Eyes on Your Entertainment Center

[GhandiOwnsYou]

This is a post of both braggadocio and curiosity. I finally found the time and energy a few months ago to elevate myself from the particle board Walmart furniture of my past and build myself the entertainment mecha of my dreams. Then a few days ago, I helped a buddy of mine do the same.

This has made me curious about my fellow EoFFers. Do you suffer a ramshackle cinderblock and plywood unit covered in wires? Have you commissioned 24 karat temple to house your original atari? I propose, in this thread post pictures of your TV-stand /entertainment center setup.

Behold my alter to vidya!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v332/GhandiOwnsYou/IMG_4659.jpg

[ReloadPsi]

I too would like to assemble something like that after I'm done with uni and have a more permanent residence, but it'd be full of all my retro consoles and even have a CRT TV on top, partly to crown the awesome retroness, but also because they don't break if you have anger management issues and throw controllers like I do.

[Tigmafuzz]

Very nice! I'm about halfway through setting up my own altar. But I have so many games that I no longer have the cases for, and I don't want to just put a bunch of CD stacks up there :(

but also because they don't break if you have anger management issues and throw controllers like I do.
You'd be surprised >.>
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/002/252/me-gusta.jpg

[Sephex]

Oh god, I don't want to even post mine. I have nice stuff, and I have a ****load of games, but they are all so unorganized. So here is a video I made instead to make up for my lack of organization (sound recorded on a crappy mic, turn it up): Tetris Walkthrough - YouTube (http://youtu.be/dZiWebBGf4A)

[Parker]

i took a pic of my crappy tv in the corner of my room but then i noticed the black mould that covers my walls is also visible

[Jiro]

Your lamps are the same ones I use in The Sims.

[Shiny]

A record player...how old are you really?

I have a Samsung t.v. about the size of your's but all my games and shit are put away in containers.

[GhandiOwnsYou]

A record player...how old are you really?

Ha, I'm 25. I do live near a wicked good record store in nashville though, and I've jumped on the vinyl trend because you typically get extra tracks and swag by buying the record instead of going to iTunes. That, and my pops' 500+ classic rock albums. I can't say it sounds "better" but there is a certain something that feels more right about pulling a record out of a sleeve and dropping the needle than just clicking a play list.

Or you could just accuse me of being a hipster, whatever works for you.

[Peegee]

go to the archives or w/e and find foaffle's karaoke thread. i posted a pic of my dad's entertainment center (i have my own 40 in LED television and audio system in the basement but it's not as impressive)

he topped me by having all of his audio equipment connected to fiber optic cables. frigging bum *shakes fist*

so now everything comes out crystal clear. i'm totes jelly.

[Shlup]

I have a small TV stand holding a 46" flatscreen and some consoles. All of my DVDs and games are on my Billy shelf from IKEA.

I especially like my TV because it has a Netflix app built in.

[Jessweeee♪]

I have a nice little cabinet, an awesome stereo, several gaming consoles, and then...this danky little 14" flatscreen that my parents bought me so I could take it to college a couple of years ago. It looks really silly. I wish I had something to take pictures with.

[Yeargdribble]

Ooh, I'll post a picture when I get home.

[Yeargdribble]

http://i.imgur.com/txDdA.jpg

I didn't manage yesterday, but here is it today. It's actually pretty messy at the moment. I've been in the middle of re-arranging and cleaning some stuff out.

[Peegee]

Okay here's my entertainment center upstairs.

http://home.eyesonff.com/general-chat/139225-karaoke-round-3-lets-duet.html#post3038956

[Mirage]

I have like a 42" plasma 1080p thing with a PS123 and gamecube connected to. And two drawers on the thing I have the TV on, one full of games, the other full of movies.

It's not very tidy around it, and the stuff that I haven't already mentioned isn't very fancy looking, so I'll just not post a picture of it.

[NorthernChaosGod]

Nice instruments, Yearg.

[Yeargdribble]

Nice instruments, Yearg.

