Everyone in Buffalo and the surrounding areas knows that Time Warner customers were without channel 4 (CBS) Sunday. Sadly, this meant no Bills game—at least for people without antennae.

My grandma picked up a couple antennae from Time Warner. I thought we didn’t need one because I bought my own antenna two years ago. But TW showed me, as my antenna was somehow inoperable (it didn’t make sense at first). The TW antenna worked, but we gave that to my aunt so her and my uncle could watch the Bills game.

I couldn’t figure out how an antenna could stop working. Then I remembered it must obviously be a circuit, so something must have disconnected. I took off the little cap with the female F connector and, sure enough, the connector was dislodged from the rest of the circuit.

Fixing the antenna would have been very easy with a soldering iron, but mine was conveniently still at school. So, I used the only tool available to me: Scotch tape. Honestly, I was amazed when I turned on channel 4 and had a signal.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take photos of my little tape job, despite a camera being nearby and available. However, once I was back at school, I recreated the scenario (see photo).

For those who don’t already know, I own and use an LG vx8600 cell phone.

A few months ago I noticed a horizontal scratch on the main screen. I assumed it was from dropping the phone (even though I couldn’t understand how just dropping this phone could scratch the screen, given its shape while opened and the scratch’s appearance).

Recently I looked at the phone more closely than I previously have. I found another horizontal scratch and two other less noticeable stress marks.

Four lines across the screen? Hmm, doesn’t the keypad have four pieces of raised material across it? Yes, it does!

Here are some photos of the keypad and the lines it scratched out of my phone’s screen:

Here’s the rundown of what I received for Christmas:

• Mio DigiWalker C310x (GPS)
• SanDisk Sansa e280
• Orange Synergy hockey stick
• Talladega Nights DVD
• Little Miss Sunshine DVD
• The Simpsons Season Nine DVDs
• Family Guy Volume Four DVDs
• Chocolate
• Clothes
• Old Navy blanket
• RIT hoodie and scarf
• something my Dad bought me that I can’t think of at the moment
• bills; mad, mad bills

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

I ordered an orange Creative Zen Micro Photo 8GB Mp3 Player on August 2nd. The price for the orange version was $176.13 and a $30 (mail-in) rebate brought the price down to $146.13, a very reasonable price for an 8gb mp3 player, in my opinion. I just received the product tonight and so far I am pleased.

There was nothing surprising upon opening the box, except for the usb cord, which (as far as I know) is the only way one can charge the player. This is not much of a problem now, but I can see how it could be one. However, I hear the battery life is 15 hours, which should be enough time to find a computer.

Setting up the mp3 player was very easy: just connect the mp3 player to a pc, pop in the cd, and install the software you want. The actual program, Zen Micro Photo Media Explorer, works just fine. Files are easy to add and transfer quickly. Playlists are easy to add and edit. There was only one problem I had with the transfering of files: the lossless wma files I have (only about 11 of them) could not be transfered. Again, not a big deal.

As far as the player and listening to music, I only have a minor problem. The quality of the sound is good with bass boost on or off. Finding the music on the player is eay, with several ways of sorting the music. The buttons are fine and not overly sensitive (there is an option on the player to change this, I believe). The method to change the volume is also very simple (just move you finger along the slider up or down). In some reviews this was mentioned as a problem (the solution being a physical button). As far as I’m concerned, the slider is very good for changing volume, as one does not have to navigate through various menus, as some reviews made it seem. My one complaint is the editing of playlists on the actual player. First, there does not seem to be any way to add or remove songs from a playlist after it is created. Removing a song from a playlist actually deletes it from the player. Finally, creating playlists on the player is difficult to, as one must select all the songs and then choose to create a playlist. The problem here is that files cannot be unselected between the time the file is selected and the playlist is created.

The head phones are good; there is no pointless remote attached to them. The only restriction on files I have encountered is the limit on bit rate; music downloaded via p2p clients is okay for the player, if anyone is concerned about that. Overall, I really like the mp3 player so far. I hghly recommend it.

Watch out for a review on the Niko 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor coming soon (it hasn’t been delivered yet).