Freakin out! I can't believe it's nearly 0300 already.

Hmmm...

Well, on this joyous Friday evening, I finally went out and did something I've been comtemplating for a while. I purchased an audio system more worthy of watching movies with than the default tv speakers. Far more worthy.

The family made our trip to the local Best Buy / Circut City / Barnes and Noble / CompUSA complex. I wandered around Best Buy for a while, looking at movies and various items, and mysteriously found myself in the home theater audio section, comparing features, interfaces, and most of all, the perceptual sound quality of the various receiver / speaker set packages. I seriously contemplated a Sony. I pondered on a Panasonic. But ultimately, it was a Phillips that won my heart, my ears, and my wallet. (In the "less stress for the happy bank account depletion card" way.)

It must have been a night for consumerism, because I found out after deciding upon my purchase that bouncing had also acquired a new toy across the street: A Palm PDA, along with a full size fold out keyboard. (I can hardly wait to hear the arguments between him and Jaeger on the merits of Palm vs Visor. Personally, I take no stance, mostly because I neither own a PDA, nor do I have much interest in acquiring one, despite the praises from everyone I've observed who has one.)

Best Buy, Home Theater Section -- The sales guy there was an utter riot. I mean hilarious. He gathered various people who were shopping for home theater systems together, myself included, and proceeded like he was going to make a speech. At first, I thought he would be demoing the units and comparing features, or instructing us silly consumers on the differences between Dolby Digital, Dolby Surround, and DTS, or... something informational. Hah! Yeah right. (This one probably came from the same training school as the anecdote Jaeger was telling me last week, in which he asked a sales person (at this very same store, I believe) if any of the DVD players they had were region free, only to find that the person had never heard of the term "region coding". lol.)

Well, it turned out that this sales dude was actually here to warn us all against the dangers of getting a digital receiver and failing to have the chip "cleaned" on a yearly basis. "If you don't take it in to be serviced every year, the dust will gather on the digital decoder chip, and cause the unit to blow up, making it unrepairable. I personally have had it happen to two units I owned in the last five years, so I'm talking from first hand experience. Normally, this cleaning process costs $105 each time, but it happens to be included in our Performance Service Plan, so it's only $65 a year. That saves you $40 right there, and if anything else goes wrong, you'd also be covered."

Okaaay. Pity the poor old lady who walks into the store, hoping to learn about what to look for in a new home theater system. (Okay, so that comment was both age and gender biased, but... the stereotype of the sharky scamster and the elderly widow just fits so well here. rotfl.)

He then went on into some incomprehensible spiel about some chips from certain vendors being patented, and how their tech people might be unable to clean those types. (Okay, so maybe I should give him credit for doing his part to villify our crappy patent system, except that what he was saying made absolutely no sense.) Idiotically enough, the speech ended with saying how Best Buy sales people don't work on commission, so all of this was just an earnest attempt to make sure people remember to have their systems serviced regularly so things it don't break, and the Best Buy service plan is simply the greatest deal for the money. (Funny how I don't recall seeing ANYTHING about this regular cleaning requirement in the owner's manual maintenance instructions.)

Well, as luck would have it, when I finally decided upon a purchase, not a sales person could be found in sight. I eventually travelled over to the media section and found someone, who said it was not his department, and I should find someone in that area. Well, eventually, guess who I managed to find? Yipee, the fast talking speech meister.

I pointed out which system I wanted to buy. Alrighty. And again the speech about the regular servicing, and how the poor chip might just stop working after a year if it didn't get cleaned. (Wouldn't it be funny if they actually started manufacturing consumer electronics to have a self-destruct bit with a timer which could be surreptitiously set by store personnel if the user failed to sign up for the extended warranty plans?)

On second thought, scratch that. It's just a leeetle too close to reality for my tastes.

True story: Many a year ago, I had a friend who was the proud owner of a Sony portable DiscMan[tm]. It had a one year manufacturer's warranty. Just over a year after he had bought it, the damn thing mysteriously quit working. He tried to contact Sony, but since the warranty had expired, they would do nothing to help him. Soon, I began hearing farfetched sounding conspiracy theories from him about how Sony intentionally manufactures units to break after the warranty is over. I assumed it was just a case of bad luck and resultant bitterness.

A few years ago, I myself bought a Sony DiscMan[tm]. It worked wonderfully. For about a year and a half. Then it burned out. A few months later, I bought another new one. Another over a year plus a few months pass. Same deal.

In '97, I got smart and bought a Panasonic instead. To this day, it still functions fine. (Although I think the lens could use a little cleaning.) The sound quality is not quite as crisp as the Sony, but at least the damn thing works. So of course, I would say Panasonic is superior.

