Julia loves to dance. When music comes on that she likes, she bounces up and down with the biggest grin on her face. It’s super cute, now if only I could get it on video…

William loves to help. Last night, I decided to put another coat of primer on the projector wall downstairs. William helped me, by pointing out any spots that I might have missed (particularly comical when I’d just started on the left side of the wall, and he kept pointing out that I had missed a big spot on the right side of the wall.) I think one, maybe two more coats and it will be ready for the screen paint.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “*Bang* Stupid TV…BE MORE FUNNY!!!” -Homer

Things have been pretty busy around here lately - hence the lack of posts.

When last I left you, I’d gotten recording to work from the new cable box, but not reliably. Well, that problem has been resolved (apparently all I had to do was reboot…) I’ve recorded high def, played it back, all the channels that I subscribe to are available, and it works quite well. There’s only one peculiarity left - 1080i doesn’t scale quite right. The problem has been identified though, and a patch is forthcoming. Once that’s done, it should be all smooth sailing.

Also, you’ve seen my picks show up on the site with no explanation this time around. I’ll be honest, I haven’t watched much hockey this year, and the playoffs hasn’t been a great exception to that. In other words, I don’t really have a good basis for my picks, but I made them anyway. Ottawa, Jersey, Anaheim and San Jose. Ironically, after being destroyed in the West in the first round, it looks like my picks are a little better in the second. I went .500 in the East in the first round (who knew that Philadelphia would have 14 players requiring surgery in the next month? Not me.) and now I’m looking straight in the face of being down 2-0 in both of my picks there.

The kids are growing up pretty quick. I came home from work yesterday, and William was listening to music on the TV. Some Alan Jackson stuff was playing, and Julia was dancing along. Don’t know what I think about that…Then at supper (sweet and sour meatballs) last night, William put aside his spoon and said “This is yummy, so I want to put my face in it.” Then did exactly that.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Miss Hoover, my parents won’t let me use scissors.” - Ralph

The cable guy stopped by yesterday and installed the HD receiver. I realized that I didn’t have the correct hookup to do high definition directly on the projector, but no matter, because I’m not planning on doing it directly on the projector anyway. I had it changing channels via firewire right away, and without too much trouble I got it to record stuff from analog, digital and HD channels. The only problem is that it doesn’t always start recording when you tell it to. I know that other people have resolved this problem in the past, so hopefully I can come up with a satisfactory solution.

Overall, I’m pretty impressed with the receiver, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to people - of course this is after only very limited exposure, so we’ll see how much I still like it in a few months. Hopefully I don’t wind up having much experience with it, because that will mean that I’ve successfully gotten it hidden behind the veil of MythTV.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “No one who speaks German could be an evil man.” - Homer

I managed to catch the second and third period of the Edmonton Detroit game, and I have to say that I was shocked by the third period, and final tally. The way they played the second period, I didn’t think Edmonton had a sniff at a comeback. When they tied it up only to have Detroit retake the lead - let’s just say I wouldn’t have been surprised if they packed up their tents and headed for the exits. When they tied it at 3, I figured the Wings were done, and sure enough, they were. It puts me at 3-2, and I’ve got the wrong side of both 3-2 series right now. Anyway, those of you in the pool, check your stats to make sure I didn’t screw anything up.

Today is Shaw day. The cable guy is coming to install the HD receiver, which I hope to make good use of tonight for game 6. I should also be able to figure out how much use (if any) the firewire output will be on the receiver. I hope that it’ll work - supposedly it’s enabled - and I hope that I’ll be able to get all the channels via firewire that I need to record. If not, at least I’ve got HD for live events ;)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Didn’t that movie used to have a war in it?” - Hans Moleman