Electronics are a mystery to me.

So there’s some sort of HDMI cable scam going on. I can get them at a cable store very near work for $10-20 but I think Best Buy sells them for about $50. I checked to see how much it would cost to buy an HDMI splitter, so I could play video from my DVR on one or both of the TVs I have in my “office” but it was a lot more expensive than I first thought. $58 at the cable store, and $39 for the same unit (or so it seems) at the computer store that’s 200 yards away. And I was told that HDMI splitters didn’t always work very well.

They were right in one sense. The splitter quit working after about 20 minutes and I determined that the wall wart was dead. Time to see if I can exchange it for a working unit.

And I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to Tokyo or not. Sheesh.

My next door neighbor is a black belt.

Yesterday I spent some time at Storables getting some racks for the new laundry room, but the more unique thing I did was watch my next door neighbor testing for his black belt in Aikido. He did pretty darn well from my perspective and I heard the testers gave him pretty positive feedback as well.

I’m planning on going to Japan with my mom and my sister again this fall, and we’re trying to decide whether to skip Tokyo and stick to Western Japan. I was never a big fan of Tokyo, but it’s actually fun to visit as well. I guess if we fly into the Kansai International airport (which I’ve actually never been to) we can avoid a long train ride. But that also means we miss seeing some friends in Tokyo and I can’t make my yearly pilgrimage to Akihabara Electric Town. What to do…

I should keep this short.

It’s rainy and cold and it’s only September.September in Oregon is usually our best month. Our heater even started up a couple of days ago and I had to run around readjusting all the registers so the downstairs would heat and the upstairs wouldn’t. (I like it a little colder upstairs.)

I decided I should keep this short because I’m pretty tired and the stupid Plants vs Zombies game is calling to me. Curse my addictions.

Oh, and someone commented on my old post about an old grade school classmate Holly Reinhorn who was pretty and a little mean, but that’s how things are in grade school. I still have a poor opinion of her, and no one seems to have that much nice to say about her high school self, either. Now she’s married to Rainn Wilson, who I don’t find all that funny or interesting. Really, I still don’t see how people are finding my blog unless they “know” my sister. Maybe they’re googling for things I write about. I’m entitled to my opinion after all, and it’s not like anyone is forced to read what I write. I’d be a lot more careful if they were.

Staying out late on a weekend.

Well, I was out late a couple of nights on this three day weekend and I wasn’t feeling all that great today. One of the two things I had on my list never happened (experimenting with paint stripper) but I did finish installing the incredibly expensive light switches in the hallway and removed the mirror from the dining room. I’m not sure what the previous owners were thinking, but they covered up a window with wood paneling and a giant mirror. Unfortunately, I broke the giant mirror ON MY SHIN which probably means seven more days of bad luck while my shin hurts and bleeds all over the inside of my pants. And the wall under the wood paneling looks like absolute crap. I now have to decide what to do about that wall.

I had other plans but I had a stomach ache in the middle of the day. Most Mondays that would mean that I could take a day off from the gym, but the holiday meant the gym was only open in the morning and so the partner workout almost killed me BEFORE I had the stomach ache. It also gave me an excuse to download Plants vs. Zombies and sit around playing that.

Oh, and the stomach ache might have just been from eating a second dinner late last night. Sean wanted to go see a movie and we saw The American, but I think that was just an excuse to go to Ringside for their happy hour again. I will say that the trailer showed all the action in the movie (which really wasn’t that much) but I did enjoy the slower pace.

Staying out late on a school night.

I should keep this short since I should try to get some sleep but I’m out late again on a school night. Last night I was invited out to see a band, and I went. I got back early enough (11-ish) but it takes me a while to wind down.

Today my friend Sean and I were going out to get burgers, but he was going to have to beg off because he needed to hook up his ailing mom’s iPad. The key words here are friend, ailing mom, and help with computers. How could I turn down that kind of request for help? I got all sorts of stuff ready but we didn’t need it. What he really needed was backup in case there were some problems. It took some time but we got everything working with little trouble, though installing iTunes on an old computer took some time.

Afterwards we went to Ringside and had some Happy Hour grub. The food there is phenomenal. Even after we had stuffed ourselves with steak bites, crab cakes, and french dips, we still got the burger and it still ranked in the top three. It was taste, and not hunger, that made that one of the best.

Now it’s even later because I promised my mom I’d test-drive her new shower. The plumber had cross-threaded the shower attachment, and it took me some time to diagnose and fix it. Ah, well, can’t have my mom in a faulty shower.