Saturday,
January 4, 2003
There's nothing like a clean house
I'm not quite sure how I'm managing this, but the place is still relatively in good shape. Maybe it helped that I spent the 1st cleaning up after the party, and we've been too busy to muck it up all that much, I dunno.
Hey, I can live with it -- makes it much easier for me to write. I can't really settle down and churn out prose if I know the sink is full of dishes or there are piles of laundry that need to be folded and put away. Of course, I don't really like to do these things all that much, so I tend to avoid them, which means they stay there, which keeps me from writing that much longer.
Yes, I'm a bundle of weirdness. This comes as a surprise to whom?
However, my attention right now is on my camcorder. Lyndon bought a second-hand one specifically at my request because this model had features that the newer Sonys don't (the fact that it was cheaper than a new one didn't hurt, either). Unfortunately, a problem has cropped up where I try to record something or review recorded tape -- the tape rolls for a second, then stops and I get a musical chime and the error message C:31:23. The user manual that Lyndon grabbed off the net for me only says that this is some sort of a problem that I can fix (rather than taking it in to a dealer to be fixed), and that I should try removing the battery and putting it back in, then removing the tape cartridge and putting THAT back in.
Which I did, repeatedly. Didn't fix the problem. So I did some research on the web, and found a website that said my error message had something to do with one of the spindles not taking up tape correctly and stopping the drive from working (which correlates with what's been happening with my camcorder). Apparently the trick is to get some professional tape head cleaner, foam-tipped swabs and give the tape capstan and other spindles a good cleaning to remove any gunk that may have been deposited on them. Since the camcorder's previous owner was a smoker (to the point where the camcorder bag reeked of it), I doubt that he did any regular maintenance, so I'll be hauling my butt to Radio Shack at some point to obtain the necessary cleaning materials and see if I can make the camera go.
If not, the previous
owner is about to be introduced to a very put-out Englishman who doesn't like
to have his bride disappointed by her Christmas pressies.