Bill Roper's Journal

You may recall that I thought that my problems with Comcast were solved. What a foolish thought that was!

Although I had been promised a week ago on Saturday that a replacement set top box would be shipped to replace the failed one and the new one that refused to be set up with any of *four* different remote controls, there was no sign that the replacement box shipped. I should have been complaining about this over the weekend, but I was at GAFilk, so it wasn't until yesterday that I got back on the chat, managed to hail an agent, and asked where the box was.

She was able to see that my order existed, but apparently hadn't shipped due to a "glitch". So she has ordered yet another set top box for me that is supposed to arrive today on a priority basis.

There is no sign that box has shipped as of this morning, so I am having doubts about it arriving.

Meanwhile, my Comcast/Xfinity account shows that I now have *six* set top boxes, which are, I suppose, the two working ones, the one that failed, the one that never worked, and the two that have not yet shipped.

*sheesh*

I got up early this morning, because one of Gretchen or I needed to take K off to rehearsal this morning, as we're less than a week from the opening of the fall play over at the high school. I grabbed the short straw without a drawing, because I *also* needed to be up to write the deposit check for the massive upcoming work on the fence. Nothing will happen there until Julie shows up to mark the utilities and I am told that they are not moving quickly at the moment, partly because the request went in on Friday and partly because Monday is a holiday. (Not for me, but for many people, including the kids.) But I am looking forward to a better fence.

Meanwhile, since I was up early, I decided that it was time to swap in the new 4K cable box. I pulled out the old box, getting covered in dust myself, plugged in the new box, and discovered that the new 4K cable box was an HD box, which is functionally identical to the box I had just dustily unplugged. I got back on a chat with an Xfinity rep and suggested that when I request a wired 4K DVR cable box that I actually need a box with all of those attributes. I have been promised that the next box that I receive will be correct and have been given a small discount for the next 12 months in compensation. This would not be nearly so irritating if I hadn't had a similar problem when trying to replace the cable box in the bedroom when we put a 4K TV in there.

Laundry, in the meantime, had been set in progress and Gretchen joined me for a quick lunch over at Texas Roadhouse. When we got back, I headed off to the basement to swap laundry and download the new plugins that I'd picked up with the Ultimate 13 upgrade from Universal Audio. I got everything installed, fired up Cubase, and Cubase refused to talk to the Apollo's Thunderbolt interface, although everything *else* was seeing the Thunderbolt connection.

*sigh* I read assorted webpages, followed the suggestions, uninstalled the software, reinstalled it, rebooted the computer, and eventually got the connection working again. Thunderbolt! It's not just an interface, it's an adventure!

But I finally managed to pull up the scratch track that I've been using to play with lately in Cubase and start auditioning the new plugins. There were some nice amplifier plugs that may be useful in some environment (although not so much with this track). The new Topline Vocal Suite might come in handy some time, but not at the moment. I was ready to button everything up when I remembered that I had the new SSL 4000E channel strip that I should check out.

Oh, my! I started fiddling with this and quickly found that it likes my voice. I mean, it likes my voice *a lot*. I am going to need to get some other people to listen to it to see if they like what it does with my voice nearly as well as I do, because it's always suspect when you are listening to your own vocals, but wow.

Now, I just need to get all of the CD orders placed for OVFF.

And I also now know who my rooting interest is for the rest of the baseball postseason. That would be Cleveland, as the remaining teams are all from New York and Los Angeles. It's been a long time since they won a World Series.

They'll do. :)

The new TV has finally arrived and has been placed on the stand by the delivery guys. Then I got to start putting things together.

It turned out that the first thing that I had not taken into account was that my Xfinity set top box in the family room does not support 4K. Oops. Once I finally got hold of an Xfinity rep in the online chat, he told me that I should just go to an Xfinity store. I replied that I had tried that once before and had completely wasted my time, because Xfinity stores do not actually stock the wired DVR box that I had just asked him to get for me. He was suitably chagrined and has promised me that he has sent me the correct box. Since you can't find out what is being shipped by looking at the order, we will have to wait and see what happens.

