Blaze & Daze

At dusk last night, there was a real buzz in the air. A far as the eyes could see, there were midges, like clouds, above the tree tops - gazillions of them making random shapes as they flew about.

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"Although they resemble mosquitoes, midges are harmless, with small mouthparts that are not elongated into a piercing structure for blood feeding. They do not have scales on wings or body, and the pattern of wing veins differs from that of mosquitoes."

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I was today years old when I found out that plugging your soundbar into your screen's HDMI-ARC IO and your media device (PC in my case) into your soundbar gets you GREAT audio, but really REALLY shitty refresh video rate. All of a sudden everything went 30hz. Gaming sucked, no UltraHD, 4k stuttered, it was not my old system. So getting out the old 12' optical cable, the movie and game system is back in operation for the first time since 2023. I retired the old 7.1 surround, AM/FM receiver-amplifier and the 1979 Advent speakers I'd rebuilt twice. From a little over 15 AV signal wires at my worst, to one HDMI cable.

Tomorrow we hang the entertainment shelf up to the left of the TV, I spent the last 4 days in the design and iteration revolving door of creating french cleats to suspend my old floor standing 4 shelf (not pictured) from the wall. After that's mounted and wired we won't even have that one wire hanging out from the TV.

The stuff you can do when you have to completely remove the drywall is actually fun. Some extra bracing 2X4's here and there and a few properly rated HDMI cables, making stuff levitate no mollies needed. Just a few more minor installations (ceiling air register,) and one door to paint, and the living room will be room 2 completed this year.

Now off to sell some virtual dime bags on the corner. My 14 year old exclaimed all day, "I can't believe how much I missed our gaming system" as I sneaked in during her breaks to update the software for the first time in 18 months, my turn for some games.
 
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I was today years old when I found out that plugging your soundbar into your screen's HDMI-ARC IO and your media device (PC in my case) into your soundbar gets you GREAT audio, but really REALLY shitty refresh video rate. All of a sudden everything went 30hz. Gaming sucked, no UltraHD, 4k stuttered, it was not my old system. So getting out the old 12' optical cable, the movie and game system is back in operation for the first time since 2023. I retired the old 7.1 surround, AM/FM receiver-amplifier and the 1979 Advent speakers I'd rebuilt twice. From a little over 15 AV signal wires at my worst, to one HDMI cable.

Tomorrow we hang the entertainment shelf up to the left of the TV, I spent the last 4 days in the design and iteration revolving door of creating french cleats to suspend my old floor standing 4 shelf (not pictured) from the wall. After that's mounted and wired we won't even have that one wire hanging out from the TV.

The stuff you can do when you have to completely remove the drywall is actually fun. Some extra bracing 2X4's here and there and a few properly rated HDMI cables, making stuff levitate no mollies needed. Just a few more minor installations (ceiling air register,) and one door to paint, and the living room will be room 2 completed this year.

Now off to sell some virtual dime bags on the corner. My 14 year old exclaimed all day, "I can't believe how much I missed our gaming system" as I sneaked in during her breaks to update the software for the first time in 18 months, my turn for some games.
Nice, clean setup you've established.

We just went to a JBL soundbar last year with the HDMI - ARC IO. The sound is amazing but the lips were out of sync. So had to find settings to introduce some delay in the audio to have the audio match the visual. My understanding is that there is more support for the various audio formats using HDMI vs optical audio cables.
 
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