Post 1263, Day 237 of 2014
- 1,333 days since I started this blog -
This weekend began with frustration. On Friday, I showed up at what I was told - and confirmed and reconfirmed - was an open mic, but turned out to be another band's gig, that started two hours before I got off work. OK.
I used the time that little misadventure bought me to buy a new TV, a bargain brand (Vizio) that reviewers were said outperformed almost everything in its class. Since I had arranged to have the heavy old relatively small-screen Sony picked up on Saturday, it seemed like a good idea to take advantage of a little unforeseen free time, and maybe even get some help un-boxing the new TV (big-ass box).
After struggling to get the boxed TV in and out of the car, and up the stairs to my apartment single-handed, I went out, a little tired from my exercise, to see some friends' band, whose performance wasn't up to their usual standards, although I did enjoy seeing some friends.
It wasn't the best performance: I had to turn off my critical listening, because except for the drummer and percussionist, I didn't think the band sounded good. That's frustrating for me, knowing the band could sound better, wanting the band to sound better, and not able to fix what I heard was wrong. But I still saw some friends in the band and audience, and it did help allay the day's agita.
For a while, anyway.
Saturday morning, the person who had arranged to take my TV was a no-show. When I called, she told me that she didn't want it after all.
Good morning, frustration. I was hoping you left in the night, but I see you've hung out. I reposted the canceled craigslist ad, and, in about an hour and a half, I found someone who said they'd pick it up right away.
I spent the rest of the day installing the new TV, almost as easy as I was hoping, but I did have to run to the store to purchase HDMI cables, which the old TV couldn't accept.
Once back, back to setting up, but the picturefrom my cable box was definitely not high def. It wasn't the TV, because the DVD player's picture was fabulous.
A few calls to Vizio (the TV manufacturer) who really tried to help me, and we concluded the problem was the FIOS set-top box. FIOS revealed that the set-top box didn't much like HDMI, after all. I had to use the less-good component interface, as on the old TV. Which means I have far from the best picture from TV, although, to be honest, it is still pretty damn good. Anyway, although the solution wasn't optimal, there was nothing that could be done, and that problem was behind me.
However, after I was done dealing with that problem, the next one was waiting.
This Vizio is a smart TV, with built-in wireless capability and a suite of smart apps using the Yahoo! platform of smart-TV apps. Once I connected it to my wifi network, I was able to get free movies from a bunch of different services.
But...
After about an hour, I noticed that the built-in apps updater was running frequently. I timed the intervals. Every twelve minutes.
Every twelve minutes, the bottom half of my screen would show a 'Y! Searching for updates' crawl and progress bar. It took about 45 seconds, then loaded the Apps menu on-screen.
Every 12 minutes.
It got old quick, and became infuriating shortly after. An hour spent going through all the documentation, every single menu and one total factory reset later, but that was no help in solving the problem.
Feeling very frustrated, I decided to sleep on it.
The next day, I spent three hours in a one-on-one online chat with a live Vizio tech. He was polite, and walking me through some changes, admitted he had never heard of anything like what I was experiencing.
To demonstrate my frustration, every 12 minutes, the apps updated, I mentioned that it was happening again. I have a copy of the chat. I mentioned it nine times in three hours, during which time I did three factory resets. My fingers were tired from the awkward use of the remote control to put in my wifi password and registration information, all of which had to be reentered every time I reset.
No help.
I had to let it go, and prepare for an early-Sunday gig (cocktails through dinner) in the garden of a beautiful lakeside inn about 45 minutes from the apartment.
The gig was lovely. Extraordinarily so. Gorgeous day, great audience, lots of fun to play, followed by an excellent dinner, that turned out to be comped (they really like us there).
In between sets, I Facetime'd Alex. He heard my complaint, and had a simple answer: Disconnect the TV from the network, buy and hook up Apple TV, and be done with it. He said smart tv apps all suck, the TV manufacturers don't know squat about software and can't help.
The answer!
But not so fast... Today, Vizio called me (!) and told me to keep the appointment. The serviceman would come with a new board with the very latest/best firmware, tested, and replacing the old board with the new should solve the problem.
It's free, so worth a try! If the problem persists, I have an alternate plan (per Alex). But it would be nice if the thing worked like it was supposed to.
Next step, moving the PC into the room to see if the TV will work as a monitor. That will have to wait until after Labor Day - between gigs, rehearsals and an all-weekend party, I'm too busy to get to it before then.
Nice problem to have, I guess.
Also, another example of the 'fun' brought by digital convenience.
And, another confirmation (as if I needed one) that all things pass.
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Food and Diet Section
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| 2014 Daily Weight |
Today's Weight: 212.4 lbs
Previous Weight* : 210.8 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain: + 1.6 lbs
* Friday, August 22
Diet Comment
Ah, me! I weighed myself Sunday, and I had made good progress. An excellent dinner after my Sunday gig, and a lot of celery with home-made mayonnaise late at night put the kibosh on that weight-loss. And then some. Oh, well, its a new week, with new opportunities.
Food Log
Breakfast
A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (coconut milk, kefir, kale, large organic egg, whey powder (24g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), raw organic cacao powder, chia gel, moringa leaf powder, celery, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.
Lunch
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| Roasted turkey breast on baby kale, baby spinach, chard, black beans and cole slaw mix with balsamic vinaigrette. |
Snack
Roasted turkey breast and cole slaw.
Dinner
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| Chicken florentine burger with guacamole. One shown, but I had a second. |
Liquid Intake
Coffee: 26 oz. Water: 104+ oz.
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