Dots of death, Jmo is back, cancelled

Last night as I was watching Boardwalk Empire on the 73 incher I noticed a small white dot near the top of the screen.  Hmm that’s odd, I wonder how long that had been there, I don’t recall ever seeing it before.  Of course once I saw it, it stuck out like a sore thumb.  I was annoyed my monster tv had a flaw.

Well as I was finishing up my second episode I noticed a SECOND dot had shown up, lower and to the right.  WTF?? This can’t be good.

So after I finished up the show I jumped on my computer and punched in “white dots mitsubishi dlp” My screen filled with a ton of hits, evidently this is a common issue.

The problem apparently starts as a few dots and grows over time, in some situations people reported having as many as 1000 dots on their sets.  Some people also reported having this issue happen rather early in the TV’s lifespan, less than two years in some cases. Well my tv was bought in May of 08, just now passing it’s 4th birthday.

As I read more I encountered outrageous repair costs for the problem which appears to be in the light engine or more specifically a chip in the light engine.  Some people were quoted outrageous estimates of more than $1000 to fix their sets.  The problem is so prevalent that there is a Facebook group dedicated to it.

Well when I bought my tv from Best Buy in 08 I decided to tack on an extended warranty, something I almost NEVER do.  It was an extra $400, not cheap at all.  I began a search through my files to find all my paperwork.

At first I couldn’t find my receipts but luckily they were in the third location I checked.  On the receipt it showed I purchased a 4 year extended warranty which when tacked on to the 1 year manufacturer warranty should still put me inside the coverage window.

I have no doubt that the process of actually getting the tv fixed under the extended warranty will be a pain in the ass.  It seems that anything at Best Buy outside of swiping your credit card at the register is a pain in the ass with them.  Boy it would be awesome if they said it was too expensive to fix and just gave me one of the newer models that has the upgraded 3D engine.  I could only be so lucky.

Yesterday I resumed production on the Jmo’s World cartoon series.  Unfortunately most of the humor in them are inside jokes that are most funny to a small inner circle that knows us personally.

I also discovered that Xtranormal has released a new desktop app that allows you to create the movies on your own pc instead of doing so via their rather slow and somewhat limited web site interface.

I played with the app a bit.  It is great, allowing me much more flexibility in character control as well as lifting the online 2 character limit.  The rendering happens nearly instantly instead of taking several minutes.  It should open the creative doors even further in the future.

Well I had plans for a fun weekend laid out with Randall coming over to play in a rare near by volleyball tournament in Fort Myers.  Unfortunately he wound up hurting himself doing some recreational activities over the Memorial Day weekend and had to bow out.

I tried to get some last minute replacements(Jeremy/Tabby) but was unsuccessful in doing so.

Tabby said that he was available the following weekend for a tournament that takes place in Siesta Key, a lot farther away but a beautiful beach.  It just happens to be the location I played with Tabby last year, winning the BB division in some of my very limited volleyball play.

So it looks like I will be heading 90 minutes north next Saturday for my first volleyball action of 2012.

This weekend I will be having a dog sleepover Saturday night as Ali has a local triathlon Sunday morning.  It will be nice to have the girls around for an extended period of time.

I also hope to buy and place the 25 landscape castle stones needed to finish the pool border.  That will leave the border around the pond to do at some point but I think that is going to be relegated as a winter project.  For the summer I will refocus on indoor projects like painting the master bedroom and bathroom. AC is my friend.