Kiss... Daddy... Cheese

A quick one before I start work, since the training class I was supposed to go to got cancelled (and I bothered to check my messages before I headed over... good thing.)

Anyway, my son bit his tongue yesterday, eating shredded cheese. He asked me to kiss it to make it better. Nasty... He was eating shredded cheese, because he chewed up and spat out the cubed chese he had eaten earlier, but also refused earlier... Julie is a good eater, she ate them all up.

The gym sucked today... I could hardly lift the weights, I just wasn't focused... I was a bit short on time, trying to make sure I got out of there in time to get to this training session at work... only to find out it got cancelled. :( I did speed up the tredmill today though, it was fast enough that it actually recommended that I not use the hand grips to measure heartrate... Yikes, I might be running sooner than I thought.

I weighed myself today, and I actually gained 3 pounds... must be all that muscle I'm putting on... or the two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I shared with the kids on Tuesday, LOL.

I think I'm going to like the Shadow well enough... XT9 predictive text messaging is okay, for not having a full QWERTY layout. The phone doesn't make me look like a nerd, and I think I'll go ahead and get those bluetooth headphones for me and holly to work out with. That might push me over the edge to stick with Vista Media Center on this computer too.

Oh, speaking of which, I found colorcase.com through copious, extended google searching... They have an eBay store that has the Ahanix cases (302, 303, and D4). Then there's the Moneual Store, which basically has the Ahanix MCD303 with a stamp and iMon for $300... uh, no thanks. The colorcase eBay store might work out though. I'd love to get a D4 and a couple of 30x cases... but that really brings me back to the front-end/backend scenario with MythTV. I might just have to do MythTV, and have some sort of music synchronization scheme worked out with the phone, or get back on the freedom pony and get a Cowon iAudio 7 and go with .ogg files... I dunno at this point...

E-mail - Switching to TuffMail from FastMail

The ebay spoof e-mails that try to get you to click on links so your password and personal information can be stolen are getting good. They even have the little link that tells you to go to eBay's special page for reporting fake messages.

Fortunately, my e-mail filter just directed that straight to the "Discard" folder. I probably wouldn't have ever seen if if I hadn't looked in there.

This month, I paid for a 1 year subscription to TuffMail, and don't plan on renewing my subscriptioin to FastMail. For those of you who just send me e-mail, nothing should change. I've been running my mail on TuffMail since last month. That's the beauty of owning your own domain name. I can change e-mail service providers whenever I want, and I don't have to send everyone a new address.

I decided it was time to do the same thing with my blog, so now I'll probably actually start advertising it as http://blog.mvpittman.com, rather than the direct LiveJournal or WordPress addresses I was using before... I guess that will require an e-mail to at least the 10 people that matter.

Back to the e-mail thing. The main reason I did the switch was cost redution. FastMail had lots of features, but I didn't need all of them. They were working on features I wanted, but they weren't fast enough in implementing them. No real problems with the service, but for what I need, TuffMail does the job fine and I'll end up spending less money... so maybe I can find that extra money to keep up my World of Warcraft subsription now...

Anyway, this calls for the obligatory comparison of features between services, to somehow justify that I've made the right choice. However, I wrote this blog post a month ago, and still haven't transferred my paper comparison list to any electronic format... maybe I'll make a post a bit later, when I have time. Or, maybe when I decide that e-mail just isn't important enough for me to pay for, and just go with a free service or one that comes with my AT&T Yahoo! DSL account, I'll post that.

More memory... yes!

Today, I traded computer hardware with a work colleague. I gave him an HDMI cable for two sticks of 512 MB DDR2 memory. I'm so happy. I'm *this* much closer to building another machine with my old processors.

I picked up a couple of AGP boards for my 2.0 GHz P4 and 2.30 GHz Celeron chips and stopped at a local store after a much needed haircut and grabbed two old P4 heatsink/fans out of the "heap". $10 each... ouch. Oh well. No shipping, no waiting. I've got a 256 and a 512 MB stick of RAM for both of those.

For this new memory, I'll pick up a new motherboard that has PCIe and takes DDR2. Interesting, since the socket 478 format is so old. I've had a couple of them before... but for some reason, I sold the "fast" 3.0 GHz chips and boards a while back. They might have made good front-end machines. Perhaps I'll try MythBuntu, since it has such marvelous support for *diskless* front-ends.

So, I assembled a box, and got it working with MythDora, but the wireless didn't work. I installed Vista, and had to find a special driver to get the wirless to work. I *still* haven't had a chance to try the "hack" to get sub-channel guide information, but I'm still torn on whether to futz around with Linux or just get it going. There's no time for playing around anymore... I need to sleep at night, and the season of new shows is starting.

I need some more "fashionable" cases. Half-height is okay, but I want that 17-inch width. So, something like the Antec Fusion, but not as tall, and not as expensive. Something like the Minuet 350 would work, but it isn't really 17-inches wide, so it might look funny. I'm so darned picky.

I really liked those Ahanix cases... too bad you can't really get them anymore. Sold out or discontinued at Directron.

Going to the gym... getting smaller.

Holly and I made an arrangement with the Monday to Wednesday babysitter to come in at 5:30 AM, so that we could hit the gym *before* the work day. Today was the first day of that. I made it to work, after a harrowing reminder of high-school post-gym-class-showers past and forgetting a belt and a hair brush.

I think that will work out. I weighed myself on the way out... and I'm an astonished at my 285-pound outcome. Geez, if I start working out more, I could probably lose more weight... and then get my fuel efficiency up in my car! And be healthy! And... yeah yeah yeah...

