Utter Disappointment
Words cannot even begin to describe my utter disappointment with the weather we have been have lately. All winter long it has been very nice weather, relatively speaking of course. Forties, Fifties and cloudy, you know the drill. But then suddenly, and very much without warning, the world decided that we have become too placid in our lives and has decided to throw one winter storm after another at our doorsteps. So far, every week this month there has been either ice, or sleet, or 8 inches of snow in the morning. Last week there was a car accident out in front of my house because we had a half of an inch of ice. Today, we were hit with the sleet bomb, and everything is covered in about two inches of sleet, which is expected to continue for the rest of this god-forsaking day. But despite the weather (or maybe to spite it), I decided to come in today. They have been saying that in addition to this sleet, it is going to freeze hard tonight, and I would rather take tomorrow off (Friday, woo!!), than today.
In other news I finally broke down and bought new speakers for my computer. It’s been a long time coming. The speakers I am getting rid of, I have had since I started college. They were a nice pair of Altec Lansing speakers, one of the first speaker sets that used USB. Of course it wasn’t true USB, and it only worked in Windows 98, but hey, they were cool. About a year ago, the subwoofer stopped working, and that was followed quickly by the right channel. The problem that continues to plague computer speakers, is this idea that everything has to run through the subwoofer. Why? All the sound cards these days have at least 5.1 surround out, why would I need to run through the sub? So no matter how bad it sucked, I couldn’t just replace the sub, or the right speaker which had the volume controls on it.  I decided to go with the Logitech Z-2300 speaker system. It’s a 2.1 speaker system; my computer does 8.1 out, but my feeling is that if you want surround sound on your PC, you should use a real AV receiver.  They sound good, and have a separate volume control…yay!. The only problem, and this is not directly related to the speakers, is that I don’t have any more power outlets on my UPS. Apparently, my old speakers I had plugged directly into the wall (huh?), but it honestly doesn’t matter because they were crap anyway (see above).  I just want to let you know that I have no intention of putting speakers on a battery backup, thats insane, no I just don’t want them to be unprotected. I have lost way too much equipment to lightning, and power spikes, and everything else to not protect my stuff. So, now I have a better UPS on the way. This one has 8 outlets, and an of course the standard (in my opinion) ethernet and coaxial protections.  Honestly, I should just build a data center in my house and be done with the whole mess (just kidding.)
