fajrdrako | Triumphal trumpeting...

I finished the story I was working on all week. About ten thousand words, needs a few more drafts, but I'm happy with it. Tomorrow I'll start on the story where yesterday was the deadline. I got an extension.

Two weeks ago I got a small raise at work - enough to make me feel wild and crazy, and it was close to my birthday, so I went out and bought at DVD recorder. A beautiful machine, and I bought it discounted, a display model without a box, and hooked it up when I got home. It worked beautifully, taped like a dream, gorgeous clear picture, large hard drive, plays DivX files, a great machine. Small and powerful.

But I couldn't program it. Couldn't access any of the programming features. Couldn't even set the clock. What's the point of a recorder if you can't set the timer? After I (and several of my tech-savvy friends) wasted hours trying to figure out what was wrong and what to do about it, it became only too clear that I had one model of machine and had been given the remote (and the manual) for another.

So today I went back to the store, and got the right remote. Tested it right there with my machine in the store, just to make sure it was all astheyand didn't even glance at my receipt, just took my useless old remote and let me take the new one. I scouted out a few of the new DVD recorders they'd put on the shelves in the past couple of weeks, and was all the more thrilled with mine: machines with half the features were selling for twice the price. It was worth the hassle over the remote to have this beauty.

And now? The whole system works like a dream.