Hey friends, 

I've been a little busy catching up with an old friend who really means a lot to me. I've also been hanging out with friend in real life and wondering a bit about the future, so a lot of the stuff on here was put on hold for a few weeks. I'm kind of worried about falling back into old routines. I think that scared me a little because part of me feels like any positive changes that I have made will just be negated. However, I don't think this has been the case. The world really isn't as "all or nothing" as I've been brought up to believe. I have a few topics I just want to talk about as I wrap up the weekend. 

Home Stuff

The redecorating project turned out great. However, I recently found myself purchasing more audiovisual equipment and it's starting to take up space again. I'm not back where I started, but I really need to clean up a little so everything looks more tidy. I'm mostly dealing with "leftovers" like tools I just never put back or cardboard boxes that need to be broken down. It's a lot of busy work that I'm too lazy to do after work and on the weekends, but I really need to get my act together and get it done. I think the next thing I'd like to work on in life is getting myself to not leave things at 90% so that I have to come back later to them. 

Audiovisual Purchases

I've finally decided to pull the trigger on a small home theater setup that I've had my mind on since last year. This is mainly for movies and other physical media, but it'll be where I play my consoles on too. I think I have everything except for a center speaker, which I'm struggling to find at an affordable price. To be fair, my sound isn't that great. I think since my room is small I can live with a soundbar that'll do Left, Right, and Center audio channels. 

The reason why I want it this way is because most media is mixed this way. It's one of the reasons you might find yourself turning up the volume while you watch Netflix because you can't hear the dialogue, then turn it back down because the sound effects are too loud. Dialogue is typically mixed into the center channel which doesn't really sound great when you just have a stereo set-up. 

I think there's enough room in my TV stand for the equipment, I'll just need to rearrange everything one everything has arrived. I also ordered a new TV. It's the Sony Bravia XR 55" AL95. It's a model from 2023 (I think?), but it's been one of the best televisions you can buy in the last few years. It's going to be the first TV that I've bought at this range and I'm really excited for it! I'll probably write about it as well. 

Another thing I bought was an AV receiver by Denon. It's where all my video will run through before going into the TV and speakers. I'm thinking of keeping it "dumb" and not connecting it to the network, but I also think that it'd be nice if it could play some of the stuff on my Plex server too. Will experiment!

Lastly, I bought a modified Panasonic Blu-Ray player that can play discs from any region. This will be pretty neat to have since I won't have to worry about any imports that I may purchase in the future. It's also the first dedicated Blu-Ray player that I've ever bought. I do have a PS5 and a PS4, but they cannot handle the 4K UHD Blu-Rays that you might have seen in stores. The video stream is just higher than what the consoles are capable of doing. They're primarily built for games and have to transmit other kinds of data, so the specs are different. The standard Blu-Ray player is just a bonus. I've had no problems playing standard Blu-Rays on them, though. But I don't want to settle for 1080p, I want to recreate a fraction of my cinematic experience at home. 

This week, I also received my PS Vita TV console. I haven't opened it yet since I'm waiting on the HDMI Switcher that'll allow me to bypass the HDCP thing I mentioned in my last post. Once I have everything, I want to see how feasible it is to stream from it. 

When I get excited over stuff I buy, part of me feels guilty because it comes off as materialistic. The truth is ... yeah, I like purchasing cool shit. And I don't think I care that I'm attached to physical items. Having physical media, caring about your possessions is important because they are physical manifestations of your interests. Of course, I wouldn't really try saving anything if my home was burning down, I wouldn't risk my life for my items. 

I guess I'm saying that I'm okay with letting things go at a certain point. I'm okay with starting over if I lost everything today. 

I'm excited to take pictures and just talk about everything once it comes in. It'll be a nice change of pace for the blog!