (and am too lazy to find again in order to provide a link), and has decided that it’s a lost cause*. His campaign will stop running ads and will drop its direct mailings to Michigan residents and focus its energies on key battleground states.
In any case, I’m finding myself diving deeper into politics than I really care to, so I guess I’ll bring this entry to a close.
*Updated to add: Huh. John McCain and I actually have something in common.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Given The Number Of Kids Limping, Can You Really Call It "Healthy" Competition?
After getting up, sitting around not doing anything in particular, and the finally showering and getting dressed, I headed out into the world to see about buying a Blu Ray player.
I looked at the (relatively) cheap one I’d seen the other day, but ultimately ended up figuring that if I’m going to buy a Blu Ray player I might as well get one from the people who made Blu Ray in the first place, so I dropped a little more money and bought the Sony BDP S350.
Eventually – probably somewhere around bonus/tax time – I’ll end up replacing the majority of my A/V equipment, with the exception of my receiver, with a Media Center PC with digital cable tuners and a Blu Ray drive, but for the time being I figured I might as well be as up-to-date as possible.
As I also mentioned, I’m not looking at converting my regular DVD collection over to Blu Ray – not yet, anyway – but I figured I should actually buy something to watch on it. It was kind of tricky to find anything that I wanted to see that I don’t already have, but then I stumbled upon Shoot ‘em Up, which I hadn’t previously purchased on DVD (mostly because I was waiting to see if it was also coming out on HD DVD, and then because I knew that eventually I’d get a Blu Ray player).
Shoot ‘em Up is one of three movies that I wish Scott would make an exemption to his “no Rated R movies” rule so that he could see it, as I know that he would enjoy it as much as I do. The other two movies, by the way, are, naturally, Sin City, and American Splendor.
Interestingly enough, Paul Giamatti is in two of the three movies (Shoot ‘em Up and American Splendor), and Clive Owen is also in two of them (Shoot ‘em Up and Sin City). Weird.
From Best Buy I went on to Arby’s for lunch, and then I stopped at a gas station to gas up, and from there went to Super Target to do some grocery shopping.
There were dozens of kids and teens there in soccer uniforms, and nearly all of them were limping, some with bandages around their ankles, some without.
Is there some sort of soccer league specifically for kids with brittle bones or something?
Maybe they all have a problem with walking similar to my own.
After that I came home and swapped out the HD DVD player for the Blu Ray player in my A/V stack. I’m a little worried about heat dispersion; the Blu Ray player vents out through the back, but it’s not as deep as any of my other equipment, so I can’t stack any components on top of it. But everything else vents out through the top, so I don’t really like the idea of putting it on top of anything else. Currently I have it on top of the receiver, hoping that it’s leaving enough of the receiver’s vents exposed to prevent any heat-related issues.
After setting up the new component, I reprogrammed my remote to add in controls for the Blu Ray player and to use it for the “Watch My Videos” activity rather than the HD DVD player. It didn’t get it right the first time: it set the input to “SAT” on the receiver rather than “BD,” so I had to go through and program it again.
And of course all of this heart-pounding excitement proved exhausting, so after I was finished I had to take a nap.
And that’s pretty much been my day.
I looked at the (relatively) cheap one I’d seen the other day, but ultimately ended up figuring that if I’m going to buy a Blu Ray player I might as well get one from the people who made Blu Ray in the first place, so I dropped a little more money and bought the Sony BDP S350.
Eventually – probably somewhere around bonus/tax time – I’ll end up replacing the majority of my A/V equipment, with the exception of my receiver, with a Media Center PC with digital cable tuners and a Blu Ray drive, but for the time being I figured I might as well be as up-to-date as possible.
As I also mentioned, I’m not looking at converting my regular DVD collection over to Blu Ray – not yet, anyway – but I figured I should actually buy something to watch on it. It was kind of tricky to find anything that I wanted to see that I don’t already have, but then I stumbled upon Shoot ‘em Up, which I hadn’t previously purchased on DVD (mostly because I was waiting to see if it was also coming out on HD DVD, and then because I knew that eventually I’d get a Blu Ray player).
