I’m a pretty tech-savvy person.  I’ve been using personal computers since before there were personal computers.  Which is a very, very long time. 

But, nothing can drive me more nuts than televisions and stereos – which, by the way, someone at some point decided to call Home Theater Systems.

I have an older television and a veritable plethora of various components that purport to play music, CDs and movies.  Some of them work, many of them don’t.  So, when I discovered that one of my two measly stereo speakers (speakers – is that still the correct term?) has ceased to function, I decided that some new technology was required.

I’m feeling particularly close to all the people I know who aren’t really computer-literate!  Buying a television and “Home Theater System” might just be the end of me.  I feel like a dunce because it’s been so long since I followed the technology, I have NO idea what’s going on.

So, I did what I usually do – check the Internet.  CDNet is usually a good source for information.  What did they provide me?  Mostly with reviews that said “CDNet did not review this television, but we did review others in this line”.  OK, great.  So, are you saying that the review of the other one will tell me about the one I’m looking at?  Not extremely helpful.

Then, I stopped by the local electronics store.  Evidently, learning how all this stuff works is a life-long undertaking.  The people in the store seem to have just slightly more information than I do?!

For you older people out there, you will appreciate that I still have music I like that is recorded on cassettes.  Not VCR cassettes, as the child in the store assumed, but actual music tape cassettes.  I’m not sure that there is a more descriptive term for them.  They’re the small things that came out after 8-track players went out of style, and just before CDs came in.  If I have the history right.

Can I hook a cassette player up to a fancy new home theater system?  Can I record television shows on a VCR, or will I need to get a DVR thingy from my cable company?  Do you hook the TV and the theater system together?  Do wireless rear speakers really produce good sound?  Is there an advantage to having the television and stereo stuff come from the same manufacturer?  Do I really need a 40″ screen if I’m sitting 12 feet away from it?

These and other questions have gone unanswered.  However, I’ve gotten a tip that the folks at a nearby Best Buy store actually know what they’re talking about.

I certainly hope so.  It’s getting pretty darn quiet around here!

The Bad News

I’ve been fighting with Adobe Support for days now, and it’s driving me nuts.

The last time I had an Adobe problem, I was trying to get the full version of Adobe Acrobat to work.  That time I was able to get phone support.  We tried everything including registry changes, and for no apparent reason, it was impossible to fix the problem.

Of course, I could have wiped the hard drive and rebuilt it.  But, I bought NitroPDF instead.

This time, it’s a more difficult problem.  There seems to be a problem  viewing some flash displays if you have a Vista 64-bit computer and you upgrade to the newest version of Adobe Flash, Flash 10.

Oddly enough, there is a notice on the Adobe site that Flash support is being provided by email only.  Thus started my quest to figure out what the problem is.  I opened a support case at Adobe and have been trading emails with them for the past few days.

No luck.  The last suggestion from Adobe support was that I purchase Dreamweaver and use it to generate the code to embed a flash module.  Yeah, right.

If anyone, anywhere, has had problems with Flash 10 on Vista computers and figured out how to fix it, please let me know.  If you have any idea how to get a straight answer on a fix, or if you know where I could go to get an answer, I’d be forever greatful if you let me know!!

Now, For the Good News!

Voter turnout in the 2008 election is being called Unprecedented. . .  Phenominal. . . and I’m sure there’ll be more adjectives to come. 

It’s also been an amazing year for new voter registration.

This was a groundbreaking election, and I’m proud that the American public responded in kind.

I’m also really excited that the campaign is over and I won’t have to listen to taped recordings calling me on the phone, and campaign commercials on the television.

Now, I pray that we can show the same kind of spirit in pulling together to address all the issues facing the nation.

Tomorrow, I’m going to fill my gas tank while the gas prices are still “low”. 

OK, if I have my calculations correct, it’s just 13 days until the election.  Hallelujah!

I’m not a fanatic about politics, although I do care who is leading the country.  So, I do pay some attention to political campaigns.  But, I have to admit, that sometime before the election actually happens, I experience campaign fatigue.  And, it’s hit hard this year.

Here’s how I know when I’m experiencing campaign fatigue:

• I don’t care that Tina Fey looks almost exactly like the Republican VP candidate
• I don’t feel like discussing whether the Republican VP should have appeared on Saturday Night Live or not
• My thumb is strained from surfing channels during commercials while I’m watching TV in order to avoid being exposed to any more campaign commercials
• I am really, really sick of the threads on RealTalk where everyone is trying to pretend that rabid right-wing and/or left-wing politicos are really making any sense whatever
• I am amazed at the report that the Republicans spent $150,000 to clothe and accessorize their VP candidate – what do they wear in Alaska. . . cammo pants and hunting boots????
• I am tired of checking facts – we should just all accept the fact that facts can come out however you want them, and checking doesn’t really help. . .  mainly because it depends on who is doing the checking!
• I believe that our enemies will always test us – I don’t care who is President!
• With all that is going on these days, I can’t understand why a VP would make one of their key duties being a champion for children with special needs. . .  what about the kids with cancer?  adults with cancer?  Lupus, Parkinsons’s disease, Wall Street, recession talk?  I mean, let’s get serious
• Who cares when Powell endorsed Obama.  He did it – so enough already
• I’ll be glad when Katie Couric is no longer asking the candidates about the last time they cried.  Cheez
• And, after all Palin’s new duds go to charity, will she be back to the cammo pants?  Another burning question

I do wish we could get all the way through a campaign taking the high road.  Talking about the issues.  Getting candidates to tell us where they stand, not where their opponent is.

