Freaking cats. I hate cats. The only thing I hate more than cats are live cats. The only thing I hate more than live cats are live cats in heat. The only thing I hate more than live cats in heat are live cats in heat sitting on my neighbor’s front porch. The only thing I hate more than live cats in heat sitting on my neighbor’s porch are live cats in heat sitting on my neighbor’s front porch at 1am. I think that deserves an webonym… TOTIHMTLCIHSOMNPA1AM. Yeah, I hate cats.

So I jump out of bed cause it sounds like children are crying at the top of their lungs only to realize that it’s the stupid cats that have been plaguing me for the past 7 months. The cats nobody apparently owns. The cats no one apparently wants to fix. The cats I must not say publicly that I want to kill. So I jump out of bed at 1am, throw on my shorts and exit the front of the house – shirtless. I have no fear. After all, these are cats.

So I listen for the noise since I am not yet certain where they are. Ah there it is – apparently on my neighbor’s porch. I creep around to the front of the porch where I see two stupid-looking cats (is there any other kind?) screaming at each other for no reason apparently locked in some kind of “you can’t scare me and I’m really itchin’ for some love” kind of way. Seriously, I don’t understand the heat thing… If you need something to happen, go do it – don’t scream about it for hours on end until someone wakes up and comes to kick your butt. I ran at them and they leaped off my neighbors porch onto our shared driveway. I ran at them again – fully intent on connecting at least one head with my foot, but they split and ran – one behind a tree and another in front of my house. I went after the second one – chasing it to a neighbor’s porch. At this point I realized that since I had neither a) a gun, b) a tazer, or c) perfected my telekinetic abilities to move/mutilate/destroy/crush matter without touching it, I had best return to my bed and plot my next steps…

These cats who I am not saying publicly that I will now kill of course, must go away. But if I were (hypothetically) going to kill a cat, I’d love some ideas from you readers. I am thinking that rat poison in a dish of catfood would do nicely. I have heard that antifreeze is also the bomb because it smells and tastes sweet. Of course I will call Animal Control and ask if they can put out some traps. The only problem is I have no faith in Animal Control. They are the ones that told me raccoons are apparently a protected species in the downtown area. WHAT?!? Protected? How about you come and GET them so that you can protect them from my foot? That would probably be the best protection they could be offered.

But seriously, I love animals. Typically medium and with just a hint of seasoning.

I feel like Scotty on the Enterprise: “Captain we need more content, but I dinna have the manpower ta doo et!” Audioholics is a lot like a space ship. (OK, it’s nothing like a space ship – but follow me for a second). Audioholics is a massive entity with lots of interworking systems and parts – and there is a skeleton crew holding her together. She runs well, but there is always room for improvement. In the most recent situation – we’re facing challenges (though cool ones) on no less than three fronts: website content development (writing tech articles and news blasts), instructional videos (these are cool – just wait til you see them), and the AVRant podcast (thank goodness for Tom and others to manage this). These are all VERY cool things – but they will take lots of time and management to assure all goes according to plan (i.e. the ship doesn’t get caught with its shields down).

So what’s next? Getting this website up and running full steam ahead and making sure our infrastructure is in place to support the podcasting and streaming of this new content. I’m also working on persuading Jay to get on board with blogging here and I’ve got some plans for Audioholics.com as well. I’d like to solicit help from our readers on a number of topics – and in general I’d like to get several “news reporters” who can write and editorialize on current topics. If you fit the bill, drop me an email or leave yours in a comment here.

Nothing like posting a quick blog when you’re in the middle of creating a brand new website for the up and coming AVRant podcast… It’s not hard, just pick a design… enter in some starter text… add in the necessary plug-in architecture to structure the site… figure out how to set up a fixed podcast feed… grab more plug-ins… wait for extremely slow WordPress theme site to load… again…

OK, it’s a lot of stinking work. Of course, it’s also kind of rewarding. Where else can you wake up at 7am and have a new website by 6PM? It’s a good feeling of accomplishment – probably why I also like to work on old houses and fix them up. When you turn around and look at your work there’s actually something to see.

OK, this is a short one but I’ve got to move on.

Wow it’s taken quite a bit longer to get this new AVRant website up and running than I would have liked. Of course, who am I kidding, the Audioholics.com website renovation and rebirth took about a year longer than any of us had hoped… I’m just glad we stumbled on to some very adept and well-versed developers.

In either case, let’s just say that we’ve got a lot of catching up to do before we surpass content levels we were up to a month or so ago. The GOOD news is that it is INFINITELY easier to post new content both here and on Audioholics – almost a pleasure… As a result I find my self typing more often and generating reviews, tech articles and editorials quicker than ever before. And on AVRant I’ll be sure to stop by and post thoughts as much as possible.

The downside, of course, is that this may lead to ‘diarrhea of the digital pen’, but hopefully not. I am looking forward to writing several new editorials that are long overdue and in great need. I already published the much-needed video processing article that talks about who is doing what video processing in a typical AV system, but there is a lot more pending:

• Video Terminology and Definitions
• Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know about 1080p
• Video Processing Part 2: Advanced Concepts
• Media Centers 2007: A State of the Industry

I’m also starting a series of HD DVD software reviews that will focus on the actual quality of the discs. I will not be talking much about the plot of the movie, but will instead be focusing on the menu system, video quality, audio quality and disc extras. There are plenty of magazines talking about the movie itself, but very few places that will maintain a list of top quality discs.

This came about when I was searching for a list of “reference” level HD DVDs and couldn’t find too many sources of people talking about the actual quality of the discs – as opposed to whether or not King Kong looked like a CG character or looked like “a real 50 foot tall gorilla”.

Well, this is enough for my “first” blog post… I had actually started one a little bit ago, but it got nuked in the site migration. I’ll survive.