A few days ago, my aunt decided that she finally wanted to upgrade her home theater. Recently she bought a nice flat panel LCD monitor, but still uses the cheap shit wal mart HTIB (Home Theater In a Box) that she bought a few years back. The thing sounds fucking terrible. Not just "not up to my standards" as my mother would put it, but "who the fuck buys this shit!?" kind of terrible. I honestly would prefer to just use the TV speaker than listen through this abomination. So finally, she's ready to upgrade. I'm not sure that she is even unhappy with what she's got... I think she's just sick of being told by all of us how bad it is. Like my mother (her sister), I have my doubts as to whether she could even identify the differences between a bunch of clock radio speakers and a B&W 800 series surround system in an A/B test.
So, she wants a new system. Of course she wants it to be cheap, after all, why spend any money on your home theater when you could spend it all on a Blue Ray player that's got like 3 movies in that format. So anyway, I spent a few hours doing a bunch of research to see what was out there. I presented to her 4 speaker options: 2 "cheap" setups, and two better (Under $1k) systems. Before I even showed it to her, I already knew exactly which she'd choose... the cheapest. I was right. I couldn't help but wonder why I bothered listing the other 3 options at all.
So today I just finished doing a little bit of research for subwoofers and a receiver. I suggested 2 subs... I didn't bother listing any of the more expensive stuff I found. I already know which she'll choose, so I probably even wasted my time suggesting 2. With the receiver, I only came up with a couple affordable choices, so that was easier.
So, why am I bitching? I really don't know. I enjoy doing this sort of thing, and I'm always happy to help my aunt. I guess it just frustrates the shit out of me that other people have enough of an interest in this stuff to spend their money on it, but not enough interest to spend their money wisely.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Monday, November 27, 2006
Black Friday is the devil
We all have such an overwhelming desire to save money and to find any way to "beat the man", that the companies have no choice but to cater to our foolish wants and exploit them to the fullest extent possible. Black Friday is the result. Everybody opens at 5:00 AM, and offers a small quantity of some amazing deal guaranteed to let us all justify standing in a ridiculously long line for a chance at getting the score of the year. Likewise, these companies know that after the first 5 people claim their prize, that the other 995 idiots who have been in line since yesterday's sunset, in their sleep deprived, caffinated state will cough up full price for a similar product so that they don't get that empty feeling of having just wasted some of their life.
I was one of those idiots on Friday. For the same selfish reasons as everybody else, my father and I decided to get up at 3:45 AM in order to get to Best Buy before their 5:00 AM opening in hopes of scoring a $600 Lap Top computer for $250. I don't even really need one, but the thought of such a sweet deal was just too powerful. We arrived early... around 4:40. What we saw was a line that started at the Best Buy doors, and wrapped all the way around to the main mall entrance approximately 200 yards away. This line was also apprxomately 5 people wide. I would guess that there were easily 1,000 people who were already in line at 4:45 AM. Realizing that there was no possible way that two of the "minimum 10 per store" would still be available after over 1,000 people pushed, shoved, ran, and stomped their way into the store, we left with our tails between our legs.
On the way home, we swung through the K-Mart plaza in North Adams to scope out the state of the new Staples that was opening up at 6:00 AM. Since there were only a handful of customers waiting in front, we pulled in and decided to try and redeem our efforts and not go home empty handed. After a brief 15 minute wait, I walked into the store, picked up a 20" Samsung widescreen computer monitor and forked over the $259.95, irritated that the "$179.95" advertised price was only after sending in a mail-in rebate.
So now I have a snazzy new widescreen monitor that I didn't really need, running at a less than optimal resolution thanks to my low budget video card that worked just fine with my old monitor. For all this, I get to live with the knowledge that I, like all of the mindless twits that I so often criticize, got my sleep deprived ass out of bed in the middle of the night to save a few bucks on a piece of equipment that I never needed in the first place.
And after all that, I'm posting my blog from work because my shitty 29.2 dial up connection infuriates me every time I dial in.
I was one of those idiots on Friday. For the same selfish reasons as everybody else, my father and I decided to get up at 3:45 AM in order to get to Best Buy before their 5:00 AM opening in hopes of scoring a $600 Lap Top computer for $250. I don't even really need one, but the thought of such a sweet deal was just too powerful. We arrived early... around 4:40. What we saw was a line that started at the Best Buy doors, and wrapped all the way around to the main mall entrance approximately 200 yards away. This line was also apprxomately 5 people wide. I would guess that there were easily 1,000 people who were already in line at 4:45 AM. Realizing that there was no possible way that two of the "minimum 10 per store" would still be available after over 1,000 people pushed, shoved, ran, and stomped their way into the store, we left with our tails between our legs.