In the meantime, this would be a good time to stay up to date on the TV that we are currently recording. :)

I did log in to Disney+ on the TV so I could see some 4K content and it looks splendid on the new TV. The old Xfinity box is hooked up and everything runs without any problems now that I've reprogrammed the remote control to talk to the new set.

And I have finished wiring up the new sound bar that came with the set, save for the fact that I haven't hooked up the rear speakers, because they are wireless and require power, which means finding the appropriate extension cords. But the sound bar sounds really, really good even without the rear speakers. The crack of the bat from the baseball game that I was watching while hooking things up sounded like, well, the crack of a bat.

So progress has been made.

It was a live, in-person Windycon meeting today. A lot of progress was made. I got to be the substitute secretary for the day, as Cassy had a conflict. The minutes have now gone off in her direction and should go out soon.

Meanwhile, Windycon is going to take my old 60-inch plasma TV for a screen to use at the info desk. This is a good use of the beastie and it makes me happy. :)

RXO called today and my new TV is now scheduled to be delivered on Monday, October 7th. I am hoping that they don't drop it. :)

In other news, we have found a quick and easy way to make an improved version of beans and franks. Whether this is useful to you depends on your tolerance for *any* version of beans and franks; or whether or not you have children eating the beans and franks who might flee in terror from this concept.

We start with a tub of the Member's Mark BBQ Brisket & Beans from the refrigerator case at Sam's Club, plus a single big link of the Johnsonville Smoked Sausage (about 14 ounces, as I recall). Slice the sausage thin and brown it in a Dutch oven on the stove top. Then add the tub of beans and heat until thoroughly warmed through.

And that's it. It doesn't get much simpler.

And it is *very* tasty. :)

Our family room TV has been getting long in the tooth, as it's right around 10 years old now. I know this, because it is a Samsung plasma set from the last year of manufacture, which was 2014. Plasma sets have a pretty good lifetime, but the brightness does gradually degrade with age. I've had to adjust the picture on the set to a fairly aggressive level of brightness to keep things happy. This is not helped by the trend to "dark and mumbly" that Gretchen has observed in TV programming for some years now.

Whenever I have an aging piece of gear, I start shopping as I try to figure out what to get to replace it. In this case, it's not too hard to figure out. The right thing to replace the current TV with is a slightly larger LG OLED set. We have an LG OLED set from several years back up in our bedroom -- I'm not sure how old it is exactly, but it was one of the last things that we purchased from H.H. Gregg before they folded up operations. (Looks like that would be 2016.) It is a lovely set. And from the reviews, the LG OLED sets have only gotten better.

They aren't cheap though. Not horrible (until you get to the *really* big sets), but noticeably expensive -- expensive enough that they are one of those things that you don't just buy on a whim. Instead, you stalk them.

I mentioned during the Festival of the Living Rooms that I had placed an order for a new set of surround sound speakers. This was true.

I also had ordered a new LG OLED TV to go with them.

We have a corporate partners deal at work where a number of companies will let you sign up with them for special offers that show up regularly in my work mailbox. One of those companies is LG. The weekend before last, an offer showed up for the top of the line LG OLED TV bundled with a Dolby Atmos sound bar (list price substantial).

These two things were bundled together for a price that was $1100 less than the TV by itself was selling for on Amazon. It was a ludicrously good deal -- good enough to make me believe that the economy in general is not nearly as good as some people are saying, because that's a *huge* discount.

Assuming, of course, that you'd like surround sound.

And we *need* surround sound. I believe I've explained that already.

I asked Gretchen and she told me to go ahead and order it. And I did.

The sound bar showed up last Friday. The delivery date for the TV remained stubbornly unknown, despite my having been told by LG customer service that they'd update it on Thursday last week.

They didn't. And so I called today to ask when I would be seeing the TV. They have now called the local delivery service that brings the TV out to your house and sets it up on the stand (the Camel's Nose, which is going to look tiny beneath the new TV) and I am told that they will contact me shortly to tell me when the new TV is showing up.

