Zap

Crowbar joined the clan today too. I'm now 34 and he is 31.

I'm in game now too on Ares-2. I made a orc rogue. I'm 30 now. In game name: Telquin

I don't think I've ever understood a post he's made. I'm just happy to know that I get to refer to him as "bukkett" now. Oh joy!

Ohio State, after all it is where I graduated from.

All center channel speakers should be shielded so that you can place them on your television. Actually most speakers if designed for home theater are probably all shielded. As Penty said just double check to make sure they are and no worries. I've had my center speaker on my tv forever and never had problem. Especially with a big tv like you are getting there is plenty of room for the center channel on top of it. DVD players are easy to get. Make sure to get one that does progressive scan though since you are getting a HDTV. That way you can make good use of the nice tv you bought. They really shouldn't cost much more than a normal DVD player.

You should be good with the rears in that position. Usually you either want them behind you or directly to the side of you but in your case with that room set up where you have it marked should be fine. For the front you want them to be at least 6' apart or more. I would actually place the center channel right on top of the tv. That way when you hear the voice it will seem to come more from the picture rather than having it so high above the tv. The actual main speakers I would put on stands if you can on either side of the tv keeping the distance at least 6' apart. I'm not sure from that picture if you can do that or not. You could always have a couple friends hold the speakers up there and see the difference in sound up there vs. lower placement. After you get the placement where you want them make sure to do white noise test across the speakers and get them all the same sound level so that when you do play a 5.1 movie that you will truly hear the sound moving across the speakers smoothly. For the sub. Moving it closer to the corners of the room will do more bass and moving it away from teh walls will remove bass. Just going to have to play with it to see where you need it to fill that room. Marantz is what I used to use. I mistakenly gave my receiver to my ex in a fit of blind love. Damn her anyways - haha. Penty is right that NST super zeros are a good low budget speaker system. Energy Take Five's are nice for low budget too.

Happy Birthday!

Believe me it wasn't intended to go that price range when I started. About 10 years ago when I first got my first set of speakers I knew I didn't want Bose because of the lack of a powered sub so I went to a high end store and was literally blown away at the crap in there. I got about 1k worth of speakers at that time and it was great but eventually I moved to a bigger room and wanted to upgrade, etc. and then amassed the stuff over time. I guess you could say I got a little addicted but I haven't spent any money on it in a couple years now. Cables do make a difference once you drop a good buck into your system. Lower guage is always better. My speakers have bind posts on them so if you have that you either need to get the connectors for the speaker wire or buy the kind that has it already on it which you can usually buy in certain length. As for the components my cables are all one directional so you can't hook them up backwards haha. All that stuff hurts because after you spend all this money on amps, speakers and all that the last thing you want to do is drop a couple hundred buying cables. One thing to remember is that buying good stuff in speakers and stereos is that you really don't have to upgrade until technology passes you. But good speakers can last forever...at least I'm banking on it - haha. I don't use a projector. I use a 65" widescreen hdtv Bubblegum. I'm still trying to find that ultimate movie room but that won't come until I get myself gainfully employed again.

I think you might have a hard time getting a good system for $500. I've been really big into home theater for a long time and my whole set up cost me about $10,000. Granted you don't have to spend that kind of money to get a good quality system but I have upgraded as I've gone along. I also have separate amps that power everything and a preamp, etc. Most receivers you get nowadays should do most everything you want. You definitely want it to have a subwoofer out though. A separate channel is awesome for that. You want the receiver to decode both dolby digital and DTS and they should do both of those most of the time now. You want it to have a optical in or a coaxial in for the dolby digital sound too. It needs to have the same in as the out on the dvd player. Most should have optical hookup and definitely buy the cable and hook it up that way rather than the rca's. You really only need 5.1 surround because 7.1 is more for THX type systems and for the normal person 5.1 will sound just like a movie theater. 7.1 is great if you have a massive room to fill but for 99% of the people 5.1 is the best. Most movies aren't fully supported for 7.1 anyways yet which would mean that in a 7.1 system they would spread the sound between the rear and side channels instead of being speaker specific as in a 5.1 system unless the DVD was specifically made to do 7.1. I would definitely go powered subwoofer. No question about this one. DVD's hit low frequencies below 20 and a non powered subwoofer can't pick those up. To really feel the rumble and bass from movies a subwoofer makes a massive difference so as was said earlier make sure you don't half donkey on it. Penty is correct on matching the main speakers with the center channel. That way you have a smooth flow across the front which won't sound awkward when it switching from voice to regular sounds. Usually most speaker sets you look at now suggest a center channel to go along with them so you can't really screw this part up. The rears should be your last thought. If you are going to put less money into anything than the rears is it. Most dvd's the sound that comes out the rears isn't anywhere near as loud as the mains so you can go a little cheaper on these. Also, when you playback music you probably will just use the 2 front main speakers so the rears will be the least used speakers of the 5. You'll find that most speakers now also come with they recommends for not only center but rears. So your best bet is to just go give them a listen and see what you think is best. If you have any specific movies bring them with you and listen to scenes where you know the full surround is being used. It's the best way to really test speakers. Also, don't just hit the local chains. Try a high end audio store because a lot of times they have speakers that aren't really big but pack a big punch. One last thing about the receiver. Count the number of optical in's it has. You'd want one for the dvd player, one for xbox and one for cable box if it has it. Once you get all that hooked up with the widescreen tv you'll love it. I know I do. I also have an HD cable box running an optical out to my preamp so I can watch cable in dolby digital too. You should see if your cable offers that. I was able to upgrade my box to a dolby digital one for free.

