Monday, September 06, 2010

On the importance of coffee

It gives me a reason to get out of bed on these lazy holiday mornings.

Where I've been the past two days: On Saturday, I decided it was time that I purchased a television, I haven't had a television since the analog to digital transition at which point I threw out (a.k.a. took to the recycler) the little 13" television that had been collecting dust in my bedroom for ages (I'd only turned it on a few times over the past five years, so saw no reason to keep it). I saw that Samsung had a 26 inch television that could also serve as a computer monitor, and my beady little penguin eyes like big monitors, so I got one of those and spent most of the evening setting it up and configuring it with a set of the modern digital "rabbit ears" to collect the local over-the-air broadcasting. Which it successfully does -- I pick up close to 40 channels of programming over the air, no cable required. And it also serves as a computer monitor, albeit a somewhat bulky one that I have to shoehorn into my desk.

On Sunday, I decided to get a Blu-ray player to go with the TV. Upon browsing the available choices at Fry's, I came home with an LG BD570 WIFI-enabled Blu-ray player, which promised to be able to stream NetFlix as well as play Blu-Ray disks. But to do that, I had to re-activate my NetFlix account, which I had deactivated before I moved so that disks wouldn't get lost in the transition, and never bothered to reactivate. Then I had to figure out how to a) get Blu-Ray disks (where available), and b) get the LG activated on my NetFlix account. Which also required pairing the LG with my WiFi network of course, and navigating LG's confusing menu system (turns out that the activation code for the Netflix pairing was *not* in the configuration menu, but in another menu altogether). But it all works now, so that's good, right?

Then there was setting up my old Macbook as a low-power-usage home server, using Insomniax to keep it from going to sleep when you close the cover. I cleared off the old files and set it up to share USB hard drives to my network. So in effect it is currently serving as a very expensive Time Capsule module. What I want to do is instead get a low-power-usage server like a Mac Mini to do these duties, and replace the hard drive in the old Macbook with a SSD so I can use it as my travel computer when Jeeping. It would be much more functional than the netbook that I'm using for that purpose at the moment. But I'll need to accumulate some cash before doing that, this pretty much has me tapped out for a while...

Of course, after doing all this, there was no time to do anything else. Thus why you woke up to no music yesterday morning or this morning. Bummer, eh?

-- Badtux the Geeky Penguin

3 comments:

  1. #1, many of us do not find our lives lessened if we miss your selection of tuneage on some mornings. My life would be happier if I spent more time listening to music instead of reality-based talk radio, though. Reality has a depression-based bias these days.

    #2, what does this post have to do with coffee? I was hoping for some philosophizing on the role of coffee in our lives.

    I am depressed at how good coffee makes me feel. Each morning, I have a strong cappucino made on our AU$ 2,000+ Italian coffee blaster, (which I used to think was an extravagance, but compared to what you [and us too] spend on computer equipment, doesn't seem so bad any more. Written on my $3,000 Apple notebook.) It makes me feel so freaking NORMAL! All of a sudden, my synapses are clicking, I can absorb complex information from econoblogs, and I just have this sensation that all is right with the world. It gives me insight to how heroin junkies and speed freaks feel when they fix up. As the day goes on, it's not that I feel WORSE, just stupider and slower. I don't usually brew up another cuppa, because it's a big production on this machine -- part of the deal with any addiction is going through the physical motions of feeding your beast, dontcha know -- and because I know that hitting the addiction harder leads to madness. And stomach ulcers.

    #3, Congrats on buying a TV. As long as you don't spend too much time watching it, it will help you stay more culturally literate. You don't want to be behind the curve if you can easily avoid it, eh?

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  2. The importance of coffee was summed up by my first sentence: It gives me a reason to get up in the morning. Well, that and the cats howling for me to get up and feed their furry asses :).

    Your Italian coffee blaster is utter overkill. I stop with a Cuisinart burr-type coffee grounder, a good-quality French roast whole bean coffee, and a Krupp drip coffee maker that will do four cups at a time. That limits me to four cups of coffee in the morning, which is plenty, right? :)

    Regarding my new television, thus far all I've learned is that I have 38 channels and nothing on :). Well, that and that Mayor Jerry Brown of Oakland failed to turn their underperforming schools (which he had no authority over under state law, the school board does) into exemplary overperforming producers of college-bound gang bangers and thus Governor Jerry Brown would be a disaster. Gritting my teeth through political ads by lying liars is likely to encourage dental work, so I'm instead going to use the Blu-ray player to play either Netflix or Blu-ray disks through the thing. At least I can stream some TV shows commercial-free...

    - Badtux the Entertained Penguin

    ReplyDelete
  3. As Homer Simpson once said, "TV is the best intention ever invented."

    Any TV show from any network you want to watch, from both here & the UK, in HD, is available to download free. And they aren't hard to find. So you don't need no cable whatsoever, & you can easily avoid all the lying liars on network TV shows. So your TV can be used for the purpose god intended -- entertainment.

    And a friend when you get lonely.

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