Tonight, Gene “the stereo guy” visited us for the third time. While I like Gene, and he does a good job, I hope to never need his services again. (But let me know if you want his number, for San Franscisco-area repairs/installations.)
It wasn’t about the stereo, per se, but just a general frustration with an inability to make all the machinery do what we want it to do. We’ve been in this state for a while now, since the big power outage, when (I think) one of the outputs on the receiver got blown. That caused a problem… which I worked around, but caused another problem… which problem I was unable to work around despite 45 minutes of futzing (the technical term, I believe). So we called Gene once again. Money well spent.
My product-focused colleagues at CNET are moving into what is called Digital Living. I’m living some of that life, but I’ve already reached the point where I want to “dispose” of some of the more sophisticated devices in favor of an easy-to-use single device that handles DVDs, CDs, radio, TV connection, VCR connection (just for legacy purposes), and TiVo functionality and/or great TiVo connection. And it has to be easy-to-use. And I want a TV/display that doesn’t need 7 hookups to connect to this device, and doesn’t have all the connections behind the *#$!*^ heavy CRT. (Did I mention easy-to-use?)
All this, and we have a built-in cabinet which — even were I willing to spend money on a new display that is light/big — won’t readily handle the new rectangular displays of the future. I guess when HDTV is common, instead of possible, we’ll just have to move, since a new TV won’t work in our current configuration.
I joking. I think.