After an afternoon of painting trim, I headed over to the nearby Chinese restaurant, Fortune of Reston. I can walk to it, and as I approached it, I realized that the sign for it was gone. Indeed, the whole restaurant was gone, stripped to the concrete floor. A little Google research later, I discover that is has actually been closed since January 7th. I guess it says something that it took me until March to notice its absence. Ah, Fortune, you will be (somewhat) missed. On my way back, I noticed that the bagel shop in the same shopping center (Manhattan Bagel) was also gone. The same Google research indicated that it had been gone for over a year. Clearly, my powers of observation need work.

I finally noticed that my TiVo was in the “Pending Restart” state. I restarted it, and bang! new version of the TiVo software (8.1.1-something!). And this version (among other things) fixes the sound issue that I was having with Comcast SportsNet DC. Of course, this happens exactly one day after the last thing I wanted to see on this channel was aired. Figures. Now my current issue (which I hope resolves itself) is that Verizon is in the process of moving all the channels around, and I’m currently in the state where some of the channel changes have been applied by TiVo, but not yet by Verizon. And (I think) some changes have been applied by Verizon but not yet by TiVo. The new TiVo software adds a bunch of features, the most interesting which are “TivoCast” and the “Recently Deleted” folder that now shows up. TivoCast is (I think) the broadband video download service that Tivo is rolling out. I can’t tell how to use it yet. If I ever visited tivo.com, I would have found it obvious how to use it. However, I guess I’m on the cutting edge of this software update, since Tivo Central Online doesn’t seem to realize that the S3 now supports TivoCast.

A few months ago, I switched to Verizon FiOS TV, using two CableCARDs in my S3 Tivo. Mostly just because it was an option, and the FiOS service was at least $10 less than my other option, Comcast. Sorry, Comcast, competition prevails! Overall, I’ve been pretty happy with this setup.

However, I have this strange problem: two channels in my lineup don’t have any sound. They look OK, but no audio, ever. Now digital cable in general, and FiOS is no exception, comes with so damn many channels that there is a significant chance that these two channels might go completely unwatched, thus, no problem. And, in fact, this is largely the case. However, it turns out that one of these channels, there are basketball games that I want to watch. Of course, sound is not strictly necessary for watching a basketball game, and, sometimes, is a hinderance. Nevertheless, it sort of bugged me that I couldn’t, even if I wanted to, listen to the audio. Enough of the mystery: the two channels (for me) are Comcast SportsNet DC (CSNDC) and Mid-Atlantic Sports Net (MASN). They are consecutive, and, suspiciously, both channels from a different cable operator (Comcast).

Check the new home page at blacka.com! Up until now, this page was about as boring as possible. In fact, I don’t know if anyone ever went there intentionally. But now it has a snazzy new look, designed by my sister. All of the photos are mine (well, taken with my camera, anyway). They represent a somewhat random sample of my meager photo collection. Mmmm, I should take more photos…

DNAME, if you are not aware, is a DNS record type defined in RFC 2672. If you are familiar with the DNS’s CNAME record, then think of DNAME as a sort of super CNAME. If not, well, I’ll try to explain how DNAME works.

A Brief DNAME Tutorial

Whereas CNAME is used to alias a single domain name to another, DNAME aliases an entire subtree to another. It accomplishes this in one of two ways: either it acts as a CNAME generator, or it is understood by the client and the client implements the same behavior without all the generated CNAMEs.

Ever since I sprung for the (awesome) TiVo Series 3, getting two CableCARDs (and digital cable) for it has been on my “to do” list. I’d been avoiding it because of the various horror stories that I’d read about during the Series 3 launch. I figured I would give the cable companies time to come to grips with the new demand for CableCARDs.

So, earlier this month, I figured enough time had passed, and I called Verizon to order the CableCARDs and ditch the (long since unplugged) DVR/cable box. Note that to call Verizon and get anything useful done, you essentially have to call them during business hours. Otherwise you get stuck in their maddening voice response system. So I finally remember to call them during business hours, and after being transferred a few times, actually get to tell somewhat what I want: 2 CableCARDs for a TiVo. I get scheduled for 11/14. So I work from home that day. Even though it takes me most of the morning to stop swearing at my work laptop, I actually am pretty productive.