Sunday.

I made a DVD section. Now, I need to implement some sort of template so I can keep the DVD bits consistant.

9:24 PM:
I have 17 DVDs in there now. Not bad. Looks nice. 

V8 Juice

Saturday! Up early. Seeing a pattern? Cat...

Shopping today. Bought some more DVDs. Constantine, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Day after Tomorrow and Escape From LA. I know, I know, Escape from LA. It's a tad cheesy. I like it anyway... 'Tis an entertaining movie to me.

Quote Block - Yeah it works. Theres 120 in there, random stuff, I haven't actually read it all yet (dumbass...) but it works. It won't be above the menu and in a block when I am done...

10:34 PM:

I found myself quite distressed tonight after completing the modifications to th quote of the day plugin. All was well with the plugin and it's running but something was amiss when the search for quote material began.

I thought about where I would get quotes. I then remembered my tome  of character sheets from our various games. Contained in that was over 5 years of RPG gaming and also what I needed; quotes from the games. Now, where was the tome of character containment ? I could not think where it was. After about 20 minutes of forreging I found it phew!

Work.

Friday at bloody last! My store is so empty now (of both stock and fittings) that it has an echo!

Today I actually remembered to take home the stuff that I bought for my tripod... So now I can play with my shiny new stuff =P I was very dissapointed yesterday when  I forgot it and arrived home empty handed...

Work...

I got to central. There was a broken down train on my usual incoming platfom. So, I came in on a different one. Waited for my north shore train. No probs. The guy announced Hornsby and the indicator board also indicated Hornsby. Arriving at Town Hall I was a little confused when we arrived into platform 6, the indicator board displaying Liverpool. WTF!? I thought to myself, that's OK, we'll prolly switch in the tunnels to the north shore line. Pulling into Wynyard's platform 6 and the indicator board still showing Liverpool I was a tad worried. I got off and went upstairs to platforms 3 and 4 for the North Shore. Now 30 minutes late with TWO stores to open... Pissed off... After all the shitting around with getting up early and getting onto a train early I may as well have left at normal time!

10:50 AM:

On a lighter note. I have new goodies for my tripod. Manfrotto is teh win! These things are the only Repairable tripods and also the only tripods you can buy parts for. I saw Morris today at my favorite camera shop Foto and Frame; he had good news for me, my portrait adapter elbow, spiked feet and tripod bag had arrived!!! I ordered a battery grip for my D60 and also a 15mm Viewfinder extension so my nose doesn't get squashed  

Work.

Feeling very un-inspired... 

Work. First day back in 3 weeks actually. Well, officially. I happened to run the chatswood store on sunday and opened it late because the website was wrong about opening hours, we will not speak of that again.

I sent my 28-70 f/2.8 EX DF off to be serviced. In it's travels it's front element and front body have come loose - NO FOCUS FOR YOU! To focus I must hold the element toward the camera body. Yay. It's like juggling.

I also sent away my little DX4330. It's borked too. Hopefully it will be an easy fix. Kodak want $265 to LOOK. I don't get that back wether they fix it or not. 'Sif.

While at the camera store I bought an awesome tripod. It's very nicely engineered. A Manfrotto 190CLB tripod and a 128RC fluid head. Together, a very nice bit of kit.

mf128rc

mf190clb

MF 128RC SPECIFICATIONS

A lightweight fluid head with adjustable pan bar and quick-release camera plate with secondary security. Ideal for cameras up to 8.9lbs in weight. The head has smooth fluid movements, pan and tilt locks. The adjustable pan bar can be positioned either on the left or right side.

• Finish: Black
• Video: Yes
• Maximum Load Capacity: 4.0 kg (8.9 lbs)
• Head Height: 12 cm (4.6 inches)
• Pan: 360°
• Tilt: -60° +90°
• QR Plate Supplied: 200PL
• Weight:1.0 kg (2.3 lbs)

MF 190CLB SPECIFICATIONS

Lightweight, compact and sturdy, this tripod is ideal for 35mm SLR cameras, especially when on the move outdoors.

Key features include:

• four leg angle settings
• centre column with an innovative three faced design
• low angle adapter built in the centre column for ground level shots
• rapid action lever leg locks with just 45° run

• Finish: Black
• Material: Anodized Aluminum
• Series: 3001
• Still Photography: Yes
• Video: Yes
• Sports Optics: Yes
• Column Type: Rapid
• Maximum Height with extended center column: 145 cm (57.1 inches)
• Maximum Height: 116 cm (45.7 inches)
• Minimum Height: 17 cm (6.7 inches)
• Closed Length: 53 cm (20.9 inches)
• Leg Sections: 3
  
• Maximum Load Capacity: 5.0 kg (11.1 lbs)
• Head Mount: 3/8" threaded mount
• Weight: 1.8 kg (3.9 lbs)

 Because I got a fluid head I can make good use of the tripod in video as well for smooth pans and tilts. Very cool. It looks like I will have to purchase a portrait angle or something because it doesn't have an axis to rotate to portrait.

Very, Very, Very... Very, Very, Very, VERY VERY... Tired...

So CBF today. Some dickhead maintenance person from strata management has  cleaned the roof and gutters. All good, except the arsehole managed to get 90% of the gutter crap on my balcony. I just cleaned that!

