Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

This blog will pay for itself.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

This fight is for everything.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

T R E 4 5 O N

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / I Am So Frustrated Right Now

I Am So Frustrated Right Now

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If anyone has a tech savvy teen in the tri state area of the Ohio Valley within driving distance, I will pick them up, feed them, pay them, feed them again, and deposit them back on your doorstep if they will just come to my house and set up my tv and sound bar. I took everything apart today, unhooked everything, made the wires all tidy, cleaned everything, put it back together, AND NOTHING FUCKING WORKS.

I am ready to break shit.

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  3. 3.

    guachi

    Without knowing your TV or your soundbar or if you have anything else plugged in… what you probably want to do is plug the soundbar into the ARC HDMI input on the TV.  That should be good to get the sound from the TV to the soundbar.

  6. 6.

    DFH

    @guachi’s recommendation is good.  Also look for the optical cord and the corresponding inputs on the soundbar and in the back of the TV.

    And who knows, there might be directions with the unit.  :-)

  9. 9.

    Omnes Omnibus

    If it was working, why in the name of all that is good and right in the world did you fuck with it?

    ETA:  I realize this is not a helpful question.  But maybe you can learn from this.

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    so you removed the protective layer of dust and now you want some poor kid to come and put it back?

  11. 11.

    Roger Moore

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Because he learned neatness at the knee of his very German father.  He disconnected everything so he could straighten up the wires.  I can understand the desire.  Wires have the amazing ability to turn themselves into rats’ nests even if you don’t do anything.

  16. 16.

    ColoradoGuy

    First, get the TV working, either with an antenna, cable box, satellite box, Ethernet or WiFi, depending on what you want to watch (broadcast, cable, satellite, or Internet streaming). WiFi can be fiddly to set up if your Internet router requires a password. Ethernet works right away, but the wire is unsightly if the router is in another room.

    Once you have a viewable picture and sound, then tackle the soundbar. It will need an HDMI or optical cable between the TV and soundbar, and the TV might need to be configured to send sound to either type of cable (in the settings menu of the TV). Some soundbars might require the HDMI signal (from the cable box etc.) to go to the soundbar first, then out to the TV.

    But first of all, get the TV working with an appropriate signal source. The cable or satellite box will have an HDMI output, and this carries sound and vision. Antenna will have a round RF input. Internet streaming will be Ethernet cable or a wireless WiFi connection.

  23. 23.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    I could use a West Virginia vacation.

    That said, I live in Evansville. IN and don’t guarantee results.

    OTOH, the hard part of setting up my system was running the wiring.

    Understanding how was the easiest part, but drilling and flushing wiring was the hardest.

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    Relate.

    “New tech” is so bad my MIT-degreed bro cannot steel himself to replace his AV system and soldiers along with, and I can’t believe I’m typing it, his Sony Trinitron CRT set. And yes, all races are critical.

    Mind you, his eyes are shit and he could really use an upgrade from 720 lines of analog picture but will he bite the bullet and just hire somebody? Nooooooo.

    Fixing to replace my LED set with an OLED 4k display, but have some spousal pushback. [watches everything on ipad–ptooey]

  26. 26.

    Weapon X

    When you pull in the driveway, hit the gas right before you shut the car off. That way, your carburetor will be full of gas when you go to start it up again.

  27. 27.

    Another Scott

    @trollhattan: My dad had a giant Trinitron tube.  36″?  40″?  It weighed something like 250 pounds.  Replacing it was a big job…

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  28. 28.

    HeleninEire

    LOL. Let’s talk about tech savy teens. A fun thing that happened with my best friend Debbie’s girl Devon on Sunday. She’s 17.  So we went for brunch and had to show out vax cards. I have a NY Excellsior pass. No one looks at that. I haven’t uploaded the NYC app which digitizes your vac card. So I only have hard copies. And Devon says to me “I’ll upload it for you.” Like I’m an old lady who can’t do it for herself!!! ??? I love her soooo much.

  30. 30.

    prostratedragon

    This is why I groan and procrastinate any need to change or disconnect any of my machinery, even objectively I know what to do. The darn things seem to have a mind of their own.

