Beanie Guy: Take Three

The Saga of the Cheap DVD Player, Part Three

Beanie Guy had a quizzical look on his face when I walked into his shop this arvo.
I explained that I had tried 7 different DVDs of all sorts and nothing worked.
He plugged it in, put a disk in the tray and ....... it worked!!
I was not impressed!
We discussed disk types, other possible causes etc.
He tried another disk, it was with ironic pleasure that I saw the display come up "Bad Disk"
Partial vindication at least.
He tried another one, it pretended to load but really didn't.
He was beginning to believe I had a legitimate complaint and wasn't just some techno dumbo.

He offered to exchange it with one that he assured me worked cause they'd been using it in the shop.
OK.

I brought it home, plugged it in and tried it out in the Bermuda Triangle of electronic devices that occupies the corner of our living room.

Boldly I inserted a dubbed disk of some footy recorded on TV.
"loading....loading.....loading.....Bad Disk"!!
Not entirely unexpected but disappointing none-the-less!
A 2nd and 3rd disk were treated with the same disdain.

I switched tack and tried a pre-recorded disk, an episode of House.
Success! It loaded and played!

What about Carl Barron? More success.

There followed a succession of test cases, pre-recorded mainly but a few burnt by my Dad, all of which worked.

So, I have a DVD player that will play things it thinks come from a reliable or reputable source and dismisses things that it considers unworthy.

Do I cut my losses and accept I've got a half useful machine, or do I take it back and get a refund, all $48 of it!!

I don't know.



Inspiring Umpiring
It was an umpiring day today. At lunchtime I umpired a footy game between Busselton and Clontarf. To everyone's surprise Busso thrashed the Clontarf boys, the result has been reversed every other time we've played them, and a few of their boys didn't like it much and started having a go at me and blaming the umpiring! I thought I did a very good job and was pleased with my efforts. I dismissed their complaints as sour grapes.

Tonight I umpired two volleyball games. My team had a bye which always feels very unsatisfactory so I had make do with whistle blowing. Tonight was pay night so I was very popular with all the other refs as I distributed their wages for the last 6 weeks.

Internet Problems
There was a major dilemma in the Holt Press House today: the internet wouldn't work! The wireless router refused to deliver and nothing seemed to fix it despite repeated attempts by The Hair. I'm pleased to report (the obvious) fact that it is working again. I tried all sorts of diagnostics without success until I read in one of the help pages that old favourite, turn evrything off, disconnect the modem and router, wait 10 seconds and try again! For whatever unknown and inexplicable reason, this had the desired effect and Holt Press is back on line! And a good thing too, there were some rumbling withdrawal symptons brewing!