I got up, started watching tivo.

My throat is killing me.

I decided to try my dvd in my parent's dvd player, is the disk not burned properly, or is my dvd player the piece of poo I think it is.

My parents have a Pioneer DV-355 (the player I wish I had bought instead of this Philips crap, but the Pioneer doesn't have a 5.1 ac3 decoder, and the Philips does, and my old analogue reciever didn't have ac3 decoder but 5.1 in, I've since replaced the receiver with a digital receiver with ac3 in, so I wouldn't have had an issue with the Pioneer, and I've only got 3.1 speakers connected anyway).

So anyway, I shoved the disc in, and in about 2 seconds the menu popped up. Great, and shit. Great, my disc works, I mucked around with it, the menu is perfect, all the video files work, they look great, but shit, it means my dvd player is a piece of poo, what a surprise.

I watched a bit of tivo.

I searched for my laptop hard drive adapter, found it after 1/2 hour. I pulled the hard disk out of the laptop, put it in my pc, booted up knoppix, mounted the disk, and started salvaging the data. I think the disk is dying, it keeps making all these clicking noises (although it's done that since it was purchased, back in 2001). Halfway through it locked up, great. Oh, and some files claim to be unreadable. after I rebooted/remounted etc, I continued grabbing files, and was able to grab the rest.

Rebooted again, into windows, burned a cd, put the hard disk back in the laptop.

I rang my mate to find out if he wanted me to drop it around. He wasn't home, his daughter who now works for him was, yeah, he probably wants it.

I loaded up my bike, and went around there, dropped off the laptop and cd with his data on it. His wife was there, and her cousing, he's renovating the garage my mate was living in until last weekend (who moved into the place he used to live in).

I chatted for a bit, and took off.

I went around to Domayne to look at DVD players, I think I want the Pioneer player, I've got a Pioneer receiver now, and my remote for that will control the dvd player. $320 for the DV-355, not too bad, I paid more for the shitty Philips thing.

Not only does the Philips refuse to play burned discs, but it also has problems running for more than about 90 minutes at a time. It's great, I sit down to watch a long movie, like T2, or more than one movie at a time, and the thing shits itself. It has to be off for 1/2 hour before it will go again, and then you only get about 1/2 before it screws up again. Crap.

After that I got some lunch at McDonalds, and sat and read the paper for 1/2 hour. It was nice to be able to sit and do nothing.

Then I went to pay my Amex bill. 3 trips around the Post Office, and I can't find a parking spot, even for my bike. Oh, and 3pm is the worst time to go through Gosford. Mum's taxis everywhere, and everyone who can't drive is out on the road.

I gave up on that, and went to another Post Office.

I decided to go back to Gosford again, I think there are a couple of electrical places in there, get some more prices. I went to Retravision, and was completely ignored. They didn't have any Pioneer anyway.

I went over to the other shopping centre, the electrical place is gone from there, (along with almost every other shop, why is this shopping centre even open?), so I went back to the first one where I was parked. I went to Dick Smith on the way back there, "we don't have Pioneer, you'll have to go to Powerhouse at Erina". great, thanks for nothing.

I got back on my bike, and headed for home, it was getting overcast and dark, I think that bloody storm is having another go.

I've got a shocking headache. I stopped in at the general store on my way home $5 for 12 Panadol. Christ. I bought them and went home.

I started watching tv, the storm rolled in a bit. Mum came in, apparently my sister and her boyfriend are up from Melbourne. Like I want anything to do with them.

Got a little bit of rain, nothing much.

I felt really shit. I lay down with a cold cloth, I tried to sleep, I noticed that tivo was recording the Sky channel. Bugger, the channels are all mixed up again. I got up and started sorting them out again. I thought I was going to die, my head was killing me. I took more Panadol and went back to bed. It was about 6pm (tivo started recording the simpsons). I turned it off.

I slept until about 11pm, then I got up again, and mucked around with video files again. I felt ok now.

I tried to find something else to burn dvds with, apparently some people have issues with Nero, I hate Nero anyway.

I downloaded some "winiso" thing, it crashed, and looks like it only makes CD isos anyway, then I tried some other iso thing, isomagic I think, I couldn't find a crack for it. No good.

I tried using mkisofs to create an iso and burn it with DVDdecrypter. First I tried isoing the 5.3gb dvd files, it crashed at 75%. I then tried again with the proper dvdshrunk files, and it crashed at 96%.

I then tried burning the dvd with DiscJuggler, hey these are DVDRWs, if it doesn't work, I'll just format it again right? It is now about 3am, and I have to work tomorrow, so I'm leaving it burning and going to bed.