Erin’s mom went back to Calgary today (in fact, she’s probably already home) Erin’s at home sleeping the last week off. We got the crib together last night, so the baby’s room is basically complete. I’d post pictures, but then people would start speculating on the gender of the baby with no justification (honest, we don’t know yet either.)

The room looks really good though. This server is actually currently located in the closet there, which still leaves it a little loud. I think I’m going to wind up moving it downstairs anyway. Amazingly the wireless connection strength is not diminished by having the router located on the floor of a closet with the closet door closed. I still think we’re going to move it up higher to see if we can improve on it a bit.

We watched The Usual Suspects last night. I hadn’t seen it in quite a while, so I enjoyed it. I still remembered the ending, which kind of spoils some of the fun, but it’s still a good show to watch. Actually, the reason that we were watching a DVD was a little more entertaining

The replacement 5100 arrived yesterday, so I thought I’d call and have it activated. The activation call started out well, I gave the CSR my smart card ID etc, he went away, putting me on hold. While I was on hold, a message popped up saying something along the lines of “This smart card is not authorized for this receiver.” He walked me through the same rigmarole as they always do (unplug it, walk around your chair three times, touch your finger to your nose, click your heels together and say “there’s no place like home” etc.) and it didn’t work. The CSR gave me the “call back tomorrow” line (ie. I don’t know how to fix this, but you likely won’t get me if you call later.) I asked to speak with a technical support person (the next line of defense,) but he claimed that he was unable to communicate with them because of an internal systems problem - I guess they were all sitting there waiting for a call that would never come, right?

Anyway, after having determined that this guy couldn’t help me, I hung up and called right back - this time, I got a helpful CSR. Rebecca was her name-o. Anyway, she quite quickly showed me that 1) she knew what she was doing, and 2) she wasn’t going to lie to me to get me to go away. (As an aside - the first guy asked me how my receiver was hooked up to the TV - as if that could have anything to do with it. When I told him that I had the composite video and the optical audio cable hooked up to an A/V receiver, he seemed confused - even “correcting” me that what I had it hooked up to was actually called a “hub” and that I must be using the SVideo cable and confusing it with a sound cable)

Anyway, Rebecca walked me through some brief diagnostics, then identified the problem, told me that it would be fixed within about a half hour or so, at which point she would call back to confirm that everything was working as expected. What do you know - she got it working - She even called back, just like she said she would. What an amazing thing. The new unit is nearly silent (especially as compared to the old one.)

Everything is back to normal, resume your daily business

Simpson’s quote of the day: “No! We’re not sending the lobster away to some snobby boarding school.” ? Marge

Sorry I didn’t post on Friday - I went to Earl’s for lunch with Erin and her Mom, and didn’t get back to work until 1:30. Friday night, we had Jason, Amy and Mya over for pizza and a visit. I got to school Jason in SSX (The original) and I think he learned the lessons well. I’m sure he’ll be pulling triple rodeo flying squirrel to late holy crail’s before too long.

I went over to Al’s and played some NHL Hitz 2002 with Al and Ross - good times. It did mean that I was home a little late, though much earlier than weekends past. Saturday night was a work Christmas party - Erin and I had a good time, and Erin actually stayed out rather late - we got home around midnight. Sunday, we did some work on the baby’s room - Erin’s mom got it all painted and stuff, I think today they’re planning on putting up the wallpaper border, then it’s pretty much ready. We pulled up the carpet, to expose the hardwood underneath. There are some rough spots, but I think that once we refinish it, it will look great. The hardwood appears to run a lot further than I thought too, so we might wind up pulling up the carpeting in the “entranceway” as well, though I don’t think that will happen for a little while yet.

Erin and I also put together a change table that we picked up (it goes with the crib which is still in it’s box…) I wouldn’t be surprised if Erin and her mom put the crib together today - at which point the baby’s room will look quite transformed from this time last week. What the heck, it already looks quite transformed. I think Erin is quite happy with it, which is the most important part of it all (I like it too ;-))

Simpson’s quote of the day: “*gasp* It’s the four elephants of the apocalypse!” - Flanders

Another day in the ongoing saga that is life with an Expressvu 5100 PVR.

I watched some TV last night on the replacement 5100 - it’s loud. I mean really really loud. Headache inducing loud. I called tech support, and they’re sending out another replacement. I think there must really be some nasty notes on my account, because they’re really really quick to send out a replacement lately :-) I don’t expect the new one will arrive until next week, but I guess the one we have is livable until then, since I won’t be watching that much TV until then likely anyway.

As for the netscape comments display problem - I don’t know what could be causing it, but I’ll try to remember to look into it. Netscape runs on a totally different template, so it should never change how it works, but who knows.