On the way home, we swung through the K-Mart plaza in North Adams to scope out the state of the new Staples that was opening up at 6:00 AM. Since there were only a handful of customers waiting in front, we pulled in and decided to try and redeem our efforts and not go home empty handed. After a brief 15 minute wait, I walked into the store, picked up a 20" Samsung widescreen computer monitor and forked over the $259.95, irritated that the "$179.95" advertised price was only after sending in a mail-in rebate.
So now I have a snazzy new widescreen monitor that I didn't really need, running at a less than optimal resolution thanks to my low budget video card that worked just fine with my old monitor. For all this, I get to live with the knowledge that I, like all of the mindless twits that I so often criticize, got my sleep deprived ass out of bed in the middle of the night to save a few bucks on a piece of equipment that I never needed in the first place.
And after all that, I'm posting my blog from work because my shitty 29.2 dial up connection infuriates me every time I dial in.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Having a conversation on the Internet is like watching a Porno on cable
No matter how low your expectations are, somehow, they still wind up too high. I participate on a fair number of message forums, and one in particular is a non-tech forum that consists of a bunch of car guys who became friends (both in person and online) over the years. Of course there's always a few idiots who, for whatever reason, have nothing interesting to contribute and thrive on being a pain in the ass. It's these few idiots that make the "virtual world" so different from the real world. In the real world, these types of degenerates congregate with similarly useless people, and together they basically stay out of society's way. However, once you provide the anonymimity of a computer screen, that same useless twit suddenly feels empowered, and quickly evolves into a keyboard terrorist. He'll think nothing of invading a conversation between a bunch of folks who were getting along just fine without him, then suddenly begin spewing forth mental vomit as fast as his keyboard can deliver the message.
What the internet needs is a way to deliver a virtual ass kicking, because that's the obvious difference between real life and cyberspace. In high school those few idiots who didn't learn from the unfortunate mistakes of their piers, wound up becoming that example by which all others learned by getting his ass kicked, followed by a drink of dirty toliet water.
What the internet needs is a way to deliver a virtual ass kicking, because that's the obvious difference between real life and cyberspace. In high school those few idiots who didn't learn from the unfortunate mistakes of their piers, wound up becoming that example by which all others learned by getting his ass kicked, followed by a drink of dirty toliet water.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Bose - Better Sales Through Better Marketing
Far too often, as soon as the conversation shifts toward audio, somebody in the group I'm in will inevitably pipe up and proclaim that Bose is the best there is, then wonder why I don't have it, since I'm so into audio.
Bose sucks. I'm not just saying that because I like another brand. I say it because it's true. It's low quality shit that's brilliantly marketed toward people who simply do not know any better, or to men who are forced to use tiny speakers in their house because their wife has too tight of a grip on their balls.
"Come on, it's not that bad." Yes it is. We're talking about flea-market type of shit, but because it has a cool modern look, and because they market it so well, people continue to be fooled.
Recently a person on a message board that I read wrote to Bose to ask them what the frequency response on their model 191 speakers was. This was of course a loaded question because the person already knew about the Bose policy of not publishing frequency response measurements. Here was the reply from Bose:
"Bose does not publish frequency specifications. The reason for this is that we believe that such statistics do not add very much to an understanding of an audio product's acoustic characteristics and, even worse, can be misleading. Audio manufacturers make these measurements independent of industry standards, and in varying conditions. Additionally, a single statistic is not a reliable measurement of a product's performance. One could, for instance, find a very expensive system with exactly the same specifications as a much less expensive system. On paper, the two would appear identical. The difference in performance, however, would be significant. A better approach, we feel, is to listen to the product.
Thank you for contacting Bose Corporation."
What their reply should have said was this:
"Bose does not publish frequency response specifications because they're so fucking bad that if you saw the truth, the entire illusion that our product sales are based upon would crumble and we would be exposed for the frauds that we are. We suggest that you just blindly buy our shit like every other half-whit lemming that is perfectlly happy with our stuff, and maintain that satisfied feeling that comes with buying a terribly overpriced product on image alone."
