What A Fucking Waste Of Time

Did you watch any of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad? Even if you didn’t, you undoubtedly heard about the Chinese “womens” gymnastics team. I use the phrase “women” loosely… but not in a good loose way. Anyway, if you’ve seen any images of the gymnastics this year, you might think the Chinese were following a different Olympic moto: Faster, Higher, Younger. I was going to call this update “Au your gold are berong to us,” but I like Citius, Altius, Parvulius better. It’s more “Olympic.”

I watch artistic gymnastics… oh, every time Halley,s Comet enters our solar system. Alright, every four years. But each time, I remember why I hate gymnastics. Besides the obvious reason of being flat-out boring as hell, the judging is done by bitter old crows that can’t even bend over to put the toilet seat down before they take a squat. Of course, these Olympics were no different, and there was an added bonus of an age controversy. Holy hell! I watched the prepubescent Chinese girls and wondered why the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique believed their passports were accurate. Are those French bastards blind? Gymnasts must turn 16 during the year of the Olympics in order to be eligible to compete. However, the Chinese girls looked like they were playing dress-up with their mother’s cosmetics before putting on a gymnastic leotard that was a size too big and stepping onto the world stage. While the girls of other countries were showing signs of puberty, the Chinese girls looked like 10-year old boys. For all we know, they may have been 10-year old boys! They had no signs of hip widening, no budding boobies, no curves at all. Hell, those girls still had deciduous teeth in their skulls! I defy you to find a 16-year old girl that still has her baby teeth. C’mon! Maybe girls that smoked five packs of Malrboros a day since they were 3 still have baby teeth at 16, but no one else… and definitely not 83% of one gymnastics team! Hey, maybe eating Chinese cuisine stunts your growth. Think about it. Maybe that’s why they’re so damned short. I think I’m on to something here. Stop scaring us with all the “weed will stunt your growth” rhetoric, and start a study on Peking Duck, dammit. Pass the bong!

Of course, the FIG says the Chinese have provided all the proof they need, in spite of the fact that several documents have been uncovered — even official government documents — that indicates several of the Chinese gymnasts were not old enough to compete. The Opening and Closing ceremonies as well as the 16 days of games prove that the Chinese government spared no expense and worked very hard at showing the world their best face… right down to forging documents that falsify age. Top that, London!

I call bullshit, and the US Olympic Committee should not let this go! The IOC should come up with some sort of radiometric dating-type test to determine age. Carbon-14, anyone? Although, I’m pretty sure the test would be inconclusive on living organisms that aren’t yet 16 years old. Maybe the only way to tell their age is to cut them in half and count the growth rings. Maybe.

Finally, the image for this update. I made a few, but settled with the best one you see here. A close runner up was a group photo of the Chinese Gymnasts for the 2012 London games, which you can see here. I made a third image that’s funny in it’s own right, but I wasn’t happy with it. Check out an early photo of a 2012 Chinese gymnast in this image. It could happen. It probably will!

I actually received a comment on my last blog update that gave me compliments on my writing, but criticized my abundant use of the word “fuck.” My first thought when I read the comment was to do a rant, something like from Eddie Murphy in RAW. He was imitating Bill Cosby saying, “yooooouuu can’t say filth flarn filth flarn filth… in front of people.” He called Richard Pryor and relayed Cosby’s incredulous criticism, and Pryor says, “Next time the motherfucker calls, tell him I said, ‘Suck my dick.’ … I don’t give a fuck… Whatever the fuck makes the people laugh, say that shit… tell Bill I said, ‘Have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up, the Jell-O pudding-eating motherfucker.’” Funny shit, but I thought better of it. The reader is right. I don’t need “fuck” to make my writing better. So, I’ll take his fucking advice and cut the fuck back on the gratuitous fucking use of the word ‘fuck.’ Seriously. I had fun overusing the word in this paragraph, but I appreciate the reader’s candor and will take his advice. Really. Stop laughing!

I was watching the Olympics last weekend, like I said, and my TiVo died. Some of you may know I have two DirecTV TiVos; a Series 1 and a Series 2, both hacked, both with additional storage space. A couple years ago during a sweltering Whidbey Island heatwave, the Series 2 stopped working. My first thought was the weakest link failed — the fan — and the system got too hot and triggered its self-preservation subroutine. Okay, maybe TiVo isn’t that smart, but it still stopped working. Since the Series 1 unit was still going strong, I just pulled the Series 2 from the rack to look at later. Later ended up being last weekend. Michael Phelps was swimming his eighth final for a gold medal, and both my TiVos were DOA. Worst. Timing. Ever.

My spidey senses were telling me it was a power supply problem. My Series 2 TiVo was originally a one-drive system, but my storage upgrade added a second drive (and more heat and more power load) to the system. As a last-ditch effort, I pulled the cover and looked at the power supply. I could see a bulging capacitor on the board, which confirmed my fears of a bad PS. Anyway, I yanked the drives, removing the louder and smaller drive. Using InstantCake, I turned the larger of the two drives into a brand new 6.2a single drive OS and slapped it back into the TiVo. My thought was one drive would be less of a load on the power supply than two drives, and it might power up. I hooked up my ailing TiVo to the TV, plugged in the power cord and… was disappointed. I had power; the case fan was spinning, albeit as fast as a dreidel on January 2, but the drive wouldn’t spin up, and there were no lights lit up on the front. Tha case fan wasn’t slow because of low voltage. The fan doesn’t spin freely when the power is off. It needs to be replaced.

To make a long story even more painfully long, after being plugged in and “dead” for 45 minutes, I was surprised to hear the Series 2 TiVo spin up! It acquired satellite signal and I was watching the Olympics again… although it was now 11pm, and the prime time show was about over. While watching, I did some Googling and found a site that detailed how to fix a TiVo power supply. They replaced the exact capacitor that was bulging on my power supply, so I ordered some capacitors on Monday morning.

Fast forward to this past weekend. I received my mail-order capacitors on Friday, and Saturday morning I pulled the TiVo from the rack again. With my trusty soldering iron fired up, I unscrewed the power supply, and replaced the bad 2200uF cap. I used 25-volt low impedance cap instead of the stock 16-volt cap, and I added a second 25-volt at the C31 position, which was left empty by the factory. It was an easy task, and I couldn’t help but think of my paternal grandfather who taught me how to use a soldering iron.

I carted the TiVo back to the rack, hooked it up, and was disappointed again. No lights, no spinning drive… but that retarded fan was spinning. The bulging capacitor was not the problem. I may have to spend the $69 for a replacement power supply. Of course, $100 will get me a new TiVo. I should go HD, but that shit’s expensive and I have a truck to pay for. What will I do?

On a side note, I won an eBay auction for a Series 1 power supply. Fourteen dollars and 8 days later, I swapped the power supply in my old Series 1 TiVo. Again I was disappointed. While the power supply worked perfectly and powered up the TiVo immediately, the video signal has no color, and when there’s motion on the screen, I get many lines of magenta interference. I thought it was the video cable, but swapping out cables didn’t change the poor image quality. I’m thinking the Series 1 TiVo is dead. I think I’ll wear black and mourn the passing of a 7-year old friend.

That’s all I got for you now, kiddies. I have to go. I have to do my part to conserve energy and properly inflate my tires. See ya next time!