Stuff Done, Then A Nap

Spook and I were both taken by surprise when the lights went on as usual at 7:30 this morning. Slept well after a 6 am pee break. The bedroom Tivo is set for antenna, not cable, and since I don't have the antenna yet, no signals. But the TV came on anyway.

Surgical strike morning. Palo Alto to Xfinity, handed them all their equipment, switched to Internet-only, 25Mbps. I was getting 100, far more than I need, because after I originally signed up for 25, they doubled it twice over the years at no extra charge. Sort of. The charge for the TV stations went up dramatically. Palo Alto instead of my local Sunnyvale office because Yelp confirmed that my local sucked, and said nice things about PA. True dat. PA was empty, was taken care of immediately, it only took about 5 minutes, probably less.

Next stop down the block at PA Fry's, returned the ink cartridge and bought a USB 3.0 cable & extension just in case one doesn't show up at work. I can always use it at home.

Continuing on, Petco in Mountain View, got 6 cans of cat food, shredded and filleted in gravy. Will see if Spook will actually eat any of them. Usually she slurps up the gravy and leaves the meat.

Almost home, stopped in for a manicure, but they were busy, so I went to the Grocery Outlet across the parking lot and bought a couple of items. Long wait for manicure, turned out to be an hour after my first poke-in. Half an hour after the grocery.

Home, delivered was a 3-way LED bulb which is working only as a 1-way. Update: fixed it. I had been using an extension socket, needed for the previous 1-way bulb. The extension didn't have the concentric contacts which are needed to support the 3-way switch. Plugged the bulb in without the extension and it works correctly.

Close to 4 pm, realized I had eaten only a Kind bar all day, heated up a container of chicken soup from the freezer and some roast duck pieces from the fridge. Yummy. Vanilla ice cream with crushed pistachios, walnuts, chocolate syrup and honey for dessert.

Fired up the NVidia Shield TV, paid way too much for the 4K version of The Fifth Element, and watched as I ate. I'm amazed I had not heard of this film. Hard sci-fi mixed with faux Egyptology. Enjoyed it a lot. My only gripe is the 4k was really just HD upscaled, so I wasted $2 when the HD version would have given the same experience. Google Play Movies advertises it for $2.99, but that's ugly SD, $5.99 for HD, $7.99 for 4k.

Installed the free Haystack TV app on the Nvidia, and have that running in the background. Signed up for CBS All Access on the PC, but it won't let me in on the NVidia. May have to call them about that. $10/month already paid.

After the movie I needed a nap. Slept for more than an hour, woke with a mild migraine, took Tylenol, then checked Hgl. 72, pretty low for after an ice cream dessert. Medicated with 4 slices of cinnamon raisin bread toasted and and slathered with lactose-free butter. And a glass of Sir Bananas chocolate, something I had to buy at Grocery Outlet.

Google Photos uploads continue. After ~ 24 hours, 2,000 left out of almost 50,000 and about 100 rejected probably because they are >16Mb. After the run is over, I may sort the pix by size and Photoshop those to < 16Mb. Looks like it will run overnight. Hoping tomorrow's backup of the drive with those pix isn't a full backup. The slower Internet connection has made a difference. :-(

Did not get around to calling electricians.

Plans for tomorrow:
Nothing planned. See if I can get any football games on CBS app.
Fry's for an HDTV antenna or 2. Amazon Prime FAIL - was expecting them today, but it looks like Wednesday.

TV transition sorted for now

I find it fitting that Transamerica Tower is located in the heart of San Francisco, trans capitol of the USA.

---

Looked up my order on Amazon for a pair of HDTV antennae, and was shocked and disappointed that they are not due here till Wednesday. That's not the Prime service I pay for. So this morning I went to Fry's, and after the trio of Korean customers blocking the display were finally led away by a minion, I found a couple of amplified flat ones which claimed 50 mile reach. RCA brand, but what sold me is the online price was $32 compared to Fry's $50. Because of the price difference, it took three people at check-out to handle the discount, but they all did it smiling.

After plugging the antenna directly into the livingroom TV and seeing it worked as well as expected, I took my Tivo Roamio out of the bedroom and put it in the livingroom, and with a T connector have both the TV and the Tivo connected to the antenna. With the Tivo in place I can record stuff and use the surround sound speakers. And it usually has a better EPG than what's built into the HDTV signals. Pleasantly surprised to get a fairly clear signal in time for the 49ers game on Fox, so I set the Tivo to record that. Meanwhile I solved the issue of my CBS account not showing up on the NVdia box. Turned out I needed to be on the PC signed into the account when the NVidia prompted me to enter the pairing code. I'd been trying to do it on my phone, not signed in. Found a couple of shows to play back, and watched most of the Raiders game live. The TV said it was getting a 1080p60 signal, but to my eyes it looked like 720p30. Not bad but not thrilling. There were also moments of lag, and drop-downs to SD quality.

The 49ers game recording failed - the Tivo couldn't get past the major glitch after about a minute when I was messing with the antenna and scrambled the signal. It should have let me skip over that, most of the game was on there.

Hooked the second antenna up to the bedroom TV, no Tivo for now. Because of the different location, I'm getting some different channels. No Fox, a scrambled ABC, but all 20 1-x channels, mostly Vietnamese. I've changed the alarm to fire up on channel 5-1, which is CBS. All the 9-x PBS/SF channels come in (they don't on the livingroom set) as well as 54-x which is the legacy UHF PBS series.

I may add the Tivo, but it may not be worth the effort. I do need to re-program the bedroom remote (already did the livingroom one).

Lunch was Meatish Sweedeballs, vanilla ice cream with honey and walnuts. Dinner while watching the Tivo recording of Tampa Bay Dallas was two slices of Safeway supreme pizza, grapes and Famous Amos for dessert. For the record, after more than half an hour of the oven cooking at 450°F, the CO monitor read zero. F U PG&E.

Paused the football game to write this. The video quality is pretty good, some occasional minor glitches, pretty reasonable for free service. In the distant future I may hire someone to install a real antenna on the roof, the cables are still there from the prior owner, when there was a dish.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Maybe bypass the commute by seeing La La Land at the nearby cinema.

One more thing...

Flickr to Google Photos upload completed, but unlike Flickr, Google doesn't make photos public as such. They have to be selected, added to an album, and then the album can only be shared to those who have the link.