Mr HiFi
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Yay for me, it’s all working. pulled everything apart, laid out all the wiring, hoovered and dusted everything inside and out and got it all back together with the new dvd player and everything works perfectly 
Not only that but I’ve resolved the issue I’ve always had with the vcr sound, gotten it all setup to happily record one channel and watch another, and setup the surround sound properly.
I’m quite pleased with myself actually – it was a bigger project than I’d expected but with the manuals it wasn’t too difficult. I got stumped on the new dvd player for a little while as I just couldn’t get the component video to work – until I checked the software settings and discovered it was set to SVideo in – change that to composite input and Bob’s now my wossname. I’ve also managed to put in an extra cable so I can connect the mp3 player without having to have the tv on which is luvverly. Now to play with the munchkin before bedtime.
Madness in stereo
Well I’m finally going to open up the cabinet and rewire the entertainment system – put on the new dvd player and remove the old one, plus hook up the cd player seperately and see if I can get the vcr sound to come through properly. Big and scary – I’ve never done this before but I’ve just been reading all the manuals and it looks reasonably straight forward. Lounge room’s tidied and hoovered so here goes – wish me luck…
Weekend Catchup
Finally got my friend’s gateway sorted last week – ended up having to get ahold of a new machine for it, but now have suse 9.0 installed and a nice gateway / firewall setup. I got it to work with the optus dns servers and now only need to setup desktop links for him so he can remotely dialup and disconnect and all will be rosy. Shame it took so damn long…
I’ve been somewhat absent of late – a little busy taking in everything at the new job. And yeah, it’s *still* getting better I’m absolutely loving it there – a wonderful environment and interesting projects, not to mention a cool manager who knows what she’s doing and a highly skilled team of nice people. Couldn’t be happier…
Lots of home stuff to do this weekend. Now that the gateway is sorted I need to address some issues on my own machine and R’s – the fileserver is back up finally, and now to setup the last bits and pieces to make R’s life easier and get my development tools stabilised. With luck Scruff will have 9.1 soon so I’ll be able to upgrade happily to the new kernel, among other things. The fonts in kde have really started to bother me – especially since I got jedit running properly for the first time on an install of 9.0 and profont looks absolutely terrible. Which is really annoying because I haven’t found anything that comes close for coding in…
Hopefully some exploration on this over the weekend – I’ll post the results. Much housework to be done as well! I cooked dinner last night for the munchkin and R (heh, R&B) – a nice hearty potato cream and bacon soup, which came out nicely and they both loved it so I was pleased. And I got B to eat his potatoes too which was very cool More to come – got to go do some cleaning.
The Godfather
I have just watched the Godfather part one again, having finally done what I’ve been harping on about doing for a couple of years now – I bought the godfather boxed set of DVDs. Using the natty little HMV vouchers I received for my birthday (plus a little cash) I picked it up today at Chadstone along wih the Last Samurai which I’ve been dying to see.
The Godfather is an amazingly good film. Al Pacino is phenomenal – absolutely riveting as he completely takes over the entire film. His screen presence suddenly goes from almost insignificant to utterly overwhelming, and the intensity in his eyes as he gradually becomes the Don is fantastic. Notice, I’m quite a fan.
And whomever came up with the theme song was a genius – classically italian (as if I’d know a thing about it), gentle and warm and steeped in tradition – yet with something eerily sinister behind it.
Hrm, I’m gushing, time to go.
Good Luck?
Bah. I was walking home from the train station (yes I know, me walking *gasp*.) and just reflecting that it had been a pretty damn good week, when I walked under a tree at the beginning of my street and a bird shat on my head. Yes that’s right, on my head – nasty nasty nasty. It’s supposed to be good luck somehow but for the life of me I can’t see it
Time Spent
Its strange the way time can pass unnoticed – especially when you’re caught up in something. Hobbies, obsessions, work, illness, stress or just the distractions of daily life can so completely occupy your waking faculties that you suddenly come to and realise its august and you’ve forgotten to send a mother’s day card…
I have noticed within myself, certain patterns of behaviour that tend to repeat themselves – often triggered by periods of extreme stress or the advent or even waning of a new obsession. The result however is always the same – piles of clothes to put away, piles of dishes to wash, piles of paper on the desk. Many much lots piles ‘o stuff-to-do but very little actually getting done.
