Dream 11.15.13

There were creatures with slightly bulbous heads and black eyes with red outlines. If they touched you, you froze in place forever or became one of them. They weren’t quite like zombies but kind of reminded me of them.

Somehow I and some people I knew had been captured and put in a place that was like real life but I got the distinct impression that I was asleep. There were giant red letters in the sky warning us of the fakeness of our environment, but the end of the message was garbled and only a few new letters were added every day. Some people in the building where I was kept had figured out how to trick the drink machines into giving out more than water. I was trying to figure out how to manipulate the machines as well but I was suddenly outside, watching a Jeep tow another car with a chain. However the Jeep jumped the median and went against the flow of traffic, while the towed car was still in the right lane. They came up on a light pole and collided due to the chain.

I was back in the “real world” because we had to get supplies at a really dark and creepy grocery store. An epiphany suddenly came: Maybe the sleeping people were all these pop bottles moving around on a conveyor/sorter thing I saw! Not knowing how to free the sleeping pop people I went with the rest of my party and exited the store, always mindful that if one of those red eye creatures touched me, I was toast forever. In our hotel room we pondered how to escape.

Don’t be had

Be careful when you order SD cards online. I got one from a seller on Amazon that was purported to be a genuine SanDisk product, but…

fake

I got this nonsense instead. The most telling defect of this forgery is the adapter, which sports an amazingly fake SanDisk logo imitation, and also claims to not only support microSDHC, but microSDHC as well! (????) Other than that, you have a supposed microSDXC card which instead says microSDHC (64GB has to be XC), a sloppy paint job on the card, and a photocopied box with nice typos on the back.

For reference, here’s a real one:

real card

Magnavox HDTV repair

I couldn’t find a whole lot of information on this. My HDTV (a Magnavox 37MF331D) had developed the nasty problem of not turning on when the power button was pushed. The power LED would flash green for a while and then go back off. I had to try turning it on several times before it would finally come on. This seems to be a common problem affecting a lot of HDTVs; it’s not even a brand-specific problem.

After much research, I determined that my problem was blown capacitors on the power board. By repeatedly turning it on, they gradually got warm enough to hold a sufficient charge to let the TV turn on. There still wasn’t much information about how to actually fix the problem, aside from a couple of YouTube videos that show you approximately where the affected board is inside the unit. So, I figured I would share what I learned. There are 4 capacitors that should be replaced (two of mine were showing damage but since they’re all the same brand it’s probably good to change them all out). I guess TV companies just like to spring for the cheapest components they can find. There’s also a larger capacitor further down the board, but that usually doesn’t need to be replaced.

This is what my blown caps looked like

magnavox hdtv bad capacitors

and this is the nice new ones ready to not explode.

good caps

I got Nichicon for the smaller ones; I don’t remember what the larger one is but hopefully it’s long-lasting as well.

You need one 1200µf 35v, one 2200µf 25v, and two 1000µf 35v caps, all should be high temp (125°C). And of course, you can use higher-voltage caps if necessary. Try to get a good brand and not something gross like CapXon. Whoever they are.

Air Zonk label

Rather than go the route of buying new labels for all my TG16 games, I decided to simply craft my own end label for Air Zonk, since it didn’t come in a jewel case originally. Therefore, I decided I could use a bit of freedom in designing it instead of adhering to the official label designs. Here it is in case anyone wants to print and use it themselves. Proper dimensions are 2.5cmx11.9cm.air zonk label

air zonk

Not bad for homemade, I’d say.