While reading up on Ted Haggard today, I couldn't help but notice that he looked like SOMEBODY ...

Finally I put my finger on it. "Stiffler" from American Pie. Duh!!

We just got a new printer. Whenever I am setting up things like this, I install software, plug it in, hook up the USB cable, just like the instructions say. I'm a good girl. I do things step by step, in order, instruction manual in hand, never veering off the path, for fear of screwing something up.

And then there's my dad. He'd just received the printer and asked me if I could come over and install it. Over the phone, I told him he should be able to install the thing himself no problem, as long as he "followed the instructions". I forgot that my dad is a male of the type that is allergic to printed instructions. He attempted something, but aborted his mission along the way. Who knows what he did. Now I have this hulking machine angrily whirring at me, loud as hell, and not printing anything.

The thing that is frustrating me the most is really how tiny the instructions are for what to do with the toner cartridge. "Break off this tab and pull out the tape", "if it's not printing, make sure you've broken off the tab and pulled out the tape". There is a teeny tiny diagram, that looks nothing like my cartridge, trying to illustrate this. I see that parts have already been broken off. I am praying my dad didn't just go to town and break off the wrong parts!

I'm looking in the trash for evidence of his activities. Nothing. Darn it all, today was trash day!

[ sulk sulk sulk ]

Well, at least the power has come back on. I was like, "Oh, let me help set up the printer! Oh, I can't turn it on." "Oh, let me heat up something to eat! Oh wait, I can't." "Oh, let me get the address and directions to that place! Oh, I have no internet." "Oh, the landline phone's ringing! But I have to run downstairs to pick up because that's the only one in the house that isn't a cordless." "Oh, let me blog my frustrations to the world! Oh, I can't ... "

This weekend I became intimately acquainted with a Wahl's grooming device, along with attachments #1 and #2.

Before.


After.


You can't really tell the quality of the haircut here, but I'm told that Chef Hugh has not yet felt it necessary to wear a paper bag over his head nor hide away from society entirely.

s: What did you use here to protect your camera's LCD screen?
me: Oh, it's just a WriteRight for PDAs that I sliced up and put on there. I'm pretty rough with my cameras.
s: I can see that. (pointing) I mean, you've even got food on your camera!
me: (!!!) I do?!?! OMG hahah I'm so embarrassed! (runs off to wipe noodles off camera)

As s said, rule #1: try not to use your camera as a plate.

From: P. Chen
Subject: order some stuffs
To: Chen Caroline
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 24 Oct 2006 17:40:13.0078 (UTC) FILETIME=[7588A360:01C6F793]

==============

OK. So I proceed to whoop out all my money-saving smarts and online search-savvy and get to work.

Compactflash card, check. Toner, easy enough. "Small disk" - by this my dad means one of those USB flash disk thingies - and sure, there are tons of choices. Fast ones, slow ones, slim ones, fat ones. And then I come across ... CUTE ONES!!! AIEEEEEE!!!


Not sure how I feel about the cuteness level when you actually need to use those critters:


And of course, like anything else I want really badly, you can't seem to get these cute ones in the US (well, I haven't found them yet)!!! POUT!!!

Yeah, if possible, I like to get cute-ified gadgets for my dad. He doesn't complain, rather I think he likes it. It's always funny to hear the word "cute" come out of a guy's mouth, let alone a guy who's almost 60. :)

I only ventured out to a coin-operated car wash the other day for the first time in my whole entire life, as Thi wanted to wash her car and we ended up doing my car in the process too.

Dude, I haven't laughed that hard in a while! And I probably shouldn't have massaged in the blue conditioner by hand - that stuff is hard to wash off! While seeing patients later, I was hoping no one wouldn't notice the bluish tinge to my hands ...

Funky cloud patterns, presumably left over by the nonstop raining this past weekend.

Today I was messing with a friend's Olympus Stylus 300 whose lens would not retract when it was supposed to, and thus could not properly close / shut down and also would not turn on at all (despite having a full battery pack and a memory card that had no known problems) - I must have been mindlessly fiddling with it for at least 30 minutes while we were chatting.

I was actually just suggesting he get a spiffy new digicam for around $100, when I started frustratedly mashing on the "Quick View / Playback" button a whole buncha times.