Bose's biggest fraud is their Acoustimass system. This is their famous system that uses a couple itty-bitty cubes and a subwoofer that you hide somewhere. I heard my first one when I was a teenager, back when I had a tin ear. Even then, though overall I was impressed, the bass never sounded natural to me, and when it got turned up loud, the system started to hurt my ears. I didn't learn until many years later that when it hurts your ears like that, that's a clear sign of a HIGH DISTORTION speaker. Low distortion speakers can be played at amazingly loud levels without the hint of pain. It's not surprising that you get this from those speakers once you crack one open and look inside. What you have is a cheap plastic enclosure that holds a $.25 paper-coned full-range driver. Pure crap. Below is a picture of an actual Bose tweeter that's used in some of their stuff (though not in their Acoustimass system):
Even cheap TVs and bathroom radios don't come with shit this cheap.
It took me a lot longer to understand why the bass didn't sound right, but surprise-surprise, it was a distortion issue too. Unlike the "pain" from the cubes that is a result from massive amounts of odd-order harmonic distortion, the bass sounded the way it did due to huge amounts of even-order distortion. In fact, it's a not so well known fact that large amounds of 2nd order harmonic distortion can actually fool you into hearing bass that sounds deeper than it really is. If memory serves me right, the Bose Acoustimass system uses a 6th order bandpass enclosure. These enclosures are known for eggaggerating 2nd harmonic problems with drivers. Not by coincidence, small woofers tend to have a lot of 2nd harmonic distortion.. especially cheap paper woofers with lousy motor assemblies like Bose uses. Rather than stuff one reasonable quality 8" or 10" woofer into an enclosure, Bose chose to use 3 extremely cheap 5.5" drivers. The result is a bunch of midbass output that people are fooled into thinking is deep bass. This results in a very unnatural bass sound because instead of hearing the actual bass note that should be reproduced, you're hearing the upper harmonics of that note that are then highly distorted in an attempt to fool you into thinking that you're hearing the deeper bass that this system is actually incapable of playing. Another huge problem is that due to the lack of any midbass output from the cubes, the "bass" module plays up to over 200hz. At frequencies above around 80-100hz, you can start to localize the sound (that means you can tell where it's coming from), so with all that 200hz garbage coming out of the sub, unless you stick it right between the two main speakers, you'll always be able to hear the bass coming from it instead of having anything close to an accurate stereo image.
Let's get back to those stupid little cubes for a minute. People think it's great that all that sound comes from those tiny things. Well, the truth is, the frequency response of those cubes is awful. A pair of 2.5" speakers just absolutely can not reproduce bass, especially when they're the incredibly cheap shit that bose uses. In the trebble range, you get terrible comb filtering because both drivers are playing unfiltered, and as the wavelengths get shorter with higher frequencies, you are suceptable to cancellation at any position where the distance of one driver is 1/2 wavelength more or less than the distance from another driver. This means that as bad as that comb filtering is, it's completely different at every point in the room. A total disaster. Plus, those 2.5" cone speakers are going to become highly directional at higher frequencies due to the diameter of the cone. Cone speakers tend to become very directional at frequencies where the wavelength is smaller than the diameter of the cone, or in the case of a 2.5" speaker, about 5,400hz. In addition, these shitty little speakers roll off above 13khz, so you can forget about ever hearing any real cymbol crashes through them. The actual measured frequency response of the satellite speakers is 280hz - 13.3khz +/- 10.5dB. For comparison, even cheap Best Buy speakers can usually muster a 100-20khz +/-3dB response.
"But I went to Sears and it sounded great!" Of course it did. Bose has their own display set up so that it's impossible to compare it to anything else. Plus, look at the setup... all of the speakers are within a couple feet of your head. With the speakers that close, it gives a false sense of detail that you'll never be able to get with them farther away. Lastly, you only get to hear the movies/music that they have selected. Naturally they'll pick what sounds best with those speakers.
For what the Bose stuff costs, you can't possibly do any worse. No matter what you buy that's in that price range, it'll be a huge improvement. Boston Acoustics, Polk, Energy, and hundreds of other brands offer products in the same price range that are many, many levels higher up the quality scale.
For more info, check out the site that I stole the frequency response numbers (and graph) from:
http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html
He says everything I did plus a whole lot more.
