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Oct. 26th, 2004 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI haven't really been online the last few days. Since Friday I imagine. Sorry; there was a lot of stuff going on.
I was about to write about the high point of my weekend; then I realized that I would have to decide between two. I guess I'll just write about both of them.
Sunday night was spent at the dwelling of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
crazycatladymel where we, along with a number of other people, gathered to watch a couple of bad movies and generally engage in Halloween oriented festivities. On the playlist were Plan 9 From Outer Space in it's wonderful Ed Wood glory, followed by I think I'm remembering this right) The House of Long Shadows. This second one was a seventies piece featuring a bunch of the stars of the Hammer Films movies and Desi Arnez Jr, none of whom I would have recognized without people telling me. They were still fun to watch. crazycatladymel's beau John made some really good chili and there was much other comestible goodness including a caramel cheesecake straight from the paws of my raccoon. She is really quite a cook.
Afterward, she and I were the last to leave as we sat around talking to our host and hostess, petting random cats in the course of their traffic through the living room, 'till about eleven o' clock when we finally headed home. You know, some days I would kill to have a job that starts two hours later. Or one that's closer to home. We passed John's place of employment on the way home; it's about five minutes from his house. I, on the other hand, face a 60 mile round trip with a one way transit time of about thirty to forty minutes. It wears on you after a while, not to mention using a significant percentage of my income on gas money. I hope I go full time soon.
The other high point was staying up until 2:00 in the morning on Saturday night watching Babylon 5. I bought a 25 foot s-video cable and, along with a lengthy coaxial audio cable already in my posession, used it to connect my computer to the TV in the living room. As an added bonus, I can now play any of my 8 plus gigs of MP3s on my nice (well, relatively; I used to have a Marantz but the balance knob went. Now it's a cheap generic thing but it's listenable at least) stereo out in the living room. I was going to burn the episodes to VCD but after spending a futile couple hours trying to trim them to fit on the discs I gave up on that attempt. Maybe someday when I buy a DVD burner.
Anyway, I seem to have Andrea hooked on the series and that makes me happy. It's such a good show and I have such a good time sitting on the floor of the living room (still got stuff piled in front of the couch. *sigh*) and watching together.
Andrea found a copy of a 1981 board game called Dark Tower at a thrift store for $1.89 or some similarly absurd figure. This game goes for about $120 to $150 on ebay in good condition, and the copy Andrea found is entirely complete right down to the little slip of paper that tells you how to replace the light bulbs in the tower. Apart from the value, this is a game I remember vaguely but very, very fondly from my childhood. My parents were pretty excited too when I called to tell them we found it. They said they wanted to play once or twice before it went off to ebay land. *grins*
The next day Andrea and I got some batteries that fit the tower (two 'D's) and I powered it up. It had been a long time since I've seen this game and I couldn't remember what it was supposed to do, but I knew that wasn't it. It didn't light up or spin or anything. I was so dissapointed, but at least it was an excuse to ebay it. I would have been so tempted to keep it if it was in perfect shape but, as I told Andrea, I am far from up to doing component level repair of electronics. I decided we would just have to find it a good home on ebay.
Today, after thinking about it for a while, I realized that it might not be an electronic issue. I plugged '"dark tower" game repair' into google and read through a page or two. Hmm, a stuck motor causes exactly the sort of behavior my tower was exhibiting. It was a one-time run motor and very difficult to replace with a stock part, but sometimes you can get them unstuck. I unscrewed the base, powered the unit up and, while spinning the worm gear on the motor crazily about with a finger tip, pushed a button. It didn't work the first few times but I'm nothing if not persistant. Soon enough, I had a tower happily whirring and beeping and spinning it's neat little lighted menu icons around. Woohoo! Maybe I can get someone to play with me!
The only downside is that I'm back into the sell or keep quandry. I have a completey intact, functioning copy of Dark Tower. I may never see something like this again. Decisions, decisions... *sigh* I'll figure it out eventually. In the meantime, I'm going to play a solo game when I get home from work tomorrow I think. I mean, as long as I've got it here, right?
I got a 100% on my call evaluation at work today, my second one in a row. In fact, I've only even had two of them so my record is pretty good. Hopefully this bodes well for getting more hours.
I've been online today, but I'm set to away 'cause I've been walking around and trying to clean the apartment and do laundry and whatnot. If you want to talk, leave me a message. I keep checking in periodically so feel free to leave me a note!
