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

[neilh.livejournal.com]

I won't...sign you up for Cabbage-Fancier's Weekly
...which will greatly disappoint Mr cabbage

[venta.livejournal.com]

My apologies to the gentleman (should I know him?). No disrespect intended :)

[wimble.livejournal.com]

If one person sends you Christmas Classics, you kill all participants? Sounds like a fine deal?

And what Windows option? You can't leave my techno-geekery dangling like that. It might find something to point at! (And you certainly don't want me to have a dangling pointer.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

If one person sends you Christmas Classics, you kill all participants?

It's the only way to be sure. The person responsible will be killed in a particularly horrible way, though.

Earlier in the evening, I popped a CD in the drive and held down the shift key to stop it from autorunning. A little dialog popped up to tell me that holding the shift key down for 8 seconds was the shortcut for turning on "Filter Keys" (ie the thing that means you can press Ctrl-whatever separately and it treats it as if you'd held the Ctrl key down while you pressed whatever).

I declined to turn on Filter Keys, and disabled the short cut.

From then on, all mouse actions acted as if you were holding down the Shift key, regardless - so it was impossible to select just one file in a directory, etc. Much checking revealed that Filter Keys, Sticky Keys, all those settings were set firmly to off.

Chrestomancy didn't have much of an explanation for what was up, but holding down the Shift key for a long time again made it go away. Despite the fact that that shortcut is disabled, and no dialog popped up to tell me whatever-it-was was going away again.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Have you considered that your shift key might be nadgered?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Not very seriously. It hasn't happened before, and cannot apparently now be made to happen again.

I'll keep half an eye out, but I'm currently blaming Filter/Sticky keys.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

I think (and I could be completely wrong) that the left shift key is the CD auto run stopper and the right shift key is the filter keys thingy.

I am going on a data point of one occurence.

[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).

[neilh.livejournal.com]

I don't believe you've met him yet, though doubtless you will sometime.

[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.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

So the calendars aren't actually for *using* during December, but to be started whenever they're received, for the next 24 days after that?

Lovely idea, though, I'm signing up.

[thurisaz-art.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm Liz I'm a friend of Ebee's. She says I have to play coz people called Elizabeth are very cool. So I'm in :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Jolly good. A Liz is a good thing to be :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, my intention that was that they would be used 1st-24th December, though I'm not going to travel round people's houses checking :)

If they're to be opened at the traditional time, they need to be posted really in about 10 days to be sure of arriving, hence the slight hurry.