Bose sucks. I'm not just saying that because I like another brand. I say it because it's true. It's low quality shit that's brilliantly marketed toward people who simply do not know any better, or to men who are forced to use tiny speakers in their house because their wife has too tight of a grip on their balls.
"Come on, it's not that bad." Yes it is. We're talking about flea-market type of shit, but because it has a cool modern look, and because they market it so well, people continue to be fooled.
Recently a person on a message board that I read wrote to Bose to ask them what the frequency response on their model 191 speakers was. This was of course a loaded question because the person already knew about the Bose policy of not publishing frequency response measurements. Here was the reply from Bose:
"Bose does not publish frequency specifications. The reason for this is that we believe that such statistics do not add very much to an understanding of an audio product's acoustic characteristics and, even worse, can be misleading. Audio manufacturers make these measurements independent of industry standards, and in varying conditions. Additionally, a single statistic is not a reliable measurement of a product's performance. One could, for instance, find a very expensive system with exactly the same specifications as a much less expensive system. On paper, the two would appear identical. The difference in performance, however, would be significant. A better approach, we feel, is to listen to the product.
Thank you for contacting Bose Corporation."
What their reply should have said was this:
"Bose does not publish frequency response specifications because they're so fucking bad that if you saw the truth, the entire illusion that our product sales are based upon would crumble and we would be exposed for the frauds that we are. We suggest that you just blindly buy our shit like every other half-whit lemming that is perfectlly happy with our stuff, and maintain that satisfied feeling that comes with buying a terribly overpriced product on image alone."
Bose's biggest fraud is their Acoustimass system. This is their famous system that uses a couple itty-bitty cubes and a subwoofer that you hide somewhere. I heard my first one when I was a teenager, back when I had a tin ear. Even then, though overall I was impressed, the bass never sounded natural to me, and when it got turned up loud, the system started to hurt my ears. I didn't learn until many years later that when it hurts your ears like that, that's a clear sign of a HIGH DISTORTION speaker. Low distortion speakers can be played at amazingly loud levels without the hint of pain. It's not surprising that you get this from those speakers once you crack one open and look inside. What you have is a cheap plastic enclosure that holds a $.25 paper-coned full-range driver. Pure crap. Below is a picture of an actual Bose tweeter that's used in some of their stuff (though not in their Acoustimass system):
Even cheap TVs and bathroom radios don't come with shit this cheap.
It took me a lot longer to understand why the bass didn't sound right, but surprise-surprise, it was a distortion issue too. Unlike the "pain" from the cubes that is a result from massive amounts of odd-order harmonic distortion, the bass sounded the way it did due to huge amounts of even-order distortion. In fact, it's a not so well known fact that large amounds of 2nd order harmonic distortion can actually fool you into hearing bass that sounds deeper than it really is. If memory serves me right, the Bose Acoustimass system uses a 6th order bandpass enclosure. These enclosures are known for eggaggerating 2nd harmonic problems with drivers. Not by coincidence, small woofers tend to have a lot of 2nd harmonic distortion.. especially cheap paper woofers with lousy motor assemblies like Bose uses. Rather than stuff one reasonable quality 8" or 10" woofer into an enclosure, Bose chose to use 3 extremely cheap 5.5" drivers. The result is a bunch of midbass output that people are fooled into thinking is deep bass. This results in a very unnatural bass sound because instead of hearing the actual bass note that should be reproduced, you're hearing the upper harmonics of that note that are then highly distorted in an attempt to fool you into thinking that you're hearing the deeper bass that this system is actually incapable of playing. Another huge problem is that due to the lack of any midbass output from the cubes, the "bass" module plays up to over 200hz. At frequencies above around 80-100hz, you can start to localize the sound (that means you can tell where it's coming from), so with all that 200hz garbage coming out of the sub, unless you stick it right between the two main speakers, you'll always be able to hear the bass coming from it instead of having anything close to an accurate stereo image.