A certain friend of mine who shall remain nameless but whose blog is linked to from this site ;P takes great delight in introducing me to things guaranteed to make me sit up and say “shiny!” just for the fun of watching me hare off after it for a while. Of late (Ie the last year or three) I’ve been going from one to another of these and eventually discovering the “puff” of my obsession loses the power to drive me. My 40K army for instance – ranks of soldiers and armour waiting to be painted and assembled and yet I can’t find the will or the time to sit down and get it done. The difference these days is that I still retain a desire to do these things – I’m a little more careful about the obsessions I nurture. Not as careful as I should be perhaps, but at least I occasionally say no to myself, which is a massive leap forward for me
So I think it is time, with the new job, the new financials etc, to take a new direction. If I am to achieve the things I want to achieve, especially in my immediate future I need to change the patterns of my life – break some habits and with luck replace them with useful ones. Time for new things.
Regex fun
Once again jEdit saves me massive amounts of time. Knocked this up today to help Scruff with a bunch of nasty html – all the html attributes had been left unquoted, IE <table border=1 cellpadding=0 bgcolor=#ffffff> etc etc. With jEdit’s regex find and replace however this was all it took to clean up every variant of it:
find ([a-zA-Z0-9]+?)=([#a-zA-Z0-9]+?\>)([^\&\"]) replace with $1=”$2″$3
I’m blogging it because I’m well chuffed with myself for remembering enough of regex syntax to pull that off 
It can probably be done more cleanly but it worked, so I’m happy!
Better and Better
Well it just keeps going. This morning I discovered there’s a writer’s newsletter that gets put up on the intranet here! I’ve been hoping to make some friends among the writing staff once I’m settled in and perhaps pick their brains, or even drag a few of them into Poetic License (more motivation to finish development!) As R said to me it’s as if someone had been spying on me for ages and has put together a job especially to keep me happy
– Dammit if only I could get rid of this nasty habit of using smiley faces. -
At any rate, the atmosphere here is wonderful. Nobody is particularly concerned with how anyone goes about getting their job done – just that it’s done. It’s very cool to see people working in the cafeteria, or sitting in the library or the kitchen or on the bean bags just to get away from the desk etc. I saw a fellow snoozing on the bean bags earlier hehe. And they stock Irish Breakfast in the tea cannisters! Yay!
Presents
R made the mistake last night of mentioning she had a present for me just before we went to sleep, so I insisted on knowing what it was right then and there *grin*. As it turns out I’m extremely chuffed – the love of my life bought me a book named Beyond the Words by an author whose name escapes me momentarily (I’m in wind down mode from work) but who also wrote Room to write. I began the book this morning and i’m enjoying it so far – it’s along similar lines to the Dorothea Brande book but looks as though it goes into more detail on the business end of things as well. Always the most thoughtful gifts As I said, I’m having a good week…
Hi Ho, Hi Ho…
I am having an absolutely brilliant week. Just completed day two of my new job and I have to say I am even more enamoured of the place than I was before. I’m constantly finding out new things about the place that I love, and just being there is highly enjoyable. It’s a good team, all hard working and keen on what they do – and all friendly. The time flies, whereas previously I’d be watching the minutes crawl by. I’m into the throes of the first part of the job I’m in for at the moment and that’s going well so all in all I’m just having a great time
Met Geoff Bowers today, it was good to finally put a face and voice to the name. He’s a very pleasant guy to speak to, and it was great chatting to him about what’s happening with flex and the various future possibilities for cold fusion and macromedia products in general. It is *so* good to be back in the game! Finally I’m back doing useful work, somewhere where I can learn and share and just enjoy myself. So – a very happy bunny here. Plus there are linux / unix gurus there so I can pick their brains when I’m stumped on a problem at home