Supirsingly Fun...

Last night, with much trepidation on my part, we ventured to the depths of Ballard and to the Tractor Tavern to listen to the delights of Brave Combo.  I can't say that Polka is really my thing, but it was certainly a lot of fun and it made me regret hitting the gym and then walking a couple of miles because we also danced for an hour.

With Polka it's really hard to know where you are.  Certainly it feels like the Germans have a lot to answer for, and they can probably power a chunk of Paris from the spinning in somebodies grave over the Polka version of When You're a Stranger.

Still, a good time.  We also met the Seattle Bubble Man, who was entertaining too.

Media Center Musings...

So, I moved the external HDD to the main PC and mapped the drives to the Media Centre upstairs.  So far, so good.  Standard DivX .avi files for TV shows play perfectly.  The real test came with some HD content I found.  That's where I hit a wall.  One file I have is 1.8GB for a 20 minute item, which is pretty high quality.  That was pushing the wireless network to its limits, when you do the maths it's pretty close to the limits for an 802.11G connection.

I tried a couple of DVD rips I've backed up.  Forbidden Planet worked fine, as did a couple of others.  Lawrence of Arabia was also pushing the limit, especially in the scenes with too much going on.  So, I have to think about the options.  The obvious solution, the one I won't mention to M because she probably won't notice, is to buy an 802.11N router and upgrade the WiFi card in the Media Center.  I'm assured that that will give me the kind of bandwidth I need to stream HD DVD over the network.  

Apart from that, the new setup works well.   I've got the movies library set up and have loaded up some of my old VHS tapes that I transcribed in the UK before we moved.  My copy of UHF was getting really really ropey as was Ms copy of Sweet n'Short - a weird South African comedy made in the early 90s about a TV presenter who gets hit on the head and wakes up 7 years later in "the New South Africa".  It was actually pretty scandalous stuff for when it was made but a fun enough movie centering on a Rugby International, on the assumption that after apartheid ended they could play international rugby again.  How little did he know that they would actually win that first World Cup!

Anyway, back to work.  Lots to do today.