fine whine

1. A pillow
2. A flashlight
3. A chair
4. Firewood and/or kindling
5. Another pillow*

* Seriously, I went camping and didn't take any pillows.Or flashlights, chairs, or firewood. I've heard campers aren't really supposed to bring their own firewood anyway, but the pillows and flashlight would've been handy. Also, my 8' x 6' was supposedly able to fit three sleeping people. For that matter, it's only supposedly 8' wide - it seemed much smaller inside than that.

So with the holidays lately I've had a few weekdays away from my desk*. As is often the case when this happens, I had some errands to run, and interesting stores in which to stop nearby. At one point I found myself wandering through a MicroCenter (though I bought nothing), and near the video game section I saw something I wish I could've caught on video (and posted to youtube). But I didn't have a good camera handy, and my phone's movie mode would've been rather a bit lacking. So it's time to dust off your imagination (take that, you click-happy tweens).

In front of me, there was a kid playing Guitar Hero. For those not in the know, Guitar Hero is a console video game that comes with a plastic guitar-like controller, and players push fret-like buttons while doing a motion similar to strumming, in time with popular rock and metal songs (or cover versions thereof). The kid appeared to have average skills, hitting the correct buttons at the right time. This was not the remarkable part, of course. Much more interesting than the player, was the kid standing next to him, fingers in the air, miming the same notes.

He was playing air Guitar Hero. There was, of course, a second guitar controller on the demo kiosk, but I think he was probably having more fun playing his fantasy version of the song than actually hitting the buttons. Or he was trying to be supportive of his buddy. Or perhaps he was doing a very convoluted form of mockery.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty funny. Guitar Hero, from my feeble attempts to play it, is already once removed from the actual experience of playing the guitar. This kid found a way to do it one better, I guess. And about 50 to 80 bucks cheaper, too.

* I almost wrote "...weekdays I wasn't working" there, but with something of a slowdown at work I don't know if I can count all the hours I was there as hours I really worked. I was there, and available for work, there just wasn't any to do at the moment. Hence the deathmatch tournaments of Nexuiz, and before that, Marathon Infinity (through the magic of AlephOne).

Several weeks ago two things happened. I received a Nintendo Wii, and my TV died.

These are not two events most people would want to combine. And I'd imagine few people would want the latter to happen at all*.

The TV just stopped powering on. For an hour or two I messed with it, pushing the power button, unplugging and replugging it to the surge protector, and the wall, and even had broken out the screwdrivers, and removing two of the outer case screws before giving up to sleepiness.

I'd looked it up, of course - there was a slight chance all I'd need to do was get a three dollar fuse from Radio Shack, and I'd be back in business. However I didn't check it the next day, as the TV turned on and seemd to be functioning normally.

It's easy to begin projecting emotions and intentions on frustrating things - I began to wonder if it was trying to spite me by working for Jessica and not for me.

It remained in complete working order (well, except for the already dodgy S-video plug on the back) for over a week before shutting down completely again, and this time for more than a few hours.

In the weeks that followed it would occasionally work, sometimes for half an hour to forty five minutes at a stretch, but more often than not my hopeful attempts with the remote and power button were greeted with nothing but sad silence and darkness.

Last Thursday I broke down and hauled it to a nearby repair shop, and they estimated it would be just over a hundred bucks to fix it. I'd been pricing out my options for a similar set (size-wise, at least. I now know that the two-tuner picture-in-picture and home automation features are much more than I need from a TV) and nothing was anywhere below more than twice that. The really intriguing ones were about five hundred bucks, which is close to what I'd paid for this set those seven or eight years ago.

The TV stand looked particularly forlorn without the TV, which, though it isn't turned on much, is nevertheless a large fixture in the room. The cats were more than happy to have a new surface on which to play, but the stand soon became a shelf and then a pile for cords, video games, and other things that shouldn't have been on the floor.

All of that's cleaned up (or at least moved elsewhere) now, since last night i picked the fixed TV up and put it back. Jessica and I got to finally watch the first half Mission Impossible III - it had died in the first few minutes in what I had at first thought was just the lights being turned off onscreen - which frankly, from the looks of it so far, wasn't worth waiting to see. But now I can finally get the Wii connected again, and maybe convince Jessica to join me for a few frames of bowling or other fun.