Shoot ‘em Up is one of three movies that I wish Scott would make an exemption to his “no Rated R movies” rule so that he could see it, as I know that he would enjoy it as much as I do. The other two movies, by the way, are, naturally, Sin City, and American Splendor.
Interestingly enough, Paul Giamatti is in two of the three movies (Shoot ‘em Up and American Splendor), and Clive Owen is also in two of them (Shoot ‘em Up and Sin City). Weird.
From Best Buy I went on to Arby’s for lunch, and then I stopped at a gas station to gas up, and from there went to Super Target to do some grocery shopping.
There were dozens of kids and teens there in soccer uniforms, and nearly all of them were limping, some with bandages around their ankles, some without.
Is there some sort of soccer league specifically for kids with brittle bones or something?
Maybe they all have a problem with walking similar to my own.
After that I came home and swapped out the HD DVD player for the Blu Ray player in my A/V stack. I’m a little worried about heat dispersion; the Blu Ray player vents out through the back, but it’s not as deep as any of my other equipment, so I can’t stack any components on top of it. But everything else vents out through the top, so I don’t really like the idea of putting it on top of anything else. Currently I have it on top of the receiver, hoping that it’s leaving enough of the receiver’s vents exposed to prevent any heat-related issues.
After setting up the new component, I reprogrammed my remote to add in controls for the Blu Ray player and to use it for the “Watch My Videos” activity rather than the HD DVD player. It didn’t get it right the first time: it set the input to “SAT” on the receiver rather than “BD,” so I had to go through and program it again.
And of course all of this heart-pounding excitement proved exhausting, so after I was finished I had to take a nap.
And that’s pretty much been my day.
Friday, March 21, 2008
It's Not A Half Day Or Anything Like That...Oh, Wait, It Is.
So yesterday I officially made the transition from one boss to the other.
While getting lunch at the café in the building next door, I encountered my new boss who asked, “Have they sent out any kind of notice about tomorrow being a half day?”I confessed that I had seen no such notice, to which she said, “Well, just plan for tomorrow to be a half day.”
She got no argument from me, and shortly after noon today I was on the road and headed home, though I did make a brief stop at Best Buy.
Why? Well, the last time I’d gone to Dell to check on the status of my order, it said that it was “In Production” and the estimated shipping date was 3/25.
However, when I got to work yesterday and checked my mail there was a message saying that my computer had shipped on Wednesday. I thought, “Oh, well it’s two day shipping, so it should be here on Friday. I’ll have to see if I can arrange for Kathleen to be at the house.”
Then I clicked on the tracking number and discovered that it was already in VA and on its way to my house.
Unable to get a hold of Kathleen, I was annoyed when I checked the status during lunch and saw “Delivery Exception – Customer not at home or business closed.”
*Sigh*
By that time I knew that it was possible that I would be home in time on Friday, given the half day thing, but I couldn’t be certain, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to sign the signature sticker that I found waiting on my door when I got home, which would have authorized them to simply leave the package outside my door on the next delivery attempt. Even in the nicest neighborhood you don’t want a big box that says “Dell” on it sitting unattended outside your door.
So I called FedEx to ask if it would be possible for me to go somewhere to pick it up, as the most likely alternative was waiting for the third delivery attempt on Saturday. Sure, that would have meant getting the computer sooner than originally anticipated, but now that I knew that it was so close, how was I supposed to wait?
The lady on the phone told me that I could pick it up – from Winchester, which is a pretty good distance from Leesburg – particularly given that travel is measured not in distance but in time in these parts – which was a pain, but which still beat the alternative.
Looking online, I saw that they had more than one facility in Winchester, so I called back to make sure which one it was.
This time I was told that I couldn’t pick it up. Picking up a package from a service center is only an option after the third and final attempt at delivery has been made.
So I was annoyed.
However, sometime later I was upstairs in the office and heard a noise outside. I looked out the window and saw a FedEx truck parked next to my car and the driver heading for my door.
