Category: Random

huge home theater speakers and modern art

When I was in high school, there were some Klipsch horn speakers like this in the band room. They rarely got used, but they were huge. Now I happened upon a home stereo gallery shared online where someone had speakers like that in their house.

I gotta admit, I don’t like the look of these. I like Klipsch as a brand and I appreciate big speakers (for sound and looks), but this just doesn’t look impressive to me. Hopefully they sound better than they look. There are excellent-sounding speakers that look much cooler, IMO, but to each their own.

Also, what do you want to bet that the owner of these is single? I imagine the WAF (Wife Approval Factor) of these is zero (0). That kind of thing matters when you get married. I have a friend whose wife would put his (small) speakers behind plants or even inside the armoire with the closing doors (this was years ago, when a 32″ TV was standard). Covering speakers affects the sound quality, but to some people, seeing plants is more important than immersive 5.1 home theater surround sound. 🙂 I guess everyone has to choose what matters to them. (For the record, I managed to keep my large speakers after getting married. She’s allowed to put fake plants on top of them, but if they fall off from the bass vibrations, that’s not my fault. Also, my speakers are nowhere near as large as those in the picture.)

P.S., somebody should tell the owner of that picture that someone spilled paint on his painting. It looks a mess and you can’t even tell what it is anymore… 🙂 Is that supposed to be cats jumping over a flag that’s on fire? Or is it where his cats “painted” it by knocking over paint cans? Really, I have no idea… I just don’t understand modern art…

watch includes fashion advice

So I was looking at watches a while back because my son wanted one for Christmas. I saw this Casio watch which looks just like they did back in the ’80s. Is this a retro thing? Or are the ’80s making a comeback (again)? Or did they just not bother to ever update the design? (I haven’t worn a watch in years, so I haven’t kept up with it.)

Also notice what is suggested with the watch, per Amazon.com. They have “styling ideas” to go with this ’80s-themed watch.

Does anyone buying a retro watch for $16 want style advice with it? It just seems odd. The recommendations aren’t anything like what I buy (nor do I buy clothes from Amazon), so it doesn’t seem to be custom to me, meaning it’s specific to the watch. I was curious if Amazon offered style advice on other watches, so I found an expensive one (a SUUNTO race sports watch) for $549, but it did not have any fashion advice. Perhaps they figure if you’re buying an ’80s-themed Casio watch for $16 that you need fashion advice… 🙂

Are they suggesting that your watch should match or coordinate with your outfit? I could see some people thinking that way, especially for more formal situations. However, I’m a man, so I don’t care about such things. Besides, I don’t even wear a watch anymore.

I had a watch similar to that when I was a kid, except mine had a temperature sensor to let you know the ambient temperature. That was high-tech in a kids watch back then! One time I also had one with a calculator, which was quite nerdy. Did you know that it was totally uncool to be a nerd back then? Now, people carry calculators with them all the time, but back then it was not socially acceptable for popular people. Now almost everyone has a smartphone and thinks nothing of how nerdy that used to be. You’re carrying a computer in your pocket/purse! NERD! In the ’80s, if you even knew how to use a computer, you were probably a nerd. Now it’s cool to be a nerd. Well, that’s what I tell myself anyway. I’m still a nerd, but I’m okay with it. (Being comfortable with who you are is actually the essence of being cool, if you strip away the preconceived notions of following the trendy popular crowd. But I digress… Such transcendental wisdom is not desired by some people who would rather put people in a box labeled either cool or not cool.)

finding humor around you

Normally I write something that is (hopefully) amusing to you, but if I may, today I’ll write about finding amusement around you.

This morning I was riding my bicycle and drove through a pile of leaves that had fallen from a tree. It’s autumn here, so this is happening a lot. I enjoyed the sound of the leaves crunching under my tires. Made me feel like a kid again. I also enjoy seeing leaves scatter around the road after I drive through them with my truck. And it’s neat to see leaves falling from the trees. And I enjoy the fall colors.

That’s a lot of talk about leaves, but this isn’t about leaves. Rather, I found amusement in my surroundings. This is something I try to do every day. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with enjoying content created for YouTube or funny/silly videos promoted by the algorithms on social media (like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.), I don’t want to lose the ability to enjoy everyday life in the natural.

