Day off today (British company observes US holidays as well as the British ones. Woo!). Slept in (no surprise there), need to shower and probably shave since I didn't do so Saturday or Sunday. The shaving, that is, not the showering. I'm not that much of a bachelor. Of course, I'll have to shave tomorrow unless I want to look stubbly on my Official Corporate ID Badge, which I'll be getting after my Official Corporate New Employee Orientation. I hear this involves watching a sexual harassment video. Big fun.

Today's agenda includes crawling around on the roof again to finish the setup of my old minidish. You can get the local channels in DC now. This rocks.

I'm also looking forward to having 70 channels of nothing on instead of the mere 12 I have now.

Today's also Dad's birthday. He's 65. I'll be calling him once I figure out if he's taking the day off or he's gone into the office. He's his own boss, so it's hard to tell. He's a slave-driver. He makes himself go in on days he probably ought to just stay home, or go fishing. He's better about that now than he used to be. Maybe he'll get even better than that now.

link (2000-02-21)

There. I moved the furniture around a bit. Threw some paint up on the wall. If I ever get around to having a real home page again, maybe I'll go for some sort of consistent design. Or something.

I've been saying I'm going to have a real home page Real Soon Now for, oh, two years now? Hmm. Maybe it's just time I admitted that I'm never going to have a home page anyway and just leave it at the diary stuff. We'll see.

One more contribution towards the complete lack of content on the web, I guess.

link (2000-02-21)

"Plug it in! Plug it in!"

"Which, the rock tumbler or the TV?"

"The TV! The TV!"

I have MagicTV again. Oh, how it rocks. My comment to the operator as my channels became active: "Oh, I have Cartoon Network again! I never have to leave the house!"

I also have a ripped shirt tail, which is what I get for never tucking my shirts in. This one's not even faded yet, dammit. Oh well, it's ripped where if I tuck it in nobody will ever know. The cover of the control box on one of the air conditioners up on the roof was sticking out, and the corner of it snagged the shirt. I do have more shirts, but it's still a disappointment.

I'm a little concerned that I'm getting away karmically though. I didn't really bleed in this process (I did poke my finger on a metal shaving while hand tightening a bolt, but it only bled like a tiny drop). Everything seems to be working, but I haven't appeased the electronics gods in the usual manner. Or maybe the shirt counts. It's blood red, so I guess that could work.

The local affiliates (!) are active on the RCA receiver (the one going upstairs) but not on the newer, nicer Sony. This annoys me. It'll take time, but to quote a different Simpsons episode: "What if I wanna shoot somebody now?" It's nice to be able to get them again though. It was seriously annoying (not to mention stupid) that I couldn't get the networks when I lived in Arlington, never mind that there were all the tall buildings of Crystal City between me and the broadcast towers, thus making it impossible to get local channels with an antenna.

Dear FCC:

Zip codes aren't a good way to measure TV signals.

*Heart*, Me

Anyway, I suspect the guys upstairs are probably going to be into the movie channel thing, so I may have all the HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, etc that I can stand as soon as they're home and start to play with their receiver.

link (2000-02-21)