A couple of my friends have that were former soccer players. Laymans terms the ACL keeps your shin from moving too far forward and the PCL keeps it from moving too far back. MCL keeps the knee from spreading apart and is on the inside of the joint. Usually a blow that would affect the MCL would do the ACL but I guess if hit correctly could tear the PCL as you said could be the case with you. MCL tear is from a side shot like when the knee buckles. When it hits the knee and it widens the MCL holds it together so that stretch can result in the tear. At least for the most part from what I hear MCL injury can be treated non surigcally. Let's hope that is the case. PCL is bad news. I hope you didn't affect it because it's much more a pain to fix than even an ACL. PCL is supposed to be harder to do surgery on than ACL and it's about the equivalent recovery time which can be quite long. Actually I bet they'd have you just ice it down, etc. for a while followed by physical therapy. I doubt you'd have surgery on it unless you really messed up the ligaments in your knee. Hopefully the entire injury is minor. PCL is an odd injury. What were you doing when you hurt it? For that to happen it would seem you'd have to have your knee bent and get hit from the side or back of the knee at the same time to get both an MCL and PCL injury. That's just what I know from some friends that tore their ACL's and from learning stuff when I worked in a medical building a few years. I've been lucky to never tear any of the 4 ligaments in my knee over the years but have had a few scares myself.

Bah!! Shaw you suck! Believe me I wish my count was only one in my life. I know I'd sure have had a lot less headaches that way...

I agree with Red on that one. I live up on the lake too and don't have a blast all the time. I would have gone to Fragfest for sure but I've been out of a job for almost a year now. I have to hold on to as much cash as I can until I find another job. I don't know how much longer I'll be in this position and blowing money left and right wouldn't be the smart thing to do.

I love Battlefield 1942. It's what I played all the time after Counterstrike. I'm really looking forward to Battlefield 2. In the meantime though I fill my time with mmorpgs. I still have an addiction to them...that is until some other woman comes along and distracts me again - haha.

Wait in the bushes one night with the old Louisville slugger and teach those punks a lesson. Sometimes you gotta do it the old school way but that's just me. You could always call the cops and tell them the situation so that they have a patrol car frequent your area more often to keep a watch on things. This would be the modern day solution - haha.

It was a pretty good game but that graphics overhaul isn't enough to get me playing again.

Actually a lot of the rpg's will have better graphics than WoW. WoW chose to make their graphics more on the cartoonish side to kill lag. It's why you can have a million people in a city and get no lag. Overall the graphics for it are still nice and it should provide better gameplay overall for people with different spec computers. It is sad to see some rpg's go but they need to...why? Because I don't need any more choices of which ones to play - haha.

I was in a guild in Shadowbane that constantly fought LoD on Death server.

3842 steps. Hmm...come to think about it that might have just been my walk home Friday night...I can't seem to remember.

The change of pace to a rpg is nice it's trying not to fall into the time sink of it that kills you. At least with CS and DC you can just come in play a few maps and be done in 30 minutes whereas in an RPG you are talking major hours invested although an RPG holds your attention for a long time with all the stuff to do in it. I usually like to have both going at the same time so that I can fill my short attention span - haha.

I haven't logged into FFXI for a long time now. Currently I stopped my monthly subscription until a patch or something comes along for me to do. Once I hit 75 the whole concept of doing that level grind all over again was pretty frustrating so I was just waiting for something else to come along. I know the next huge patch is coming out in the fall which I'll look forward to so that means I'll have to at least pay for a month here and there to keep my character active until then. As far as complication in RPG it doesn't really matter to me. I just like interesting things to do and the whole superhero thing in itself is a nice change from the usual RPG's out there so I figured I'd give it a try. I'm still undecided though but we'll see. I'm starting to get tired of playing Desert Combat everyday so that might finally make me do the push to getting CoH.

Man - all this talk - I've been considering picking this up since I am a little bored with FFXI currently. Need some new blood.

The cast of characters cracked me up especially when you use their special attack.

Here is a pretty weird game. It takes about 45 minutes to run the entire course of it. It does have some politically incorrect areas but it's pretty funny. http://www.emogame.com/bushgame.html

Wow, surprised to see this here. I finished both of these a couple weeks ago. I want the Blue room now - hehe. Those were definitely some weird puzzles especially the viridian room.

LOL!! Carbuncle Ruby... You didn't send anything to my mog house but as of 7:21est you were leveling in Valkrum dunes on a lvl 12thf/6mnk. That proof enough?