The driver – who is now in the running for “Jon’s Favorite Person” – decided that he should swing by again to see if I was home this time.
(While I was signing for it, he was peering over my shoulder at my TV and raving about how wonderful it is.)
So, long story long, I have my new computer!
I don’t, however, have my Digital TV Tuner, as that will be shipping separately. It’s not a big deal, as I need to schedule an appointment with Verizon to have a tech sent out with a CableCARD anyway, and will need to be home for that. I’m hoping the Tuner comes soon, though, so that I can try to schedule the appointment for the 9th, as I have that day off. I’d requested it off – along with several other days – because that’s when my mom’s flight will be arriving, and we’d originally anticipated her arriving earlier in the day. Turns out she won’t get here until around 10 PM, but hey, a day off is a day off.
In any case, most of my time has been spent transferring files and settings (made, appropriately enough, easy through the use of Vista’s “Easy Transfer” application), and installing essential applications.
I had hoped that the new Hugin would come with Vista Service Pack 1 already installed, as MS did the RTM (Release To Manufacturing) of SP 1 back in February, but alas, such was not the case.
In fact, since turning the new Hugin on and hooking it up to the network I’ve downloaded hundreds of megabytes worth of updates and patches.
I’m holding off on SP 1, though.
I actually installed it on the old Hugin the other day without incident, but the old Hugin has an ATI graphics card, whereas the new Hugin has an nVidia card, and so far most of the SP 1 horror stories I’ve seen have involved issues with nVidia drivers.
So I think I’ll just wait until it gets served to me via auto-updates in the hopes that MS will have the kinks worked out by then.
Anyway, the reason I stopped at Best Buy on my early trip home today was that while the new Hugin came equipped with a respectable number of USB ports, “respectable” isn’t a high enough number for me, what with external drives and the graphics tablet and whatnot.
(There are some extra ports in the front, but I don’t like to use those for permanently-connected devices.)
I was going to transfer the USB card from the old Hugin to the new Hugin last night, but then said, “Meh, I’ll just buy another one.”
So I did.
While I was there I considered picking up a Blu-Ray DVD or two to test out the new Hugin’s drive, but couldn’t really find anything that I was terribly interested in owning.
At least, I couldn’t find anything that I didn’t already own in standard DVD form, and I’m not going to start replacing my regular DVD collection until after I have a Blu-Ray device permanently hooked up to my TV.
While I was looking at the Blu-Ray titles I noted that the HD DVD add-on drive for the Xbox 360 is selling for the fire sale price of $49.99, which, given the death of the format, is hardly that surprising. I don’t own an Xbox, but I did note that it connects via USB, and wondered if it would be possible to hook it up to a PC. It turns out that it’s more or less possible, with some caveats, so I may see about doing that so that at some point when I make the switch to Blu-Ray I can convert my existing HD DVDs over.
In any case, once I got home I put in the USB card, hooked up everything else that needed to be hooked up, and am now going to get back to the task of installing applications.
I’ll likely be back later, possibly with pictures of the new rig.
While getting lunch at the café in the building next door, I encountered my new boss who asked, “Have they sent out any kind of notice about tomorrow being a half day?”I confessed that I had seen no such notice, to which she said, “Well, just plan for tomorrow to be a half day.”
She got no argument from me, and shortly after noon today I was on the road and headed home, though I did make a brief stop at Best Buy.
Why? Well, the last time I’d gone to Dell to check on the status of my order, it said that it was “In Production” and the estimated shipping date was 3/25.
However, when I got to work yesterday and checked my mail there was a message saying that my computer had shipped on Wednesday. I thought, “Oh, well it’s two day shipping, so it should be here on Friday. I’ll have to see if I can arrange for Kathleen to be at the house.”
Then I clicked on the tracking number and discovered that it was already in VA and on its way to my house.
Unable to get a hold of Kathleen, I was annoyed when I checked the status during lunch and saw “Delivery Exception – Customer not at home or business closed.”