    @Roger Moore:
    Wires have the amazing ability to turn themselves into rats’ nests even if you don’t do anything.
    Tell me about it. I use a 75ft cannula at home that is anchored to the O2 machine at one end and me at the other. How you get knots out of that I leave to the topologists, but trust me, you do get them. And I do still prefer wired connections, despite being pretty sure that no one is listening and having far less reason than the VPOTUS to care if they do, so you can add to the mix keeping headphone and charger cords out of the nest.

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    @Another Scott:

    You are NOT kidding. To make those giant picture tubes appear to have flat screens, the glass can be more than an inch thick at the edges. Helped somebody move his 40″ Mitsubishi once. Never again.

  38. 38.

    Soprano2

    I had to hook our new-to-us used 200 disc CD player up a couple of weeks ago (yay we can listen to our Christmas CD’s again and yes I’m 60 why do you ask? ?). That entailed moving our stereo cabinet away from the wall and unhooking almost everything from the receiver. I was holding my breath that I got it all hooked back correctly, there were so many wires! It all works, so it was good.

  40. 40.

    Ohio Mom

    This is why we don’t have a TV anymore. Fourteen years ago, then 10 year old Ohio Son was being punished by being denied his computer.

    Somehow he got something up and running on the TV screen so I disconnected everything. I pulled out every cable connecting whatever — the VCR/DVD, the wii, the converter box, who knows what else.

    When he came home, Ohio Dad looked at the mess I had created and declared he wasn’t putting it back together. And he never did.

    Last year we paid an electronic junk yard $25 to take it.

    I didn’t set out to be someone who spurned owning a TV but it was very easy to get used to not having one.

  42. 42.

    prostratedragon

    the wire is unsightly if the router is in another room
    And a trip hazard unless under something. I use one of these to bridge a gap across a doorway and it also keeps the ethernet cable all but out of sight, along with some routing behind furniture. For DIYers who’ve never done this, search term “cord management” is magic.

  47. 47.

    Leto

    @Ohio Mom: when I deployed to Iraq in 2007, I think within 45 days our large rear projection 60” tv broke. I did some troubleshooting roughly 7k miles away and had a friend go over to do some simple repairs. It didn’t work. My wife basically went without a tv for a year. Near the end of that deployment she had to setup the move to our next duty station by herself. As the 333lbs dead tv cabinet was up on the third floor, and needed to gtfo of the apartment, she took it to the stairs and basically just pushed it down 3 flights. When it got to the bottom, it was now in a few easier to manage pieces that she could get to the dumpster.

  48. 48.

    L85NJGT

    Always take a picture/note of the leads on any relevant hardware before you start tearing into them.

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    @Tom Levenson:

    :-)

    I’m persnickety about both the picture and sound, moreso now that most content is mixed for 5.1 (or even more, but how many speakers can I possibly cram into the livingroom?) and can’t connect with the idea that just learning what happens is all you need. Might as well read spoiler-filled reviews and call it a night.

  52. 52.

    guachi

    I failed to mention what ARC stands for in my initial response. Audio Return Channel. It allows for sound to travel downstream from the TV while allowing sound/video to travel upstream to the TV.

    I suspect my usage is typical for why it was created. Connect blu-ray player/game console to receiver and connect receiver to TV. Audio/video travel from player/console to receiver. Video travels to TV and audio travels to TV and/or external speakers. But if, for example, you have cable hooked directly to your TV or stream directly to your TV the audio has to have some way to get from your TV to your receiver (or, in John’s case, the soundbar).

    ARC allows this to happen without needing additional cables. It’s all handled by a single HDMI cable between the TV and receiver.

  53. 53.

    Tony Gerace

    @HeleninEire: When I was 17 years old (almost a half-century) anyone older than 22 was “really old”.  At this point in my life, anyone younger than 60 is “a kid”.

  54. 54.

    Jackie

    @L85NJGT: My kiddos laughed at me for drawing and labeling a picture of all the hookup paraphernalia before dissembling.

    I got the last laugh!

  55. 55.

    trollhattan

    @Leto:

    And to think today that would have garnered a couple million TikTok views and…riches!

