« 26 September 2002 - 12:22 am | Main | 30 September 2002 - 2:02 am »

I think my two tests today went fairly well. My 455 exam was a bit tougher than I thought it would be, but was still quite simple, and my networks exam was fairly straightforward as well. I do have a little worry about the networks exam, though. I finished the exam, read it over, and then sat around for 10 minutes, and I was still one of the first to leave the exam room. That always makes me a bit uncomfortable.

This evening I watched a bit of TV (if only we had TiVo) and tried to get the Sun monitor I picked up off the dock a few days ago to work. It doesn't seem like I'm going to have any success with it (and I think it only supports 256 colors), so I'm going to have to drop it in a skip at some point.

I also spent a bit of time working on some new wallpaper for Navi (my laptop). If you'd like to see the results, click here. I scaled the screenshot down from 1400x1050 to 700x525 to make it a bit easier for you to view. The background still needs a bit of tweaking to accommodate things like having AIM docked on the right side of the screen, but that can wait until tomorrow.

I mentioned that I watched some TV up above, and in doing so I was reminded of the situation with the television here at 323 Clara, Apt. 12. Those of you who've visited are familiar with the loud rattling that accompanies all television watching. Then a few weeks ago, the TV decided to start turning on and not display a picture. A solid whack on the top of box usually brings the picture (and the rattling) back, however. Well, it's newest trick is its best yet. Occasionally it will decide to stop listening to some or all user input. For example, Chris had the 1 key on the remote stop working for him. All the other keys worked just, fine except the 1. I've had the Mute die on me before, but today I had the worst variation yet. The TV didn't respond to any of the remote control button or to any of the buttons on the front of the TV (like the power button). It also produced a garbled image and no sound while this was going on. I had to resort to unplugging the TV and plugging it back in to get it to work. Not good, my friends. Not good.

This TV is supposed to have been replaced by now. But my parent's slowness at purchasing a new jumbo TV for themselves has prevented me from claiming their current TV. Not that it matters all that much, as I can't really get out of St. Louis until all these 333 videotapings are done.

Speaking of 333 videotaping, by this time next week I should be about halfway through the roster. Very good news, as this has quickly become an organizational nightmare. I have a room reserved on Saturday for people to videotape, but despite assurances to the contrary when all of this was set up, no one can actually make it on Saturday, so I have to reserve room sin 30 minute blocks of time all week long. I'm sure the room reservation people have gotten as sick of reading my "I need another room with a computer and projector for half an hour on Friday at 2:30" emails as I have gotten of writing them. Hopefully it'll all be over soon.

Posted by on 27 September 2002 at 12:57 AM

The unique thing about my '1' key situation was that it would work at first, but would not work if I tried pushing it again. This prevented me from switching to Channel 11, the WB, which is probably in my best interest anyway but annoying nonetheless. I actually had to switch to channel 12 and then use the down arrow to go to 11, which is probably more effort than I should have go to through to watch Dawson's Creek...err...Cardinals Baseball...

Posted by Chris Hill Festival on 27 September 2002 - 1:54 PM