19 February 2001
Happy Presidents' Day
Given the holiday, it seems appropriate that I spend today working on the dissertation. Specifically, I need to print out the various notes I have taken on Croly, Beard, and Wilson (although I'm not celebrating HIS presidency today) and finish up the current chapter by writing about 10 pages on their historicism and their rejection of the American constitutional tradition. It shouldn't be a big deal, but for some reason I am just completely unmotivated. Figuring out how everything tied together conceptually was the exciting part -- actually doing the boring academic exercise of quoting and footnoting and making it hang all together to satisfy (eventually) a committee that knows far less than I do about the topic is a dreadful affair. But I had one of those angsty "You need to pull your head out of your ass and finish this damn thing" episodes yesterday, so I'm trying to use that as motivation today.
One other major thing I need to do today is go shopping for a stereo receiver. My receiver's amp has been acting erratically over the past year, which includes nasty, loud, unexpected pops (which cannot be good for the poor speakers). After a fair amount of research, I think I'm going to go with a Yamaha RX-496 Receiver (not an A/V HOME THEATER PLUS MICROWAVE/COFFEEMAKER/BUTLER/80 SOUND CHANNELS Receiver, mind you), which is, it turns out, a fairly unusual creature these days: a stereo component -- the system's ANCHOR even -- that is focused on audio, rather than home theater. I can't recall the last time I watched a movie at home -- I don't even own a dvd player -- and it strikes me that most "home theater" receivers sacrifice a great deal of audio quality in order to provide nifty video features that I don't need (or the ones that don't sacrifice audio are way way too expensive). But it was surprising to me that the audio market has been so overwhelmed by video. Where have all the audiophiles gone?!
[Posted @ 09:45 AM CST]
