Heelychat, the forum for heelys, the shoes with wheels - View topic

The great thing about being good at English is I can take bad days like this one and make them into funny, or at least schadenfreude-funny, stories.

Ready?

So, I'm going to buy a video camera. Heelys has asked me for some video, and whatever Heelys wants, Heelys gets. So I go to Target (Wee, heeling space!), ask some questions, see a video camera for sale that's $150. I decide to shop around some. I go to Sears (intentionally parking on the far side of the lineoleum-floored mall, guess why!), and see a VERY nice camera for $280. Mmm, not bad. But I decided to shop around instead of grabbing it.

I ended up buying a $100 cheapo camera, that came in a plastic hanger-box, at Wal-mart (wooo, more Heeling space! This store doesn't bug me about them.) and thought that it would be suitable. What was I thinking?

After being bugged by security because the guys in the electronics department were too stupid to deactivate the security tags on the stuff I just bought, I take it home. I put the 4 AAA batteries in there and turn it on.

My first clue (as if $100 camera at Walmart wasn't enough) that this thing sucks is that the flip-out portion is pointed DOWNWARDS instead of in the direction of the camera. And no, it didn't turn! So I'm forced to look UP at the camera just to pick an angle to film anything. And while attempting to film myself, I find that playing back the clips leads to the camera sorta-rebooting, and then coming back up darker and darker each time until I turned it off and back on, my second clue that the thing was junk.

I should have taken it back right there, but I had to be stupid and install the software, which led to my third clue:

Blue Screen of Death! Haven't seen YOU in a while! Man, when's the last time I saw my good friend Exception 0E in 0028:randomhex where he always hangs out? That's just installing the software, that's not plugging it in. Okay, heck with the software, I can just use the camera as a USB hard drive. Now THIS was one of the best features about this thing. Very nice to have. So after all the problems, I open up one of my videos, it pops right open as an ASF...

...and NO. Totally dark. I'm almost invisible, and the picture quality is XTX Roller Shoes. Back to the store it goes. I keep the 1GB memory card I bought with it. At 20 bucks it's a steal.

Okay, back to Sears (far side of the mall again... so much beautiful wide open space). I want that camera I saw for $280. Good stuff. I buy it, the guy has to walk me all the way back through the back to get the item (Sears has a very, very A-retentive policy on inventory), I get it, heel back to my car, get home, and...

It's not the same camera. There's no slot for the memory card.

I'm so pissed that I don't even park on the other side of the mall this time. I go in there, find out that the display model they had was nothing like the actual camera I bought (a GS-29). The guy graciously informs me that I won't be charged a restocking fee for this. Yeah, thanks a lot Cap'n Jack, you mind refunding me my time instead? I buy another, almost identical camera (the GS-39) that I understand has the memory card feature, so I buy that one instead.

I take it home, and find the following after a 1:40 battery charge:

1. The memory card is only for still pictures and can't record video

2. It doesn't come with the necessary USB/FireWire cables

3. The drivers are for 2000/XP and I'm on 98 and don't really want to upgrade

4. The GS-39 doesn't really support computer transmission on anything but still images anyway- I'd need to get an A/V card for my system to handle that (A/V cables usually mean better quality anyway). or get yet another camera.

Needless to say, I'm frustrated. And Sears is closed. I look online and find that hey, Best Buy is still open! I'll go there, get the stuff I need to finish this up, and be all done. Right?

Oh no, not today. The site lied. Best Buy is el closed-o and looks like it's been that way for some time. So I drive on to Walmart, make a certain left turn..

..and find I went the wrong Togoing way on a divided highway. It's late at night. I'm still frustrated. I need to stop. I do a quickie turnaround to get myself out of that (no, I wasn't at risk of hitting anyone), go to the nearest gas station, grab a large Cafe Mocha and catch the part of the 3rd Quarter in which the Bears got sacked twice in a row after being 2nd and 1. Suitably caffeinated and refreshed, I set out again.

Yes, I make it to Walmart (heeling, ah heeling, how you make even this such a better experience), and they don't have what I need.. except for the digital video tape to work with this camera. I buy it. Now I can at least record myself tonight, even if I can't put it on the Internet quite yet.

It's funny. I can reprogram PHP and do all sorts of nifty Internet tricks, but I can't do AV for Air Skates. I think I'm going to end up keeping this camera- it's a good one- and just find a PCI card that will do A/V captures.

Team Heelys - SoCal Joined: 26 Dec 2006 Posts: -123845

Aww. Poor Slicey. I'm sorryy. I've had days like this too. Sad

And when trying to use Winamp, I find that my soundcard's gone missing from my system.

I take out the soundcard, going to reboot with and then without it, I turn it on to reboot again, and my monitor doesn't turn on when it does. Lovely.

The ATI card somehow became just a little bit unseated, and it's only by my long experience with this kind of Spider-Man Skate Shoes that I found out about it.

Oh yeah. Bad, bad day today.

Because I laugh in the face of fate, I'm going to film (but not upload..) my grinds in a little while.

Team Heelys - SoCal Joined: 26 Dec 2006 Posts: -123845

Yay! I've never seen a video from you before, lol.

Okay! Well that was yesterday. Let's see how today's havoc went.

First thing I do when I'm in the mood to do anything is head over to Best Buy (part lineoleum, part carpet). I was looking around for video capture cards, as I devided to go with the A/V cable route. So I look around to their camcorder section, note that Best Buy is selling the camcorder I bought at the same price I bought it for (Best Buy and Sears price-matching? Wow..), and hunt down a service guy to help me find something that I can hook into my computer.

He looks around like he pretends he knows what he's talking about, I immediately head for the cheapest PCI card I can find and look on the back (no, this isn't like the fiasco with the cheapo camera at Squalor-Mart, this is ATI).

Him: I don't think that'll work.

Me: "RCA, does that mean the three-cable output?" (this is a big DUH! for those of you with experience, I'm sure)

Him (sheepish): "Yeah, it does."

Me: "Hmm, Windows XP.. ah well. I guess I'll have to upgrade." (I actually went back to 98 some time ago after a massive computer failure. I hate Microsoft. If I had the time and the inclination I'd go Linux.)

I grabbed some cables too, just to be able to record things from my TV to my computer. There's some PS2 demos I'd love to record.

So, I plug the PCI card in, turn on my computer, and... nothin'. Let's try this again, only let's actually seat that thing in there. Ok, good. Try to install on 98 just to see what happens.. "NTLDR.DLL not found." Yeah, it wouldn't be.

I deleted my copy of XP a while ago, so I get one from my friend, who's listed as Rent, Bitto R. in the phone book. Install, spend the time filming, and reboot.

BOOM crash.

Ok, that wasn't good. Don't tell me I killed my computer. Reboot in last good configuration.. hey, wait a minute, there is no last good configuration, this is a fresh install! BOOM same crash.

Boot up in Safe Mode, and spend hours and a dozen reboots (some with insta bluescreen-reboots) getting to the meat of the problem: that the ATI videocard drivers weren't installed properly for XP.

OK, that settles that. Now to save my video to disk. Hey, guess what! The card no workie! Several reboots later, hey look the driver wasn't installed like I thought it was. Okay... and it STILL doesn't work! Is it my camera? No, that outputs to the TV just fine. Ahhh, it's not on S-Video, it's on Composite. Finally. Windows Movie Maker and I'm finally, FINALLY done this long trek to doing something as simple as making a video.

(But Shoutbox hacks? Take me minutes. I live in Bizarro World.)

And now I discover... that my TV only has audio out, not video.

Ah well, one last trip to BB...

Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 16

i stay away from tek-no-lo-gi *giggles*