HTPC Goodness!

So, some time ago, I made my first run at an HTPC. For those of you that aren't familiar with the acronym, it stands for Home Theater PC. Back then, I was mostly looking for DVR capabilities, so I bought a tv tuner card to pipe in my cable connection. At the time, I was running Windows XP MCE (Media Center Edition), and my results were limited at best. I had an old HDTV, and I was using on-board graphics. MCE fought with my cable company over listings and channel lineups, and with the on-board graphics, it just wasn't worth the hassle. I scrapped the project and forgot about it.

Since then, I've been using my Playstation 3 for Netflix and playing my ripped DVD's. I haven't really had much luck with streaming my .avi's to my PS3, and so I've been copying them over via a usb drive. That gets old, fast. I'd been wanting a way to transfer my files to my PS3 via the network, without actually streaming. So, I'd started looking at things like Apple TV, Boxxee Box, and the Western Digital set top box.

About this time, I was visiting with a friend who gave me a spin around his Windows 7 Media Center HTPC. Wow. I have been missing out! The interface, right out of the box, is awesome. And to find out it comes standard in most versions of Windows 7 was even better. I went home that night and pulled it up on my Windows 7 Pro laptop. Immediately, I was hooked.

I started doing some reading, and finding all of the available plug-ins to make the experience even better. Shoutcast radio gives me all of those unique stations that you don't hear OTA. Media Center has Netflix built in, as well as some streaming tv, but there is also a free Hulu plugin. I found weather, sports, and news plugins. What about the user interface for viewing my content? I found a couple of beautiful plugins called Media Browser and Media Master. Does it get any better?? I point Media Master at my video directory, and it goes out to IMDB and a couple other sites to download all the meta data for all my movies. Box art, synopsis, ratings, backdrops, everything. Better yet, it was accurate. Out of 40 movies, I think there were 3 it had trouble finding the data for. The resolution was so simple. It told me to go to IMDB, find the movie I'm looking for, and enter the IMDB id number. It handled the rest from there.

So, now that I've got just about everything I want, what about having a PC tower sitting in my living room? It's not a huge deal, but I want things to look nice. Well, HTPC's have come a long way, and so have the cases. I found the above pictured case on sale at NewEgg for $79.99. It fits right in with my receiver and CD Changer perfectly. In addition to looking awesome, it has 5 internal 3.5" drive bays. I can easily load that thing up with 4 2TB Drives in a RAID 5, and still put in a fast boot drive. With the newer Western Digital green drives, heat is less of an issue than ever.

As if things couldn't get any better, the MCE remote that came with my old tv tuner card works flawlessly with Windows 7 Media Center. I really think I've found something to cover everything I want, and at a great price. Following are the full specs:

nMEDIA Black Aluminum HTPC Case
530watt Raidmax Modular Power Supply
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
2.5GHz Core 2 Quad
4GB Crucial RAM
74GB 10,000 Western Digital Raptor boot drive
4x 2TB Western Digital Green SATA Drives in RAID 5 for storage
Lite-On 4x Blu Ray Player
Radeon 4550 fanless video card with HDMI out (supports audio over HDMI)

And that's it. Best move I ever made. I'll be putting my old tv tuner card back in to see how much things have improved on the cable tv/dvr interface. Even if it doesn't work out, it is still worth it for all the other features it provides. I won't look back from this decision

So, tell me about your HTPC and how you use it!

Vodka Redbulls

Ok, so this weekend I had a GREAT experience with my old friend, Vodka Red Bull. I don't know if you've ever been told or not, but that shit's dangerous! It starts off great, you're buzzing, amped up, and having a great time. The next thing you know, it's 7am and you have no desire to sleep any time soon. Fortunately, you get bored enough to pass out. You wake up nine hours later, and you feel great, even though you're still drunk. Everything is still good at this point. You survived the night, start thinking about getting some food and taking a shower, when all of a sudden things start zooming in and out on you. "What the fuck? Why am I so hot all of a sudden?". You go to the bathroom and splash some cool water on your face, but it doesn't make a difference. "Ok, I need some water, I'm probably pretty dehydrated from the alcohol." You drink some water and juice, but it's not making a difference. "Ok. I've got to eat. I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday." And right in the middle of making that ham sandwich, it hits you, and it hits hard. Your heart skips a beat and then feels like it does a somersault. "What the FUCK was that?!". Now the anxiety kicks in, and your breathing becomes irregular. You know something is wrong, but you don't quite know what. You know your heart shouldn't be doing that. "Am I dying? Is my heart about to quit?" Maybe, but you don't know. You know you need to get outside and get some fresh air, even though it's -5 out there. So, you get outside and start pacing back and forth. The pacing seems to help a little, but not enough. Your mind starts racing. "Ok, I'm going to die, if I don't get to the hospital. How am I going to get there? I can't drive like this and I can't deal with my friends quizzing me down and freaking out right now. What else can I do? I can call 911, but ambulances are damn expensive. Ok, I'll call my mother. She lives in town, and can come pick me up." So, you get her on the phone, and she's out of town, but goes to work on calming you down. "Concentrate on slow, steady breaths. If walking helps, keep doing it. You're not going to die; if you were you would have died at 7 this morning." Ok, it's working. You're calming down. Now you're calm enough to get yourself in the car and drive out to your parents' house where things are comfortable and familiar. You get out there in time to meet your parents pulling into the driveway and mom gets you setup with a paper bag to breathe into, some water, and a calm voice of reason. You get the anxiety under control. At times the anxiety even goes away. Then your heart beats wrong again and the anxiety comes back. This continues for the better part of 2 days. Your heart gets back to beating normally, but you might ocassionally still get a little anxiety when you start thinking about it all again.

So, what happened? What caused this? My first thought was alcohol poisoning. The Red Bull kept me going from 9pm to 7am, and for every Red Bull was a shot of vodka. But, no, it was not alcohol poisioning; though with all of that alcohol, it very well could have been that too, but I was fortunate. The real cause was a chronic overdose of caffeine. In severe cases, it can relate in death.

I wish I could say this is the first time this has happened to me, but I can't. This happened one time before, several months ago. I drank vodka Red Bulls for an extended period of time, and the next night, my heart was beating irregular. That time, I didn't have the anxiety, likely because I didn't consume as much as I had this time. At the time, I thought it was just a fluke. I had gone to the hospital and gotten checked out. They saw nothing abnormal. To be safe, they gave me a saline drip to rehydrate me. Other than that, my heart rate and blood pressure were normal. It wasn't until this time around that I had a common denominator; vodka Red Bulls.

These become dangerous for a couple reasons. Normally, a person wouldn't drink for that long of a period of time. The Red Bull keeps you awake and amped up though. So, in turn, you keep drinking; hereby consuming more caffeine and more alcohol. Now, under normal circumstances, I probably would have stopped drinking, but I have now consumed a large amount of alcohol, impairing my judgement. In addition, everyone else around me is still going strong, so nothing seems out of place. Before you know it, you've consumed 15 8oz cans of Red Bull, and 15 shots of vodka.

Do I blame Red Bull, or other energy drink producers for this? Absolutely not. It was my own stupidity, and I only blame myself for that. A person should be aware of the dangers of consuming excess amounts of anything, and I wasn't. That's the reason for my post; to inform others who may not be informed. Like many things, it is best enjoyed in moderation.

Ben Matlock

I'm wanting to know why it is that we can get the Best of Journey on DVD, but we can't get a single episode of Matlock on DVD. It's not like it's a weak show... it's on 3-4 times a day for 10+ years! I'd say that's got Journey beat, so, what's the hold up??