August 2007 – Page 2

If it is free they will come

We’ve had this massive 56 inch TV squatting in our horrible back room for over a year. Why the hell we have it in the 1st place is because it was free. A good friend of ours is in the moving business and a customer didn’t want it anymore.My boyfriend was a mover when I met him,along with most of his friends and lets just say there was a ton of second hand furniture floating about.I know from my own past moves that one sheds a lot of personal belongings during any move.

Back to the TV as big as a house. So we lugged it up the stairs,plugged it in and it worked. Bonus. But it was way too much TV for us. It dwarfed our living room space. It loomed.So we shoved it in the horrible back room and used the top as a shelf.

My success with getting a good TV on Craigslist inspired me to finally take some snaps of the monster and post an ad in the free section.Free as in no money just come and get it. Free as in if I were a fool I’d pay you to come take it.

I got responses 10 minutes after I published the ad which was not sugar coated at all. I said it wasn’t perfect, huge, needed a van to transport it and needed more than one person to come get it.When I checked my email today there were 12 more emails asking about it.

I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. How does one decide this? I will give it to the 1st guy who wrote. But if he doesn’t like it when he sees it I will probably give it to the charity that wrote to me today.

Watch Movies,TV Online Free

I’m subscribed to the makeuseof.com newsletter which keeps me up to date on the most useful and free web applications,tools,and tricks you can find online. I subscribed for the free web applications but of course what’s really got me excited(I’m greedy and cheap) were the links makeuseof.com gave me to watch movies and tv shows.

I realize that it isn’t exactly legal…And that some folks would consider this stealing. But the truth is that out of the 7 links provided to view TV and movies off of some Web sites, only one had actual watchable-quality content.

Case in point Gray’s Anatomy on TV Links. See the impressive amount of shows? All 3 seasons(seemingly). Well, 99% of the shows I tried to watch either didn’t load at all or were way too pixelated to watch or just stopped playing after 10 minutes or so.Free sure doesn’t mean quality. I get it. But one site delivered. Videohybrid has TV shows but not that many episodes to watch.In fact only had 1 episode of GA. But the one they had was excellent quality.

I started to watch the film Captivity but found it dull and then saw 28 Weeks Later available on the list! watch it here.It gets a bit fuzzy during some parts but it is still highly watchable.

But be warned: the films they have listed that are still in theaters are the kind that have been camcorded inside the theater. Those may suck. But at least you won’t buy the bootleg DVD for 5 dollars,take it home all jazzed to watch this great new movie only to find that you can’t see the screen because it’s all black or the recorder has gotten a side seat so you see the movie at a skewed angle. And then to make it even better someone gets up right in front of the camera and blocks the screen! Save your 5 bucks.

To see the original post from makeuseof.com go here

Wham Bam 32″ Sony

Once again the phenomenon that is Craigslist has come through for us and our acquisitive ways. About 3 months ago, our 28 inch TV just burned out.There was a strange, burning chemical smell for about 10 minutes and then the darn thing just died. I had my 19 inch Samsung in the back room so at least we weren’t without a TV,entirely. The horror. But going from a 28″ to a 19″ screen was a big difference. We never got used to how small that size screen really is. Our living room is just a space we made with sofas and tables in the main area of our loft. The small screen got a bit swallowed in the large area.

Anyway, I went on Craigslist, saw the TV– a Sony Trinitron 32 inch screen, liked the price ($99) so we called and arranged to come pick it up within the hour. Of course I didn’t go-my boyfriend and his brother went-they are the muscle-I am the brains,ha ha.They forgot the remote (of course) these TV’s all need their remotes or you can’t do any adjustments of color or whatever. I called the seller and asked him if maybe he could mail it to us. He didn’t answer– I think he was afraid we weren’t happy with the TV and wanted our money back!

The color tube is a little damaged on the right hand side upper and lower corners but just a small bit. There is a green blob and a blue blob. I always thought that that was a sign the TV was on it’s way out–my boyfriend assured me it is not. However, he was supposed to turn the set on and check it out before buying it and this was something he should’ve noticed.You’d think between the 2 of them they would’ve seen this flaw. I mean I saw it right away!

I guess my boyfriend put my 19″ TV on his brother’s bed. And somehow it ended up on the floor. I have no idea how. I heard a really loud crash and there it was broken in half on the floor. Who puts a TV on a bed? You don’t put a TV on a bed!

Men.
Footnote.While looking for a desk in Craigslist ‘furniture for sale’ I saw this:3 adjustable shelves. Light wood fits with any decorum.

Don’t be like me.

If you’re like me you get distracted during your project and waste time when, if you could just finish those last few tasks,the job would be done. This doesn’t happen for my paid jobs-I guess getting paid is impetus enough for finishing on schedule. This happens during my “pet” projects and I have 4 going on simultaneously.

One is switching a beast of a site I made for a friend into a WordPress powered site. Ahhh, the loveliness of it all. But the beast is large and involves not only the transference of much content but also designing the theme. I am designing as I go. I am even bravely considering releasing it to the general public. Gasp. But that is pet project number 4.
Number 2 is my other friend’s art site and without project number 1, project number 2 would be even slower getting done (because they are both sites for displaying artwork, the theme works for both).

Number 3 is figuring out all the mistakes I made when I switched my old site and blog to WP.They are numerous. Number 3 scares me.
So now I have to go over each project and tell my self that if I did A, B and C, it would be done.
If you are your own boss you have to actually be the boss of yourself. And you must learn how manage your own time productively. No one is going to tell you that perhaps you might want to finish editing the painting pictures and load them to the server before you spend a half hour looking for a bigger TV on Craigslist. Or looking at clothes, perfume and or shoes Web sites…a big waste of time for me, I’m afraid.

The thing you must also remember is that too much time on the computer isn’t so good. You tell yourself that you are working like a dog and should get some pats on the head for your diligence. Well,you should. But you also need to take care of yourself. You need to go outside. Run errands. Be with people. Do something fun.

You are your own boss and no one can work you to the bone like you can. But you can give yourself some free time. And after 8 hours straight working on 4 projects you won’t be all that productive,anyway. This doesn’t mean you can now go look for shoes online. This means step away from the computer and be a human being for a few hours!