Month: April 2006

damn you, cartoon network.

I decided to try and catch up on Fullmetal Alchemist a bit today, wattching a few episodes off my Tivo. I was glad to see that I had the first few episodes in the queue. I had originally started watching it near the end of the series, then I stopped watching it, then a few episodes got deleted off my Tivo because I ran out of space. So, basically, I wasn’t too sure where I was going to be. I enjoyed the first episode, but I was really puzzled with the second. Not long into it, I started hearing a bunch of random farting noises. I thought maybe there was some plot-based reason for this, but I couldn’t think of one. After a few minutes, it became obvious that something was very wrong. I checked the original air date, and realized that the episode had aired on April Fool’s day. This Wikipedia article confirms that Cartoon Network stuck a bunch of random fart noises in some of their programs on April 1. Way to go, guys. You made a perfectly good episode of FMA unwatchable. Now I’m going to have to go out and buy the DVD or something.

color printer

I’ve been using the same old b&w HP DeskJet 520 for the last 10 or 15 years. It’s always worked fine, and I’ve never really had a truly pressing need to print in color. I’ve had a Dell 720 color inkjet in a box gathering dust for the last year, though. It came free with my Dad’s computer, and he didn’t need a printer at the time, so I took it home. I finally decided to take it out of the box tonight and hook it up. It works OK, but it’s not astounding. If I’d paid money for it, I might be disappointed. I think I need to try and print something on good photo paper, and see how that looks. I don’t have much room on my computer desk, so I’m just sitting it on top of the DeskJet for now. Hopefully, that won’t be a problem.

Tommy Keene – Crashing The Ether

New Tommy Keene CD! This is a good thing indeed. It’s been a while since his last. I remember having the “Places That Are Gone” EP on vinyl long ago, and just wearing it out. The new CD is available on emusic, so it’s almost free if you’re a subscriber. Otherwise, $10 on iTunes, $14.50 from notlame, or $16.98 from Amazon.

eBay and other stuff

The 15 eBay auctions I put up last Saturday are all done. I sold everything, though a few items only sold for the $1 minimum bid. Well, the purpose of this was more to clear up space than make money, so I guess that’s OK.

Meanwhile, I got a few DVDs in the mail Friday via Peerflix. Everything looks good, except for the Dune miniseries, which is missing disc 2, so I don’t have the last episode.

Alternative Style Sheets

My dad has trouble reading this page since I switched to the fancy CSS layout. Apparently, all the fancy positioning and sizing screws things up when you’ve got your computer set up to use large fonts, a high-contrast color scheme, and so on. I’ve been meaning to implement an alternate style sheet for him, and I’ve finally gotten around to it, with the help of this article. If you look over at the link bar, you’ll now see buttons to switch between the “normal” style sheet, and a “basic” style sheet, which simply turns off most of the fancy stuff and basically switches back to a one-column design, with the left bar at the bottom of the page instead. The JavaScript code behind the buttons should set a cookie, so the style sheet choice will be persistent. Let me know how it works!

getting rid of stuff

Of the 15 books I posted on eBay on Saturday, I’ve already sold two at the “Buy It Now” price. Only one other book has any bids on it, though. Hopefully, I can get rid of at least 5 books, if not 10 or 15, before the auctions close.

It’s been a while since I’ve sold anything on eBay. I like a lot of the new features. The shipping calculator integrated into the listings, and the ability to pay for and print shipping labels on-line is great. I picked up a small scale at Staples, so I can make sure I’ve got the weights right. Now I don’t need to go down to the post office at all. I can just weigh the package, print the label, and dump the thing in the mail. Nice.

I’ve sent out eight DVDs through Peerflix so far. I’ve received one DVD (Mystic River), and six more are on their way. The six DVDs coming in are not ones that were near the top of my want list. They’re all basically what I’d consider second-tier titles. That’s OK though, since that’s basically what I was trading off.

I’ve also discovered PeerFlixTalk.com, an independent discussion board site for Peerflix. There’s some interesting discussion going on over there, along with some pretty esoteric stuff about people’s preferences for mailers. A couple of Peerflix employees hop on the board now and again, so that’s a good sign. A few people seem to be dead-set against the new “peermailer” system, where you just print out a template on two pieces of paper, then fold them into an envelope of sorts. Apparently, Peerflix used to send out envelopes, like Lala does.

I only just got the mailers from Lala, so I wasn’t able to send anything out until today. I sent out 3 CDs, and I’ve now got 3 CDs coming in already. Two of the CDs I’m getting are titles that I have on casette; I’m trying to gradually replace all my old casettes and LPs with CDs (or digital files from iTunes or wherever), and Lala seems like a good way to do some of that.

So, in a nutshell, I’m gradually creating a bit more shelf space, without resorting to fire. With Peerflix and Lala, even though I’m probably getting in about the same number of titles I’m sending out, I’ll still be clearing some space, since I’m tossing out some old clamshell and jewel cases. The new stuff will either go in paper envelopes or thin cases. And, for the DVDs at least, I’ll probably trade some of them back out right after I watch them.

eBay

I just posted 15 trade paperbacks to eBay. I posted everything with a $1 minimum bid, and a $10 “buy it now” price. Hopefully, most of them will sell.

I used Turbo Lister for the first time on this stuff. I hadn’t sold anything on eBay in two years, so there have been a bunch of changes to the way things are done. The last time I posted anything, their off-line listing program was called “Mister Lister”, which is a nicer name, but maybe not as descriptive of the purpose of the program.