Knuckledragger

Two 32oz bottles of Tapatio hot sauce. I also recently decided I'm in the market for a really cheap TV. All it needs to be able to do is play movies in a side room. 480i is fine, but in the age of 60" LED-backlit 1080p 240hz LCD TVs with built in recipes for turduckens, it's tough to find a "basic" television.

Slept about 5 hours. Got up, had a minor breakfast. Replaced a broken screen on a kitchen window. Turned on the the water to the outside spigot. Found a $%&@ garden hose that wasn't torn, kinked to shit, and had working connectors. Checked the barns for further raccoon infestation; saw none (good). Made lunch. I've been cutting back overgrown shrubs and raking ever since. I'm about ready to faceplant. Also, I just paid of my credit card bill. Still having irrational thoughts about buying a subwoofer or two. Is it time for an intervention yet?

^^ Nice, but I was thinking about one (or TWO) of these. The message you have entered contains gratuitously oversized images. WTF, dude?

m2!

Last night I wired up my AU265s as fronts (where they have been for a few months now) and the UP1203s as surrounds. I rented the Criterion edition of The Rock. I'm not going to say it's a good movie, because it isn't. It is, however, an excellent version of a loud film that throws noises around all 5 surround channels. As a bonus, the Creterion disk has DTS soundtrack which sounds significantly better than the Dolby Digital version. Using 265s as fronts and 1203s as mains presents a couple problems. First, the 265s are 4 ohms and the 1203s are 8. This meant that the fronts were significantly louder than the rears, and tended to drown them out. I turned up the surround channels by a 7 or so dB on my pre/processor, but only did that after watching The Rock. I've got Tim Burton's 9 out as well, and I'm going to watch that with the channels adjusted. I should add that my center channel is also 8 ohms, but it didn't seem to be overpowered by the 265s at all. Another issue is that the 1203s have 12" woofers, and go much lower than the 265s. In spite of the difference in levels, I did notice a lot more bass coming from the back of the room. I suspect I can mitigate this with a subwoofer purchase.

"The nominal per-capita GDP of Ghana is $671. At 23 million in pop. it would cost roughly 14 billion to buy the country...and nationalize its futbol team, which happens to be the only way the U.S. team will EVER make it past the second round of world cup."

Today I dug out my GLite + DPS and wired it into the "processor output" on the back of my Outlaw RR2150. I listened only long enough to determine that it worked. No time for critical listening now, as I have to go move a bunch of furniture back into a room for me mum, now that she's done painting.

Pew Pew Pew! Nice handle on that one. Springfield guns are, or were, made just down the street from me, more or less.

A pair of UP1203s just arrived at my doorstep. Unlike with the last pair of Unisounds I ordered from ThingFling, FedEx managed to arrive when I was home and awake. That's pretty quick given that I ordered then on Wednesday. Initial impressions are: Build quality is good, but below the AU265s. Finish is nowhere near as good. Apparently the two 1203s are different revisions. One has binding posts the same as the AU265s, while the other has bigger, heavier (and TBH, more ungainly) all metal ones. Right now I am listening to them with the following setup: iTunes/laptop -> Pico DAC -> Rotel HT pre -> Rotel 125WPC amp. Not the most high falutin' sound system in the house, but it sounds pretty good to my tin ears. I have not burned in the speakers at all. I have a house guest at the moment, and he's staying in the room where I burn in speakers. I have the feeling he might object to speakers blaring white noise for the next four days. Maybe later I will lug the 1203s upstairs and plug them into my Outlaw RR2150.

Lab tests have determined that Ayre units have a higher WAF value, it looks like.

Remember that picture I posted of the two raccoons a few weeks back? Those were the kits of a mother raccoon that invaded one of my barns and set up a nest there. I believe I have now "raccoon proofed" the barns (though there is more to do) but I haven't even started cleaning up after the &*#$% things. There is are two HUGE piles of raccoon shit I have to clean up. One is on a formerly nice antique chair. Also, the entire barn (which is huge) has a strong animal order in it now. I am not happy about this. I didn't poison or shoot any of the coons I caught. I trapped them with a Havahart. When I begin cleanup process, I suspect I'll be wishing I had used a more brutal method.

^^ That looks like whatshisface from Mythbusters.