    Sure thought about it dealing with disposing of our hundred-pound CRT set; lovely cabinet was rounded and had no handholds whatsoever, while the stairwell is rather narrow and as steep as code allows. Window was soooo tempting, but glass and whatever is inside that tube stopped me.

    Hired dudes. That might make me one of the idle rich.

  56. 56.

    oatler

    I disconnected my soundbar (which my sister’s boyfriend installed) because i watch a lot of 60s/70s stuff on dvd and the soundbar over- emphasized the hiss of the original source.

  57. 57.

    H.E.Wolf

    Wires love to kink up. Several epochs ago, when land lines were still a thing, my home phone had a very long cord for the handset. The cord used to wind itself into a tiny little Gordian Knot about 3 inches in diameter.

    Luckily, I lived one floor up from ground level. I’d detach the cord from the handset, tie a shoe to one end, hold onto the other end, and toss the shoe over the balcony railing. Straightened the cord back out to factory-fresh state… for a few months.

    Also provided entertainment for the downstairs neighbor if she happened to be looking out the window during this manoeuvre. :)

  58. 58.

    Leto

    @trollhattan: when we bought it, it was me and friend who hoofed it up the three flights. Friend received gas money, 12 pack of beer, and a pizza. Money well spent. Avalune had a more pragmatic approach to disposal. But do agree, that would’ve made an excellent video :

    Edit: @H.E.Wolf: check out comment 45 :P

  59. 59.

    Grumpy Old Railroader

    Ha. We had the same problem when building an outbound train. Sometimes a group of boxcars would be in the wrong sequence and a crew would have to go back and switch them out and resequenced them. It sure sounds like someone did not pay attention to where wires went went they yanked them out and subsequently started randomly plugging them back in, which brings me to the old railroad term:

    We never have the time to do it right but always find the time to do it over

  63. 63.

    Poe Larity

    I’m trying to imagine a guy who ran an analog radio station being defeated by a soundbar. The Mothership did not come with a soundbar.

    Just stick to 2 channel as god intended and turn off all the android tv internets and apps. Dumb tv driven by a pc or mac via hdmi, all yer channels by browser and ublock origin FF. no android ads, no roku, no fobs. usb dac to your stereo.

  65. 65.

    Almost Retired

    Wish I could help, but I am – for want of a better term – a tech cuckold.  My wife has a tech-related master’s degree, and for her own undoubtedly nefarious reasons has handled everything tech-related in our household and frozen my own skills at the “able to rewind the video before it’s returned to Blockbuster” stage.  She could probably talk Cole through the process, but it would probably involve using the tone of voice she uses with me when discussing tech: The tone appropriate for addressing a  fourth grader or a particularly perceptive dog.  Not sure she and Cole would mesh.

  66. 66.

    jimmiraybob

    Well, if I learned anything being an auto mechanic in the 70s it’s that you need to adjust the points and timing.

  67. 67.

    NotMax

    If you’re really and truly stumped, why not take advantage of your alumnus status?

    1) Hike or drive to your frat’s house.
    2) Don a mask.
    3) Bribe a student member of the frat to perform the tinkering.
    .

  69. 69.

    HumboldtBlue

    I bought a new microwave oven two years ago, the clock will not set properly.

    It currently reads 18:18, and it’s 8.

  73. 73.

    Winston

    Well let me know when you can be here. I’m in Lakeland, Florida. I would be happy to spend a couple days helping you out.

  74. 74.

    prostratedragon

    @Poe Larity:  And that’s why I haven’t gone for one of the excellent BF sales on TVs, though I could use a larger one for the living room (which has a 27incher right now, smaller than the monitor I’m using).

  78. 78.

    The Dangerman

    I think the operative phrase is fuck with it and find out. I think you are on Step 2 of 3 (3 being breaking shit).

    I’m a proud member of PEBCAK. I used to be on the cutting edge of this shit; now, not so much and please get off my lawn.

  81. 81.

    Emma from Miami

    Please. I need some information. In the last two days our dog has been showing signs of what might be dementia. Doesn’t respond to our voices, finds odd places to hide/sleep, seems to walk aimlessly. It only happens late afternoon into evening. Doesn’t seem to be in distress otherwise.

