Ree’s musings

What's the deal, Tabulas? I know that some things don't crosspost to LJ, but what on Earth was in my last entry that borked the crosspost? I don't remember typing any multibyte characters.

Blargh. I'm genuinely glad Tabulas tells me that the crosspost failed. I'd rather know than think it went when it didn't. But in the last few months, LJ has choked on about half my crossposts. It's getting old. I don't have a clear enough idea of the problem to bring it up in LJ support. I don't think LJ gives a damn anyway, but if I knew the problem, I could at least bring it up at Dreamwidth. Probably they either have already fixed it or are interested in knowing the exact problem, to help them get it fixed. LJ, well, LJ just likes money.

I don't think the problem is on Tabulas' end, but I don't know where to ask for information about that, either. The forums are down (or at least not at the old URL), the wiki was never for one-to-one communication in the first place, Roy's not the owner anymore, I don't know who the new owner is or if they care....

Bah. Copy, open LJ tab, paste, post, find less vexing thing to do. Done.

Ah, it's this little guy: ♥ I forgot it was in there. I'd written the last paragraph first and then went back to build up to my point. That means the problem was a multibyte character, just as before, and I have an addiction to the stupid things. At least it's not some new problem.

Oh hey, I still have an online journal! Who'd've known, right?

I haven't had much to report. Sun goes up, sun goes down. Same as ever.

There are little things. My little strawberry patch had only tiny little red nubbins last year; this year, I clawed up trenches in it to aerate the soil and dislodge dead plants. It paid off. Yesterday's production filled two margarine tubs, and this morning's, another one.

Finished modding my SNES Game Genie. Now I can play Japanese (SFC) games on my US console—no costly adapter required! I love good 16-bit graphics, and Romancing SaGa 3 delivers in spades. Also, I opened up an electronic device and did not break it. Go me!

My boyfriend took me to a carnival, where he won me a plushy and a sword. The plushy is a little green ball, because he remembered my favorite color. D'aww. The sword blade lights up in four colors at once, like a disco lightsabre, because we are great big geeks and that is awesome. It (brightly) lights my way to the kitchen when I wake up in the middle of the night, craving a snack. Of strawberries. OM NOM NOM

Upshot: My life is so freaking good. It's not perfect—what is?—but it's good and I am treasuring that. ♥

Yesterday my brother Happy bought a used Xbox. It was missing a power cord, but the price was very, very right. He found a replacement power cord within the hour and for less than a dollar. Happy is awesome at this used videogame stuff.

He got it home, plugged it in, and got it running, but it didn't recognize any discs. A healthy Xbox can play Xbox games (natch) as well as audio CDs and, if you have the DVD kit, DVD movies. This ailing Xbox didn't recognize any. It took hours last night just to get the disc drive to open.

So today I coaxed the drive open again, held it open while powering it off, and carefully cleaned what I could of the drive. I used cotton swabs, a mix of equal parts rubbing alcohol and water, and all the natural dexterity I could muster. Then I let it air dry for an hour.

That let it read a music CD without incident, but it still didn't recognize an (admittedly somewhat worn) Xbox game. We ran a CD/DVD lens cleaner disc through the system and now it all works. Happy's been living up to his nickname. And I? Am awesome.

(Why "Force" in the entry title? Because I cleaned it while Happy played Star Wars tabletop, after which he played today's purchase of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith for his newly-acquired Xbox. I found it amusing enough to force the wordplay.)