That is, of course, when I'm not actively keeping Natalya from climbing the furniture and eating the cords, and reading the 20-odd books I'd reserved from the library, most of which only showed up yesterday. Oops.

* Having spent a week or two pricing out tube TVs, I had gotten a little bit excited at the prospects a new set could offer. I know someday I'll need that digital tuner that's now built into most sets, but the chance of replacing my TV with something widescreen, or HDMI capable (so I could plug my computer into it and use it as a really, really big monitor) certainly intrigued me. I can't imagine considering buying a new TV without having the old one die, so I guess that would be a good thing, almost.

So today was Father's Day, the first one since Natalya was born. Generally for me, as far as I could remember, Father's Day was a day to give my Dad a card and a phone call, and that's about it. I don't remember doing any special stuff (breakfast in bed, etc.) in the past, and didn't really feel the need to, well, need any special treatment myself.

My daughter's a bit young to really get into it anyway*.

My wife, on the other hand, gave me a brand new radio-controlled helicopter. I've always enjoyed playing with radio-controlled toys, having destroyed at least three cars as a child, and having seen my neighbor's collection of helicopters I have wanted one for a while (as seen on my wishlist).

Knowing they were complicated and difficult to control, I actually read the manual a few times while I waited for the batteries to charge.

With the Jessica and Natalya safely inside, I attempted some brief flights. It only took me about an hour to crash and break it beyond repair, at least until I track down some spare parts.

* I'm fairly certain her signature on the card I received was forged, too.

The weather this summer has been great for weeds*, and not so great for grass. Our front and back yards were pretty patchy before, but the dead spots keep appearing and, well, growing. I've bought two bags now of grass seed and even tried out the special mix with the blue mulch mixed in, and the grass still looks pretty bad. The spray-on weed & feed I used had much better results than the dry stuff I'd spread before, and I think I'll henceforth be buying the liquid instead, since it actually seemed to do something. But that was one minor success among a long string of failures.

Everytime I mow the grass with my cordless electric mower, the blade of which I sharpened today for the first time with a brand-new file, I can't help but think that such a nice piece of grass-cutting technology deserves better grass to be cutting. Even our push mowers far outclas the grass they (ably) cut. I'd find it more appropriate to be mowing with an old gas-and-oil belching mower that's all rusted, and perhaps missing a wheel.

On the other hand, it would be really fun (and likely noisy) to try out a riding mower. And it would be overkill, though that doesn't stop the guy who is paid to mow several lawns on my street with his rotating assortment of ride-on mowers. I'd like to ask him to do ours sometime just to see how much he'd laugh, except that his mowers are so loud he'd probably not hear me.

* This year's weed crop doesn't include poison ivy, surprisingly and thankfully. I've killed two plants and seen no others. This is fine with me.

Last night* and today Jessica and I were in Ohio's Holmes county.

We haven't gone on all that many trips together, which probably makes it all the more difficult to figure out what to do. Holmes County is smack dab in the middle of Ohio's so-called Amish country, home to a great concentration of the technologically-averse-but-tourist-friendly folk.

There's not all that much to actually do there, though, if you're not interested in shopping for bespoke stuff or antiques. I was reminded of another weekend trip we'd taken to somewhere in southern Ohio, again largely existing because of the old stuff trade.

The line from the title, though, was something I'd said after Jessica pointed out that a particular non-antiques store smelled pleasant. We'd been in an antiques barn not long before, and it didn't take much imagination to see the newly-created knicknacks (well, all except for the 'hand-made' PVC marshmallow guns) in a few decades being hawked again as antiques. After all, an antique's just something that's lasted a long time.

But as for shopping for them, it's not really my thing. I find some moments of amusement in how things looked so long ago, with the toys and keepsakes that are dangerous, offensive or just dull, and just the things that people have found fit to preserve over the ages. But only for a little while, and then soon the novelty wears off, and I'm just looking at other people's clutter. Really, that's what a lot of antiques are: clutter plus time.

I have a messy room just waiting for the day that everything becomes a priceless relic. It could well take me that long to get it cleaned up, anyway.

* Though we were in the heart of Ohio's Amish country, our hotel had an internet-connected computer in the lobby (and free wireless connectivity that I had no laptop to access). That said, I didn't feel like updating the site from there. Of course, it would be something to say that I drove a hundred miles just to write a post...