Okay, in the past week, this site has seen an almost endless onslaught of attempted spam comments. Two spams (both identical and on the same entry) actually made it through. There was an update to the master blacklist, but this particular spam appears to be new and wasn't covered. I submitted it, but unfortunately I didn't log the originating IP addresses. I'll report again if the same spammer tries it again, since I added it to my own local blacklist.

So, not a whole lot of note happened in the last week. Most of the significant action happened just a few hours ago (Sunday), but I'll go ahead and recount the week in chronological order.

So, yeah, the pop'n music 9 Internet Ranking is now closed. I finished at rank #494 on the total Hyper boards. I didn't check where I finished in the 9line boards, and I didn't play 5line at all. I still haven't passed a couple of those courses, either... it's kinda pathetic how I've been playing for almost a year now and I don't have much skill to show for it. >.>

Other than the typical go to class routine, not much happened. I did end up finally switching all my POP3 mail over to Mozilla Thunderbird, though, and so far, I'm liking it quite a bit. Even though it runs a little slower than Outlook on this comp (keep in mind how ancient of a machine this is), the fact that I no longer have to worry about not opening the wrong email by accident (and the bayesian junk mail detection!) far makes up for it. And yes, after a minimal bit of training, it seems to be quite successful at figuring out what is what. Of course, when I'm not working on anything (such as now), my POP3 accounts don't actually get any legitimate mail, so I don't know if it's just marking all my incoming mail... ^^;;

Something might have happened on Friday, but didn't. I decided, after it had gotten late, that I didn't really want to drive to Frederick just for a little DDR. Oh well. (I only play DDR like once every two months at this point, anyways.)

We did do the typical FF:CC on Saturday. We ended up not being able to go anywhere new because our progress was blocked by both the river drying up and the miasma being an element we couldn't possibly obtain. So, we had to repeat three old areas to complete year 5.

But, on Saturday, Dave mentioned offhand that he wanted to buy a new TV. Somehow it was decided that he would buy it the very next day, as there were no problems with Kevyn taking the van out. And so...

I left the house at about 2pm. Naturally, I forgot to take my camera, but I brought along the Avia calibration disc and Juuni Kokki (one of the best series being released on DVD currently in my opinion that no one here wants to watch for invalid reasons) DVD 1. Yeah, it's still the bugged mono release, but since we were out to buy a TV, I don't think the audio was the focus. Kevyn was already there when I arrived, and I saw Angie for a little bit before she departed. After Dave finished guzzling his tea, we set out, HDTV or bust.

We first stopped at the shop in Bethesda where Dave got his Onkyo receiver+speaker set. Unfortunately, they don't have the model that we were looking for (as the culmination of Kevyn's research), but we did take a moment to admire their couch, and a 4:3 Sony model that looked very much like a shrunken version of the HDTV we have here. (I'm naturally turned off by this, since our TV isn't capable of properly displaying anything above 480p, and Sony hasn't added the capability to any of their models yet to my knowledge.) So, off to Best Buy Rockville (after a quick stop at an Asian mart).

At this point, we found that Matt, Sarah, Mary, and a few others were going to see a movie. We told them that we might tag along if we finished at Best Buy fast enough.

Walking into Best Buy, Kevyn quickly finds the TV he had recommended, and indeed, it seemed like the perfect fit - it was one of the smallest models present (considering the area the TV would occupy, this was good), and it was rich in any feature that would be needed in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, they were out of stock of that particular model (and forgive me for not knowing what model it is, aside from it being a 42" Toshiba), but they had it as an open item that had been sitting in the showroom area for less than a week. It was also complete, except for the box. As that isn't that bad of a burn-in time at all, and that there was only one minor crack on the side of the set, it seemed pretty good.

We did, however, want to check to see what the TV looked like with a component video source (almost all the TVs there were hooked up to a coaxial video feed), so we had someone take a DVD player over and hook it up. No video came up. As the player was the minaturized Cyber Home, I realized the Cyber Homes had a software switch that enabled or disabled the component outputs, and without the remote, there was no way to activate it. So, another DVD player was brought in, with the same result. It took another half an hour to a full hour (hard to tell, time doesn't pass too quickly when you're waiting), but it took at least 5 sales associates (one of whom managed to rip their pants while kneeling and probably left early) and the 3rd DVD player brought in to confirm that the inputs worked.

Naturally, Dave was caught up in some paperwork to fill out to be able to get the two year financing. So, more waiting. And after that, yet more waiting because the sales terminal was now busy.

But, that was finally the end. We wheeled the TV out to Kevyn's van, and managed to fit it in lying down on its back. (Since I'm not exactly a heavy lifter, I wasn't able to help much in this department.) I had to sit facing backwards, with my legs in between the collapsed backseat of the van and the TV. I'm sure a ton of people stared into the van on our way back to Dave's apartment.

Naturally, we had less than an hour before the aforementioned movie at this point, and there was no way we'd make it all the way to the theatre they were seeing it at in time. So much for that.

It figures that the only thing the apartment complex had to help us wheel the TV around was a hotel-style luggage carrier.

When we finally got the TV up into his apartment, we disassembled the old setup, did some major cleaning, determined where to set up the components, and finally set up the TV. Kevyn left to pick Josh up shortly after we moved the TV into place, while I stayed and helped finish up the setup and calibrate. Dave definitely needs to order HD cable service - standard definition digital cable looked crappy enough on an interlaced set as it is. =P

After calibration and an ep of the Simpsons, we play one round of Soul Calibur II (PS2 @ 480p), then switch to Rez. Kevyn arrives with Josh, and we check out Wipeout Fusion before trying to set up FF:CC for an impromptu run at the game, via component cables. With no batteries for the spare GBA, both Kevyn and I went back to our vehicles, him to get his GBA, and mine to check to see if I had my link cables in there still (I did). Dave and Josh played a little Amplitude while we were out doing this. Unfortunately, you can't set FF:CC to progressive mode without an actual GameCube controller, so we weren't really able to play it in all its glory or anything. But we could actually read text this time. =P

That was about it... Dave still needs to get a component rack and a progressive DVD player at some point, but I think he's more than happy (or broke) with what he got so far. ^^;

Well, that's about it for now... I've still got the big sale thing to manage (thankfully, I'm feeling better now than I did for much of last week), and hopefully I'll be able to take some time and do that later this week, if not today (Monday).