News & Updates in October 2002

Added character profiles for Inu-Yahsa (from Inu-Yahsa), Kyoji Kasshu (from Mobile Fighter G Gundam), Vanessa Leads (from Robotech), and Sally S. Ford (from Macross 7). Also fixed a bunch of errors.

Added anime profiles for Kirby: Right Back at Ya! and Please Save My Earth, and added character profiles for Kirby (from Kirby: Right Back at Ya!), Jun Aoi, Minato Haruka (both from Martian Successor Nadesico), Mai Valentine, Maximillion Pegasus, Ryou Bakura (all from Yu-Gi-Oh!), Allenby Beardsley, Master Asia, Rain Mikamura, and Schwarz Bruder (all from Mobile Fighter G Gundam).

Well, here it is almost three weeks since the last update, and still I have more that I need to get to. I spent just about the entire weekend trying to install new sprinkler valves. The glue took 24 hours to dry, so it wasn't until Monday evening that I got to try it out. And it leaked, but not from where I expected. As it turns out, I bought the wrong kind of valve (anti-siphon, which is supposed to be 6" above the highest sprinkler), so on Tuesday I took them back to the store and get some new ones. I spent Wednesday (before and after work) cutting and fitting the PVC for the new valves, finishing up with everything Thursday evening. Now all that's left is to wait another 24 hours and see what happens.

Over the weekend, I also washed the cars and put together a couple of end tables we got for next to the couch. To wash the cars, I started out used the SIMONIZ Car Wash System that we got at Wal-Mart... until it broke. What a cheap piece-of-crap. Besides breaking the first time it was used, it constantly leaked from the handle (even after I put Teflon tape on) and the rotating head was too weak to do any good at all. And speaking of crap products, our flat hose is definitely one of them. We bought it from YouCanSave.Com, where they say it's "Guaranteed to never kink, never tangle and never tear". Well, guess what? We've had it for about three months, and it always kinks, occasionally tangles, and has two holes torn in it. I tried checking out their return policy, but aside from the 30-day returns, they didn't give any other info except to contact the manufacturer of the product, whoever that is. It doesn't specify who made it on their site. So I sent off an e-mail on Sunday, but seeing as how our hose was originally delayed for months, I'm not expecting a quick and timely response.

The main reason we went to Wal-Mart over the weekend was to get an ironing board and wallet size pictures of a wedding photo. We got the ironing board okay, but it took something like an hour before we got a chance to use the automated Kodak picture machine. Once we finally got to use it, everything went nice and easy... until we went to pay for it. The dude took a quick look at our original photo, and then took away the wallet size photos we printed out and said we couldn't have them. What the heck?! He said it was due to some copyright thing because the photo was taken by a professional. Now, this seriously pissed us off. I mean, I could just as easily scan it in myself and put it on a CD and he'd never know. Or I just mark over the back of the photo, and again he'd never know. But I'm not going to do either. Why? Because I'm not going to give Kodak a single cent of our money. We'll go elsewhere, or print them out ourselves.

Last Sunday we visited Burney Falls (view our pics). There was a nice view for the entire drive there, so the trip didn't feel very long at all. We stopped once at a rest stop along the way to check out the view. When we actually got to Burney Falls, we hiked down almost to the bottom. Treeses didn't have her cane with her, so we didn't go farther than that. The waterfall was absolutely beautiful, and we'll definitely be going back. We checked out the gift shop before heading back, but didn't see any souvenirs worth purchasing for their price. The camera worked very well throughout the trip, and I was able to put the pictures online the same evening.

Oh yeah, and today is my sister's birthday, so Happy Birthday!

Added the anime profile Earthian, the character profiles Joey Wheeler and Yugi Mutou (both from Yu-Gi-Oh!), and made some various fixes.

There are some new profiles coming soon! I know it's been almost three weeks since the last update, and two weeks went by before the update prior to that, but hopefully this won't be a continuing trend. Things have just been so busy lately. First off, we have decided to refinance our house. We were originally looking into getting a loan, but discovered that by doing a cash-out refinancing, we could get the funds we were looking for, cut 15 years off our mortgage, and our monthly payment would go up less than it would had we got a loan. Plus, we are using the funds to pay off all of our current bills like Pacesetter, the credit cards, and the car payments, so all that dept will be clean and clear.