I am looking forward to this.

I will, of course, believe it when I see it. :)

I may not have gotten everything done that I would have hoped to get done, but a lot of things are done.

Tomorrow is Picnicon. The weather forecast for tomorrow is absolutely gorgeous and I'm hoping that it holds. Sam and Bonnie went out and picked up a number of items from the store today. I picked up a few more items later. Tomorrow morning, we hit Sam's Club to grab meat and buns and then we will be on our way. I have collected all the names of everyone who has RSVP'd and have them on a little list which I really should remember to take with me so that Gretchen doesn't have to text me a photograph of it. :)

I also used up some rewards certificates at DXL, ordering some shirts on-line and running out to pick them up this afternoon. Earlier, Gretchen and I got lunch, picked up the Walmart order, and grabbed lunch for the kids to bring home.

And I sent out a first trial run for the computer-based first half of our APBA season and am now waiting for the updates from the rest of the league. The final run for the first half (the one that counts) will be next Saturday so that everyone can get rolling.

Tonight, Gretchen and I finished the ninth season of "Suits". We enjoyed it.

We have 10 episodes of "Pearson" that will also go away at the end of the month, but -- to be honest! -- my desire to watch Chicago politics is sharply limited by my proximity to the real thing. :)

The CBS Network broadcast schedule for this evening was messed up due to the end of the Masters running late, which was not a great surprise. 60 Minutes started 31 minutes late, as did every other piece of programming on the schedule. I was running around playing with the DVR -- which, cleverly, will not allow you to extend a broadcast program past its end time by more than *thirty* minutes -- trying to make sure that everything that I wanted to see got recorded.

Then, as it happened, we ended up watching it live, although delayed by a phone call from Uncle Jeff in the middle. But that was ok, because the phone call was not long enough to overflow the buffer on the DVR. After the call, I was fast-forwarding through all the commercials and had gotten within 15 minutes of the current time.

The thing that I had wanted to see tonight that was unusual was the Billy Joel concert. And there we was, in his final number (Piano Man, for those keeping score; not a great surprise) when at exactly 10:30 PM, relative time, the local CBS news started up and obliterated the last minute of the concert.

Because, apparently, the staff at a major metropolitan news station can't actually *read* the text that has been on the screen periodically since early in the evening letting them know that programming is delayed by *thirty-one* minutes, not *thirty*.

Mathematical illiterates.

I came down after work for dinner, planning to settle down with Gretchen and watch "Will Trent" and "The Rookie". And then I discovered that everything had been preempted by some justifiable coverage of the local weather.

The local weather (happily!) bypassed us.

And I have now discovered that Comcast has gone ahead and released the shows for the on-demand service, so I guess it's time to go watch "The Rookie" and the show's 100th episode. :)

One of the things that we've picked up this season is a new game show on Fox, "The Floor". It's an interesting concept.

The game starts with 81 players on the floor. Each player has an area of expertise. One player (who has never dueled before, but this will change eventually) is chosen by the Randomizer as the challenger who can then try to capture one of the squares bounding his in a duel against the player occupying it. (No diagonals.) Whoever wins the duel captures the opponent's section of the floor and then has a choice of whether to challenge one of the squares bounding their new, larger section of the floor or go back down and wait to be challenged by someone else.

The trick here is that the area of expertise that was just dueled in goes away and the survivor gets what remains. So if you challenge and win, you keep your area of expertise, but that's the only way you do.

There's also a $20000 bonus prize after each episode for the player holding the most territory. The grand prize for the final survivor is $250,000, which is a good amount of money.

And the strategy is fascinating. Since the Randomizer will (for now) only select players who haven't dueled before, if you win a match, you are safe unless someone else picks you.

After seven episodes, there are two whales on the board with vast tracts of land.

And there's this guy with two squares in the corner, surrounded by one of the whales. Unless that whale gets challenged and the winner of that duel decides to pick him, he may be there until nearly the end of the game. He won't get any bonus prizes, but he's likely to get to the final day of the competition.

And then he could win.