And with that, I'm off to put noodles in to boil and then watch another ep of B5 with Andrea as dinner cooks. 'Till later!
I was about to write about the high point of my weekend; then I realized that I would have to decide between two. I guess I'll just write about both of them.
Sunday night was spent at the dwelling of
crazycatladymel where we, along with a number of other people, gathered to watch a couple of bad movies and generally engage in Halloween oriented festivities. On the playlist were Plan 9 From Outer Space in it's wonderful Ed Wood glory, followed by I think I'm remembering this right) The House of Long Shadows. This second one was a seventies piece featuring a bunch of the stars of the Hammer Films movies and Desi Arnez Jr, none of whom I would have recognized without people telling me. They were still fun to watch. crazycatladymel's beau John made some really good chili and there was much other comestible goodness including a caramel cheesecake straight from the paws of my raccoon. She is really quite a cook.Afterward, she and I were the last to leave as we sat around talking to our host and hostess, petting random cats in the course of their traffic through the living room, 'till about eleven o' clock when we finally headed home. You know, some days I would kill to have a job that starts two hours later. Or one that's closer to home. We passed John's place of employment on the way home; it's about five minutes from his house. I, on the other hand, face a 60 mile round trip with a one way transit time of about thirty to forty minutes. It wears on you after a while, not to mention using a significant percentage of my income on gas money. I hope I go full time soon.
The other high point was staying up until 2:00 in the morning on Saturday night watching Babylon 5. I bought a 25 foot s-video cable and, along with a lengthy coaxial audio cable already in my posession, used it to connect my computer to the TV in the living room. As an added bonus, I can now play any of my 8 plus gigs of MP3s on my nice (well, relatively; I used to have a Marantz but the balance knob went. Now it's a cheap generic thing but it's listenable at least) stereo out in the living room. I was going to burn the episodes to VCD but after spending a futile couple hours trying to trim them to fit on the discs I gave up on that attempt. Maybe someday when I buy a DVD burner.
Anyway, I seem to have Andrea hooked on the series and that makes me happy. It's such a good show and I have such a good time sitting on the floor of the living room (still got stuff piled in front of the couch. *sigh*) and watching together.
Andrea found a copy of a 1981 board game called Dark Tower at a thrift store for $1.89 or some similarly absurd figure. This game goes for about $120 to $150 on ebay in good condition, and the copy Andrea found is entirely complete right down to the little slip of paper that tells you how to replace the light bulbs in the tower. Apart from the value, this is a game I remember vaguely but very, very fondly from my childhood. My parents were pretty excited too when I called to tell them we found it. They said they wanted to play once or twice before it went off to ebay land. *grins*
The next day Andrea and I got some batteries that fit the tower (two 'D's) and I powered it up. It had been a long time since I've seen this game and I couldn't remember what it was supposed to do, but I knew that wasn't it. It didn't light up or spin or anything. I was so dissapointed, but at least it was an excuse to ebay it. I would have been so tempted to keep it if it was in perfect shape but, as I told Andrea, I am far from up to doing component level repair of electronics. I decided we would just have to find it a good home on ebay.
Today, after thinking about it for a while, I realized that it might not be an electronic issue. I plugged '"dark tower" game repair' into google and read through a page or two. Hmm, a stuck motor causes exactly the sort of behavior my tower was exhibiting. It was a one-time run motor and very difficult to replace with a stock part, but sometimes you can get them unstuck. I unscrewed the base, powered the unit up and, while spinning the worm gear on the motor crazily about with a finger tip, pushed a button. It didn't work the first few times but I'm nothing if not persistant. Soon enough, I had a tower happily whirring and beeping and spinning it's neat little lighted menu icons around. Woohoo! Maybe I can get someone to play with me!
The only downside is that I'm back into the sell or keep quandry. I have a completey intact, functioning copy of Dark Tower. I may never see something like this again. Decisions, decisions... *sigh* I'll figure it out eventually. In the meantime, I'm going to play a solo game when I get home from work tomorrow I think. I mean, as long as I've got it here, right?
I got a 100% on my call evaluation at work today, my second one in a row. In fact, I've only even had two of them so my record is pretty good. Hopefully this bodes well for getting more hours.
I've been online today, but I'm set to away 'cause I've been walking around and trying to clean the apartment and do laundry and whatnot. If you want to talk, leave me a message. I keep checking in periodically so feel free to leave me a note!
And with that, I'm off to put noodles in to boil and then watch another ep of B5 with Andrea as dinner cooks. 'Till later!