Most of them are just non-functional crap. The horn has an unfixable leak on the Bb side. The cornet is a crappy student model. The clarinet is functional, but it's a frankenstein of different parts from different instruments. It's passable. The brass trombone is a beat up old student model. The plastic trombone is one I picked up recently for my own use and plays pretty well for a $150 piece of plastic. The flugelhorn is on long-term loan from a local band director (I don't think he wants it back) and even though it's not the best, I do use it to gig since I don't have one of my own.

Usually there are a couple of more things on stands sitting around the front like my wife's decent clarinets, flutes and saxophones as well as some extra student models of that same (that I pick up and play sometimes). But we're doing a theatre production at the moment, so she needs most of her instruments.

I tend to keep my trumpets (Bb, C and piccolo) and a functioning horn in my office or in the garage where I tend to practice, but we play a lot of duets in the living room so that's where she keeps a lot of her stuff except for her oboe which she actually keeps in the case (in the bottom left cubby) Off to the left (out of frame) is one of our keyboards and one of our cheap acoustic guitars.

There are seriously instruments pouring out of nearly every room of the house. She's got two bass clarinets in her office and a partial alto clarinet and, for some reason, the bassoon is sitting in the back of my office I think from us recently doing trombone/bassoon duets.

[Peegee]

I wish I had the embouchure to play clarinet. Years later when my brother played it, I wasn't able to even make a sound.

Anyway I would think that mixing and matching pieces on a clarinet would produce an odd sound

[NorthernChaosGod]

How many instruments can you play? o_O

[Peegee]

How many instruments can you play? o_O

Me or he?

[NorthernChaosGod]

Yearg.

[GhandiOwnsYou]

http://i.imgur.com/txDdA.jpg

I didn't manage yesterday, but here is it today. It's actually pretty messy at the moment. I've been in the middle of re-arranging and cleaning some stuff out.

I am jealous of your musical ability.

Also, until I zoomed in on your picture, I thought your wine bottles were pump action shotguns with some sort of color coded tape on the slides, and that you were clearly paranoid and insane for storing 4 weapons next to your TV. I swear I'm not crazy. If you squint the whole right side kinda looks like a gun rack.

...I really, really need to go to bed

[Yeargdribble]

How many instruments can you play? o_O

I play all of the brass instruments passably well to varying degrees, though primarily I play, and gig with, trumpet (including C, Eb/D, piccolo, flugel) and piano. I can get around on sax and clarinet, but not well enough that I'd let anyone pay me to play for a performance. I was pretty good at oboe in college, but I couldn't do a thing on it now. I'm absolutely miserable at flute. My wife is the woodwind expert and gigs on everything except bassoon. Oh... and we both play really guitar in the most lame, hack sort of way.

Oh... and I play accordion a bit. There's one in the garage my grandma gave me.

Once you can play one wind instrument well, have good idea of the mechanics and physics of it as well as a good understanding of music theory and how it works, picking up the rest is easy because you have you foundation down. Any time I need to play something remotely seriously I literally just give myself about a week to play straight through a beginner book to familiarize myself with the fingerings and getting them somewhat automatic in my mind and then I can play at a reasonable level.

Things like accordion seem crazy to someone who doesn't get music (especially all of those tiny buttons), but if you realize how they are laid out it's easy. 4ths/5ths up and down and 1st inversion, bass, major, minor, dom7, dim7 diagonally. It's amazingly well designed to be playable in any key.

I also find that learning to play one instruments helps everything else so everything I learn gives me a better perspective for other stuff I play or makes me think about certain key facets of music from a different angle. It's great


@PG
The embouchure doesn't bother me, but I'm sloppy crossing the break. That's why I like sax better. It's honestly the easiest instrument to pick up and get decent at. It overblows at the octave (instead of the 12th like a clarinet) so the fingerings are the same above and below the register key (which is why they just call it an octave key on saxes). The range is fairly small so you can learn to play in all keys very quickly and the fingering patterns are very natural feeling unlike the upper register of clarinet where stuff gets really goofy.


@Ghandi
Yeah, we've got too many wine bottles all over the house. We try to do something decorative with them, but honestly, they are starting to take over parts of the kitchen. Beautiful as they are, we're gonna have to start tossing some.

[Mirage]

Be sure to drink their contents first!

[Yeargdribble]

Be sure to drink their contents first!

Haha, no problems there. My wife is especially talented at taking care of this.