I’m Virtually Rich

My main character in World of Warcraft just reached his goal of attaining one hundred thousand gold!

If only it were real gold.

*sigh*

Soooo Tempting…

I came across this set of ruby dice on eBay:

Price tag: just over a thousand bucks.

What a fantastic centerpiece this would be to my dice collection.  If my credit card debt were lower, I would seriously consider buying it…

Upcoming Star Wars Lego Sets

A couple of upcoming Star Wars Lego sets have really caught my eye:

TIE Defender (8087-1)

I’m surprised to see this ship become a Lego set.  Never seen in the movies, the TIE Defender was invented for the 1994 TIE Fighter PC game — possibly the best spacefighter simulator game of all time.  The model itself looks pretty sweet.

Rebel Trooper Battle Pack (8083-1)

At first I didn’t think much of the Alliance pilot and Hoth battlegear trooper minifigs, but after getting a few of each from various sets, I’ve grown to like them.  I’ll be picking up one or two of these sets once they come out.Snowtrooper Battle Pack (8084-1)

I’ve always loved  snowtroopers!  I’m so glad they’re coming out with a battle pack of them.  When I first heard of this set, I was hoping it would contain four snowtroopers and was a little disappointed to hear, later, that there’d only be two in each set.  However, the inclusion of an AT-AT pilot (fantastic!) and an Imperial officer in battlegear are definitely acceptable tradeoffs.

Free Audio Books

I’ve recently discovered a great source for free audio books: Librivox.  Librivox is a community of people who record their readings of public-domain books for others to listen to.

From their website:

LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free

Their short science fiction collections caught my ear immediately.  I’ve only gone through the first two collections at this point.  There are some really good stories in there.

The quality varies from contributor to contributor, since these are amateur recordings, but most of them are of acceptable quality.  Only once did I skip a story due to a terribly irritating voice, but a couple of other contributors’ voices sound not far from professional quality readings.   There are also sometimes technical issues with the recordings themselves (i.e. hissing, minor background noises, etc.), but they are often easily fixed with a graphic equalizer or just ignored when the story is engrossing.

Definitely check out Librivox if you’re a fan of audio books.

Dell XPS M1210 Blank Screen Problem – Mystery Solved!

Over a year ago, my Dell XPS M1210 laptop started randomly having the screen go very, very dark — almost black.  This didn’t happen very often at first, but it eventually got worse and worse until finally the screen would just flicker on for an instant during startup, then go dark.

After doing some research, I found comments from other people indicating the problem could be one of two things: a problem with the inverter board for the display, or a defective backlight.  Well, a month or so ago I bought a new inverter for about eight bucks off of eBay and dismantled my laptop, replacing the old board with the new one.  No change.

Then I bought a new backlight for my laptop (again, from eBay, for less than $20) with the intent of attempting to replace it myself.  I couldn’t find any instructions on how to do it — unlike replacing the inverter board — but I plowed ahead and tried anyway.  As of right now, I have replaced the backlight, but have yet to put everything back together.  I’m not 100% sure I’ll succeed, but I haven’t given up yet.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE TRY THIS AT HOME.  It’s difficult and it’s too easy to break something.

Anyway, this is what I found when I finally got to the backlight:

Mystery solved!  One of the wires harnessed to the backlight had, apparently, deteriorated.  Taking into account how many people suffer from the blank screen problem, it looks like this is the result of defective manufacture (or design) of the component.

Given this evidence, I think Dell should have to pay to repair anyone’s Dell laptop which has been experiencing the problem.  The problem is simply too common to simply be from normal “wear and tear”.

Armed with this knowledge, I hope potential laptop buyers will think twice about buying a Dell.

UDPDATE

I managed to successfully put the whole thing back together again!  The screen lights up properly now and doesn’t go dark anymore.  I didn’t do a perfect job putting the new backlight in, however, and the bottom-middle of the screen has a bit of a bright spot, but it’s not too bad.  At least my laptop is usable now.

So, to reiterate, the initially intermittant and eventually permanent blank/black/dark screen problem on my Dell XPS M1210 laptop was caused by a fault in one of the wire connections on the screen’s backlight CFL.

Good Mechanics

Recently I had the seat track under my car’s driver’s seat rust out and break.  I called a local dealership about a replacement part and was told it would be almost $500!  After some searching online, I found the part I needed on a site called Parts.com for less than $200.  With this information in mind, I went to my regular auto shop, Signature Motors Collision Centre.  The guys there had some old cars with a compatible track and replaced it for me for $200, labor and taxes included!

