The bells of waiting Advent ring, the tortoise stove is lit again

[venta]

Last December, lathany, triskellian and I spent some time each day here discussing the pictures found in our respective Advent calendars. Now, I know it's rather early to be thinking about Christmas just yet, but read on if you want to play...

The Great Advent Game

A year ago, a few people responded positively to the suggestion that those so inclined make an Advent calendar and pass it on to someone else. You have around six weeks to plan and execute some form of calendar, by which time I'll have compiled some sort of list of who's in, and will provide an address to post your creation to. You do so, and a calendar made by some far-flung individual will pop through your door.

Sound like fun ?

My idea of an Advent calendar has 24 doors, and behind the 24th is a nativity scene. However, anything with some means of counting up to 24 is acceptable. At home we always had an Advent candle - a decorated candle marked in 24 sections, and we burned down to the next line each evening. Be original... maybe you can send someone a URL of a webpage you'll be updating each day, or a 24-track CD. (NB. If at any stage I end up receiveing a CD of "Christmas Classics" in the Frosty the Snowman and Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree vein I will kill you all in the night.)

If anyone doesn't celebrate Christmas but wants to play, then a calendar for an alternative festival is an option - Samhain, maybe, or Chanuka (conveniently on 26th December this year). However, if you've got serious concerns about the religious affiliation of a calendar you make (or, more importantly, receive) then it's probably best to drop me a line about it. venta at livejournal dot com.

[Poll #590555]

I'll prod people towards the end of November to check who's definitely on course to produce a calendar. Subject to any constraints of geography or religion I'll draw names out of a hat and work out who sends calendars to whom.

This post brought to you courtesy of chrestomancy who explained to me how to make the very mystserious Windows option I accidentally switched on go away.

Comments

[wimble.livejournal.com]

You're right about Fitler Keys being set on the RHS key. If you go to Control Panel -> Accessiblity Options -> FilterKeys settings, it says:

The shortcut for FilterKeys is:
Hold down the right shift key for 8 seconds

However, I think either shift key will work for preventing autorun (although, personally, I think the better option is to disable autorun as a globabl choice).

I've seen the same effect that venta is describing fairly frequently, and on pre XP machines (such as the NT machines in our office), which I don't think have Sticky keys. I think what's happened in those cases is that the machine has simply not caught the interrupt caused by the release of the shift key, and so thinks it's still pressed. My simple solution to that is to press and release the key again, and it rectifies itself (I've seen it on the Windows key, and Alt keys on Suns as well).

[venta.livejournal.com]

My simple solution to that is to press and release the key again, and it rectifies itself

Aye, I tried that one. Didn't work, in this instance.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Having just read the text of your reply (and my original text that it included), when it was email notified to me, I have diagnosed the problem.

You should be using fitler keys, not filter keys. Fitler keys, clearly being some strange Northern thing, that you'd understand intuitively, whereas Filter keys is just some Microsoft piece of tosh.