A Few More Pet Peeves
Posted By Russ Emerson on November 15, 2012 at 2:16 pm
Because of the Ongoing Neurological Unpleasantness™, I do a lot of shopping online. But when a delivery requires a signature, I can never make it to the front door in time to catch the driver. I think they ring the doorbell and wait maybe 40 nanoseconds before slapping the “sorry we missed you” sticker on the door and leaving. So I end up schlepping down the stairs for no more point other than to sign the sticker.
Having hand controls in my pickup truck is great; it gives me a freedom to get around like I hadn’t had for a while. But every time I go somewhere, I am reminded that my truck is about three inches too high off the ground for me to be able to get into it with a reasonable degree of safety. No falls there yet, but I figure it’s only a matter of time.
[Speaking of falls… I’ve only had one in recent months, but of course it was on the hard tile of the bathroom floor, rather than, say, the slightly less-hard carpeted floor of my bedroom.]
My cable box-slash-DVR has an unfortunate tendency every so often to get into a state where it will not record anything, and there’s no warning sign until I realize I’ve missed the previous night’s episode of Red Eye. (In fact, the only Red Eyes I’ve missed since the show’s start have been due to DVR failure.) A reboot is the recommended workaround.
Naturally, merely turning the DVR off and back on via the remote isn’t adequate; you have to power cycle the box to get it to reboot. There’s no way to do it via the DVR’s remote. Which means I have to drag my crippled ass over to where everything is wired up and unplug the DVR, wait 20 seconds, and plug it back in again. Nuisance.
Of course, the solution to the previous problem was staring me in the face the whole time, and I’m an idiot for not realizing it.
I had a few lamps in the house set up to use X10 remote control. The main receiver was plugged into an outlet in my bedroom, and then I had a few “lamp module” dimmers spread around. I realized this week that I could put the main receiver between the DVR and the power strip, and now I can cycle the power on the DVR at will.
Like I said: idiot.
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