Let's get back to those stupid little cubes for a minute. People think it's great that all that sound comes from those tiny things. Well, the truth is, the frequency response of those cubes is awful. A pair of 2.5" speakers just absolutely can not reproduce bass, especially when they're the incredibly cheap shit that bose uses. In the trebble range, you get terrible comb filtering because both drivers are playing unfiltered, and as the wavelengths get shorter with higher frequencies, you are suceptable to cancellation at any position where the distance of one driver is 1/2 wavelength more or less than the distance from another driver. This means that as bad as that comb filtering is, it's completely different at every point in the room. A total disaster. Plus, those 2.5" cone speakers are going to become highly directional at higher frequencies due to the diameter of the cone. Cone speakers tend to become very directional at frequencies where the wavelength is smaller than the diameter of the cone, or in the case of a 2.5" speaker, about 5,400hz. In addition, these shitty little speakers roll off above 13khz, so you can forget about ever hearing any real cymbol crashes through them. The actual measured frequency response of the satellite speakers is 280hz - 13.3khz +/- 10.5dB. For comparison, even cheap Best Buy speakers can usually muster a 100-20khz +/-3dB response.
"But I went to Sears and it sounded great!" Of course it did. Bose has their own display set up so that it's impossible to compare it to anything else. Plus, look at the setup... all of the speakers are within a couple feet of your head. With the speakers that close, it gives a false sense of detail that you'll never be able to get with them farther away. Lastly, you only get to hear the movies/music that they have selected. Naturally they'll pick what sounds best with those speakers.
For what the Bose stuff costs, you can't possibly do any worse. No matter what you buy that's in that price range, it'll be a huge improvement. Boston Acoustics, Polk, Energy, and hundreds of other brands offer products in the same price range that are many, many levels higher up the quality scale.
For more info, check out the site that I stole the frequency response numbers (and graph) from:
http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html
He says everything I did plus a whole lot more.
Big Bill Hell's Car Dealer
This has to be one of the funniest commercials I've ever seen. (NWS - language)
Welcome to my Blog
Well, the year 2006 is coming to an end, and I finally broke down and decided to join the millions of lemmings that are already a step ahead of me and create a blog. Whether it blossims into something entertaining and/or useful or sits here, stale with no future updates remains to be seen. Why start this blog at all? I don't know. Kristin (My fiance) has one, and she seems to enjoy writing in it daily, so I figured maybe I'm missing something and should try it. When I was a kid I kept a daily diary, and I think there is quite a bit of merit in doing so. Just the word "diary" conjurs up thoughts of gayness and sissy behavior, but keeping a daily record of your life isn't such a bad idea for the simple reason that it forces you to spend a couple minutes thinking about the day that just went by, and sometimes, that 2 minutes spent will help you learn from your day's experiences, and with a little bit of luck, you'll be slightly less stupid as a result.
If you're into speakers, cars, sports, sex and other Man stuff, you may enjoy my blog. If you're looking for a bunch of emotional crap about how much life means to me, then you'll probably find this spot a bit boring.
So... info about me. I'm not sure why, because nobody who doesn't already know me is likely to read this, but incase you're one of those losers who actually reads shit from random people that you have no hope of ever meeting, here's some info:
I'm Jim. I'm almost 30. I'm engaged to Kristin. I like cars. I like audio. I'm an electrical engineer. I'm a republican. I don't have a religion per-se. I just bought a house. Here's all that shit restated in more words and probably not in the same order:
I have 5 cars: My newly acquired 91 GMC Jimmy winter-beater shitbox; my 87 GMC Sierra Classic K3500 that I bought a couple years ago (but have wanted since I was a kid); My 1991 Chevy Corvette daily driver; my 88 Pontiac Trans Am GTA that I've had since sometime around 2000; and my baby, my 1985 Chevy Camaro IROC-Z. Yes, I'm a redneck. I have more cars than I should, and I like them all except for the Jimmy, which is simply cheap 4 wheel drive transportation. Only 1 has a valid inspection. For info and pics on my vehicles (and Kristin's Camry), go to http://www.cardomain.com/id/jim85iroc.
Beyond my cars, my other main interest is audio. I've been into audio since I was in 8th grade, and the burning desire to learn more about it has never stopped. I installed stereos in every car I've had, worked in home and car audio shops during college, and in the last few years I've taken on home speaker building, which is a very challenging task that combines the need for woodworking with the electrical knowledge necessary to design and build the electrical filter networks. Lastly, it requires a good systems engineering mindset in order to select the proper components that will compliment each other in the design.
