There are things changing in the castle that is my house. It’s currently quite stressy waiting. I’m waiting for people to turn up and do things and in the meantime I can’t really do anything else. I would normally watch television but it’s broken so I’m also waiting for that to happen. Things that are changing:
Old sofa being collect by bulk waste team
New sofa being delivered
Broadband supply changing to fibre to property
Television being fixed
These all occur over two days. Hopefully they all kinda happen in the correct order or there will be trouble ahead. I don’t have the space in the house for three grown ups all trying to do the things they need to do. I’m in waiting mode and feeling a bit odd about the whole thing. I just want everything done so I can relax.
I’m upset. For the third time in owning a Philips TV I have had one break. The first TV had a new screen fitted after a row of pixels died and then eventually a column of pixels became intermittent in that screen and I decided it was time to get a new one. That is when I bought the OLED version of the same TV. 55″ and ambilight, which I really like. The first TV led to the creation of my most popular video on YouTube:
Well, last night the new OLED broke. And in style. I was called to the front room because the TV “wasn’t working”. Normally this is a quick fix because the other people in the house don’t understand the system and so are unaware of input choice for the TV etc. It’s taken some time for them to understand the sound is created by a different box and not the TV. Anyway, I went into the room expecting to smuggly press a single button on the remote. This is not what happened. The TV wouldn’t turn on.
So, I unplugged the TV and then plugged it in again. I saw a brief cross of white pixels and then the screen died. The white standby light started blinking slowly. So, of course I tried the same thing again, this time leaving the power disconnected for longer. Same result. A search online claims it could be the power to the TV, but it is not. So now I am communicating with Philips, the TV is within warranty. It will get fixed. I will have a nice screen again. I just need to be patient.
In the meantime I have loaded some streaming apps onto my tablet to be able to watch some shows. It’s going to be a bit of a shock having to do that. I also can’t easily play my good Playstation and driving game. All of this has unbalanced me a little. Hopefully I won’t have to wait too long.
UPDATE – 5 minutes after publishing: Philips have been in touch and there is a OBR process for me to try. One Button Reset. Let’s see what happens later today when I try that out. I will update here once tried.
UPDATE – OBR did NOT work. I’ve been back in touch with Philips support and they got back to me pretty quickly with a case number and reference to a company who will come out and fix the TV.
UPDATE – The company have been in touch. They have said they have ordered the parts needed and that those parts come from the EU and so might take a time. Hopefully these parts come soon. I miss watching things on my TV. It’s frustrating. I’m having to use my 3D 1080p television that is in the dining room.
UPDATE – The company have been in touch and have told me the date they are coming to fix my television. Fortunately I am on a holiday from work and also in the country so I am able to wait for the TV to be fixed.
I went with my parents to a café at North Weald airfield. The place was called Rosey Lea café, part of a chain of four cafes in the Hertfordshire borders area. It was a pretty neat place which meant driving around the entire airfield to get to it. I’ve driven on airfields before, most notably at RAF Brize Norton where I was chased down by a C130 Hercules, and this place felt similar except for the lack of giant transporters. The food was nice and there were a few things flying around so at least there was stuff to see. I did see a Jet Provost and also this beast:
I like playing Minecraft. It’s a better world than the one we live in. I know there are creepers and zombies obsessed with trying to kill me but the farming is fun and apart from the strange slavery the game is mostly peaceful. I only play in survival mode, I have entered a creative world, once, but I hated it. The offspring don’t really play in this world much anymore so it’s mostly me just wandering around and doing little projects. I do want to get elytra soon so I will need some help in The End.
There are many cheats that could be applied to the game but having played since Covid-times I have a good idea of which ones keep me playing and which ones make the game far less fun. In the past I have used teleportation and even edited the contents of chests and inventories. I don’t use these cheats anymore. As much as travelling around the map in real time seems frustrating, teleporting from one place to another really kills the fun and sense of acheivement.
I use one main cheat these days and that is software that produces a map along with coordinates on the screen. This does mean I can easily find resources underground such as coal, diamonds and gold. But I think it balances out the time I spend. I don’t have to strip mine, I just mine but in calculated directions.
A Mine Map – Minecraft Level 17
In the above picture you can see the routes I have mined and also some of the resources that remain, ready for me to plunder. Brown is copper ore, silver is iron ore and the grey is coal, I think. I can hover over the map in the application and it informs me the type of block I am over.
The mapping software I use is called Unmined, and it needs you to be able to access the world database. I normally FTP this from my server so I can explore using the map but without live updates.
A Minecraft Item Sorter
The above picture shows my item sorter which is placed underground. The red squares are all redstone. I will be making a video about this soon as the last one I uploaded covered my dugout mountain.
This is what the current base looks like from above:
I’ve recently had to deal with Razer and get a keyboard replaced. This started when one of the children complained about some of the keys not responding all the time. I quickly ignored this as I hadn’t noticed this and sometimes kids moan about things when really it’s a “them,” problem. However, later I noticed the same effect and one of the keys didn’t always respond. So I got in touch with Razer and went through their returns process. This was easy and annoying at the same time.
