I MUST own one! Period. Seeing as how I listen to music pretty constantly at home on my home theater system, it only makes sense for me to have one. Normally I just plug my laptop in and stream music from my desktop to my laptop and then connect my laptop into the back of my home theater system. While it works quite well it requires my laptop to be within 5 or so feet of my receiver. The squeezebox duet solves that problem rather nicely. It connects to my wifi network and connects to a server running on my desktop PC with all my music on it and plays it through my receiver. Even better, it connects via optical-digital so the sound quality is better. It comes with an ipod-like remote to control the music, setup playlists and the like. Not only does it play nearly every format known to mankind as long as it doesn’t have DRM (none of my music does) it also supports Rhapsody & Pandora along with shoutcast radio stations. Sounds pretty fucking sweet if you ask me! $400? Absolutely worth it! Check the picture:
Archive for April, 2008
I must admit I had a pretty damn good last night. I just got paid so I was like “I’m gonna go barhopping”. Normally I stay home on Friday nights and if I do go out it’s to Sapphire. I decided to change it up a little bit for some reason last night. I started out at Downtown Grille & Brewery for some food. I watched the Red Wings beat the Predators in overtime and then took off down to the Old City to start the fun. I walked around a little bit and went to Crown & Goose first. I get there and immediately run into someone I work with and her husband. Weird… so I hung out with her for awhile, had two shots of tequila and a jagerbomb. While there, I ran into someone I went to HS with. I haven’t seen the girl in literally 15 years and didn’t recognize her. The girl I worked with was the one that actually told me who she was and I was rather shocked to randomly run into someone from THAT long ago.
After Crown & Goose, I went to Urban Bar. It was my first time there as well and I was actually pleasantly surprised. First, the bartenders were seriously hot as fuck. BIG plus in my book. I had 6 jagerbombs and a surfer on acid there. I ran into an old friend named Eddie I used to work with at Cendant 8 years ago. What the fuck? Running into weird random people from my past! What gives? Anyway, so I’m hanging out there and my friend Jessica texts me and tells me she’s going to come hang out with me there. Well, by this point I was considering leaving and going to Sapphire. So I decide to stay there for awhile and she comes by to hang out for a bit. We do a jagerbomb and then I do another and she has a shot of tequila. After that point, I was going to just have her drop me off at Sapphire, but she wanted me to go with her to the barcade. I’m like “alright, whatever” and went with her.
We get to the “barcade” and I actually drank a fucking BEER! I don’t drink beer but dude talked me into drinking some “Dead Guy Ale”. Mind you it wasn’t awful but it was still beer. $4 a bottle is a bit much but at least it didn’t taste like horse piss. Played a few old school video games, finished up my beer and Jessica drove me home. Overall, nothing earth-shattering but still a great night. Ran into a few interesting people, got to hang out with a friend I don’t see too often and got really drunk. No hangover, to boot! Nothing to complain about. 
Seriously… Holy shit. Compared to every other manufacturer on earth, they hideously overpriced. Not to mention they charge an exorbitant amount for upgrades. $400 for 4GB RAM? Are you shitting me? I can get two 2GB SODIMM’s for under $100 easily. But the thing that kills me is that even compared to a Lenovo T61p, it’s ridiculously overpriced! I understand that part of the allure is the OS and the overall “look and feel” of the machine. But is it worth $500? I seriously doubt that. Just look at the comparison I did rather quickly.
We’ll start with a nicely configured 15.4″ Macbook Pro.
2.5Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 (6MB L2 cache)
2GB RAM (2×1GB)
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 256MB
200GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive
15.4″ 1440×900 LCD
8x DVD+/-R/DL
Integrated Bluetooth & A/B/G/N wifi
60W/hr Lithium Ion Battery (no word on how many cells)
Admittedly, it’s a beautiful piece of machinery and does have both the LED-backlit display and the muti-touch interface. However, it’s insanely expensive. Now let’s compare to a Lenovo T61p:
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5Ghz (6MB L2 cache)
2GB (2×1GB) RAM
Nvidia QuadroFX 570M 256MB
200GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive
15.4″ WUXGA+ (1920×1280) LCD
8x DVD+/-R/DL
Integrated Bluetooth & 802.11a/b/g/n wifi
7.8A/hr 9-cell Lithium Ion Battery
Windows Vista Business x64.
