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Archived News starting from 10-19-2007 and earlier

I decided two self absorbed nerd posts were not enough to convey my excitement regarding my new theatre setup, so here is the third and final installment for your my enjoyment. The addition of an Xbox 360 and HD DVD drive finally brought full 1080i content to my HD hungry projector. The built-in media center extender also supports playback of my HDTV recordings currently served over the wireless adapter which surprisingly provides sufficient reliable bandwidth. The recent addition of an HDMI port to the "premium" Xbox 360 package made it an obvious choice, but my projector lacks a digital audio out port, so the digital audio in the HDMI cable had nowhere to go. The included Xbox component cables only offer analog audio, or an optical digital port, and wouldn't fit with the HDMI cord plugged in. The "official" solution from Microsoft is the Xbox HDMI AV Cable which magically fits alongside the HDMI cable for an additional fee of $50, but again with only an optical digital audio output. Being a cheap bastard, and lacking an optical digital audio input on my HTS3555 receiver, I found this hack to create a coax digital audio output which was so easy it made me wonder why Microsoft is so against including one in their cables. Maybe they struck a deal with the optical audio cable companies who don't want you to know digital audio is identical over optical or coax cables (ok fine, excluding long distances). My digital audio rant aside, my new setup is finally complete, aside from some much needed screen goo.

Lisa and I took our honeymoon in Aruba for 10 days of beach time and island exploring. Most notable about the island was the proliferation of iguanas and lizards that provided good sexual innuendo potential which was exploited every chance I had. Everyone on the island spoke at least English, Dutch, and Papiamento, with the workers at our resort speaking over 7 languages, so unlike Cancun communication was easy. Lisa enjoyed taking photos of her hands, fingers, and toes while I enjoyed the many topless sunbathers on the beach. The best activity by far was our sunset cruise on a double-hulled catamaran. Pirates boarded the boat about an hour into the cruise and offered me a hefty sum for Lisa, which I initially accepted only to have it fall through once they found out she had crabs.

After months of a crabby fiance, and more money than I want to think about was spent, the wedding is finally over. Lisas grand vision was wonderfully executed by everyone involved, which was quite a few bridesmaids, family, friends, and a morlock. The groomsmen and ushers did their job and kept me laughing the entire time with random comedy routines. Quite a few comments were made on their ability to provide laughs consistently for such a long period of time. This was of course due to the proper combination of shenanigans and brouhaha I measured out before choosing each wedding party member, keeping my panic level well below 60% for the entire event. The pre party got everyone sufficiently warmed up for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, which meant everyone was well acquainted for the wedding and reception. Despite my lack of an audio booster for the music, the reception was a great success and I finally learned how to do the chicken dance. Thank you to everyone involved for your help in making our wedding such a wonderful memory. We'll be thinking of you all while we're in Aruba enjoying the beach and the sun and you're stuck at work in 50° weather.

With my projector missing a proper 5.1 sound system, I decided on the HTS3555 after seeing it for $190. Not only does it upconvert my format of choice (DivX) to 1080i, it's able to play the files from a DVD or USB thumb drive. I was surprised to find a quality (and heavy) center speaker, with the 4 others more than sufficient for my tone-deaf ears. The sub woofer is predictably weak, but sufficient when maxed out. After an hour of splicing and routing speaker wire behind the wall, I finally had proper audio in the Morlock theatre to compliment my now mounted projector with patented licence-plate cable concealer. Now I just need Whineyho to buy the HD DVD drive for his Xbox360 so I can steal both and have a complete HD theatre setup for under $1,000.

At least 5 of my friends forwarded me this job opening at NASA today, 4 of which enjoyed pointing out I'm exactly 1 inch taller than the maximum allowed. My dream of working for NASA still lives, but I've already accepted I won't actually be in space, especially after learning of my inability to fly a helicopter and not get sick. Earth-bound support duties would be more than enough to scratch the itch, and Lisa is more than happy to move back to Ohio when I get my job at Glenn Research Center. I'm hoping to expand that to include Florida before I finally get the urge to switch jobs.

After a day at the renaissance fair with the Kelleys and Whineyho, my bachelor party began. Senator Kelley setup a phased party beginning at the local Hooters which was obviously not chosen for the food selection. Next up was a visit to Luckys bowling alley/arcade which I had never bowled at before, and was impressed with the lane couches, ball speed clocking, and the wide variety of girl drinks our server was able to provide on demand. It was quickly proven the more intoxicated you were, the better of a bowler you became. The final phase was the classic strip club, which only the brave Whineyho attended with me. His metrosexual charm and finely tuned ability to befriend anyone makes him the best stripper lure of any of my friends, and thus was the best choice for the final phase. A good time was had by all, and followup bachelor party is definitely in order.

After providing shelter for two consecutive morlocks, my empty first floor was left without a purpose (aside from LAN parties of course). A visit to the Leinnintigers a few months ago put the idea of a basement theatre in Lisas head, and about a week ago she made the mistake of mentioning how she'd like to have one. That very night I found this deal on a HC1500 projector with decent brightness/contrast and pulled the trigger. What was once a dark and musty morlock cave is now alive with 110" of 1080i goodness (points for guessing the movie). While 48" shy of Ron's and embarrassingly low-quality for Duane, it fit my cheap bastard pricing requirement perfectly. Now I just need to get a proper hardware setup to replace my temporary cat house projector stand.

Stavos has been secretly working on this masterpiece for some time now, and he finally decided to share it with me. A better use of the original photo there is none. I already know you're going to ask if you can use it as your background so I'll go ahead and proactively approve it.

If you're stalking me you've noticed the Gnome Cam has been in a blackout for the past 7 days. The BT-176WC camera that has served me well for over 2 years finally decided to bite the dust and only display melted images. Anticipating a failure in the near future based on previous issues I had a cheap eBay knockoff camera ready to go that I finally got around to installing. As you can see I got a great shot of me installing it, which is always a treat, but more importantly you'll notice the crappy quality. Evidently the factory that built this camera is operating in a time bubble sometime prior to 1979 as the quality is slightly less than home video cameras of that era. Rest assured I have an eBay alert set for my trusty BT-176WC in the hopes I'll find it at an affordable price. Until then enjoy the memories of disco fever and use your imagination to fill in the missing details.

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