Erica got me a DVD burner for xmas (thanks honey!! <3), and I was playing with it yesterday. I wasn't expecting it to be as easy as it was to copy movies. I got my Mother the Profit TV series DVD set. It was one of our favorites for the 4 whole episodes that made it to air. Got canceled for being “too dark”. Anyways, since I got the burner she lent the set to me to see if I could make myself a copy of it. I was worried by the “copy protected” log on the box at first. Copy utilities have come a long way since I got my first burner and was trying to copy games. I fired up dvdshrink, ripped an ISO, and later burninated it onto a blank DVD. No special cracks or anything. one shot rip and burn. I tossed it in the DVD player downstairs and it worked perfectly. gogo DVDShrink.
Very pleased with this gift. I think I’ll get a lot of use out of it.
PS – I reccommend the Profit series to anyone who likes “villain as the star” type serieseseses. Brian, you would love it.
(someone mentions the word “shotgun” for some reason)
Fred – that word has been forever ruined for me
Me – what, shotgun?
Fred – yes
Me – why?
Fred – brazilian fart porn
Me – …
He explained it, but I tuned most of it out for obvious reasons. The amount and magnitude of freaky shit on the internet continues to amaze me. As does the amount of it that I learn about through work.
There was a Yankee Swap at work yesterday. I didn’t participate because I always get shafted with a color-changing fiber-optic flower, a 6-pack of fruitcakes, or some other equally dreadful gift. Most of the people did participate though, I think 40 in all. Most of the gifts were booze, as could be expected. at least, the gifts that weren’t dunkin donuts gift cards. There were a few really random things (an office space DVD inside a massive pile of jello comes to mind), and one guy even ended up with a box of condoms.
Funny thing about getting shafted with something you don’t want at a yankee swap. You tend to still make the best of things.
…like decorating the company christmas tree with your gift…
http://www.iggdawg.com/pics/tree.jpg (note the ornament on the right)
http://www.iggdawg.com/pics/xl.jpg
Why is it that CNN has to show a picture of Angelina Jolie’s baby every 30 minutes? great, they had a kid. so did a bunch of other people. How is this newsworthy? how is this HEADLINE newsworthy?
I can only hope that one of these days people of substance will be treated with the same awe that media and sports stars are today… since teachers, scientists, etc are the ones really making a difference. Every time someone calls a football star their “hero”, a firefighter somewhere is being robbed out of that appreciation.
I swear, the only reason I know how to type by touch is so that I can type and watch TV at the same time. Oddly enough, I have fewer typos when I’m staring at the TV and not paying attention than when I’m watching what I type. Clearly I need to pay less attention at work.
I have a mean ing headache.
AT&T used to be thought of as the worst telco to deal with. They have this horrible automated ticket system that gives no useful information. we have to select the menu option “choose option 6 if you are calling from an alaskan location” in order to get a human. Oddly, this is the only option that will not put you into an automated Maze Of Pain ™. I don’t know what deal Alaska has with AT&T, but I have no problems with exploiting it. Our tickets are never simple enough for an automated “it still broke” or “we done fixed it” response.
over the past couple weeks, Verizon has far surpassed AT&T and has become above and beyond the worst telco to deal with. They have massive hold times, incompetent/powerless operators, and dreadful internal communications. and in the past couple weeks, a lot of their circuits have been going to shit. today especially. I don’t think I’ve ever had a “putting up with shit” headache at work before. I have a mean fucking headache today.
if I talk to you today and I come off as an ass, please do me a favor and roll with it. I ran out of tact about an hour ago.
Some of you may remember an earlier post about a laptop I had received from my grandmother a month or so ago. it was fine except for a faulty power connector in the back of the unit. Basically, it just refused to take a charge consistently and would fail at seemingly random times due to “wonky power related shit” (sorry for techspeak). the techs had told my poor grandmother that she would need a new motherboard, so she went out and got a new device long before consulting any non-leeches about the problem. upon hearing the symptoms I figured the issue could likely be fixed with some creative soldering. failing that, aggressive soldering. I mean, it’s a great laptop. plenty fast, 3d card, nice roomy HDD, wifi, etc… worth a little elbow greae before dubbing it a brick.
so I took a crack at fixing it yesterday. I used the “take shit off it till you’ve got nothing left but the parts you want” method. my god, I must have taken out around a hundred screws. this poor laptop was distributed evenly over the entire table I was working on. I had no idea they could fit so much crap in such a small space. Eventually with some wrestling and strong-arming I was able to crack the case… I might add I did this in such a way that I was convinced it would never go together again. I finally whittled it down to the motherboard. The issue was that the center pin in the power connector had somehow shed it’s solder. the peg was sitting in the board, but was not soldered, so the connection would break extremely easily as the power jack wiggled around. I tossed on a quick dab of solder and was done.
oddly enough, when I put everything back in it still worked! perfectly! no magic had escaped! and I only had 4 screws left over when it was all back together (spares, clearly). So with just a few hours of elbow grease and one wad of solder I have myself a nice new lappy to play with. whee.
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