November 3, 2013

My big accomplishment for the day was getting my Elgato to record video and sound on my computer. It involved a lot of cord switching and cord digging and internet research. At one point awhile ago I got it to record video and sound somehow but recently the sound wasn't working. I found a video today that had a fix using analog audio cables. The Elgato came with a cable for use with the PS3 that was used for video and sound because the PS3 won't allow game capture over HDMI. But the cable could also be used on the computer to get sound. So I plugged that cable in and it had the three video cables and the to audio cables. I dug around my cable collection and managed to find an old speaker cable (that I believe was either for our old HP computer speakers, maybe even the Apple before it) that had the one small plug to go in a headphone jack and had the red and white (or black in this case) audio plugs on the other end. I tried this out and the Elgato started picking up my computer sound. Which was great. But it also meant that I couldn't hear the sound because my computer thought a pair of headphones was plugged in so it wasn't playing sound through my speakers. I did some more digging and came up with a cable I bought in college for my surround sound speakers that had the headphone plug on one end and three inputs on the other end. This ended up being pretty convenient because now I can easily swap between plugged in things. I can always leave the Elgato and my headphones plugged in and just unplug the speakers when I want to just listen through my headphones. I don't know if any of this makes sense but I was pretty happy I got it working. It was a lot of work and I really lucked out finding the two cables I needed because I was fairly certain I would have to go buy them. I don't know how often I will use the Elgato because I'm still messing around with game capture software options, but I'm glad it can also be an option.

Other than that I played a little Terraria and Minecraft, caught up on YouTube videos, watched DVRed stuff, played some mandolin, and did laundry. Not a terribly exciting Sunday but they rarely are. Tonight I tried a frozen steamed dinner of mushroom risotto and asparagus. I took a few bites but it just wasn't working for me. I might try making some noodles tomorrow and mixing it all together and see how that works. Rather than mess with that tonight I just had hot dogs.

Tomorrow I have a whole bunch of scanning and photo editing to do. I imagine it will keep me busy most of the day but hopefully I will be able to finish it. I know the last day to turn in stuff for card art was Friday but I'm not exactly sure when everything needs to be done so we can start printing and selling the cards. Anyway, sleepy time.