It’s a fantasy.  I know it will never happen.  But, this year I’m going to vote early.  Then, I’m going to pretend like the campaign is over, and they’re just taking a really long time counting the votes!

Interpreting what constitutes a parking space seems to be a challenge to a lot of people.  So, to help all those parking-challenged individuals, here’s a short course on how to figure out where you’re supposed to park.

When you drive into a parking lot, look for painted lines on the ground.  You’ll  notice that there are whole bunches of them.  If you’re lucky, each line will actually be double lines painted very close together.  That means that the management of that lot are nice people who will give you a bit of extra room to get out of your car after you park it.

In any event, the idea is to park your car in the exact center between two of those lines, whether they’re single or double lines.  Now, we all know that getting your car into the exact center of the lines is going to be difficult.  You just need to practice until you can get it pretty close.

Keep in mind that if you park too close to one of the lines – or heaven forbid, if your tires end up on top of or over the line – you have effectively made the space beside you unusable by anyone else until you leave.

Which I hope you do pretty fast.

OK, so one of my pet peeves is people who don’t know how to park their cars so that the rest of us get to use the parking lot, too.  And, you can probably guess that I was in a crowded parking lot recently where the only parking spot within a half mile of my destination was rendered useless by one of the “line parkers” among us.

I think learning to park between the lines, and caring enough to do so on a regular basis, is just not that difficult.  Now, parallel parking – that’s a different story.

I hate parallel parking.  So, it was a challenge when I lived in downtown Baltimore at one time in my life.  Downtown Baltimore is a great place to live.  It’s one of the truly alive big-city downtown areas. 

The only problem is that most of the real estate is made up of row houses.  When you live there, you have to park on the street.  Parallel park, that is.  And while that seems very normal to long-time residents, it’s a challenge for some of the rest of us.

As a brand new resident, I was chagrined when I arrived home one day and my neighbor was sitting on his front stoop, and the only place to park was directly behind his car.

Parking the car turned into an even larger event than usual because I was nervous.  But, after several trips back and forth, I finally fit the car in the spot, close enough to the curb, and without touching his vehicle.

As I walked to my door, I laughed about my horrible parallel parking skills.  My neighbor was silent for a moment, then said:

“Hmm… so the last place you lived had a driveway, huh?”

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but I sure have.  Prices have been increasing at a fantastic rate – much faster than I can ever remember. 

In fact, it started even before gas prices went crazy.  One minute I was buying Irish Swiss Cheese from the deli for about $6/pound.  The next time I went to buy some, the price was around $8.00/pound.

And then there’s bread.  My favorite kind was maybe a couple bucks the last time I remember looking at the price.  The loaf in my kitchen now bears a price tag of $3.59.  Do you have any idea how much that is per slice?  And, how guilty I feel if I don’t finish the entire thing before it starts growing mold?  Cheez.  This is driving me nuts.

And, there still isn’t a whole lot of gas in the Atlanta area – overpriced or not.  I’m trying to hold off buying some so that those who have long commutes can get to work.  I wish everyone was doing that.  Not only is gas ridiculously priced, we just can’t find any.

I’d think this feeling of being out of control on the price of things was just a matter of getting older.  I do remember that when I first got to thinking about cars, a cool car cost about $4000.  I have adjusted to the fact that now car prices have risen.  But, it happened over many, many years.

Now, prices are going up as we speak!  Or, at least while I’m typing.

The one price increase that really has me fuming has to do with the solution I use for my contacts.  Yes, I’m too chicken to get Lasik, so I still use the old contact approach for improving my eyesight.

The company that makes the contact solution has made a big deal about the new packaging they were coming out with.  It was going to be round instead of oblong.  It was going to be great.  The new container was much more thrifty with space – easier to store – just overall a great leap forward in contact solution packaging!

After seeing those inserts in the solution I bought for a while, the new packaging finally arrived.  I bought a couple bottles over the weekend.  And, it was true!

The price for this wonderful new bottle hadn’t changed.  The bottle was much more compact – definitely easier to store.  They did forget to mention one thing, though.

The bottle is smaller than the one that they manufactured previously.  So, while the price didn’t go up, they achieved the increase by supplying less product.

I’ve seen that happen before – but never with such fanfare.

I think they thought we wouldn’t notice.

Ha!