I work at General Dynamics in Pittsfield MA as a Hardware Engineer. They're a defense contractor. I used to work on the "Fire Control" systems for Trident Submarines. In other words, I worked on the system that fires up to 24 nuclear missles out of the submarine toward some doomed country with only remaining moments of existance. I enjoyed being part of that whole philosophy, but ultimately, the work itself sucked. Now I work on a different program that I can't tell you about. Say what you want about nuclear missiles and the submarines that hold them, but the fact that we have MULTIPLE submarines somewhere in the world's oceans at any given time, each with enough nuclear firepower to end the world in minutes is reason enough for no other country to ever consider screwing with us. The best defense, is indeed, a good offense.
I went to college at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester NY. It was a 5 year program that took me 6 years to complete. I started off in Electrical Engineering, and after failing virtually every math and physics course I took, I moved into Electrical Engineering Technology. What's the difference? In the real world, virtually nothing. We all apply (and get) the same jobs for the most part. EE students spend more time on theory and EETs spend more time on applications. Since I'm a hands-on guy and not a "book lerner", EET wound up being a better fit for me. As for all that math and physics that I failed, once all that stuff was taught to me in my engineering courses instead of by the math & science department, it all became much easier to understand. :)
I'm a republican, though I'm sure that has become fairly obvious by now. I hate tree-hugging pinko liberals who are too narrow minded and ignorant to realize that it's not the government's job to protect me from myself. I have a right to own my guns. I have a right to keep more of my paycheck instead of giving it to those in a lower tax bracket. Sure, we need to help those who can't help themselves, but it's about goddamned time that we stop helping those who choose not to help themselves. Global warming isn't our fault. Stop thinking that we've got nearly that much power over the world. We don't. Learn a little bit about geology and the history of the world. Temperatures have fluctuated greatly over the earth's history, and the fact that temperatures are starting to rise coincides perfectly with the natural oscillation of the earth's temperatures. If you don't understand what I just said, you're too stupid to have an opinion anyway. Oh hell, this is is why I don't like talking politics. I've only touched upon the tip of the iceberg and already I'm all fired up, irritated, and getting a bug up my ass over it. I didn't even get to talk about the million stupid laws that Massachusetts Liberals have forced down our throat. That's for another time.
On to religion. On second thought, maybe not. I'll condense: I grew up catholic until I began to form the opinion that all religion (or at least all the ones that I'm somewhat familiar with) are a crock of shit intended for nothing more than to help humans deal with death and the nothingness that follows it. Does that mean I don't believe in God? I don't know. That part still confuses me, probably because like a typical human, I need to cling to at least one small thread of hope that there is an afterlife and that the game isn't over when I check out. I still pray on a regular basis and I still tell myself that God exists. I have a feeling that I'll elaborate on these thoughts in the near future.
Now on to my personal life. I have a fiance, Kristin. I'm not going to say much about my relationship with her, because that's the one and only part of my life that is private. I'm sure I'll share plenty of superficial shit over time, but that's about it. You may gain some insight about our relationship from her perspective if you read her blog (http://www.fyi-kiki.blogspot.com/).
We recently bought a home in Readsboro, VT. Owning a home is a bittersweet type of thing. It's sweet because it's ours. We own it. We don't have a hormonal mullet-wearing trailer trash bitch of a landlord to deal with anymore, and we can finally take pride in making it how we want it. I finally have enough room to start on so many projects that I've been wanting to do. The bitter part is that now I'm too broke and too busy to do any of these projects that I finally have room for.
Well, this should be enough of a primer for my first entry. Incase there's anybody that hasn't gotten offended and left this page yet, welcome to my blog. :)
If you're into speakers, cars, sports, sex and other Man stuff, you may enjoy my blog. If you're looking for a bunch of emotional crap about how much life means to me, then you'll probably find this spot a bit boring.
So... info about me. I'm not sure why, because nobody who doesn't already know me is likely to read this, but incase you're one of those losers who actually reads shit from random people that you have no hope of ever meeting, here's some info:
I'm Jim. I'm almost 30. I'm engaged to Kristin. I like cars. I like audio. I'm an electrical engineer. I'm a republican. I don't have a religion per-se. I just bought a house. Here's all that shit restated in more words and probably not in the same order:
I have 5 cars: My newly acquired 91 GMC Jimmy winter-beater shitbox; my 87 GMC Sierra Classic K3500 that I bought a couple years ago (but have wanted since I was a kid); My 1991 Chevy Corvette daily driver; my 88 Pontiac Trans Am GTA that I've had since sometime around 2000; and my baby, my 1985 Chevy Camaro IROC-Z. Yes, I'm a redneck. I have more cars than I should, and I like them all except for the Jimmy, which is simply cheap 4 wheel drive transportation. Only 1 has a valid inspection. For info and pics on my vehicles (and Kristin's Camry), go to http://www.cardomain.com/id/jim85iroc.
