What's new?

Well, I've been trying to think of something to blog about today.

All day.

Y'know what?

I can't think of a damned thing.

Maybe tomorrow.

Big Screen Action

O.K. I finally got my sound back. Know what the problem was? A loose jumper on the audio board. The computer wizard . . . Tom Leufkens . . . found it. Thanks, Tom.

So, I finally have my new computer monitor fully operational. It's a huge picture, which is very good for these old eyes. The screen is 21.6 inches wide. I make that out to be a 22 inch screen, don't you? And it's a flat screen so I finally have some writing room on my desk.

Your Catalyst is a happy camper.

God-like Catalyst

I have a new t-shirt.

SWMBO took a picture of the front of it.

Boys and their toys

I have a new computer monitor - 21.6 inches wide. It is one big mothuh. Of course, when I first hooked it up, the picture didn't fill the screen, leaving about an inch and a half of black on either side. A trip to my computer wizard fixed that. I needed a new video card but he assured me DVD movies would run fine now without the herky-jerky pattern of before.

But . . . there's another problem. Now I don't have any audio. My little icon is still on the task bar but none of the computer's sounds and no audio from the internet or DVD's or CD's is coming out of the speakers. The speakers are o.k. because I plugged them into a transistor radio and they worked fine. I've been through and through the sound and device sites and can't find anything muted or turned down. My next step is to look inside the tower and see if the sound jack somehow became disconnected.

It is very frustrating.

I also bought a cheap tripod for my digital camera yesterday to use for macro work but the new monitor and attendant problems have kept me away from it so far.

The SWMBO says this reminds her of when I was a ham radio operator and each purchase of new equipment would require more expense to buy something that would make it work correctly. She may be right.

Picture fun

Here's a photo I snapped at a Buddhist shrine on my last trip to the deepest jungle of Thailand.

No, wait a minute. That face looks familiar. Let me turn the flash on it.

Oh, I remember him. That's actually a small statue in our front garden.

This is a photo of our half-cat Smoke. (You remember, I call him that because he only spends about half of his time with us). He's pretending to ignore me.

Have you ever noticed . . . whenever you want to get a nice tight close-up of your pet's face, he won't settle down. First he walks past your camera one way.

Then he turns and goes the other way . . . always just out of range.

Oh, well, I got one good one of him sometime back. It's at the top of this page.

More Macro

Here are a couple of more images from my macro experimentation. I need to buy a tripod or a unipod.

Rainy Day

Another rainy day in Arizona.