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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Monday, April 28, 2003

Raven is now The Tech Guy! Tape is dead, I agree with him. I have two VHS machines that are "Hi-Fi", have four hears, set their own time, and are really easy to use. They both cost less that $70 dollars. When my old VCR went belly-up a few months ago, I didn't even bother having it repaired - I just bought another. I have enough old tapes that it's worth having one around, the second is for dubbing tapes onto SVCDs - or, when a good DVD-burner is under $200, to DVD. That's still dangerous territory, since I, like Raven, am also a recovering BetaMax owner. There's DVD+R and DVD-R and not all players do both - check out VCDHELP for compatibility issues before you buy. The last nail in the VHS coffin (Raven, don't you feel a little pleasure in seeing the demise of the beta-killer? I do.) is the DVR now attached to my system. When I came home this evening, it had dutifully recorded The Office for me, the same episode, not once but twice. See, I had set it up to record the whole series as episodes appear Thursday evenings at 9pm EDT. Taking inspiration from the brooms of the sorcerer's apprentice, it has determined that it should record The Office every time it occurs. But that's okay, I simply highlight the duplicates (the shows' descriptions appear on the menu, so that's easy) and erase them. The 80Gb hard drive can store up to 50 hours of digital recordings or 30 hours of analog. The firewire and USB ports on it are not active, but a future firmware revision will take care of that. You can fast forward and pause the playbacks. As far as I can tell, there is no signal degradation - though digital cable still has the annoying habit of posterizing when they try to cram too much signal through the wires. Sometimes the picture will simply freeze. The DVR can't fix that (Once, when I offhandedly remarked about it to a phone tech, he asked if I'd lile to have a service call). One thing is for certain, my rarely used VCR will now gather even more dust. I got burned when I bought early on a DVD-player with built-in decoder and a receiver that didn't. Now the norm is to have decoders in the receiver and a "dumb" player. My receiver has only one digital input and it appears you should have three if you want surround sound on digital cable and from the DVD-player. My old 5-DVD changer will not play CD-Rs, but I have an Apex single player that happily plays any type of CD I put into it. It cost me about $65. Deflation is bad for the 401(k), but good for home entertainment. 5:28:34 PM    comment []

Eggs in Tomatoes   Cut 4 small firm tomatoes (with a slightly larger circumference than peeled hard-boiled eggs) in half. Cut 4 peeled hard-boiled eggs in half widthwise. From each tomato half, scoop out just enough pulp to make room for the egg half. Insert egg halves into tomatoes yolk side up.   Place 4-6 thinly sliced slices boiled ham on top of each other, roll up starting at one of the narrow ends jelly-roll fashion, then slice into thin strips as you would egg noodles. Heap the ham strips on the egg-filled tomatoes.   Place on lettuce-lined platter and drench with sauce made by fork-blending 3/4 cup mayonnaise, 2 Tablespoons prepared brown mustard, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and 1 teaspoon lemon juice. Garnish generously with chopped chives.   This and many other tasty-sounding recipes available at Grandma’s Appetizer Recipes. Things like Beef Roulade, Eggs & Caviar, Marinated Eel, Sprats, Trout Au Bleu, you know, the stuff that Grandma used to make for you! 4:54:56 PM    comment []

Villagers Kill Crazed Bear! DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Hundreds of villagers used arrows and bamboo sticks Sunday to kill a wild bear after the animal rampaged through four villages in northern Bangladesh, wounding at least 50 people, a news report said. Forty people have been hospitalized, three of them in critical condition, after the attack in Sherpur district, 90 miles north of capital Dhaka, United News of Bangladesh reported. Need a recipe for Black Bear Chili? 6:39:45 AM    comment []