Another weekend, another blog post

Well, I sort of got the recovery I wished for last weekend. Friday night I was sort of planning on getting my tax papers ready for today and maybe some Fallout 3, but I ended up having dinner at Amber and Morgan's with Noelle and then going over to Will's for a tour of his spacious abode, some board games (well, just Carcasonne, really), and a viewing of Hellboy 2 on his ginormous tv.

After that late night adventure (I think we got home around 3), we completely blew off Wondercon this weekend. I have mixed feelings about it, but it was really nice to sleep in. We also got a number of errands run that we would not have otherwise gotten to, I think and I had a pleasant afternoon with Noelle, culminating in dinner at Zao in Palo Alto. After dinner we joined the other nerds at the beautiful Fox Oakland theater for Video Games Live. Noelle had fabulous seats (second row orchestra) and the sound was outstanding. Best of all, I was able to haul my camera gear into the theater and hopefully I have some fantastic pictures. Need to get some image processing done, I think I am about three weeks behind now.

Sunday was another super sleep in day. We got up late, visited a nursery to look at rose bushes, went to a bookstore, got some stuff at OSH and that pretty much completed the day before we met up with Aki, Rachel, and Cindy to see Milk at the movies. I guess Sean Penn's performance might have been a little better than Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, but I think it was a bad luck for Rourke. After getting home, I pretty much spent the rest of the night getting ready for my Monday morning tax appointment.

And this morning was crazy too. Got up early to call a tow truck to take away the Z, which has been suffering from some new electrical malady, hauled some stuff out of the garage to donate, took Noelle to get a breakfast sandwich to placate her for needlessly waking her up early, saw my tax guy, and then rushed in to work to catch the last part of our monthly planning meeting. I am bushed and I have to take Noelle to the hospital tomorrow to have her gall bladder out. Too much stuff too close together.

Honey, I (Almost) Broke the Mini

All I wanted was some more memory for the Mac Mini in the office because since I started running Lightroom on it, its 512MB of memory did not seem to be um, adequate. Spin Cursor of Death all the time, especially if I had the temerity to do several things simultaneously. So I got 2GB of RAM at the low, low price of $23, shipping included(!). Then I found out what I had gotten myself into. To open a Mac Mini (at least the kind I have) requires a putty knife Not a paint scraper or paint can opener, but a frickin' putty knife. It turns out that an old exacto knife will work if you're careful, but you'll probably file away some of the case. Once open, you have remove four small screws, three of which are recessed, making them difficult to get to, especially if you use a non-magnetic screwdriver. You must also disconnect a jumper cable in the front so you can open the top daughterboard away from the motherboard. It turns out that you can put this jumper back in facing both ways, but there is a clearly a preferred orientation: if you don't put it in the right way, the fan will blow full blast, because the jumper connects the temperature sensor to the motherboard and if it's not connected, the Mini doesn't know how hot things are. Guess what I put in the wrong way? Twice. You must also carefully unclip the WiFi antenna which is clipped to the top. It is possible to pull the other end completely off the motherboard. Guess what else I did. Finally, there is a ribbon cable that I thought connected the hard drive and optical drive to the motherboard. This is actually the sound cable. I managed to not only disconnect it, but also to get the plastic doodad that connects it to the contacts on the daughterboard to come loose. It appears that it's mostly friction that holds the cable and the doodad together. After several disassemblies and reassemblies, the mini appears to be back on its feet and also more responsive. So, I think this counts as a win. Right?

Terabyte Drive

I went to Fry's last night and got a 1 TB (that's terabyte) drive for $109. $109! That's a million floppy disks. Can personal jet packs and home nuclear reactors be far behind?