Scribblings From The Public Restroom Stalls Of The Gods

…do I ever talk about anything except this, cats, and my kid? And stuff breaking? Probably not. But there’s a heap of news hitting us just before the new season starts. More »

Remember all the fun I had in 2006 with the mystery of the missing Avid dongle? And what Avid said to me about replacing said dongle? (and how I was able to give ‘em the finger anyway? $10,000 my ass!) Well, I’m not losing the Avid dongle again; seen at right is my simple solution for that problem. (To be fair, Kent reminded me not to lose the dongle again; it’s just possible that I was a little bit less than… erm… diplomatic when I panic-called him in 2006 looking for it…)

I’ve had a few leads on a replacement power supply; thanks to everyone who’s responded. I’ll be following up extra-soonishly.

Arkansas Valley Electric Co-op is sending someone out to look at the wiring tomorrow; the thought occurred to me that, only a couple of weeks ago, someone from Cox was out here and had to restring our entire cable run from the tap to the pole to the house to my room. It’s just possible that he might have bumped or jarred something along the way (don’t cross the streams, man!). Given that there have been three electrical incidents in the past 9 days (so far…), a wiring check would seem to be called for. Almost everyone looked at the power supply photos in yesterday’s post and said “massive power surge,” but I’m not sure if that theory sticks. The fuse on the surge protector (and yes, for a multi-thousand-buck editing workstation and its multitudes of outboard gear, I have a really robust pair of surge protectors, not just a power strip) was not fried, and nothing else on that surge protector (which also powers about half of the outboard SCSI drives) fried. While I think a wiring check is probably warranted from last week’s frying-of-the-central-heat-and-air-system alone, I have a feeling this may not necessarily be related. I’m no expert in pushing electrons through copper wiring, but that’s what my electrical physics gut-check is telling me: a power surge big enough to do that would’ve done that to more than just one component. Then again, my gut-checks have bounced before due to insufficient funds, worm attacks and whatnot.

Still, I’m hoping to have a fix in place soon – not being able to power my Avid up and edit something, even if it’s just something goofy using someone else’s footage for a laugh, is like having an arm cut off. I’m so used to firing the thing up about once a day and just… doing… something, you know? It may be that it bugs me more now because I don’t have access to an Avid at work. To me, not being able to edit video is like not being able to walk. It’s just something I do.

My electrical wiring will be checked out tomorrow. In a moment, the results of that trial.

Today, I had my Avid fired up for all of about 20 minutes. I was going to throw together a little funny that I’d had an idea for. I didn’t get that far. More »

The announcement has hit the UK tabloids: supposedly Nintendo has signed on the dotted line with the BBC’s merchandising wing to make Doctor Who video games for the Wii and DS. I’ll blither on endlessly about why this has been a long time coming – and why it’s always been bad news before now – after the jump. More »

A pretty-much-complete portion of the Doctor Who video mashup project I’m working on can be seen here. Fun stuff!

What’s even more awesome than that is this… too bad I can’t afford one, but man, that’s awesome. Just a wee bit more detail than the last one of these that we had…

I love all the commercials for various and sundry patented prescriptions that show regularly on TV. My favorite is “You should stop taking [X] if you have suicidal thoughts or actions.” I can get behind that – I don’t want you to have suicidal thoughts or actions.

I’m just waiting for the warning about homicidal thoughts and actions. You should really stop taking that pill too.

Yesterday I railed against what seemed like an oddly inappropriate choice of stock photo for a Facebook ad promoting grants and scholarships for dads wanting to go back to school. It would seem that my concerns have been heard, and the photo has been replaced by…

…the GEICO caveman?!? I’m expecting a stock photo of Verne Troyer next.

If you’re not a Doctor Who fan, you may as well skip this entry – it’ll only make you crazy. Or it might make you a fan. Which may or may not be the same thing. More »