Initial contact was good but I did get an email saying that if I didn’t respond within 48 hours they would close my case. This was frustrating as I was away from my PC and I don’t really like using my phone to do work/typing stuff. But I did respond. Then they wanted a video of the problem, which was irritating as filming keypresses and the PC response to them was not the easiest, also trying to make the problem happen when it is intermittent meant a few tries recording.
Then, once the video was approved as showing a problem, I had to show that the keyboard did not work by cutting the USB cable. This would seem strange if I hadn’t experienced the same thing when returning a PlayStation steering wheel many years ago. Rather than spend money returning the product the company just want to make sure you can’t use your product so cutting the cable is the easiest and cheapest for them. I sent a photograph of the keyboard and cut cable. Did I think about how to do this to keep the keyboard operational? Of course. Did I think of a way to do that? No.
Next, the return was approved and I got an email telling me that a new keyboard will be sent to me. I do not know when that will be. Also, they said I might get a different type of keyboard depending on stock levels. All I can say is that if I get a different one it had better be more expensive than the one I am returning.
So, the delivery has occurred and it was quite painless. I had a DHL notification and I had that sent to a DHL centre as I’m never in my house when delivery people arrive. I would add that I didn’t get a “you can pick your parcel up” notification which was inconvenient as I had to keep checking their tracking website. Collecting the parcel was easy and quite local.
My keyboard was replaced with exact same type so I needn’t have worried about that. It also looked brand new in a sealed box so it’s not likely that it’s been refurbished. I want new stuff. It is plugged in and some keys replaced with different colours as specified by others in the household. I think it looks good. I’m back to being happy.
I went camping for a little while in east Kent and saw some of the cool things they have over there in the far east. We went to Lydden Hill to see rally-cross which was really exciting, lots of races over 4 to 6 laps. We watched the film Borderlands, to be reviewed. We visited The Wonderworks by Hornby – a place where the history of building toys is on display. Also a trip to the RAF Manston Museum, which was nice, lunch in the Royal Victoria Pavilion which was super quick to be served, and dinner at Bella Amalfi where I met the owner who looked a LOT like Jean Reno, the actor.
Rally Cross as Lydden Hill
Also over the weekend we played Catan, Outsmarted, flew the kite and threw an Aerobie.
Yesterday I went to the cinema to see Twisters. I went to my “usual”, Rochester Cineworld, even though it’s in Strood and over the river from Rochester. After the film I rated it on IMBD using my rating system which you should read.
Look, I guess I’m meant to write what I thought about the film. It was alright. I guess it did what it said on the tin. Did I spend most the movie worrying about the relationship between a woman who looks 18 and a man who looks 40? Yes I did.
I went to the cinema to watch the film Argylle. There wasn’t much else on and although I wasn’t that bothered about seeing it, the film was the best choice possible. The Cineworld cinema at Rochester is alongside the river Medway and this part of that river is tidal. For a reason lost to time this is important as I now mention that the tide was low when we arrived at the cinema. I could see all of the mud banks at the side of the river. It was a lot higher when we left and travelled home.
After watching the film I rated it on IMDB and there’s a system for the ratings, you should read that here. I used to then tweet the result when I was on Twitter but I left that platform when Musk took over. It had already descended into a whirlpool of the worst of mankind and I’m glad I left because there’s only so much hate I can tolerate. I rated this particular film 4/10. It was a borderline 6 but it didn’t hold my attention enough and I only thought the film was worth watching for one particular scene.
This film was just about ok to watch. There were many plot “twists” along with many time when I wasn’t really following what was happening or who to trust. This was a Hollywood film and so it all ends up very happy. I’m not sure if I’d recommend this to other people, maybe only if they have a little time to waste and don’t mind a silly film.
My one recommendation is that everyone watch the scene where the two lead characters shoot their way out of the evil lair. The use of smoke in this scene was inspired and it looked amazing. It’s well worth watching that scene alone, but you don’t need the rest of the film that surrounds it.
The other day the family went for a walk around the local reservoir. It’s not that far and quite a quiet and picturesque place to be. It was calming. While there I took part in a photograph competition between some of my close friends. We also built a tree swing and had some fun rushing in an arc.
Burham Brick Lime and Cement Company
The area we walked through used to be a brick factory. It’s next to the river and in the old days bricks were cooked (?) here after the materials were taken from the North Downs. Then, they were placed on boats and shipped to wherever needed them. I do believe some ended up in Buckingham Palace.
Anyway, you can always find interesting things just lying around. Sometimes these are burnt out vehicles but other times these are discarded bricks with interesting insignia. See the picture I took of a 1910 brick. Someone somewhere will find that brick very interesting.
Yesterday a few of us went canoeing and kayaking [whatever the difference] on the Great Stour. We went from the Grove Ferry Picnic Site to somewhere near Lampen Stream. It was a lovely couple of hours on the river.
