Aura

Boss ass sausage bread made by my vegetarian better-half. Shit is legit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOTiZPXMF1w

Jesus I've fallen behind the enthusiast stuff. Ivy finally came out, eh? Will be interested to read impressions. Love the psu Mikey, my HX520 failed after 3 years and they auto-upgraded me to an HX650 when I RMA'd.

For the majority of the night, packed for the move. Packing sucks but having beer helps.

I immediately went to OMA's website after you posted those first pics of Imperia, Al. All I can say is... I think the OMA Mini is my new, semi-realistic, semi-practical, dream speaker. I'll never be able to afford the others, but damn. Maybe the Mini could be a gift to myself when I get promoted.

Sorry to hear, Archos. Best wishes to you and your family.

John - were you on Lake last night? Just saw your post. I was hiding behind a car with the trusty old binoculars.

Scheduled an eye appointment for Thursday afternoon. Not related to the whole "bug-flew-in-eye-and-fucked-my-cornea's-shit-up" fiasco. I'm going to switch back to glasses after going with contacts exclusively for the last 11-12 years. Might split time between the two, but I hope to really use the glasses more because I'm getting tired of contacts.

Happy birfday Ari!

Thanks, you brought up a good reminder - I definitely will not be using 3D and won't show any preference for a display that is compatible with it. Will check on that Panasonic though.

Happy birthday Shelly!!

Bump. Need some recommendations, I'm really not at all familiar with the current market. - Budget: Definitely under $1,000, ideally closer to $750. - Seating distance: Not exactly sure, probably 7-9 ft. - Size/placement limitations: No real limits here. Whatever I get, I'll be buying furniture to support. I can potentially mount to a brick wall in my new place. I want to go for as high of a refresh rate and as large of a display as possible that can fit within the budget. I know some people can't detect 60 hz vs. 120 or 240, but I've detected it immediately in past comparisons and almost find 60 hz annoying on a larger display running horizontal action scenes. - Uses and sources: Will be playing a lot of movies with a combination of 720p and 1080p file encoded with x264 Matroska. I had been planning on connecting an HTPC directly to the display, but once I read I think I'm going to try out Boxee or something very similar. Definitely going to grab an Apple TV for Netflix (can you stream Hulu on an Apple TV?) Lastly, hopefully going to get cable through ComCast before the end of July so will be using your basic HDMI input from my receiver. That's pretty much it. Nothing planned in the way of gaming. The most important part of the setup is ease of use with x264 movie files. - Room lighting: Pretty well light on two sides of the room with a total of four windows. Glare is likely to be an issue, so I don't know that I can do Plasma although I would greatly prefer if I could based on value alone. How good is the anti-glare on current glossy Plasma displays? Otherwise, I'm going backlit LED and would need recommendations for that. That's pretty much it, thanks for any help guys and gals.

Thanks Vicki, Gene, and John! We'll be on Washington, right between Harvey and Lombard. It's a vintage courtyard building. Got a call from the property manager, everything looks good and we are signing the lease tomorrow morning.

That's lame Shelly, kinda sad that cheese spread is deemed too dangerous for flight. Allison and I viewed three apartments this morning and put in an application & earnest money on the third. Two bedroom, corner apartment with an actual dining room. Has french doors that open into the master bedroom from the living room and the kitchen has a cool little open pantry that might work well for the beer fridge. Hopefully we can sign the lease sometime next week. Ideally this will be our final apartment and we can save up for a condo/single-family home down-payment over the next 3-4 years. Would be nice to actually pay into an investment instead of plain old rent. And I'm still in Oak Park and more than capable of stalking John whenever I wish .

Lol, even when something so ridiculous happens my HC gang is still there for support. Thanks everyone! I did indeed have a small scratch on the bottom-let quadrant of my eye, so they prescribed an ointment for the next three days. And Mikey - already have plans to crack some beer during lunch today to help the recovery.

Mike G - I need to borrow the eye patch big bro.

Sitting in the emergency room. Bug flew into my eye in the middle of a 5K, pretty sure it scratched some shit up. Be careful everyone, apparently running is dangerous.

The Publican. It's pork and beer, how can you go wrong? I've only ever went there via car though, so unsure how public transportation-friendly it is.

x2, best wishes fellas.

OMG you got it. Fuck yeah!

Thread of the day here, stay dry Jeff!

Fingers crossed Jeff, wishing ya the best. If you ever need help getting to Chicago for a meet up, please let me know.

Good shit. Eagerly awaiting pictures.

KG don't mess around, time to bust out the Cognac from the '30's. Have a great bday dude!

Bring some good bottles and start hunting for the ticket winners around 4-5. They'll be drunk and likely ready to make deals that should clearly be put on hold until sobriety kicks back in.