The Return of Kris Moose

It's cool watching my youngest boy. He turns 2 this weekend.

And, since it's the Silly Season, the wife made me assist in the annual exercise of hanging decorations everywhere. One element is Kris Moose...the smirky reindeer that adorns the entrance to my youngest son's room.

Last year Kris Moose knew all along that the trip was gonna be a bad one. This year, it's my turn to smirk. Well, not so much at his expense, but because its fun to watch my toddler not be scared of him this year. In fact, he likes Kris Moose and often pokes him in the schnoz when I say, "Kris Moose Nose!" while holding him eye-level with the beast.

The boy will then start pointing to everything that Kris Moose is wearing and start naming it: Star, tree, ball...you get the meaning.

And, the toddler-boy likes the Xmas tree - he's diggin' the lights. But, he particularly likes the chili lights I put up.

Chili lights, Lex?

Yeah, we live in the pseudo Southwestern US (notice Oklahoma isn't on this map...only on the border of it, so we can't really be called part of the Southwest - I guess OK is considered more in the Central US)....so, I have chili lights -- both red and green (you know, for Xmas!). And, because, well, I'm one hot tamale'. (Just ask my wife.)

-la

Oncoming Downtime for Silly Season

The silly season is upon us....again.

Though I look forward to some downtime around the holidays to catch up on all of the stuff that keeps getting pushed aside in deference to family, friends, football, etc. like my hobbies...guitar playing and Xbox.

My son blew through the Halo3 campaign in about two days. I've been working on it in fits and spurts for about...well, since it came out. And I have a LONG way to go.

An acquaintance of mine gave me a copy of this old Alien vs. Predator game that I played on for about 15 minutes. It was old school, but had some good playability. It wasn't as creepy as he imagined (I mean, c'mon...I'm also playing through BioShock for gods sake....that game has a creepy factor all its own.)

You know what else I'm looking forward to? The writer's strike continuing for as long as possible.

But Lex, dude, you're a TV-a-holic! Don't you want to stay on top of all of your favorite shows?

Yes and no. Keeping up with TV shows, even with a few Tivos in the house, is VERY time consuming. Relaxing? Yes, to a point. But then I realize that I could have used that time for the purpose of good (playing guitar, gaming, writing a blog entry, and um, exercising...) rather than evil (um, sitting on my lazy ass doing NOTHING), I get a bit frustrated.

I'm thinking I need a break from must-see TV. Hell, if for nothing more than catching up on my Netflix movies. Ok, I realize I'm contradicting myself here. Trading one bad addiction for another and all that, but why have the subscription if you ain't gonna use it?

Oh, wait, that could apply to my gym membership, too.

(Lex makes a note to cancel his gym membership)

Anyway, in all fairness to myself, I'm thinking about buying a home gym, in an attempt to get around any excuse and work out at home. Going to the gym takes too much time. It really does. It's a bad excuse, I admit, and any accomplishment really boils down to the whole 'How bad do you want it?' mentality.

I guess it's time to start compiling my list of New Year's resolutions.

-la

HD in da' hizzie!

Well, I have to say that even I, The Great Lex, was amazed at how easy this worked out. The tech showed up, called in to the level 2 support to have them unpair and pair the CableCards with the system and BAM! (a little Emeril sound effect for ya there...) I was thrown into the world of hi-def.

As soon as it happened, the tech, who was sitting on my couch, jumped up and yelled, "Yes! Score!", and threw both hands in the air as if he'd just nailed the winning touchdown. He was obviously amazed at the quickness at which this issue had been fixed. He said, "Man, just wait 'til I tell my buddies how quickly this got resolved. They'll never believe I had a 15 minute CableCard call!"

Ok, I'm not sure what this says about the state of technology...well, yes, I do....it's still too damn complicated for the average users. But, hey, it's working, so I guess I can't complain.

The happy technician left the building. So, of course, I started flipping channels to get into full-on HD adoration. That's when I noticed that none of the premium channels were working. Crap.

So, I called Cox tech support. I understand why they have automated attendant systems that try to talk to you as if they are human, but for the love of god, "just let me talk to a real person!" So, eventually, I got to James or Steve or who was a.) Really bored with his job and didn't want to be there, b.) should have called in sick -- although I really think he was just hating his life and his job at the moment, or c.) was fixin' to go postal on someone's ass and this was the calm before the storm. If it was option C, I'm just really glad I wasn't anywhere in the vicinity.

Anyway, I coaxed him into checking on my situation and he managed to conjure up the strength to tap a few buttons and make it go. Suddenly King Kong was battling against the evil raptors in HD on my TV. Way to go bored kid with the bad attitude!

And, well, that was that.

Of course, there are still issues. For one, the Tivo in the living room has spontaneously rebooted itself twice over the past few days. I'm thinking it's a heat issue, though the old one never had a problem. However, anyone who knows anything about equipment like this and computers in general (which, is essentially what a Tivo is -- a Linux-based computer) knows that heat can wreak havoc on machines. So, I'm drilling some air holes in the cabinet so it can breathe. That won't happen until the weekend. Might have to put a fan in there, as well.

