So here’s part two – where they really start to swarm around us… Part three involves the final assault and a shot of the literal pile of dead bees that collected at the bottom of the wall cavity (apparently bees have no retirement plan and simply die where they work…

Arg! I’ve been dying this week. My youngest got sick over the weekend and I spent a good amount of time with him in the shower getting his fever down. Needless to say I didn’t get the work done over the weekend that I wanted (and YES by “work” I mean “watching movies” – hey, it really is for work!). Then I was working half days Monday and Tuesday until the antibiotics kicked in, this month’s contests started Monday night, and I had the taping of the podcast scheduled for Monday you can see why I’ve been pulling my hair out. We moved the podcast to Wednesday (today) but the reason I wanted it on Monday was so that if we f-ed it up we’d have a chance to do it over. Well, it went fine but until we finished, I was dying. Dina was great (except for hitting her elbows on the desk every once in a while) and I was my usual insulting self (listen for the mayo comment). Now I’m just waiting for Dina’s half of the podcast and then I can start editing. I’m catching up on my other work while I wait. On a 10 point stress scale, this time yesterday I was a 41. Now I’m down to about 11. I finish the Denon review and post the podcast and I’ll be at a 6. Here’s to completing the review!

So, while Clint was here yesterday we tried another podcast. The fact that you are reading about it and not listening to it should be a testament to how it turned out. The problem? Dina. I just don’t know what to do with her. I feel like I’ve got myself in a hole here and…

OK really, it was me. Complete and total lack of preparation. There was a lot of good stuff in there but it was covered up by all the meandering off-topic crap. And I’m the one that is supposed to keep us on topic so I take all the blame. Me, me, me, me, me. The upside is that this happened before our official start date (we were going for a week earlier than I had anticipated) so better to mess up now than next week when it will count. We also discovered that there was a problem with the audio that is skype related (or at least we think) so the audio wasn’t as pristine as we’d like. Of course, most people will be listening to this on earbuds or computer speakers so they won’t notice but I will. And (according to Dina) I’m a geek. And geeks care about such things.

So, I’m hunkering down, prepping for the next show, and contemplating recording it on tomorrow or Monday instead of Wednesday. Just in case. Of course, I haven’t told Dina that… OK, technically I have since eventually she’ll read this. Oh, and check out the top box/banner thing on the front page. We got a number. 978-OFF-RANT. Why OFF-RANT? Because it was the only number we could get in all these 48 continental united states with the word “Rant” in it that spelled something. I was pulling for ELT-RANT (which we were going to say was “Everyone Loves Tom” Rant or perhaps “Everyone Loathes Tom” RANT) but OFF is probably better. Anyhoo, I need to figure out how to get Dina and I on the voice mail message together. I think that should be possible. If not, I’ll just have J or Clint do it and leave it at that.

Oh, and that’s the other thing that sucked about messing up the podcast yesterday. Clint was in it. Who knows when that’ll happen again? And I insulted just about every possible listener. And Dina insulted all the rest of them. It would have been a great show. But there is only so much editing I can do. And taking out whole side conversations while maintaining a semblance of flow might not be above my capability, but it is above my patience level. Especially when I have to listen to myself making all the mistakes. After a while, it is just too brutal. So, I’m putting it behind me/us and starting afresh tomorrow… or Monday… or Wednesday… We’ll see what Dina’s schedule is like.

So, we’ve struck a deal with ReadyAcoustics to outfit the Official AVRant Podcast Studio (i.e. my office). In an 11 by 10 by 8 foot room we’re going to have around 21 panels!!!!! Holy crap people, it’s going to be dead in here. Like zombie dead. Like night of the living dead. Like the blackness of my psycho-ex-girlfriend’s soul dead. So I’m moving everything that is in here out for now but things aren’t working out logistically. I have a ton of boxes from review stuff stacked in here along with test equipment, computer crap, and God knows what toys that have been cleverly hidden away by my darling son. My Jimmy is coming over to build some shelves in the garage on Wednesday (or at least start, not sure how long it will take) but then so is Clint. If the shelves were done, I’d have somewhere to put all this. If my office wasn’t all tore up, I wouldn’t be having this problem in the first place. It is like the perfect storm of f-ed up room just for Clint’s first visit. Oh well, I’ll just have to shove it all in the guest bedroom and hope he doesn’t have to spend the night. And before Clint comes back with the inevitable “why do you need a Jimmy to build things for you”… just let it go. I’ve got my limitations and I recognize them. I traded in my ability to use a measuring tape for an extra helping of sarcasm with a side order of bitter. At the time it didn’t seem such a good trade but it is finally starting to pay off for me.

Clint sends me an email. He’s asking for an HTPC review. And I just KNOW it is coming my way. The upside? It is an all-in-one box. Amps, fanless design, interesting form factor… Nope, I’m not letting myself get excited. I’m not going to get my hopes up. It is a long shot that they’ll send me one anyways and even then, it’s running Vista (never a good sign). We’ll see if it is worth a damn. I keep hoping that someone will do it right. Someone will load up all the right drivers, make sure everything works well together, and then lock everything down tight. No more updates, no user “tweaking”… just lock it down tight. But that’s not the way it works is it? They’ll have to allow security updates, driver updates, player updates… and then the problems will creep in. Not to mention that there hasn’t been a stable PC since… um… ever. When was the last time your DVD player crashed? Receiver? TV? OK my TV “crashed” a couple of times in the last few months but everything else has been pretty stable. What they need is the ability to strip Vista/Windows/whatever of all that unnecessary code. An HTPC version if you will. That will be the only way that I can see this really working. But if they can’t get the base OS working right, what hope do they really have? Still, we can’t all switch to Macs can we? That’d be admitting those Mac-heads have been right all along and I don’t think the ecosystem can take that many swelling heads all at once.