To do the refinancing, they are going to have someone come out and re-appraise the house. Unfortunately, our lawn looks like crap right now. We hired a company over a month ago to start taking care of our lawn, as we just don't have the time to do it ourselves. They were supposed to do an initial cleanup before the started the upkeep, which they still have not done. In the meantime, our grass started turning brown which led us to discover that our neighbor's tree roots had gotten into the electrical system of our lawn sprinklers. Before we went out looking for someone to fix it, we called our lawn company and asked if they could do it. They assured us that they could and would, and said they would be over to do it along with the initial cleanup sometime last week. They didn't. So we called again, and this time locked down a day that they would come by and do it. That day was yesterday (Wednesday), and still nothing. So now we're trying to find some other, dependable lawn company.

Last weekend I climbed in the attic again. This time I installed a phone line for the TiVo and a coaxial cable for an antenna. The phone cord for the TiVo previously wrapped around the wall and into the kitchen's phone jack, so that little unsightliness is now gone. The week prior we bought a powered RCA rabbit ear antenna that enables us to receive a pretty clear ABC and a slightly fuzzy UPN. It will be moved into the attic soon; the only reason we haven't done it yet is because we know that it's going to be a pain to tune in the channels. It'd be so much easier if we just had a small, 13-inch television that I could haul up into the attic with me.

Now that we get UPN, I am finally able to watch Enterprise. The first episode I saw here (I saw one while I was in L.A. for E3) was last part of a continuation where Captain Archer was in the future and some aliens had taken over Enterprise. I didn't really know what was going on, and then the next episode took place in the past on Earth where a Vulcan ship crashed and the crew had to fit into society. Not much action here. So the episode I watched last night was really the first "normal" one I saw, and I thought it was pretty good. I love the ship, with all it's texture and mechanical gizmos. I haven't seem much of the characters yet, but so far they already seem more interesting than any of the ones on DS9 or Voyager.

There is finally stuff on TV again. Amazing Race is back, and just as good as ever. Survivor also returned, but has seemed pretty bland so far. There are a couple of new series that we tried out, John Doe and Dragonfly. Neither are not very interesting, and I expect they won't last past this season, which is too bad because both have some great potential. John Doe is about a man who knows absolutely everything, any fact or statistic imaginable, except when it comes to his past. This could have been the next MacGyver or Quantum Leap, where he travels all over the world solving various problems. Instead all he does with his "powers" is stay put and help local police solve the crime of the week. Boring!

Then there's Firefly, which is about a crew of "smugglers" who fly around the galaxy taking jobs that may not be so legal. Could be interesting... if they weren't all goodie-two-shoes! Everyone on board the ship has their own, secret past... all of which I don't care about! They try to build up these characters to have a mysterious past, but we don't even know who they are yet so why would we care about their past? Overall, it kind of reminds me of the live action Tick series, where they have this great setup but all they do is talk for the entire episode. Do something!

We've seen a ton of NetFlix movies since the last update, so I'll just run through those quickly. There was Timelock (crap), The Royal Tenenbaums (boring), All About the Benjamins (good), Showtime (good), Murder By Numbers (boring), White Water Summer (still good), Joe Somebody (good), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (good), and Mission: Impossible (average). On TiVo, we started watching The Tailor of Panama but deleted it about 20 minutes in because it was so incredibly boring.

My new digital camera came today! Actually, it arrived yesterday but they needed me to sign for it so I had to go pick it up from the post office this morning. It's a Canon S200 Digital Elph, which is quite small and durable feeling. I first saw it in Circuit City, and then checked the web to find that it had gotten really good reviews from people. I got mine on eBay for about $240 with and extra 32MB CompactFlash card. I had already purchased a card reader earlier in the week. Oh yeah, we also bought a light-sensor timer for our external house lights and a motion detector light switch for our laundry room. We got them both at Home Depot. The light-sensor only cost about $15, was a snap to set up, and has been working great. The motion detector cost a little more and took more effort to install, but it has been working good as well.

The Sunday after the previous update, my wife and I drove through Lassen Park. It was a nice view, and we stopped by one of the lakes to get out and take a closer look before continuing on. When we got to the end, we went inside the gift shop and looked around. Nothing really struck our fancy. Treeses got some beef jerky and we headed off. We asked a ranger dude if there was a quicker way back without going through the park, and so we followed his directions. It only saved like a half hour and there was absolutely nothing to look at, so we would have been better off just going back through the park. We were going to visit Burney Falls the next weekend, but things just got too busy, as they did last weekend, so hopefully we'll get to go this coming weekend.