The other issue, and this is a bit more frustrating, is that the AV receiver's protective circuitry shuts down the unit at high volumes. When it comes back on, a CH. SP. WIRES message appears on the display. Not cool. After researching it, it can be caused by several things. The easiest is that the speaker wires might be shorting out against the unit itself. Less easy issues could make it a power supply issue or a short in one of the speaker wires in the wall leading to the speakers. So, I'm going to try and solve that one with some banana plugs (straight bare wires are being used right now.)

Anyway, stay tuned for more AV hijinx at Casa de Armenia. And, other stuff of course.

-la

High Definition Madness

I bought two TivoHDs to replace my aging Series2 Tivos...any Tivo junkies out there will know that this is both a blessing and a curse. It's my foray into the world of HD. I've been salivating over it for some time now...as do most people.

All of the elements are in place. Two great TVs, a home network, the TivoHDs, a new computer loaded with the Tivo software so I can transfer my favorite shows and movies, etc.

However, these new Tivos take CableCards, which is basically a PC card that decodes the cable signal and allows you to watch digital and premium content like HBO, Skinemax, Blowtime, etc.

But, when the cable installer came out, he made sure they were communicating with the Cox Communications mother ship and left...basically wishing me good luck. Of course, after they downloaded a firware update, and I rebooted the Tivos and reran the Guide Setup, blah, blah, blah...there was no HD goodness in the house of Lex.

So, another tech is coming out later today to jump through the hoops all over again. Will provide an update soon. And, tell me again, why do I work in technology?

Remaining skeptical that I'll have HD goodness by the end of the day,
-la

Diet Pepsi and Hershey's Chocolate

We have a family tradition of going to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra every December here in OKC. That really gets me in the holiday spirit. But, they aren't coming here until December 22nd this year, and I got our seats pre-sale, so they are really good. Check them out if you've never heard them: http://www.trans-siberian.com/intro.html.

Right up my alley. I dig a good show.

And, guess what? I'm going to go see Ozzy and Rob Zombie with a friend of mine next month, too. But, this show is earlier...December 6th. Of course, now that I think about it, that'd kind of like eating Hershey's chocolate with Diet Pepsi. Aren't they supposed to cancel each other out?

Trans-Siberian Orchestra would cancel out all of the evil in my system from Ozzy and Rob. Well, that's the theory anyway. I'll let you know how that works out.

Thanks to Laurie for the DP/Chocolate analogy.

-la

Facebook Blasts Me to the Past

I opened a Facebook account the other day. I know, I know. It seems like something that I would have done, oh, say, last year. Was never into MySpace...I like good design and I've never seen a MySpace page that didn't look like web puke from 1995.

So, I get my 'Facepage' set up for the world to see and start playing around with it. The search functions are pretty cool, so I start looking to see if there is anyone on from my company, then grad school, then college, and finally high school (no results...not really a surprise...my HS was small...lots of facepages for kids still going to the school, though.) Anyway, Facebook did help me reconnect with some people from college, which was cool (good talking to you again, Steve!) and just brought back some good memories, which I guess is the whole point of social networking. I did make a little mistake, however. I accidentally added my ex to my Facepage.

How the hell did that happen, Lex? Well, Facebook has this automatic add friend feature that basically goes out and scans your Yahoo or Gmail or other web-based e-mail account (with your permission, of course) and matches on people you have in your address book. And, me...well, being me, I didn't read all the fine details and must have sent her an invite. And she accepted.

So, now we're "friends"...well, according to Facebook, anyway. ;)

-la

Hiatus!

I've always loved that word: hiatus. It sounds dirty for some reason.

Anyway, I've been on a hiatus for the past 6 months. I'm back now. No one is reading this, which is cool, so I can pretty much write about, well, anything and nothing.

So, Lex, what has been keeping you so damn busy the past 6 months? Oh, well, you know. Sometimes life just gets in the way. Mostly it's the wife and kids. The job sucks 40 hours a week out of me, too. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time left for anything. Although I think it was Thomas Jefferson who figured it out with his insomnia affliction. Yes, THE Thomas Jefferson. The dude just didn't sleep. He got SO much more accomplished. If I could figure out a way to just not have to sleep, I think I'd get a lot more done.

Just a reintroductory post. Time to go help a user with a printer issue. Then, it's off to get the kiddos, cook dinner, get them to bed, etc. the wife is out of town this week....in one of my fav cities: Boston. Although she called me and the Sheraton that her company has her in is a complete piece of shiitake mushroom. Luckily she doesn't spend a whole lot of time in it, but c'mon...mold and hair in the shower drain? Dude, that's just wrong. Completely wrong. Unfortunately, she's stuck in it.

Oh well. Will let you know if she survives.

-la