    I already have a vet’s appointment for Saturday, earliest they can take him/I can get there. But have you ever experienced it with one of your babies? I am told it could also be a stroke?

  84. 84.

    Poe Larity

    Better idea. All day live stream debug. Jackals can log in whenever looking over your shoulder giving advice.

  85. 85.

    Winston

    @Winston: <iframe width=”679″ height=”506″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/IEhyOIwAlZw” title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe>

  86. 86.

    Ken

    @Spanky: I understand Bluetooth is the solution to all the world’s woes.

    Some may say that, but they’ve never had their Bluetooth headphones hacked and a 180 dB 15 kHz tone delivered directly into the coddled mess that used to be their brains.

  87. 87.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Leto: Thanks – just now read it and enjoyed it (three cheers for Knot Theoreticians!). The shoe method was a lot of fun, though. :)

  89. 89.

    eclare

    @Emma from Miami:   I don’t have any advice or experience, but I wanted to wish you and the doggo the best for Saturday

    ETA>  if you can, post in the morning open thread.  Lots of dog owners there too.

  90. 90.

    Felanius Kootea

    @Tom Levenson: I went there for one year when it was fondly called ZooMass and the students’ idea of fun in South West was elevator surfing.

    My goal in life at the time was to drive one of the PVTA-style buses that shuttled between UMass, Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke and Smith. UMass students were the majority of the drivers. Never happened, much to my disappointment :(.

  93. 93.

    eclare

    @H.E.Wolf:   There are a few in this thread who seem to enjoy dropping/pushing things over railings or stairs.  In a thread about electronics…hmmm….

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    I did something to the tv in my bedroom and now it doesn’t work. Satellite comes in clear as day on  the other TVs in the house. I try once a week , but nothing.

     

    I feel you, Cole.

     

    I feel you.

  98. 98.

    Skepticat

    I empathize. A few days ago, I unplugged everything to organize and neaten some wires that resembled spaghetti. It took hours to get things working so I could get back online. And I work online, so it was emotionally and fiscally expensive.​

  99. 99.

    eclare

    @NotMax:  Hahaha…I am also reminded of the printer scene from Office Space.  I can totally relate to that.  For one department where I worked, seems like each group had a software program that used different drivers.  Grrrr…

  100. 100.

    danielx

    Daughter unit somehow managed to get tv menu in Spanish, still haven’t figured out how to change it back to English.

  101. 101.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Poe Larity:

    Better idea. All day live stream debug. Jackals can log in whenever looking over your shoulder giving advice.

    That’ll fix it!  That is, whatever remains of Cole’s sanity!

  104. 104.

    H.E.Wolf

    @eclare: ​
     In my case, it was less about leaving a trail of debris, and more about hilarious (to me) ways to solve a problem without breakage.

    I’ve been vicariously enjoying all the stories of destruction, though!

  108. 108.

    sab

    I have said this in other threads. My husband let his car Bluetkooth his phone so that he could talk on his phone hands free.

    I drove home one day, parked in the driveway, hit the car audio source button to adjust from from FM I like to am he likes, and instead received his telephone conversation with his brother on  my car radio. He was sitting in our living room. I was in our car outside.

    No Bluetooth is not secure.

  109. 109.

    eclare

    @sab:   The details are fuzzy because it happened years ago, but I once picked up a coworker’s Bluetooth call.

  110. 110.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    @L85NJGT:

    Always take a picture/note of the leads on any relevant hardware before you start tearing into them.

    Aww, but that takes all the fun out of it.

  111. 111.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    @eclare:

    There are a few in this thread who seem to enjoy dropping/pushing things over railings or stairs.

    (Poster replies, with a savoring glint in his eye)

    “Mmmm… Republicans.”

  112. 112.

    ColoradoGuy

    Dead thread, but one of the worst misfeatures of Bluetooth is that it only supports one device pair at a time, but is both stubborn in switching to a new device, requiring multiple tries and full resets, or on the other hand, willy-nilly switch over to another device just because it feels like it. WiFi can be very annoying with it’s security configuration complexities, but Bluetooth is just perverse and unpredictable.