But herein lies the dilemma: In all this time, who has made more money from me? Look at the numbers, and figure it out.

Ahem. Back to our tale. Well, the salesman gave me the speech about the necessary cleaning, and how I could save $40 if I sign up for the service plan now. I said "No thanks."

He was like, "Are you sure? You're gonna need to get it cleaned, and it'll cost over $100 otherwise." I, being the non-confrontational type... just smile, nod, and back away.

He did manage to sell me on one optional accessory though: Optical cable, direct from the DVD player into the receiver. Fiber optic line, man. It's just sooo geeky cool!

And so, we transported home with our goodies. Mom with books, bouncing with his Palm, and me with the trunk full of audio stuff. (Although dad didn't buy anything. The only one who managed to withstand the consumerist mindset. lol.)

Well, we got home, and I proceeded to unpack the goodies. Hooked it up in the living room initially, since other members of the family expressed interest in experiencing this system. Then came the recurring battle of wits: Who is truly smarter? Bitscape, or his home theater equipment?

After I connected all the wires, powered everything up, and heard absolutely nothing, bouncing expressed a fear that this might end up like a certain mishap a few weeks ago in the Galvin Compound, in which a room full of geeks experienced many hours of difficulty in getting an odd old tv to accept input from the DVD player.

Well, first off, the receiver needed to be set to receive DVD input from the optical instead of the coax port. Then, I needed to reconfigure my DVD player setting so it would actually send the digital output, and do so via the optical out. Duh. That got us some sound, but only on the front channels.

So, of course, there was the matter of getting it to send the sound to the rear channels/subwoofer. Well, I figured out how to make it send some sound there, but people were getting impatient to start the movie, so I didn't actually figure out how to do it the Right Way until after the movie was over.

Watched The Cell. Probably slightly on the edgy side for the folks, but they said they wanted to see it, so... I obliged. (I'll take this opportunity to advance my pet theory on movie ratings: Movies should be rated with age settings exactly reverse of what they currently are. That is, the more shocking the contentent, the younger the age requirement for viewing would be. So, for example, a movie that might currently get an R rating would only be legal to watch if you're under, say, age 40. G rated stuff would be everyone. Even the 90 year olds. But NC-17, only people in their teens would be allowed to view.

The reasoning for this is simple: Invariably, old people are more easily offended by stuff. (There I go with the agism again. Twice in one rambling. Ho hum.) Having worked in a preschool, I know that it is NOT the 5 year olds who gasp when someone says "fuck". It's the 50 year olds. So logically, the movie rating direction should be reversed. Makes perfect sense to me. Rant over.)

Um, The Cell. A most excellent film, with most excellent sound. lol. Ya. Gotta love those rear channels.

After the movie, bouncing proceeded to make what he said would be a movielog entry into his Palm, and I watched the special effects vignettes again, this time sticking strictly to the "On The Set" angles, since those proved to be the most interesting last time.

After that, I continued to mess with the settings, learning mostly by experimentation, and occassionally reading a sentence or two from the manual. I figured out how to properly select the correct surround sound setting for a theatrical viewing of a disc with full 5.1 DTS/Dolby Digital audio encoding. No stupid downmixing, or extrenuous simulated "virtual" surround needed. I also realized that the subwoofer had actually been disabled up until that point. lol. (Actually, I did realize it earlier, but like I said, people wanted to get going, so I had ignored the problem temporarily.)

After I was satisfied that the settings were correct, everything was functioning as it should, and my basic knowledge of the interface was sufficient for the time being, everyone else had long retired for the night. I adjusted the volume to a setting lower than what I would normally use under optimal conditions -- what I believed (and hoped) would not disturb the sleeping souls upstairs, inserted the Fantasia 2000 disc, and proceeded to soak in the glorious classical music in full DTS 5.1.

I'll say this: Pines of Rome just takes on a whole new dimension. The woodwinds mostly in the front, while the brass belt it out to the rear, as the whales rise into the sky... awesome. Just awesome. The rest of the movie too. Even after having seen it several times now, my eyes cannot help but water a bit during Rhapsody in Blue.

After watching that in its entirity, I returned to the Lair, and was <Casablanca reference>shocked, shocked! To find that the clock was reading out 0300 in my room!</Casablanca reference> So naturally, I started a rambling about it all.

And now again, I am shocked. Shocked! To find that it is already well after 0500!

Better sleep soon. Oh, but the boxes on my bed. Hmmm... I'll figure it out. Peace, vultures.