Bug-Man’s Blog

I bought one from eBay. At $8 + $5 shipping, who could refuse!

It has arrived and it’s been somewhat successful so far! Field tests will continue.

When it arrived I found it to be compact and lightweight, which exactly what you want. It’s around 1×1.5 inches by about 0.5cm thick. It has a small key-chain clasp that means you can carry it everywhere, and it’s comfortable and aesthetically pleasing.

The functions are Power, Channel Up/Down, Mute, Volume Up/Down, and AV/TV. When I received it I went for a walk around the city looking for easy prey. Down the mall I went! I’m not going to explain exactly *where* I went, because I don’t want to incriminate myself, however I will describe what happened.

First I walked down the mall attempting to turn off a few screens. To do this you need to hold down the power button and the remote will cycle through its known power-off codes and eventually reach the one for the TV you are pointing to (if it is programmed in.) Depending on which order the codes are in, this can take some time. In different countries they do use different brands, and since this was imported from America I have a feeling the Australian codes are further down the sequence list, because I did find that for some TVs it took longer than expected to find the right code.

Initial tests down the mall were unsuccessful and my confidence at using the device has not matured yet. I walked past one store which had two screens and I thought I had been successful in turning off one when it went black, but it started playing again and for a moment I had thought that I’d turned it back on. After watching it for another 30 seconds or so I realised that this was the sequence of video playing on the screen and that my test had been unsuccessful here. I was probably too far away and the mall was just that little bit crowded at that time so I moved along to see what else I could find.

Many stores sets were well within their doors so would have required entry before I was able to wreak havoc. I moved along. One of my work colleagues was accompanying me and we went into a food hall. Stopping by a rather large television retailer we walked, as many do, to admire the plasma screens and CRTs that lined the walls. I walked to a covert area, held the device in the palm of my hand and held the button, aimed roughly at a couple of sets. The left-most set and the right-most set both turned off, the centre set remaining on. I’d released my grip by now and so wasn’t willing to try it again, but as I talked to my friend I held the remote towards another set and let it rip. Within about 10 seconds it had found the right sequence and the TV was off!

I took a phone call. We exited the store and I talked on the mobile, all the while attemting to turn off a super large jumbo massive set at the front of the store. I couldn’t do it. Either I didn’t have the range or the sensor was blocked by a display of small boxes. I moved along.

Returning to work I tried it on an AKAI TV set. It worked for Power and channel, but didn’t appear to work for anything else. I will try it later on and I’ll get better!

After leaving work I managed to turn off one set advertising products in the store and then turn it back on, but I couldn’t change its channels. It’s unsuccessful with a Grundig, but works on a Loewe.

Field tests to continue!

Lindsay did a fantastic job of cooking that venison. It was cooked to perfection, covered in red wine and mushroom sauce with asparagus spears drizzled in hollandaise sauce. What more can you ask for?!? As for the sensations: tender, and very tasty. I think Santa keeps them to pull the sleigh and then he slaughters them in the off-season to feast upon. I know I would!

THANKYOU to Lindsay for my wonderful birthday dinner

As for the rest of my birthday, I was invited to lunch with my Dad and my Step-Mum, who took me to the Chessar Cellars (review) and we had the buffet. It was a different experience; the kind of place you expect more of Adelaide’s riff-raff to go. The buffet was small, but impressive. It had many cold dishes on display and a wide variety of dishes. They were set in very small portions and it was almost like serving your plate up full of finger food (but tasty and filling finger food!) and returning to your table.

I received a clock for my birthday and I was grateful of not a bit disappointed if only for the fact that I’ve nowhere to hang a clock. I already have one downstairs in the living room and another here in my bedroom. There aren’t any hooks anywhere else, and I’m by no means a clock collector! Freaks! Although I would love a Grandfather clock in my house, but I’d have to have the right decor for it, and I don’t know of that’ll be happening any time soon.

I will tell you what, as my life keeps progressing I wish for a couple of things I don’t know that I can have, yet… I want a house. I really do want my own home but I refuse to take a loan out of $300,000 or something, only to pay back $750,000 in interest over 30 years! Oh the pain. I can’t have children (necessarily) so setting up for a family isn’t huge on my list of priorities. I only wish I could be in my home and decorate as I saw fit, and make the decisions about the evolution of my home.

Take the garden, for instance. My Mum has always taken great pride in working in her gardens and she has done so in every house she’s owned. I have a rental property, and if I choose to invest my money into the sharemarket or whereever, I won’t be interested in landscaping or developing the garden of a rental property, will I?

The interior of a house is the same. Can I have tiled floors? No! Not unless my landlord pays for it! Can I renovate something? Can I change the fittings or hang hooks in my house, or install cabling or other niceties that you have in a home? No!! I’m not allowed to do that…

Maybe if I do invest my money wisely I’ll come out on top and in ten years I’ll be half way towards buying a house. But if I have *that* much money would I want to hold off for another ten years and make even more? I figure that once I have paid off my car I will have no debts left, so how do I handle my money? Do I put away 50% of it each fortnight? Decisions, decisions. I think there is $4600 left to pay off on the car, so I will keep pushing that debt away. It won’t be long now before it’s completely emptied.

I wrote about nothing I planned to write about tonight, and I suppose that means I was really thinking about the things that *ARE* important For the things that aren’t important:

No matter what anyone says, I think Ashley from BB06 is cute, but then, so does my Mum! Criss doesn’t. Bah to him!

Well, it IS actually. There are 9 minutes to go before the 1st of May, and by the time I complete writing this it could very well be my birthday.

Twenty-Seven. That’s so close to being thirty. Life moves along at such a pace, doesn’t it. I don’t think I really care, I mean I’ll just keep moving through life doing all of those things that *I* wanna do. Or not do, as the case is sometimes! Lounging around is fun, too

Lindsay will be calling me shortly as he said he would at 12:00, which is exactly what I did to him on his birthday He’ll be cooking me venison for dinner, which is going to be interesting because it really is an experiment – I like to try different types of food when I am in the mood for it, and I’ve had enough beef and lamb and pork. I should try something like this so we’ll see how it turns out! At $50 a kilo you wouldn’t want to go wrong!

Lindsay eats his meats all well done. Bleh! They recommend you cook the venison at least medium-rare

EDIT: Weird. My blog thinks it’s May, but my web server is still in April!!!