At the store, before work, I picked up a brush, some Crystal Light powder, and a couple of belts... just a bit smaller than the huge belts that needed extra holes because I've gotten smaller. A couple more inches, and it'll be new pants time. Yay!

After a weekend... the week starts.

Okay, so, this weekend, I helped my sister-in-law and brother-in-law with some painting. Good times. I might have to actually do the painting I'm supposed to do at my house now.

Phone is working with facebook. I just poked someone from my phone at work. I remember that bit about Facebook starting something bad... yeah, I think this is it.

I also worked on Paul's old computer. he had a Dell with a Socket 478 Celeron in it. the chip was dead, and the retention bracket for the heatsink was broken. I had some replacement parts, and fixed it. Awesome. I'll see if we can fix his desktop machine sometime before that baby comes. LOL.

My wife didn't get paid last week from her old job... last paycheck... clerical error... whatever... ugh. Good thing I didn't splurge on random crap this week...

I did get the "new" media center assembled and rewired some stuff with the TV to make the installation easier. The case fits in the cabinet, and all I have to do is install the software. I'm going to go with MythTV, probably using the MythDora distro. I got that downloaded, but didn't get around to trying it. I wanted to sleep last night, so maybe tonight... after the kids go to bed.

Facebook on a T-Mobile Shadow

I FAIL at Facebook. I mean, seriously, I never get on there... but I have this nifty phone that can get the Internet, so I figured I'd try. Friend Mobilizer is awful. I knew that, because I read about it before, but I tried it anyway. I really couldn't even get it to work.

I'm currently downloading Snap2Face, but it is going really slow. Not sure why, but I don't have a machine at work that I can download the application to and then sync... so I guess I'll wait it out.

Again, I don't really do anything on Facebook anyway, but I want to at least give this mobile Internet thing a try.

Oh, and um... I can't register my phone on the mobile version of Facebook, since I use T-Mobile. Ugh... Again... being cheap has bitten me in the bottom. Oh well.

Yahoo Go! works well though, I think my wife (who uses Yahoo! Mail) will really like it. I liked the Flickr Integration too.

Catching up...

Man, blogging is hard work. A few friend requests on Facebook went un-returned... sorry about that. I might catch up, I might not. I tried to put Julie down for bed, but she cried. I can't stand that, so I let her sit on my lap as I used the computer. She wanted to bang on the keyboard... I also can't stand that, so I put her on the ground... she turned off the power strip...

My dad and his wife came into town this past week, and we had a cook out... Grandma Deb already sent out pictures... I'm so bad. I really really need to get on this picture stuff.

At least I forwarded the pictures to my Mom. I need to call her, I was supposed to give her a call on Thursday, but my dad came into town, and I've been busy. You know how it is with two kids under two...

Work might get even better. I might have an opportunity to transition into more of an Application Support role, from the Document Control role I'm playing now. We'll see how that goes.

I'm still pretty stagnant on the whole media center/DVR/Linux thing. New seasons start up soon... I did get around to reading a plot synopsis for the last episode of Smallville that I missed, so I'm totally up to date now.

I have my new character on World of Warcraft up to 26. I'm enjoying it, and enjoying crafting and selling stuff a little more than I did the first time around... maybe I'll be able to afford a mount, LOL. This LCD is nice, but 1024x768 really cramps my style. I think I may just save up money... pay off my other bills, then get a MacBook Pro and a large LCD monitor. LOL. I can dream, can't I? I did find a bluetooth mouse for my PowerBook, but it is made my Microsoft... probably a no-go. At Staples it was on sale for $80 from a usual $100. Bleh.

Hold up... phone call... argh... another 1-800 call with no response. We must have gotten on some automated sales line or something. Might be time to do some more screening, or at least get that thing that lets you look and see who's calling on your computer screen, so I don't have to get up to be disgusted.

A quick post before I start work.

I did resubscribe to World of Warcraft. I started a new Hunter and got him up to level 21. My brother-in-law is trying to get his wife hooked on WoW, but I think he'll have a tough fight. She used to play Mult-User Dungeon text-based games, and it was bit much for her. Besides, they are going to have a baby in a few months... he's done, LOL

I finally got this trade performed with a guy, so now I have a 15-inch LCD, some extra processors... some laptop RAM, a wired Linksys router, and a wireless G PCI card. Nice. I also picked up an ATX media-center-ish case... an old Silverstone LC03 <http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/legacy_product.php?pno=lc03&area=usa>. Of course, I already put the two tuners and the processor in a very small case that can sit next to the TV. Media Center works, but I still need to figure out whether I'm going to go "all-in" on MythTV. I guess I had bettter hurry... summer is ending, and the Networks will be pumping out more crap that we need to record soon. Anyone got an extra AM2 processor?

I cleaned the carpets downstairs... my wife took the kids out. Yay! I took the kids out shopping on Saturday morning, and fed them steam-grilled goodness known as White Castle... my son says, "Chicken". I think to my self... it's not chicken, but hey... I guess there's a reason there's no kids meals at White Castle.

Okay, that's enough random stuff from the weekend. Maybe I'll turn some of that into a real blog post later. Thanks for listening.

T-Mobile makes me want to Cry.

I see that my blog post was tracked back… nice. Anwyay, I called monday, and got hung up on.

I called yesterday, and almost let the Rep transfer me to “accessories” but mentioned that I didn’t want to buy one, and that she should look in “Streamline”, as indicated in the comments at AllShadow.com. She found it, but said that since I needed to be a customer for 30 days in order to get the battery.

WTF? I might not keep this phone for the 20 days — since they bothered to send me the phone with the old battery, and I *just* got it. Grr… I am seriously thinking about getting my friend's iPhone and giving it a go with Ma Bell again...