Beyond my cars, my other main interest is audio. I've been into audio since I was in 8th grade, and the burning desire to learn more about it has never stopped. I installed stereos in every car I've had, worked in home and car audio shops during college, and in the last few years I've taken on home speaker building, which is a very challenging task that combines the need for woodworking with the electrical knowledge necessary to design and build the electrical filter networks. Lastly, it requires a good systems engineering mindset in order to select the proper components that will compliment each other in the design.
I work at General Dynamics in Pittsfield MA as a Hardware Engineer. They're a defense contractor. I used to work on the "Fire Control" systems for Trident Submarines. In other words, I worked on the system that fires up to 24 nuclear missles out of the submarine toward some doomed country with only remaining moments of existance. I enjoyed being part of that whole philosophy, but ultimately, the work itself sucked. Now I work on a different program that I can't tell you about. Say what you want about nuclear missiles and the submarines that hold them, but the fact that we have MULTIPLE submarines somewhere in the world's oceans at any given time, each with enough nuclear firepower to end the world in minutes is reason enough for no other country to ever consider screwing with us. The best defense, is indeed, a good offense.
I went to college at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester NY. It was a 5 year program that took me 6 years to complete. I started off in Electrical Engineering, and after failing virtually every math and physics course I took, I moved into Electrical Engineering Technology. What's the difference? In the real world, virtually nothing. We all apply (and get) the same jobs for the most part. EE students spend more time on theory and EETs spend more time on applications. Since I'm a hands-on guy and not a "book lerner", EET wound up being a better fit for me. As for all that math and physics that I failed, once all that stuff was taught to me in my engineering courses instead of by the math & science department, it all became much easier to understand. :)
I'm a republican, though I'm sure that has become fairly obvious by now. I hate tree-hugging pinko liberals who are too narrow minded and ignorant to realize that it's not the government's job to protect me from myself. I have a right to own my guns. I have a right to keep more of my paycheck instead of giving it to those in a lower tax bracket. Sure, we need to help those who can't help themselves, but it's about goddamned time that we stop helping those who choose not to help themselves. Global warming isn't our fault. Stop thinking that we've got nearly that much power over the world. We don't. Learn a little bit about geology and the history of the world. Temperatures have fluctuated greatly over the earth's history, and the fact that temperatures are starting to rise coincides perfectly with the natural oscillation of the earth's temperatures. If you don't understand what I just said, you're too stupid to have an opinion anyway. Oh hell, this is is why I don't like talking politics. I've only touched upon the tip of the iceberg and already I'm all fired up, irritated, and getting a bug up my ass over it. I didn't even get to talk about the million stupid laws that Massachusetts Liberals have forced down our throat. That's for another time.
On to religion. On second thought, maybe not. I'll condense: I grew up catholic until I began to form the opinion that all religion (or at least all the ones that I'm somewhat familiar with) are a crock of shit intended for nothing more than to help humans deal with death and the nothingness that follows it. Does that mean I don't believe in God? I don't know. That part still confuses me, probably because like a typical human, I need to cling to at least one small thread of hope that there is an afterlife and that the game isn't over when I check out. I still pray on a regular basis and I still tell myself that God exists. I have a feeling that I'll elaborate on these thoughts in the near future.
Now on to my personal life. I have a fiance, Kristin. I'm not going to say much about my relationship with her, because that's the one and only part of my life that is private. I'm sure I'll share plenty of superficial shit over time, but that's about it. You may gain some insight about our relationship from her perspective if you read her blog (http://www.fyi-kiki.blogspot.com/).
We recently bought a home in Readsboro, VT. Owning a home is a bittersweet type of thing. It's sweet because it's ours. We own it. We don't have a hormonal mullet-wearing trailer trash bitch of a landlord to deal with anymore, and we can finally take pride in making it how we want it. I finally have enough room to start on so many projects that I've been wanting to do. The bitter part is that now I'm too broke and too busy to do any of these projects that I finally have room for.
Well, this should be enough of a primer for my first entry. Incase there's anybody that hasn't gotten offended and left this page yet, welcome to my blog. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