That may sound absurd to think it’s even possible, but it could happen. I’ve noticed kids cry out “I’m bored!” instantly when denied time with a screen on an electronic device. That should not be! I’m certainly not against enjoying videos or video games, but if my amusement requires content to be spoon-fed to me by some algorithm, that’s not acceptable.

It’s also easy to pick on kids regarding screen time, but adults are susceptible to it, too. (And it doesn’t help that social media algorithms are using psychology to entice you to stay on their site so they can make more money showing you ads.) Notice how often you pick up your phone when you have a few minutes to wait. Many (if not most) adults now instinctively grab their phone when there’s a moment free that they can. You can see it at traffic lights (or even while they’re driving), at a restaurant with their friends, at a sports game, etc.

Again, it’s not wrong to enjoy online content. But are you missing out on your actual life? Are you enjoying your actual life, or mostly being entertained by social media? Do you regularly see the humor and joy in your family and friends and life in general? It’s worth thinking about what matters most to you.

Sorry for the serious rant there… at least it’s about humor, so not totally off-topic.

You may now return to your regularly-scheduled life. Try to enjoy it!

how to create custom sound effects in your car

Car horns are very one-dimensional. We might use it for multiple purposes, but it always sounds the same. So what if you had different buttons for different types of car horns to serve various purposes? For example, if the car in front of you at the traffic light fails to notice the light turned green because their phone is interesting, you can let them know. Or maybe you want to get someone’s attention but it’s not an angry or dangerous situation. Mark Rober has designed an upgrade for the standard car horn that I really like.

It looks doable for even novice engineers and not very expensive, so it would be a good DIY project. But why stop where he did? His is built for functionality, which is good, but what about fun?

Notice that he said you can load any wave file you want. (A wave file is like an MP3, just uncompressed. It’s just a file that contains music or sound effects.) Wouldn’t it be nice if you had some buttons in your car that played certain sound effects or music clips on-demand within the car? There’s much potential for fun here. A couple of ideas:

1) The obvious idea is fart sounds. Your passengers would be amused (or maybe annoyed in an amusing way), and you could use it to punctuate your conversation. A few people have “Active Gas On Command”, but most of us don’t, so if you haven’t experienced that, just imagine someone saying, “Every time Donald Trump speaks it makes me feel like” [pushes button] PHVRRRT! (Yes, some people actually have the ability to do that.)

2) Dramatic music — This could be clips from movie soundtracks to set the general tone for a few seconds, like if you wanted to activate stealth mode (e.g., the Mission Impossible theme), or you need to speed up to pass someone, or if you’re in a hurry.

3) Sound effects — Back to the idea of adding emphasis to your conversation, you could have the losing sound from the TV game show The Price Is Right, or the buzzer from Family Feud, or the pseudo-sad sound of a trombone going wah-wah-wah-wah (with the pitch going lower each time). I’d have a clasp of thunder for dramatic emphasis. (That would be so cool!) You could also have a thunder clasp followed by The Count from Sesame Street laughing, for anytime you say a number. You could have the transforming sound from the original (G1) Transformers cartoon. Maybe you’d want different car engine sounds — like a muscle car revving up or broke-down-barely-running sounds.

4) Vocal clips from movies and TV shows and YouTube videos:

  • “We’re in hot pursuit!” by Buford T. Justice in Smokey and the Bandit
  • “YEE-HAW!” by Bo Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard
  • “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” from the classic meme
  • “Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?” from Dumb & Dumber
  • “Crazy Taxi!” from the arcade game Crazy Taxi (story in the comments)
  • “MUWAHAHAHA” — an evil laugh from a mad scientist or evil genius
  • various sayings by KITT from Knight Rider
  • “Inconceivable!” from The Princess Bride

5) Prank sounds — If you have friends who strongly dislike certain sounds or songs, you could have it queued up for the right moment. Regular blog visitor Mango-Man would certainly hear the Sanford & Son soundtrack — I don’t know why it bothers him, but it’s a good time to play it around him. You could also have general-purpose clips, like to Rick-roll someone with that Rick Astley song. Or play part of the Macarena.

This would be the audio equivalent of an animated gif in a text message. It needs to happen…

Let me know if you have any other ideas.