I had said to brent that I couldn't see myself spending $1k on a pair of speakers, since I was doubtful I could tell the difference. I was proven wrong. The paradigm studio 40s are likely one of the best sets of speakers I've ever heard (that doesn't say a lot though).

The bass was incredibly tight and in control, and vocals were so distinct, coming right into the room. It's hard to describe the sensation. Best I can do is tell you to go find a pair to listen to. (maybe at brent's place later this week?).

It's a day late, but Happy birthday Brent.

I'm taking him to Seoul house for taste of korea. It'll be week 4 in a row I've been there. The battle of the meats is a difficult and dangerous path. But I will prevail. I will be the one to unite the meats.

From what I can decipher from Brent's two word icq message, he got the grados he wanted for christmas. Welcome to the club.

I spent christmas at my aunt's place drunk for most of the day around relatives. Being drunk around children is pretty fun.

Second post of the day. It seems that the general gaming public is too stupid to play online games like Wolfenstein where teamplay and some thought are required. A team needs some of each class to be successful, but I've entered games where all 7 players on a team are soldiers, with no ability to re-arm, or heal their men. So they run around shoot til they run out of ammo, and then are forced to die so that they can get more ammo and die again.

This sounds like the russian army in WWII. I can't wait til smarter people start playing wolfenstein again. I killed a teammate by accident but since I was a medic, revived him. He spent the next 15 seconds typing out a msg to the effect of "you faggot" at which point I killed him again, and then neglected to revive him. If only real life worked so well.

Finished building Jim's new rig saturday and got to see the LG915ft+ monitor I had suggested. Great looking monitor for cheap, and now I wish I had gotten my hands on that one rather than the 900nf I have.

Such a nice rig he's got now, packing an 1.4ghz athlon xp, msi kt266a mobo, 512mb ddr, and a gf2 ti. Now I'm jealous.

The new subwoofer is reproducing low bass that I had never heard with my previous audio setups. It's a little disturbing and some tracks I can't really listen to cos they shake the house too much. It's not that there's too much bass, it's just that I hadn't had bass extend this low before. I was concerned an 8" sub wouldn't go low enough to be felt. I think I was wrong.

Added a paradigm pdr-10 subwoofer to the home theatre mix so I'm up to a 2.1 setup. The bass is almost scary when playing back stuff with heavy and low bass. Tried Vic's new titans as surrounds and the movies just get more nuts. The new Bond movies rule.

Arch sent me the link to the Super puzzle fighter 2 rom for mame, but I haven't been able to get it working yet. I am sad. Brent gave me a bar of homemade soap with a plastic figure of Ken inside. I am happy. Shoryuken!

I wonder what hyedie would say if I invited her sister to a slumber party at my place. hmmm...

I have the mind of a supervillian, but instead of evil plans, it conjures up dirty plans. So does that make me a superpervert?

Having yourself cloned for the purpose of having sex with is a bad way to see if you're any good in bed.

The holidays are a good time to reflect on some of the finer points in life, but also the sad.

What's sad? The std rate among teenage girls in japan. If there ever was a place I wanted to visit to dive into debauchery, it would be in japan, but now I need to worry that such adventures would leave me with a burning sensation when urinating.

Take a moment to think about your loved ones, and hopefully their lack of any incurable stds.

Went to McDonald's for dinner tonight, and while I wasn't expecting great food, they didn't have any ice for my orange drink (it's not soda if it ain't carbonated). They didn't even have an excuse for not having ice.

That meant my drink was warmer than my chicken mcnuggets or filet-of-fish.

I used to think that McDonald's was supposed to be the nicest of the fast food restaurants to eat, but everytime I go there seems to be overflowing trash, a dozen tables with half empty food trays, and fairly gross bathrooms.

Brent was bugging me to post since I've been lacking lately. So...

launched the new company website tuesday, 3 days early. Not because we were ready early, but because we were going to be in the paper the next day. Worked til about 3am, which was actually interesting because I hadn't had a challenge in a while, but having to come in the next day kinda bites.

Brent borrows my headphones nightly when I'm gone. Go listen to a pair of grados to find out why. Not terribly expensive, but they sound (and feel) so motherfuck guy good.

Ted's getting his third ball hacked out tomorrow. Hooray for hernias. Taz got over his crazy african liver disease.

Egg nog is good. Egg nog lattes are good. Egg nog sodas are good.

I have an mini orange afro now. Some people find it disturbing.

I finally got my panaflo case fans into my powersupply and case and my comp is quieter than it has been in over 2 years. It still hums, but probably at half the volume it used to.

Yes kids, I'm getting old.

Finally picked up my amp (denon 1802) and went with the cheaper titans as I couldn't easily notice the sound upgrade from the minimonitors. I came in under budget and the sound is quite nice. Classical and acoustic music is the most nuts to listen to since it really accentuates the dynamic range of the hardware.

Dealt with Rene at Audio Video Unlimited on broadyway and he's a great guy to deal with. It helped that he got me the denon 1802 for pretty goddamn cheap. Go buy a pair of paradigms from him. They're cheap ($180-240) and good for you.

Greencity makes an amazing bul go ki sandwich.

Thanks in part to Brent and the vast sea of knowledge that is the internet, I've been struck with hardware upgrade fever, but this time not for my computer.

I realized the amp I had just plunked down over five hundred bucks for didn't really do everything I needed (I need 4 svideo jacks), so for a measly $100 more, I could go up one step. Then I thought, maybe my speakers won't really be good enough, so they get reconsideration for the next step up. Not very expensive upgrades really, but like "hard drive syndrome" (where 50% more drive space costs only 10-20% more money), A/V gear syndrome could be potentially devastating.

So what? I set my limit. $1k for the mains and amp. This is supposed to last me for 5-7 years. Will that pan out? Maybe if I don't listen to brent's setup ever and stay away from audiophile websites.

I went to check out some audio gear last night and today, and after being pretty unimpressed by what $250-400 speakers sound like, I checked out a set of paradigm titans today.

I was pretty blown away at how good they sounded (for the price). Ended up buying right there, and grabbed a Denon 1602 as well cos the salesmen dropped a bunch of dollars off of it.

Despite how Audio Video Unlimited seems a bit like Visions in their advertising, it was a pretty nice place to shop.