All this for a grand total of $2143.20… In order to match the Macbook Pro’s price, I would have to reconfigure the Lenovo with 4GB RAM, a Lenovo USB webcam and a 2yr Onsite/9×5 next business day warranty. Adding the webcam brings it back in-line with the feature set of the Macbook Pro except for the multi-touch interface. But still. Why is Apple so insanely expensive? Adding 4GB RAM and AppleCare to the Macbook Pro and changing the Lenovo to 3yrs to match the AppleCare makes the tally $3298 for the Macbook (!!!!) and $2596.16 for the Lenovo. I love the Macbook Pro, don’t get me wrong… but holy SHIT that’s a lot of money. I realize that if you configured them both with 2GB it’s a little closer in price ($2443 for the Lenovo and $2898 for the Apple). I guess you’re paying for the look of it.. along with the OS.. and the cache of owning an Apple product. Whatever. Way too much money if you ask me.
Well, from the looks of it, I’m getting my “economic stimulus payment” on May 16 based on the last two digits of my social security #. Here’s the breakdown for those that are curious:
- 00-20 May 2
- 21-75 May 9
- 76-99 May 16
That’s just for those that had their returns directly deposited. For those that get paper checks, you stand to wait considerably longer than that. Here’s the breakdown for those:
- 00-09 May 16
- 10-18 May 23
- 19-25 May 30
- 26-38 June 6
- 39-51 June 13
- 52-63 June 20
- 64-75 June 27
- 76-87 July 4
- 88-99 July 11
In any case, I already know where my $600 is going. A brand new TV! As I’ve said before I’m eyeballing the Toshiba Regza series. I’m pretty sure I’m going LCD since I can’t afford a Panasonic or Pioneer plasma. I also get an extra payday in May, which will further help out the finances for my new TV. Problem is, I still want a squeezebox so I might have to skimp a tad bit on the TV to fit that into my budget. In any case, I’ll be getting some nice stuff in a month or two and I’m a little more than mildly excited. I’m pretty sure that’s what the government had intended when they decided to send these checks out.
Yeah, for sure. Myspace deleted my account today. Most likely because of some of the pics I uploaded. I knew they’d do it eventually since pretty much every pic I uploaded into my “Hilarious Shit” album violated their terms of service. They’re not supposed to be nude, violent or offensive. I didn’t upload anything with nudity but they were most certainly offensive and some would be considered violent as well. I honestly don’t care at all. It’s just myspace. I could create another one but that’s just too much damn work. Re-uploading all my pics, re-adding all my friends. Definitely not worth the effort. I still have a facebook so I’m good with that. The pics in question, for anyone who might be curious are here. Warning, they are incredibly offensive in some cases. No I don’t necessarily agree with the statements in all of them, I just find them to be quite funny. Enjoy!
I know this sounds just completely asinine, but I think it’s time for a new TV. Maybe not right this minute but it’s definitely in the not-too-distant future. My only problem is choosing which TV I want. I know what I want in a TV, just finding the best TV for the money with the features I need seems to be the problem. There are just TOO goddamn many! Anyway, here’s what I’m looking for in a TV
- 42″ or larger
- LCD or Plasma (sorry, no projection)
- 1080p
- reasonably low refresh rate
- 120hz would be amazing, but not mandatory
- number of inputs, type of speakers, presence of a tuner aren’t important
I have a decent home theater receiver with 4 HDMI in and 1 out, so I don’t care how many are on the TV. I use Comcast HD so I don’t have to worry about an off-air tuner. In a perfect world, I’d love to just snatch up a fucking Pioneer Kuro or an Elite, but I’m not spending that kind of coin. I’d really like to keep it around $1500 but I’d go up to $2k if the TV was a good enough deal. I’ll probably buy online because it’s just plain cheaper. In any case, maybe there’ll be another post in a couple of months saying I got a new TV. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll get lucky and get some suggestions in the comments though that’s doubtful.
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