The guys at Signature Motors on Clarence Ave. have yet to steer me wrong.  The last time I had brought it in for repairs I got my transmission rebuilt, a new clutch put in, new rear brake drums and a replaced wheel bearing for $1500.

I heartily recommend them if you’re in need of automotive repairs!

Cartman Sings “Poker Face”

This week’s episode of South Park had a moment here some of the characters were playing Rock Band, with Cartman doing the vocals for Lady Gaga’s Poker Face.  It was so entertaining that I tracked down a full version of the song.  You can download the mp3 from this Rapishare link, or  try downloading the file directly from here (this second link will probably be slower).

Best West Pet Foods Scams Its Customers

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s shopkeepers scamming their customers.

Yesterday I stopped by a local Best West Pet Foods store to pick up some rabbit food.  They had about three or four different kinds/sizes, so I compared them all for price and quality, then picked a 10 lb bag of Kaytee Forti-Diet ProHealth rabbit food.

The price on the shelf under the bags of food said it was $13.99, but when I got the stuff rung up at the counter, the total was over $20 after taxes.  That didn’t sound right, so I asked the cashier to double check the price, and she responded that the price was $17.99.  I told her I thought the tag on the shelf said $13.99, so I went back to check.  Sure enough, the shelf said it was the lesser of the two prices.

As it happened, another employee — who looked like she might be the manager, so that’s what I’ll call her from now on — came around and the cashier explained the issue.  The first thing she said was that the sticker on the bag was the correct price.  I hadn’t noticed any price tag sticker on the bag, but after some searching, I managed to find it, and it did have the higher price.

I went with the manager to check out the shelf tag again.  She took it out, look at it, looked at the bags on the shelf, then told me the tag was for a different brand. I pointed out the product code says “KT”, which I guessed could mean “Kaytee” brand.  She explicitly said no, it was a different brand.  Then I posted out the “FD” could mean “Forti-Diet”, and “PH” could mean ProHealth.  She consistenly refused to admit the tag was for the very bag of rabbit food I picked up as she looked back and forth between the tag and the bag.

After a bit, I insisted that this was the tag for the very item I was buying, but she denied it again.   After she decided she had investigated enough, she put the tag with the incorrect price back on the shelf under the items she insisted were a higher price!  I told her not to do that because the price was wrong.  She replied that it was probably for something that was out of stock at the moment.  The shelves were all completely full and it was clear that nothing was out of stock.

I mumbled “[t]hen I guess I know never to shop here again” just loud enough for her to hear as the left to return to the back room, then returned to the cashier in disgust at her behavior.  Upon reaching the cashier counter, I noticed that the bag of food I had picked had been pierced and taped over with clear tape.  I asked the cashier if it was okay to grab another bag instead and she said “yes”.  Seizing the opportunity, I also liberated the errant shelf tag as well so as to prevent any future customers from being tricked into buying higher priced food.

Incorrect shelf tags on items in stores really pisses me off.  But what really makes me angry is shopkeepers actively condoning the practice.  It’s not always easy to catch this sort of thing when you are buying multiple items.

Jay and Silent Bob

About two years ago I came across director Kevin Smith’s recount of his friend, Jason Mewes’, struggle with drug addiction.  It was a very interesting read.  For a time, these blog posts appeared to have been taken down (presumably because the content appeared in a recent book by Mr. Smith), but I recently tried searching for them again and they were available.

So, if you’re a fan of Jay & Silent Bob, or are interested in reading a heart-wrenching story of a young man fighting his demons, here are all nine parts of the story from Kevin Smith’s blog, My Boring Ass Life:

• Me and My Shadow – Part 1
• Me and My Shadow – Part 2
• Me and My Shadow – Part 3
• Me and My Shadow – Part 4
• Me and My Shadow – Part 5
• Me and My Shadow – Part 6
• Me and My Shadow – Part 7
• Me and My Shadow – Part 8
• Me and My Shadow – Part 9 (Conclusion)

DVD Ripping Made Simple

I read a comment somewhere today that made mention of a video encoder called Handbrake.  Curious, I decided to try it out on one of my Twilight Zone DVDs since my player conked out (again, *sigh*).

I also had to install another program called DVD43 in order to get Handbrake to read copy-restricted DVDs, but with those two programs together, making backups of DVD videos is a breeze!  With the default settings I was able to rip an episode off of my DVD in torrent-ready quality.

The ease-of-use and noob-friendliness of Handbrake prompts me to give the program (along with DVD43) five pirated DVDs out of five: