Grand Theft Cinema

You may be wondering why the slight silence on my part; and you do well to do so. Here's why:

Being the unrepentant cheapskate I am, I managed to steal -- steal, I tell you! -- a fancy-arse projector. This means that I have been spending my free time trying to get it to work with the rest of my rig, along with imagining how else I might improve said rig ("Oooh, I could get the new Googleplex 7.1 demodulator and an extra amplifier and...").

The problem is this projector was accompanied by a VERY thick manual written by someone whose first three languages are not Occidental and translated into English via a haphazard applications of Babelfish. Further complicating the issue is that I had bought a HD-DVD player as a Christmas gift to self late December and I have been attempting to install them simultaneously. This, as anyone with an inch's worth of cranial space will tell you, is stupid. As I found out.

Because I am often at great risk of terminal smugness (my default mood, alas) it is a good thing to exercise public humility, and this is done by telling you the stupid thing I did, which inhaled hours I'll never get back and nearly cost me a zillion dollars in fancy-@$$ gear I almost ruined.

Like an idiot, I connected the new and untested HD-DVD to the new and untested projector and fired both of them up. Sure enough, an image from the projector flickered to life on the blank hunk of wall screen. It was a menu, indicating for me to set up the date, time, etc. and hit "OK" once I was done and satisfied with the time settings. So I took out the projector's remote and pushed the button to move the cursor to the "Year" field which needed changing.

Nothing.

"Hmm," I said "must be bad batteries."

So I changed the batteries and went through the procedure yet again.

Nothing.

I powered off.

I powered on.

I hit "reset" several times.

I hit "menu" several times.

I adjusted the various parameters of the various sub-menus.

I spent 1:27 on hold with the tech support help line (Hint: It only helps if you talk to a human.)

I looked up the troubleshooting section.

I looked for the various menu options.

I tried everything.

Only in desperation, as my brain lumbered to life amid a shower of rust and calcification, did it dawn on me that maybe this menu was not a menu of the projector's but, rather, the HD-DVD player.

Which it was.

And it only took me ___ hours to figure out.

-J.