I just got enrolled in a company training class that will meet at a suburban Milwaukee location three times, first next week, and ending on September 12-13. (Seven sessions over four months, most just a couple hours and many of those online.) Hm, what is it that sounds familiar about going to Wisconsin on 9/13?

I found that Netflix has the full classic Knight Rider series. I've been watching episodes from the first season that I never saw. Oh, the '80s .... KARR was weird in his first appearance. No real motivation. If I had seen it when I was seven, I can imagine how confused I would have been to hear Optimus Prime saying those things. But now I understand how he ended up buried in that beach, which made for a much better sequel in the second season.

I created a separate, non-public wishlist at Amazon to move everything like that to: things I'd like but are currently available to me in one library or another. Need to weed through the other lists now.

My car has about as many microprocessors as KITT. Why can't it drive me to and from Wisconsin? Maybe I should be thankful for its lack of attitude.

Ended up buying the Blu-ray burner. I realized that if I update the firmware on the player and the region-free codes stop working, as online reports indicate they probably will, then I'm stuck with a region B/2 player. As always, piracy wins for ease of use. Transcoding takes a long time, like almost two days per disc on my laptop, but that just needs to be done once and we hardly buy things that often. It does make it worthwhile to burn transcoded copies to another disc for backup, even though they can be reproduced from the originals.

I also just got a USB charging cable so I can charge the Nokia phone from my multi-USB charger on vacation. USB charging is a small mess. Short version (really!) without citing everything: original standard = 500 mA, no problem. That's most computer USB ports. AC chargers can provide more but have to signal the phone/tablet/etc. that it's OK to pull more. Actual standard: crossed data lines = 1000 mA available. Without seeing that, some phones won't pull >500mA, and some like my Nokia (and past Motorolas) won't charge at all. Apple standard: various constant voltages on data lines = various amounts available on power lines. iPads, for example, won't charge if they don't see the values they expect, so lots of third party chargers provide them. But then everything else either charges a little slowly or (Nokia, Motorola, ?) doesn't charge at all. Solution: "charging cable" with data pins crossed in micro-USB connector. Just don't confuse it with a normal, "data" cable.

While researching that, I discovered that my multimeter is reading DC voltages wrong, reporting a number about 50% higher than it should. I have nothing to check it against but if it's not the meter, then every battery and power adapter in the house is severely overpowered. This actually makes me feel better about some readings I have seen in the past. I need to try replacing its battery, which is rather old, to see if that helps it work better. Otherwise I'll eventually want a new one of those too.

Debating which route to take on our Blu-ray player. It keeps dying, generally not making it through any one thing that we want to watch. Options:

1. Update firmware at potential cost of losing region-free capabilities I paid for
2. Get BD drive for computer(s); rip and stream stuff to Roku via Plex
3. Get DVD copies of the two things we own on BD

Respectively:

1. Firmware update seems worth a try since the other options involve disposing of the stupid piece of hardware anyway. Not guaranteed to work. Does involve getting it working enough to even accept an update.
2. A nice USB 3.0 external burner looks like it's around $160. A nice internal drive and eSATA case might be less, but I think I'd prefer to buy rather than assemble what I want in this case. I don't have USB 3.0 anywhere, but this looks like a place to future-proof. eSATA drives look too expensive. This option opens the possibility of backing up 50 GB at a crack, which I would use if I had but don't know just how to value.
3. If we buy used DVDs and sell the BDs it probably costs close to nothing to downgrade the two Blu-Ray items on the shelf. We find we don't care about the resolution difference, at least not on my 47" TV. But this precludes borrowing Blu-Ray movies from friends in the future.

Also, will try to remember http://jwz.org/b/yhLt when I have a really bad day at work …

I do miss the days of one commercial in an hour, but it's OK. I wouldn't mind a 15-second commercial every three songs … if you could just sign up more than one sponsor! I just turned you off halfway through hearing the same Target Clinic ad for the sixth time in an hour.

I remember this used to bug me when the AFL was on TV too. They'd have exactly five sponsors, who would all be cheap enough to produce exactly one commercial each. So every commercial break led to the same commercials, often in the same order too. I haven't had cable during the AFL season since the bankruptcy/dissolution, so I wonder if it's the same today.

I know I'm in bed late when Dinah has to come all the way upstairs to get me. Good secretary!

Puts a notification LED on a mainstream phone, per GSM Arena's preview. (And my respect for that review site races even higher for pointing it out!)

This is the one. (133g, 4.8" screen, physical home button, LED, and two things no longer automatic in 2012: big replaceable battery and microSD slot) Now to just decide on a target price. I bet it's going to be $800 to get in the U.S. the day after release. (Update: pre-order price is $775 as of 5/24. Am I good?) I'm not interested in how the U.S. carriers will screw it up, either: i9300 for me, thanks, with "merely" 21 Mbps HSDPA+. But probably not until the end of the year. And I can only hope no bad news comes out for reception (I'll accept Samsung average) or audio quality after testing.  Update: everything is great in the full review!

Meanwhile I'm carrying my E73 for a while. I got maps loaded for vacation — thanks to the folks that worked out the "alternative map loader" page for Ovi Maps — not that I expect to be out of data coverage. I'm enjoying having a light phone in a holster on my hip again. Fell in love with the keyboard harder than ever after touching it. I think work's downgrade to a Curve got me in practice with what is still, while tolerable, a too narrow keyboard. Not enjoying all the known issues with Symbian. But I'm planning on taking this one out of town. Light, better camera, and offline navigation, yet I won't mind losing it.