*Sigh*
By that time I knew that it was possible that I would be home in time on Friday, given the half day thing, but I couldn’t be certain, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to sign the signature sticker that I found waiting on my door when I got home, which would have authorized them to simply leave the package outside my door on the next delivery attempt. Even in the nicest neighborhood you don’t want a big box that says “Dell” on it sitting unattended outside your door.
So I called FedEx to ask if it would be possible for me to go somewhere to pick it up, as the most likely alternative was waiting for the third delivery attempt on Saturday. Sure, that would have meant getting the computer sooner than originally anticipated, but now that I knew that it was so close, how was I supposed to wait?
The lady on the phone told me that I could pick it up – from Winchester, which is a pretty good distance from Leesburg – particularly given that travel is measured not in distance but in time in these parts – which was a pain, but which still beat the alternative.
Looking online, I saw that they had more than one facility in Winchester, so I called back to make sure which one it was.
This time I was told that I couldn’t pick it up. Picking up a package from a service center is only an option after the third and final attempt at delivery has been made.
So I was annoyed.
However, sometime later I was upstairs in the office and heard a noise outside. I looked out the window and saw a FedEx truck parked next to my car and the driver heading for my door.
The driver – who is now in the running for “Jon’s Favorite Person” – decided that he should swing by again to see if I was home this time.
(While I was signing for it, he was peering over my shoulder at my TV and raving about how wonderful it is.)
So, long story long, I have my new computer!
I don’t, however, have my Digital TV Tuner, as that will be shipping separately. It’s not a big deal, as I need to schedule an appointment with Verizon to have a tech sent out with a CableCARD anyway, and will need to be home for that. I’m hoping the Tuner comes soon, though, so that I can try to schedule the appointment for the 9th, as I have that day off. I’d requested it off – along with several other days – because that’s when my mom’s flight will be arriving, and we’d originally anticipated her arriving earlier in the day. Turns out she won’t get here until around 10 PM, but hey, a day off is a day off.
In any case, most of my time has been spent transferring files and settings (made, appropriately enough, easy through the use of Vista’s “Easy Transfer” application), and installing essential applications.
I had hoped that the new Hugin would come with Vista Service Pack 1 already installed, as MS did the RTM (Release To Manufacturing) of SP 1 back in February, but alas, such was not the case.
In fact, since turning the new Hugin on and hooking it up to the network I’ve downloaded hundreds of megabytes worth of updates and patches.
I’m holding off on SP 1, though.
I actually installed it on the old Hugin the other day without incident, but the old Hugin has an ATI graphics card, whereas the new Hugin has an nVidia card, and so far most of the SP 1 horror stories I’ve seen have involved issues with nVidia drivers.
So I think I’ll just wait until it gets served to me via auto-updates in the hopes that MS will have the kinks worked out by then.
Anyway, the reason I stopped at Best Buy on my early trip home today was that while the new Hugin came equipped with a respectable number of USB ports, “respectable” isn’t a high enough number for me, what with external drives and the graphics tablet and whatnot.
(There are some extra ports in the front, but I don’t like to use those for permanently-connected devices.)
I was going to transfer the USB card from the old Hugin to the new Hugin last night, but then said, “Meh, I’ll just buy another one.”
So I did.
While I was there I considered picking up a Blu-Ray DVD or two to test out the new Hugin’s drive, but couldn’t really find anything that I was terribly interested in owning.
At least, I couldn’t find anything that I didn’t already own in standard DVD form, and I’m not going to start replacing my regular DVD collection until after I have a Blu-Ray device permanently hooked up to my TV.
While I was looking at the Blu-Ray titles I noted that the HD DVD add-on drive for the Xbox 360 is selling for the fire sale price of $49.99, which, given the death of the format, is hardly that surprising. I don’t own an Xbox, but I did note that it connects via USB, and wondered if it would be possible to hook it up to a PC. It turns out that it’s more or less possible, with some caveats, so I may see about doing that so that at some point when I make the switch to Blu-Ray I can convert my existing HD DVDs over.
In any case, once I got home I put in the USB card, hooked up everything else that needed to be hooked up, and am now going to get back to the task of installing applications.
I’ll likely be back later, possibly with pictures of the new rig.
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