As per normal, Saturday didn't exactly go to plan. Instead of sleeping in after not getting a whole lot the previous night, my parents told me to scan some photos for them. The only scanner we had was our ancient HP OfficeJet 710, which was in disrepair to the point that it cannot print without blurring lines anymore, and leaves a holy hell of a lot of colored streaks across any scans. Not wanting to deal with the photo cleanup involved again, I told them we should just buy a new scanner if they intend to continue scanning more things. After my mom demonstrated her complete lack of knowledge about how the internet works (which would have made it impossible for her to take the photos to the office to scan then send them back to me, since she lacked the basic knowledge of how to do this), I end up forcing myself to volunteer to go out and buy a scanner.
Not having much time to research the topic, I end up simply visiting PC World's website and finding the latest top10 they did on the subject. The current top-rated product was a Canon CanoScan Lide 50. Unfortunately, Best Buy doesn't carry this model, but I found that they do carry the Lide 35, so I tentatively decided on that. After getting there (after a stop at the bank to switch my account over to Student Banking), I find myself a bit disappointed at the Lide 35's specs, but I also saw the HP Scanjet 3970 right next to it. For $20 more, it had superior specifications (though just barely), and a CCD sensor array rather than a CIS one. After spending some 15 minutes deliberating over this, I ended up choosing to take the HP. I really should shoot a photo of the "corner of HP" that is now taking up a large portion of the basement computer area. It's pretty funny.
Having picked up the scanner, we did the rest of what my mom intended to do during the trip - at my insistence, we stopped by Pioneer Optical to pick up my new glasses frame. Amusingly, I found out why she (the store's owner) was confused about the color of my old frame - we had ordered the "MD Blue" (presumably "Midnight") color, but the specification had rubbed off in the 14 months of use that frame got. So, the new order was for a "D Blue" (presumably "Dark") color. The current frame is, thus, an unintentionally different color from the old one. Still looks good though. The legs bend about as well as the old frame's did, too. I don't think I'll try bending the center on purpose.
We also stopped at the Asian market. Not much to say about that - I did get to pick up some snacks that I wanted, but it was mostly my mom finally getting to buy what she had set out to buy.
Much of the rest of the afternoon was spent hooking up the scanner, and scanning in the photos that my parents wanted scanned. Of course, the quality blows the old scanner completely away. Maybe I'll actually scan some of those convention photos that I took before I got my digicam.
Much later, I ended up setting out to SF mall. I missed the tournament, but I did catch them on their way to go eat at Sweetwater Tavern. I went along, even though I had eaten dinner at home. Amusingly, I still ate a full meal, even though I didn't really intend to. I also stole some of the leftover fries from other people after I was done with mine. ^^; Yep, my metabolism has slowed down, but it still races around other people's.
After dinner, I dropped Alison off at home, then rejoined most of the dinner people at the AMF Annandale Lanes for bowling. As I was wearing my customary slippers, I didn't have any socks, so I ended up buying a ridiculously overpriced pair at the bowling alley for $4. Bowling was... pretty funny, as the best shot I made all night was the one where I simply dropped the ball and kicked it towards the pins. =p
Seeing Chris try to fit his size 11.5 feet into my size 9 rental bowling shoes was pretty funny, too. Brice had the same shoe size as him, but he wouldn't share. =p
After the bowling (and $0.25 yo-yo demonstration) was over, I took Chris to his house, watched Inuyasha and Wolf's Rain on CN in his living room, then slept over.
Didn't do much the next day except watch over betas of the current HnK project (you'll see it this Sunday, September 12, if you're interested), finish Metal Slug 3 with Chris, and go over to Billy's house and play Hyper SF2/Megaman Anniversary Collection/SF3 3rd Strike until it was time to take Chris home. Though, we did pick up 22 pieces of fried chicken (and a large side of mashed potatoes) for $20 at Popeye's on the way to Billy's. Went home, worked on current HnK project some more, went to sleep.
Today, pretty much worked on said HnK project all day.
Tomorrow, I get to try again to make it to class without getting a speeding ticket. And, well, I have to go back to work too. But I had a nice 3-day weekend of free time at least. ^^
Site updates: Changed the LJ RSS feed to feed only the latest 5 entries rather than the default 15. This will reduce the size of the "floods" that occur every so often with syndicated feeds on LJ, and will decrease the chances of a very old entry receiving new comments reappearing as a new entry. Of course, this is a change that probably won't have too much effect on the way things work. I also changed to a different Blacklist updater script than the one I was using before. Again, you shouldn't notice any differences. Eventually, I'll bring the webcam back to some kind of usefulness. But for now, it'll remain in its old position next to the old computer, where you're probably more likely to see my brother's face rather than my own.