November 2, 2008.  No More Halloween

My wife and I have decided that we will not observe Halloween next year, at least not the "trick or treat" part of it.  The practice has gotten out of hand.

Not many years ago, almost all of the trick or treaters were from our suburban neighborhood.  They were mostly little kids, who came around dressed in costumes, some homemade, some store-bought.

Now, a sizeable majority arrive in motorized divisions.  Some adult drives them up in a van and parks it on the street.  The kids pile out and swarm to any house that seems to be handing out goodies.  Sometimes it looks like a whole block from a city neighborhood has been transported to our street.  Some of these kids are well into their teens.  They are more like semi-controlled looters than trick or treaters, and many don't even bother with costumes (not so much as a mask).  In one instance, the kids collected the goodies and carried them back to the van, where the adult driver emptied all the candy into a pillow case.  Good grief!  I don't blame the kids.  Adults are the masterminds of this perversion of what used to be a nice tradition.

This is not my idea of Halloween and trick or treating.  Next year, we shall leave the porch light off and keep the curtains drawn.  If necessary, I will stand behind the door with a shotgun.  I have a feeling that many other households will do the same; in fact, it appears that many have.

November 12, 2008.  The Dubious Joys of High-Tech Audio

One of the sinful indulgences in our household is a 58-inch, high-def plasma TV.  As far back as when we had only a 19-inch set, we have had the TV connected to a separate audio system, first for true stereo and then for surround sound.  Until we got the monster TV last year, the sound system has always dwarfed the video, partly because I used the system for music as well.  However, in the DVD age, when one uses the TV primarily for watching movies (i.e., as a home theater), the audio system becomes even more important.  I have never understood how people can buy $2,000 TV sets and settle for the pseudo-stereo sound that these sets deliver.  TV manufacturers naturally put most of the quality into the video – that's what sells TV sets – and scrimp on the audio.  Only with a surround receiver can one get the full impact of high-def or digital video, including DVDs.  (We haven't gone to Blu-ray yet, but I assume we will soon.)

The trouble is that wiring such a system can be a real challenge.  A moderate or high-end receiver has a rear panel that is enough to frighten anyone.  These units are made to accommodate not only a TV hookup but a host of other components – CD and DVD players and recorders, DVRs, game consoles, camcorders, and so on – as well as older components that one might still have – a VCR, a video tape deck, even (in higher-end models) a phonograph turntable.  Plugs now range from the old standard RCA type plugs to digital, optical, and S-Video plugs.  The latest connections are HDMI plugs that carry high-def video and audio through one line.

It seems as if I am forever upgrading my receiver to accommodate the latest technology.  Each time, of course, it means disconnecting all the wires from the old receiver, studying a user's manual, and connecting wires to the new one.  Tomorrow (I hope I can do it in one day), I will be going through that again when I install a new reveiver – no simple task because, besides the TV, the cable/DVR box, and seven speakers, I have to hook up five other components.  Actually, the cable box/DVR and TV hookup should be simple with HDMI – two lines, one from cable/DVR to the receiver and one from the receiver to the TV.  It's getting all the other stuff going to the proper inputs and outputs that creates the hassle.

Another maddening part of the picture is that I just went through this a year ago and less than a year before that.  My current receiver is less than two years old, but it has no HDMI circuits.  I also had to disconnect everything and reconnect (with modifications in the wiring plan) a year ago when we remodeled the room and installed the plasma TV.  We worked around the lack ol HDMI by using optical lines for the audio.

The main reason for now installing a new receiver is for the convenience and better quality of HDMI.  I'm hoping that this will hold me for more than a couple of years.  I was a fool to bypass a more expensive receiver with HDMI inputs two years ago ("We'll never use them," I said) because, within a year we had the high-def TV, a DVR, and a DVD player with HDMI plugs.  I tried to be forward-looking this time.  The new receiver cost a bundle and has more inputs than I think I'll ever use (five HDMI inputs), but I want to be ready to just plug and play whatever comes down the pike next, without having to figure out an elaborate workaround.

