Car battery dead

Sometime in the last week Ylva found that our Volvo didn’t start. In fact, it was totally dead. Even the dashboard clock was blank. Today we tried to start it by pushing the car bakwards from the garage and down the slope. No lifesign at all to my big surprise. (Note how irony fails when written).
Time for Plan Bâ„¢. Called a neighbour (Björn) whom I know has two old (not to say ancient) cars. He showed up within three minutes with a spare battery and cables. Unfortunately the spare got completely drained the moment i turned the key, so he went home to get his 1985 Mazda. We hooked his car up, I turned the key, and bingo! It started. After keeping it running for nearly five minutes, I expected it to start without any cables, but it didn’t. In fact, it was as dead as before, excepting the clock. We measured the battery voltage and found it rapidly falling from 8 something to just above two volts in less than a minute. Removing the + lead, it kept steady at 10 volts. I took this to mean that a cell has been shorted and that a new battery is needed.
Started again with help from Björn’s Mazda, I went to the gas-station. I parked almost outside the entrance and went inside and asked for a car battery. The guy inside seemed confused and said I’d have to wait for his collegue, a girl who helped him look up the correct battery model number and send him to fetch one. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any suitable battery at all. My car was still dead and refused to even wake up the start-engine.
On my suggestion, they brought up a rental car, a new VW Passat and cables. We were both equally surprised when we opened the hood and couldn’t find any battery at all. After a while we gave up, and the gas-station guy (a guy in the 20s) brought up a less sofisticated (though french) car. At least we could find the battery, and managed to expose the + pole. Red cable attached in both ends black only on my car, the guy was to connect the black cable to a screw on the engine while I tried to start and disconnect the moment my engine was running. He didn’t really manage to connect really well though since he jumped two feet off the ground when some sparks started to fly.
When I finally got home I called Björn again and we drove off to IKEA where they have a car parts shop. 10 minutes later the battery was replaced and the Volvo started without help again.
Hooray for helpful neighbours.

New TV

Old TV died completely, so last thursday we bought a new, Samsung PS-42v6 plasma. Unfortunately, we’re not completely happy with it. According to this, signal quality might make a difference. So, if I had a DVD with progressive component output I might get excellent picture quality, when watching DVDs, and everything else would still suck… I’ll try to return it and buy another TV instead.

TV acting strange

Our aging TV has started to behave strangely. Yesterday, when powering it on, the screen stayed blank while the power-LED started blinking; emitting an SOS, sort of. I immediately powered it off and started searching for a replacement. It seems that a 42″ Samsung plasma can be had for SEK 13990 (+599 p&p) on the net (NetOnNet or SEK 14990 at the nearest OnOff shop. I was prepared to have the kids whine about not beeing able to view Bolibompa for a couple of days while the new set was delivered, but could it possibly be worth SEK 401 keep them quiet? (And to have a physical person to complain to if something was wrong)
After putting the little angels to bed, I decided to try the old TV again, and was quite disappointed when it powered on OK.
Now, I can almost hear people saying stuff like “Hey, that’s not a HDTV, only SD”. That’s right. Should you buy an SD-plasma or an HD? The only true (1366×768) 768p capable plasma set I’ve found is a Philips 50″ at SEK 34000 something. Couple the huge price-diff with the fact that there is almost no HDTV-material to view now, except for some stuff available via sattelite. SVT will start test-transmissions (to prove that 768p gives best cost/quality ratio) but no real stuff that is worth an extra 20k. Five years from now I’d expect movies and high-profile shows to be HD, and maybe another five years later “Rapport” and “PÃ¥ spÃ¥ret” will be too. But then bigger and better screens will be cheaper than today.
Update. The old Sony TV gives off a faint smell. From now on, I’ll pull the plug before going to bed or leaving home.

Successful party

Halloween party went off without any major problems. I was a bit late with the “Spider, filled with stewed squirrel brain” starter, but the first guests helped us preparing salad and serving martini. The spider legs were a bit pale, their shells a bit too well done (i.e. hard and dry) and the brain-stew turned out to be västkuströra instead of skagenröra. Most guests ate most of it, but none of the kids ate it all.
The main dish we called “Pig-rump with ant-eggs”, and really was an old favourite made mostly from pork and whipped cream, served with rice.
The “pumpkin” cake was delicious. It didn’t contain even a single pumpkin atom, but was covered in pumpkin-colored marcipan and decorated with eyes and mouth. We served it with coffee and “baked squirrel bellys”, bisquits made from hazel nuts. When all kids (9 of them) had run off to play, I served the “startled sqirrel eyes”. Light brown irises, black pupils and white chocolate half-globes with pumkin-coloured filling. Yum.
Notice the sqirrel theme? People tend to feel sorry for little cute, furry animals, and that should fit with halloween, right?