Apparently the FGLD (flashing green light of death) is a common problem with Mitsubishi rear projection DLP TVs.  My TV has been out for a while and we've been surviving fine but football season is drawing near and I reckoned it was about time to get it fixed.  From what I've read on the problem it can cost anywhere from $800-$1000 for a pro to fix it but a do-it-yourselfer can fix it for around $10 (if you already have the solder gun).  I found some instructions online and hit the Radio shack for some new capacitors... last night was spent removing what must have been 100 screws and I'm still not where I need to be.  Maybe I'll make more progress tonight but what I'm wondering is if I'll ever remember where all of the screws go when I put it back together... not to mention all of the cables I've unplugged!

PS.  I think I know why the HDTV picture seemed to get worse over time, I'm pretty sure that mirror isn't supposed to have that much dust on it.

I was hanging out with the cat on the back porch today and it darted off in attack mode for some reason.  I went to see what the deal was and noticed a pretty good sized snake all bowed up hissing and flattening it's neck like a cobra would do.  I wasn't sure what kind of snake it was but it didn't look too nice so I got the cat away and then snapped some shots of it.  Turns out it's not too harmful and I probably should have let the cat play with it some more to see if it would have actually played dead.

http://www.oksnakes.org/index.cfm?snakeID=23&venomous=0&patterned=0&striped=0&solid=0&all=0