I’ve had my iMac less than a month, so I was understandably pissed when I found a stuck pixel this morning. Red, of all colours, and of course after I realized it was there I couldn’t focus on anything else.
Fortunately for me - Apple has a pretty arbitrary definition of what constitutes a warranty-covered pixel spooging - I came across this little bad boy. JScreenFix opens a window which cycles every pixel inside it; when placed over the offending pixel, it should dislodge it lickety-split. Instructions say 20 minutes, mine was gone in 5.
Incidentally, a stuck pixel is any pixel displaying a fixed colour. If it’s black, it’s dead, and you’re out of luck.
Dammit. I was all geared up for a whine about how Apple’s Mighty Mouse is one of the wankiest peripherals I’ve ever got my dabs on - no small claim for someone who grew up during Saitek’s heyday - then I saw this by Dave Shea, which rendered it all a a bit pointless.
Part of the iMac’s attraction for me was the GeForce 8800 GS, which, while not the beefiest graphics card out there, I reckoned should be more than enough to indulge myself in a bit of gaming.
So I was more than happily surprised by the fact that, like a properly disciplined subbie, it was able to handle almost anything Team Fortress 2 threw at it, even at a widescreen 1900×1280 with most of the settings turned up to max (I left anti-aliasing on 4x).
The one blood-encrusted band-aid in my swimming pool of newly-found gaming bliss was that bastard Mighty Mouse sullying the innocent joy of taking a human life by spunking the build menu in my face, when all I want to do is ram my Engineer’s wrench up that wisecracking Scout’s posterior and twist his guts off.
*breathes*
I bought a Razer DeathAdder today after flicking through Bit-Tech. And I’m much better now.
I just wish they could’ve done something about the name. :/
Rog: This the first time the 250’s gone on sale in Japan, right?
A: Right. Look at this.
Grabs a fistful of recent orders from the drawer behind him.
A: … Ninja in black, Ninja, Ninja… Ninja in green, black again… Five people in two days.
R: Wait, out of five bikes four are black and only one’s green?
A: Yeah. Weird, huh.
Weird? It’s madness, I tell you.
Ah well. I heartily recommend SCS on Hakusan-dori to anyone in Tokyo, just because they threw in the pillion seat cover and a year’s breakdown service for the low, low price of free.
Incidentally, they once had a visit from Orlando Bloom, who bought a bike for export back to London. The guy dealing with my bike, Masaru, is front left in the first photo.
After playing around with FeedBurner for work, I’ve added it on here. I realize, of course, that I probably know everyone reading my blog - more than likely, I’m related to them - but RSS is a robust if unsexy technology that doesn’t get the attention it deserves outside of moderately tech-savvy circles.
FeedBurner just makes it easier for all concerned.
After finally passing my ogata (large motorbike) practical test last week, I foolishly thought it was all over: I had my licence, I was now the Two-Wheeled Titan of Tokyo and women would be ogling the vast, throbbing machine between my legs before week was out.
So imagine my disappointment, if you will, after finding out about the compulsory short course and first aid training course, which incidentally seems to be unavailable anywhere less than 45 minutes away from my place. Read the rest of this entry »
I found this while clearing out an old hard drive, dated November 25, 2005.
At 11.30, I finally hauled myself away from my bed and my books, and sat on the balcony, smoking, wondering just how to formulate my thoughts and commit them to paper.
My attempts at writing since I’d arrived here had been dismal, my insights hackneyed and predictable, any attempt at emotion trite. Maybe all this language teaching had warped my perception of what language is actually for: the vast majority of my students want me to teach them to survive in a foreign country, to order at a restaurant, to get through Customs and so on, whereas I’d always felt language to be more than just an enabler. I’d never even liked the image of language as a vehicle for our thoughts, since it had always put me in mind of a rickety two-seater from the Victorian age, when it was still mandatory to have a man waving a red flag in front of your vehicle.
Language is the river bed along which our thoughts, our ideas, and our emotions flow. Without it, the mind is a limpid, stagnant pool. With it, it branches, slows down and speeds up, and is gradually changed by the nature of the water it carries.
This is why I need a tiny familiar (like Jabba’s little mate) to cuff me upside the head once a given level of introspection is reached.
What a couple of weeks. Aside from being landed with a job at work recently which is not unlike trying to juggle chainsaws while wearing handcuffs, university has kicked in for realz. Not for me, the Sunday night spent curled up with a good book, a pipe and a glass of sherry. Oh no. I was designing a subtring search algorithm (which probably has more holes than the average The A-Team episode plot) and all but pogoing off the walls.
Last weekend was better. My darling adoptive mother and big sister took a trip up from Kitakyushu, so we had one night out in Shinjuku and a day in Yokohama.
J-nee likes to think she can outdrink me. She cannot, but she staggers in such a cute way I pretended to be more drunk than I really was to make her feel better.
Try to think about parasites without a feeling of fear, and take the time to learn about their wonderful world of the Parasites.
There was a photo there, now seared into the area that I used to keep my happy place in, of a man whose scrotum had swollen to the size and length of his leg.
Quiet. Calculating. Never the life of the party, but you can always depend on one in a pinch. Prone to occasionally violent mood swings. Their lucky number is eighteen, and their lucky colour is maroon.
Huh.
Update: Apart from the Tyre Gauge Day thing, I made it all up.