    What’s nicest about Ethernet these days is that It Just Works. True, it wasn’t that way back in the Nineties when we struggled with network cards, but now it sees the router and off it goes (as long as the router is actually working).

    One thing I would avoid like the plague is using the TV’s built-in Internet access and proprietary apps. No thanks, and I sure don’t want the damn TV listening to me and sending data back to the mothership. So I always use the TV as a dumb HDMI display, and never set up the Internet at all. That way, I can always choose the latest Roku, AppleTV, or Chrome streaming gizmo, and never need to mess with the buggy software in the TV.

    If the gizmo quits or becomes obsolete, who cares, they’re cheap and meant to be disposable. And they always have better software than the worthless apps that come with the TV.

  113. 113.

    Platonicspoof

     I took everything apart today, unhooked everything, made the wires all tidy, cleaned everything, put it back together, AND NOTHING FUCKING WORKS.

     

    Step one:

    For a nominal fee, President Obama will rent you his time machine.

    Step two:

    On each end of every cable, label the equipment and output or input with masking tape and a Sharpie.

    Turn off all power until everything is reconnected.

    Fill gas tank on time machine and return to Obama Rentals.

  114. 114.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Soprano2:

    I had to hook our new-to-us used 200 disc CD player up a couple of weeks ago (yay we can listen to our Christmas CD’s again and yes I’m 60 why do you ask? ?). That entailed moving our stereo cabinet away from the wall and unhooking almost everything from the receiver. I was holding my breath that I got it all hooked back correctly, there were so many wires! It all works, so it was good.

    My wife just got me the perfect early Christmas present: an ‘anything player’ from Hammacher Schlemmer.  It plays everything from LPs and cassettes to Bluetooth gizmos.  Since I’m in my late 60s and have a metric ton of music on legacy media (a few hundred LPs, dozens of cassettes, a hundred or so CDs), this is great. Anything I’ve got, including music saved on USB thumb drives, I can just pop in there.

    It’s even got built-in speakers, so the only wire currently involved is the power cord.  (It does have outputs for external speakers, but I’ll deal with that another day.)

  115. 115.

    satby

    @Emma from Miami: ok, just woke up and it definitely sounds like a stroke. Or possibly a tumor, though that would normally develop symptoms more gradually. If it was sudden, I would guess stroke; but animals can develop dementia too (domestic animals live longer than they would in the wild, with all the aging issues we face). The afternoon-evening time frame sounds like classic sundown syndrome some human dementia patients exhibit. Good luck at the vet’s, not sure how that’s treated in dogs.

  116. 116.

    lowtechcyclist

    @H.E.Wolf: ​
     

    Wires love to kink up. Several epochs ago, when land lines were still a thing, my home phone had a very long cord for the handset. The cord used to wind itself into a tiny little Gordian Knot about 3 inches in diameter.

    Luckily, I lived one floor up from ground level. I’d detach the cord from the handset, tie a shoe to one end, hold onto the other end, and toss the shoe over the balcony railing. Straightened the cord back out to factory-fresh state… for a few months.

    Hey, land lines are still a thing!

    I do something like this with my long (50 foot, etc.) outdoor extension cords before I put them away: I hold one end and dangle the rest over the railing of my deck. It straightens itself out with an assist from gravity as I coil it up around my arm, so I don’t wind up with kinks on top of kinks in the cord.

  117. 117.

    SWMBO

    @Emma from Miami: ​
      Don’t panic. It could be something as simple as an ear infection. Even if it’s dementia, it can be dealt with. I know it’s easy to say don’t worry but don’t let it over shadow everything. If your phone has video, take a video of the behavior to show the vet.

    To the rest of the jackals saying take a picture, invest in labels. Put a label on each end of the cable with a description of where it plugs in. Just taking a picture may not solve the mystery.

  118. 118.

    Kayla Rudbek

    Try getting Apple TV to run captions in one language and the audio in another…(we were watching a German documentary and I was trying to see how much German I remember from high school, college, and Army brat days.  We tried both English captions/German audio and vice versa).

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