The video adventure continues
Chores ahead, setup to do.
Friday during lunch:
I bought 4 pairs of KLH speakers, medicocre for audiophiles,
but perfect for my usage. I need 5 speakers for the
bedroom/theatre, 3 more for for my regular living room
stereo/tv setup.
$30 per pair.
I picked up about 25 yards of black and navy blue fabric.
All they had. $30 total.
And a staple gun.
I had already blacked my back wall (right behind my bed,
I lean against it, lots of big pillows), but now I'm
on a mission.
The room will be DARK, with no reflected TV light.
Yesterday:
10AM, I start stapling.
1PM, I'm done.
Not really, I ran out of fabric. But I got most of it,
and I have a plan.
When getting the fabric, I wandered all the other stuff
(patterns, fuzzy stuff, etc) and picked up about a dozen
2 or 3 yard swatches of fabric. Stars, planets, patterns,
iguanas folliage, colorful fish in water, swirly people
dancing in starbursts, smily faces on a dark background,
dragons dancing in blue fire, tinkerbell, simpsons, etc.
This stuff is much better visually than posters, cheaper,
and I can rip it down and replace in a blink, and
reuse somewhere else.
Ok, so I have about 10 yards of walls still white, but it'll
be fixed soon enough.
Now it gets harder.
I have to put up the speakers. Wander for tools, grab the
brackets, the wire (crap wire, I need to replace, damn,
also need banana plugs). Ok, plan to use current wire,
hang eveything, run the wire, but don't connect until
we go out for the plugs.
I can't use a drill (at least not easily), it gets caught
on the fabric. I end up hammering increasing sized metal
punches into the walls and ceiling, to put the anchors in.
Working on a bed that has ZERO bounce, or crap step stool.
Lots of overhead reaching.
3 hours later, 4 speakers are up.
2 slightly behind me, about 7 and 11 feet away.
2 on the sides of me, 4 feet ahead, about 9 and 14 feet away,
hanging from the ceiling.
Brackets allow single direction swivel.
The positioning is such that I want it to focus best to
my side of the bed, but the distance limitations (where
I want stuff on the walls and ceiling) give me limited
space. So the speakers on my right are a bit closer.
Which is fine.
But I've heard nothing, since I haven't plugged in yet.
4PM, go out, get stuff. Circuit city, Walmart, Best Buy,
eat, run home. Getting late.
Home at 8:15, goal of watching movie at 9.
9:15PM, 1st cut wiring done (will redo), bad connection
trouble shooting done, bananaplugs engaged.
9:30PM: Fuck! Left surround speaker out.
A bit later, all better (wiring issue).
I tell it what speakers I have plugged in, what range of
frequencies they want (if not all), and their approximate
distance from me. I don't think I needed the distance, but
I was being thorough.
I plug in the setting microphone.
I answer a "Continue?" question, and it then issues a series
of tones from each speaker several times, measures what it
wants, and applies the results.
Walla! (Voila!) Perfect placement. Sure, the sound is
damn good 3 feet from either side, but when you sit
in the correct location, it is like you settle into an
aural cockpit. Hehe.
7 speakers plus sub-woofer. 2 front are REALLY good
Optimus (Radio Shack) (really) (really, not an oxymoron,
I did my research) (really, you'll just have to believe
me, Radio Shack can actually make some incredible speakers.
Ok, I'm done defending my speakers.
I think.
I hook up the bluray, I wander the menu items on the stereo
for the HDMI mapping (I had just moved some components
around and need to remap ins/outs).
I put in "The 5th Element". SWWO has seen it, a long time
ago. She remembers very little, ie: She knows the hero
is a chick, but that's pretty much it.
The evil being rumbles.
"SWWO, ready, let's watch!"
10 min later (I'm never ready), the movie starts. In
a black room. I cover the lights on the stereo and tv with
black tape.
Remembers all that fabric? Acoustically deading, reduces echo
to almost nothing, at least that I can tell. The room
is VERY quiet.
HOLY SHIT!?!?! What the hell was that?
Oh, that's right, a fucking evil bit of the evil being
just flew around me.
Ok, we've arrived.
Settle in to the tempurpedic mattress, lean high on the
pillows, and hold SWWO's hand.
2 hours later, the adventure ends.
I plug in an FM antenna (work in progess not sure of the
satelite reciever to get (if any, suggestions welcome)),
use the remote to bounce to radio, set all speakers on,
and relax for a bit.
The perfect ending for the perfect day.
Wake up at 7AM, smoke, drink coffee, review options.
Walmart for fabric. A bit of work. Some chores.
Review movie list. All picked up on sale, cheap,
mostly $10-$20 for bluray, never more than $5 for a
DVD, in the last few days. Well most of them.
I did crack on the Matrix.
BlueRays:
5th Element
Beowulf
Blazing Saddles (2 of them, in 10 minutes, silly). Meant to get Surf's Up.
Hellboy
March of the Penguins
Matrix - Ultimate Matrix Collection (be still my beating heart)
Serenity!!!!!
SkyCaptain and the World of Tomorrow - fast fast action flick
Stargate
Sunshine (from director of 28 days later)
Terminator 2
Total Recall
X-Men, Last stand
DVDs:
Big Trouble in Little China
Die Hard 2
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Silence of the Lambs
Superman retuns (Lex Luther)
There's something about Mary
The Rundown
Ok, done for the moment, the last day of a glorious weekend
is in motion.