Seinfeld quote of the day: “It’s like a full body dry-heave to music” - George on Elaine’s dancing style. (Sorry, that one has had me laughing all week, your regularly scheduled Simpson’s quote will return tomorrow)

In an incredible twist - the replacement 5100 arrived yesterday - pretty good turnaround time, I guess. Got it all hooked up and working smoothly. Yesterday, Erin and her Mom took all of the books from the spare room downstairs. This amounts to some fifteen metric tons of paper. I took a couple of boxes of textbooks, but I’m utterly amazed at how many books they got downstairs while I was at work.

While we were waiting for our channels to become activated on the new 5100, I got out the drill (well, ok, Erin got out the drill and handed it to me) and took the bookshelves off of the wall. The top bookshelf had no less than 18 screws holding it securely to the wall - which was good, since there were around 5 metric tons of paper on it before the books got taken downstairs.

I’m still amazed at how much work they got done though.

Not to be lost in the shuffle - that table hockey tournament that I mentioned a while back is scheduled for January 25th. I think we’ll try to do a round robin and a medal round, depending on how many people sign up for it. The plan is to start the thing in early afternoon, so that we have a reasonable chance of finishing it up that day. Let me know if you’re planning on joining us.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “My family never talks about library standards and every time I try to steer the conversation that way they make me feel like a nerd.” - Lisa

So, don’t laugh, but our PVR is on the fritz again. We watched “The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down a Mountain” on Sunday night, and after the movie was over, the unit froze. It was unresponsive to any remote keypresses. This happens on occasion, just requiring me to get up and press the power button on the box, to get it back working again. Well, this time, when it came back up, we couldn’t access prior recordings. In fact, the recording list is unavailable. We can still pause live Tv, and record stuff, we just can’t watch stuff that we’ve recorded (ie. it’s ok as long as you’re watching what you’re recording…) Anyway, when I called bell, they offered to send out a replacement once the first fix they suggested didn’t work. From what I can see though, most things are in rerun this week anyway, so it’s not a huge deal to wait for the replacement to come in the mail. Hopefully this one lasts longer than three months.

I think there must be some comments on my file about the last encounter I had…

The furniture did indeed arrive on Friday, so for most of Friday there was no bare floor space in the livingroom, and not much room to walk around - Erin was having particular difficulties because, well, she’s 8 months pregnant…Dave stopped by on Saturday (after we got back from The Two Towers) and helped us move the old furniture into the basement. I remember how much trouble we had getting it up the stairs, so going downstairs was kind of scary, but it went smoothly. I guess Gravity is my friend after all.

And last (but certainly not least…) Erin’s Mom arrived this morning from Calgary. She’s staying for a week to help Erin out. Should be a good visit.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Come on, son, let’s watch some television.”
Bart: “What’s on, Dad?”
Homer: “It doesn’t matter”

The Premier of BC gets caught driving while under the influence (in Maui no less) and decided to hold a press conference in the middle of Saturday to tell the province of BC that he’s not resigning. Something tells me he won’t make it past the next election though.

Remember Davada.com? Well, they emailed me, and said:

We noticed you mentioned our service on January 3rd and appreciate the plug.

The Davada Team would like to offer you, your friends and all your blog readers a 15% discount on our service. Use this special address to sign up and 15% will automatically be discounted from your bill every month: www.davada.com/discount We even offer a 14 day FREE Trial!

I guess I’m just an advertising shill now for pointing it out, but if you’re interested, and it’s because I pointed it out to you, then I feel I should pass the discount info along too.

Saturday afternoon, Erin, Bryan and I went to see The Lord of the Rings (Two Towers.) I was surprised at how many changes there were, but I wasn’t upset about them really - the movie was good, and I will gladly pony up the $$$ for it on DVD when the boxed set comes out (ie, I’m buying all three movies once only.)

35 Weeks down, ? to go.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “How would you like a street named after you?” - Mayor Quimby

Apparently the furniture is being delivered today (between the hours of 3 and 6) Hopefully we still like it :-)

I was sent a link to ChipTune, which is a neat place to get old sid/mod/whatever digital only music. I only mention this because the site has a really cool design (though the menu gif’s are terribly hard to read.)

Erin and I spent some time last night shooting names down. Just so you all know, when we decide on a name, we are not telling anyone. Not even you. Sorry, that’s just what we decided, so you’ll have to wait for the birth announcement. Coming up with names is hard enough when just two people have to like the name - every person that gets added into the mix makes it that much harder, so I hope you understand.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Barclay, Barry, Bert, Bort…ah come on! Bort?” - Bart