In other news I still have NFI where I will be working once my store closes. Yay. Woolworths, We're about people and Australia... pfffft. Like the guy on the roof. Arseholes... The only people they are about are themselves and their shareholders. The only way they are about Australia is in their ads, when, in fact 90% of their new bloody canned fruit/veggies range is from overseas!

from Today Tonight's story "Store brands not Australian-made"

Generic tinned fruit
In Woolworths Safeways new Select range:
• Select tinned pears, peaches and mixed fruits are not from South Africa.
• Home Brand tinned fruit;  pineapple was imported from Thailand, apricots, pears and peaches from South Africa.

Generic tinned vegetables
In the Select range:
• Garden peas and corn from Belgium
• Sweet corn from Thailand
• Asparagus imported from Peru
• Beans and chickpeas came from Italy

In the Home Brand range:
• Tomatoes and baked beans were from Italy
• Potatoes from Belgium
• Water chestnuts were from China
• Pickled onions were also imported

Of the 27 tinned Woolworths/Safeways Select and Home Brand generics only two, beetroot and mushrooms, were Australian grown.

Generic frozen foods
Woolworths Safeway Home Brand frozen foods:
• Beans came from China
• Spinach from the USA
• Corn and peas were imported from New Zealand
• Potato chips from Belgium

Some other generic foods
• Home Brand blended vegetable oil and olive oil came from Malaysia and Spain
• Chicken noodles were imported from China. 

I've sat there and watched the bastards pat each other on the back and congratulate each other in both Woolworths and Dick Smith for a fucking week now, like they are the best thing ever. So sick and tired of it. 

Sunday.

Off to stupid work conference. Fscking Terriffic. 

My Birthday!

Late up today, despite fending off the cat to prolong sleep a few times.

4:24 PM:
"Lunch". Kebab + Beer Makes Tim

Up early AGAIN! Damn Cat!

I woke to another claw slap on the nose...

4:16 PM:
My Lovely wife has bought me some goodies for my birthday (and days leading to it).

• Absolut Vanilla Vodka (mmmmm)
• Baileys
• Butterscotch Schnapps
• Kahlúa (Coffee Liqueur)
  
• Midori (Melon Liqueur)
  
• Malibu (Caribbean White Rum)

That means I can have Splices, QF Shots, Cowboy Shots, Illusions All sorts of Yummy drinks and shots. Plus there's left over VB stubbies in the fridge too if I get bored of them.

No, I don't plan on consuming all of these in one night/sitting!!!

8:00 AM:
Up ealry again. Changed the cat's toilet and now having Coffee and a Pie for breaky. Don't worry, I washed my hands!

10:00 PM:
Down to the RSL for dinner and a drink! 'Twas great. A T-Bone and quite a few OLDs. It's 10 PM now. Home, time for another beer and a DVD. Highlander! Yeah, Christopher Lambert is the king! THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Up early thismorning... couldn't sleep in.

Waiting for SP1 to download. I'm getting the installer for it so I can install it on some people's dial-up boxes. 337MB. Yay. 

Lots to update. Will have to do that later.

Fixing refesh boggle with editing + creating entries... Something was Borked... Fixed now I hope. More lib-common.php tweaking... Now for the more difficult task of disassembling my old digi cam and seeing why it craps out on start-up. I think the zoom may be jammed. Hopefully it's just something I can just clean out! The camera is well and truely out of warranty, so, why not!

12:01 PM:
Ze camera, she is dead... It must be some sort of other fault. I thought it was the AF/Zoom that was jammed. I removed the AF/Zoom sub-assembly from the camera and tried to manipulate the zoom manually - this seemed to work.

The easiest part was removing the two lanyards, one wrist lanyard and one holding the lens cap to the camera. Once that was done I removed the bottom cover. From there I had access to the clips holding the back and front covers on. I removed the screws on the left and right side holding the front and back covers on.

I unclipped the back cover and it slid off. I then removed the micro power connector and the press in ribbon connector for the LCD.

Back Cover Removed

I'd say the trickiest part of the disassembly was the front cover. It is held on by clips and a single screw that is accessed once the back cover is removed. It took me nearly 2 minutes to find. This single screw is embedded 20mm into the camera body in a small diameter hole with not much clearance. You can’t see it until you are just about looking directly down the hole.

Font Panel Screw

Once all the pretty plastic is removed it doesn't look like a camera any more! I removed the viewfinder assembly which exposed a sprocket that allowed me to manually manipulate the Zoom/AF. The viewfinder does not look down the barrel of the actual lens, so the view-finder has its own independent zoom. This is linked via gears to run in synch with the actual zoom. Shown also is a shot of the micro motor before the viewfinder sub-assembly was removed.

Bare Camera

Exposed Viewfinder Sprocket

Micro Motor

Next I separated the AF/Zoom sub-assembly which I discovered later was unnecessary.

CRW_1016

CRW_1017

Once separated, I removed the CCD from the back of the sub-assembly. I then removed the micro motor to make sure there was nothing in the cavity where it and the main AF/Zoom sprocket meet. It is an open cavity, not a closed gearbox type arrangement. There is however a small gearbox on the end of the micro-motor which IS sealed. I was able to manually zoom in and out.

CCD Board

Zoom Out

Zoom In

This little operation involved removing three covers, two boards, three micro press in flat connectors, a micro power connector, the view finder sub-assembly, a CCD board, a micro motor and 29 screws. It's still not bloody fixed!

Screws laid out

Error

Looks like it's off to the phone book/internet and the registered Kodak repairers therein...