Father's Day Purchases

There was a bit of excitement in the Liley household this Father's Day. Granted, most of the clapping giggles came from Alison and myself (though I detected a hint of enthusiasm from the parents) but I think to whooping was justified. I'm proud to say... that we've dragged John and Sheena kicking and screaming into the Audio/Visual 21st Century.



Gone is the behemoth of a TV that blemished their living room and enter a modestly sized Sharp 32" Aquos. Not only can we watch TV in Toowoomba without cringing at the cropped widescreen programming, but as the "family tech support guy" I no longer have to wrestle with a boulder when I need to plug in new equipment. Even though my joy is mired by a parthian shot from the old CRT, as I've pulled my left arm helping John carry it to the garage, it was so worth it. The event would have been even sweeter if we'd picked up a DVR to complete the package but I guess there's always next time.

While Alison and I hadn't explicitly planned on coercing John into buying AV equipment, we did predict potential for growth in electronics and remote controls in the lounge eventually. With the knowledge of John's distaste for clutter we picked up a Logitech Harmony 515 universal remote for him for Father's Day. I've been using one of these for a while now and it's amazing how easy it is to program compared to universal remotes of old.



Unfortunately I did run into a few issues getting input switching to work on the Aquos (how ironic). Unlike most TVs I've worked with, the Sharp doesn't have specific IR commands for each input source, rather relying on OSD menu navigation to change between them. Given that state isn't available to the remote, this meant that changing from TV to DVD was only possible with dirty hacks (ie, switching channels to force TV input followed by moving down input sources a known and static number of notches before hitting enter). Not quite the straight forward experience I had when working with our Hitachi, but I got there in the end.

Now armed with universal remote and decent TV I'm sure that John and Sheena will be able to enjoy their TV watching with gusto. At least once we get rid of the four (yes count 'em, FOUR) VCR players they have with the aforementioned DVR. The struggle continues.

As an aside, we've had some success with our little fruit and vegies we planted. The strawberry plant had a few flowers which were chomped repeatedly by some garden pest, though we now have a growing and thus far uneaten strawberry! The assumption is that our fruit stealing nemesis has either given up or merely biding time while the berry ripens under our care. Our real success story however is the lettuce.



Look at the bunches (what's the collective noun for lettuce anyway?)! They're practically overflowing out of the barrel so I think it'll be another week before we start clipping off the young leaves for a little salad. Thoroughly satisfying for amateur green thumbs.

Our other achievement was finding the right succulent for our rusty watering can turned planting pot. We've been hunting high and low for something I'd seen in a magazine once. Finally found them at a nearby nursery and learned they're called Burro's Tail (sedum morganianum). We punctured the bottom of the can and filled it with potting mix and the crassulaceae (isn't Wikipedia wonderful?).



As we packed the mix pretty high in the can I employed what I thought was a delightfully ingenious method of watering while avoiding overflow. I put the spout of the can under the tap and let 'er rip with the can tilted on an angle. The role reversal amused me to no end. Seemed to do the trick though I've reverted to more traditional methods since.

I've been working on a something special for this little blog for the past few weeks, though it's taking a lot longer than I thought it would. Hoping to reveal the results sometime in the next week or so. Watch this space!