Of course, the people out there in Electronics Land are already getting ready to release some must-have component that requires an input that my brand-new receiver doesn't have.  I expect to be reading about it soon, like about Friday.

November 20, 2008.  High-Tech Audio Follow-Up

I am pleased to report that the installation of the new receiver (an Onkyo TXSR806S) went quite smoothly.  As expected, the HDMI hookups were quite simple –one line each from the DVD and DVR to the receiver, one line out from the receiver to the TV.  One nice feature is that the speaker terminals are arranged in a row across the bottom of the back, no longer in a cramped square that makes it very difficult to thread the wires into the posts.

Like my older receiver, this one has a gadget that plugs into the front and is then placed in the listening area.  When this is attached, one runs a program in which each speaker emits a sound that is picked up by the gadget (they call it a microphone, but it does nothing but "listen").  It supposedly gauges speaker distance and configures the speakers automatically.  Though I've used this type of device with two receivers, its readings are never correct.  After I ran the program (several times), the sound was out of synch – possibly because I have a hodge-podge of speakers of different types rather than a matching set.  Fortunately, I had written down the distance settings for the previous receiver and was able to adjust them manually.

The sound quality of this receiver is better than that of the older one, even though the "old" one is also an Onkyo and less than two years old.  The difference is most noticeable on THX-encoded DVD movies.  To our surprise, however, the picture quality has improved.  We were using HDMI before but had to go directly from the DVR/cable box and DVD player to the TV for video with the old receiver, which lacked HDMI circuitry.  Theoretically, I don't see why running the same lines through a receiver and out to the TV should enhance video, but it has.

The long and the short of it is that anyone who is looking for a fairly high-end AV receiver for a surround system would do well to consider this Onkyo.  That's especially true for someone who may soon be adding new equipment with HDMI circuits, such as a Blu-ray player or a high-definition TV.  It has five HDMI inputs.  If you wanted, you could hook up a standard DVD player, a Blu-ray player, a DVR, and a game console – and still have an unused HDMI input.  It will accommodate seven speakers (plus subwoofer) and can run speakers in another room (but not wirelessly).  The variety of available sound fields is sufficient to keep you diddling around for days, trying out various effects.  Like all of Onkyo's receivers, it is built like a battleship – or, more accurately, considering its size, an aircraft carrier.

We may be eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a while until the credit card bill is paid, but it's worth it. 

November 27, 2008.  Thanksgiving 2008

Here it is – the official kickoff to the Christmas shopping season, although that begins unofficially in October or as far back as when the back-to-school sales wound down in September.  Tomorrow is Black Friday, when shoppers, enticed by door-buster sales, are supposed to flock to the malls with all the frantic eagerness with which lemmings march to the sea.  Poor Thanksgiving is rather lost in all of this conspicuous consumption.

I'm reading that this year is different because nobody has much money to spend and credit has dried up.  I really wouldn't know about the effects because I try to avoid the malls as much as I can, starting about mid-November.  The last time I went shopping on Black Friday – many years ago – it was such a miserable experience that I swore never to do it again.  I confess that I'm tempted to try it again this year because merchants are obviously desperate and the ads are enticing.  However, I also read the fine print, such as "limited quantities" – which means that the one item that I intended to get on sale will have been bought by someone who sat outside the store at 2 a.m.

It is better for me to set aside this entire weekend for collecting my thoughts, calmly planning what I need to do in the next few weeks, and attending to some routine chores such as house-cleaning that will free some time for when I have to join the herd.  Indeed, I could easily ignore the whole Christmas shopping scene if we didn't have grandchildren.  The economy isn't going to be any better in January, and the bargains are likely to be even better then, though the stock will be smaller.

Not buying into the insane elements of the holidays is very difficult, but it can be done.  When I think of going out into the maddening and mad crowds, I ask myself, "Is it really worth it?"  The answer is usually that it's not.

For mor in this subject, please see "HallowThanksMas 2008" on this site.