My Day...

I didn’t accomplish a lot today but I am happy that I accomplished something besides sweating a pound or two…
Man is it HOT here in Boston. It was like 85 degrees Fahrenheit- which is 30C to my Canadian readers (and this conversion came via a Buffalo, NY web site).

I did however put a shirt and tie on to apply for a job at my undergraduate school. I found an XL shirt… and I thought about it for a moment. I felt that so long as it was clean, I did my tie and I tucked the shirt in- the XL would be ok even though I’m now a Med. I also thought the XL would have the added bonus of NOT sticking to me, because of the heat. Likewise I made sure to put a bandana in my pants pocket, which I used to mop my brow before going into the library. I talked briefly to someone on the hiring committee. I made sure that I let her know that I was an alumni, and I let slip that I still went to the school’s GYM. I sort of feel that went a bit too far, but I did want to point out that I was still in the neighborhood.
I then went to the Alumni office to see if they could help give me an in on this job or otherwise keep me alerted about jobs. Sadly the person I wanted to talk to wasn’t in and they wouldn’t give me her extension number.

Ok- when I told my mom that I spoke to a person at my undergraduate school, my mom asked me if I had mentioned where I got my library degree and other stuff. I told my mom that I feared that I had rambled as it was… and I could just see my mom rolling her eyes- If I feel that I can do nothing right, I think my parents help me feel that way… So I tried to reaffirm to my mom that the woman who I gave my resume to didn’t say anything but thank you and I made sure that I mentioned I went to the school as an undergraduate… and I confirmed that the job was still open.
My mom then told me that I needed to write this woman a thank you note for her time, besides trying to actually contact her in a week or so. I told my mom that I got her FIRST name but not her last name, I didn’t get her card. Again I could hear my mom’s aggravation with me… She pointed out that I was a librarian and should be able to find this out. At first, I told her I’d ask at the library on Friday… but then I figured WTF? I’d try to see if I could google it using her first name, librarian and futzing with the name of the college I went to. I found a likely last name- a librarian with the first name who has published from that college- but I wasn’t sure as it’s a pretty common first name imho. So I then played around with google putting the first name and the last in quotes as a search. Found a picture of her, confirming that I had the last name correct. The picture showed her as a member of the Alumni Board for my GRADUATE school. Now I didn’t mention what graduate school I went to to her as it was on my resume and, as said, I was worried about rambling… While I MIGHT mention it again in my thank you letter to her, I don’t plan to mention that I know she graduated with HER MLS from the same school- as I think that would be creepy.
And mentioning she was class of 92 and I was class of 01 is right OUT.

I also went to the my undergraduate Alumni Association to see if THEY could put a good word in for me( this is of course way before knowing that one of the people who might help hire me is on my GRAD school Alumni Association). Sadly they were NO help.

Meanwhile my other ‘accomplishment’ was I was talking to someone at Best Buy about my TV. I have a HD TV and I want my Xbox 360 to be as well connected to it as I can. It has REALLY bothered me that even though I have a ‘letter box’ dimensioned TV- my Xbox STILL letterboxes things. While I was talking to the guy at best buy, he pretty much confirmed my fear that MY Xbox 360 does NOT have an HDMI port that I want for it so that it can give me a TRUE HD DVD experience… He did however point out that I could most likely play with my Xbox 360’s settings to get the letterboxing to be a bit more on the same page as my TV.
Checking my component HD AV cables… I noticed that there was a little switch- TV/HD TV… and like a STUP- it was set to TV and my Xbox 360 was set to Standard Picture. So I changed the SWITCH to HD TV then rechecked to see what image quality my TV is (1080 i) so I would get the BEST possible picture I can.
Haven’t played any games… or really checked out any movies- save to look at how the FILLS the screen.
Sadly while I feel quite happy and the picture seems crisper- there is still the letterboxing black bars. I tried three movies- Species, Death Proof (disk 1) and the first disk of the first Pirates of the Caribbean.
My Xbox 360 does say it’s current display settings are 1080i, Widescreen, Standard. Don’t know what the last ‘Standard’ refers to- just that I can’t change it. It says on that screen, below 1080i, Widescreen, Standard: Set the screen format to match your TV. You must connect an Xbox 360 HD AV Cable to configure high definition display modes. Then when I click on HDTV settings it just asks me to set resolution (ex: 480p, 720p, 1080i). It does NOT allow me to mess with screen format.
So this isn’t as cool as the job prospect- my screen looks crisper but the only way to get true HDMI is to take my hard drive off- trade my 360 in for a NEW one with a HDMI port( which they all have after September) and then perhaps trade the hard drive of the NEW Xbox in. I say trade the new one in because I’ve paid for downloads, and there’s really no way to transfer them without either a) constantly being connected to Xbox Live to confirm that you are the person who originally downloaded them ( with this option you re-download after proving that you paid)… or b) buying cables for this one time event of hooking the two drives together… and I’d rather just keep what I have for now.
Ah well. At least the Xbox 360 is set right after about 4 months.