And all of a sudden, in astonishment: "WHOA ... it's retracting!! WHOA!!!! Holy !@#$ ..."

Apparently that was the "reset" button??!?!?! (I'm flipping through the instruction manual, and I can't find this in there ... might I have discovered something undocumented?! Can anyone out there confirm if this is across the board for Olympus cams?)

Also by pure fluke I discovered that this Olympus camera uses double-clicking of this very same button for quick playback of images while in shooting mode (this IS documented, but seems uncommon). Hahaha. Weird. I'd never used a digicam that needed double-clicking. Any other cameras out there that do that? Does Olympus still do that?

My friend has dubbed me as having "CPR skillz" meaning "ComPuteR skillz", but perhaps in this case it means me breathing life into his left-for-dead camera.

Yeah. Mashing angrily on buttons. Mad skillz have I. :P

For anyone who might be going to Houston Hobby Airport before the rain evaporates - enter and exit the airport via Broadway. Other routes are FLOODED!

Video I took tonight, with chatter by Chef Hugh and cackling by me, plus footage of my car posing as a boat:

Who knew that a flooded street would look so pretty? (Note: Do not attempt taking pics / vids under such conditions unless you have a friend present to steer you back on track, hehe)

I've always been more a messy person, but when I'm in a rut, my apartment's disorder also increases proportionally, if not exponentially. Yup, got lots to clean up here.

'Tis all good though; having some Hot 'n Sour Soup for the Soul ALWAYS soothes my nerves. :) Love ya, Petah!

And while we're on the topic of being in a rut, this put a smile on my face:

Part of the Blogosphere HugMeDay effort. (Saw it here.) :)

I recently embarked on a project to find an alternative to labelling my slideshow DVDs with regular paper labels, which have been messing up on me and don't play well in my slot-loading disc drive.

My criteria:
1) Not too costly: this eliminated options that would require purchasing of new hardware, such as a Lightscribe burner and media (admittedly cool-looking results, though!).
2) In color (again, eliminating the Lightscribe).

After doing tons of research, the best solution seemed to be:

1) Buy white-top printable discs. (Can be all the way to the hub or not.)

There are plenty of white-top discs out there, and it seems that Taiyo Yuden brand DVD-R discs were best (both most popular and seemingly most reliable). I ended up getting some Ritek Ridata white-top printable DVD-Rs, they seemed to rank up there too. Also, there was much discussion in forums and on ResellerRatings.com as to whether vendors were selling the "real" thing, as opposed to knock-off brand name media. I went with SuperMediaStore.com.

2) Buy an inkjet printer that has a special tray that allows direct printing onto the disc.

Infringes slightly upon criterion #2. Many of Epson's inkjet printers do this; the cheapest was the Epson R220 at about $100, which isn't too too bad, but I already have an inkjet printer (a more than adequate one, too - the Canon Pixma IP6600D - see above), and I don't like to buy stuff when I only have one brand to choose from (not an early adopter!).

So I decided on my next best option (again, after much research):

1) Buy white-top printable discs.

2) Buy thin clear glossy labels, reportedly much thinner than regular labels, thus reducing chances of mess-up by a LOT.

Them labels were a PAIN to apply. Bubbles showed up really easily, I tried doing things I'd read in forums like softening up the plastic with a hairdryer, applying it with a straightedge, etc. Ugh. Not as easy as it seemed. I was getting sick of messing them up again and again.

So! In all the forums I'd read, I remembered reading how Canon Pixma IP6600D printers outside of N. America all had a CD tray for direct on-disc printing. I did some research, and voila! Buy the right tray for your printer, set up the printer with a combination of button-pressing, and start printin' on those discs!

I'm such a geek. I'm "modding" my printer so I can directly print on discs! Hee hee!

After all this research (basically, countless hours on VideoHelp's forums), I always feel like I know way more than I ever really wanted to know. Oh well ... this geeky knowledge will be useful to someone at some point? I sometimes feel like I'm just going to meet a guy one day who'll already know all this stuff and think I'm stupid to have to look all of it up. And will think I'm weird for wanting to know. Oh well, comes with the territory, he'll have to deal with it. :)