I'm glad I finally have a PS3 again. The hard drive I said I was missing in the Shout Box did surface. A neighbor finally called and said it was mistakenly delivered to them. So now I have a 500 GB hard drive in my brand new PS3 Slim. Things have changed a little bit since the last time I had a PS3. I'm glad that lossless WMAs now play, though there are little pops in the playback. I'm not sure yet if this is specific to the WMAs or not. I'll have to use the PS3 more and see.

But yeah, I was surprised to see that Hastings, Best Buy, Toys"R"Us, and Costco were all out of PS3s. I had stopped at Target early on and found two there, but I was hoping to find something bundled with it or some kind of deal. When I kept finding none around, I decided I'd better get back to Target. There was only one left when I made it back there, and the PS3 remote that had been there was now gone. I thought it must have been Final Fantasy XIII that made them disappear, but I guess the shortages aren't tied to that.

Moving my computer into the living room and hooking it up to my main system is what prompted me to alter how I had things arranged. I had bought a $55 5-shelf black storage shelf from Costco that also acts as two workbenches. I used half of it to put my computer and accessories on and didn't really have a use for the other half. Except then I decided it might be worth trying to use it as my entertainment stand. The TV is now 4" higher because of it, but it doesn't seem to be annoying me. This also allows the M22-as-center's tweeter to be more in line with the M80 tweeters, so that's cool. I also had the preamp-processor and A1400-8 out from the previous stand and on the floor (though elevated with pieces of black plastic pipe on each of the feet and on cardboard) since there wasn't space for proper ventilation. Now they're actually on a proper shelf again, so I'm happy about that. I need to either buy a custom FMS for my M22 center or think of something else that will work because right now it's simply sitting on the empty box for the AudioBytes.

I'm using strategically placed 1"x1" adhesive-backed mounting bases that accept cable ties on the back of the stand to try to tidy the cables up a bit, but I have so many that I sort of gave up on getting it to look great. I'll try harder when I'm in the basement. It doesn't look wonderful, but I don't think it looks absolutely horrible, either.

I also bought a Wiremold Corduct Cord Protector to keep people from tripping on the subwoofer cable I had crossing an opening on the carpet. My dad had tripped on it a few weeks back and it ripped the cable right out of my AS-EQ1. It could have been pretty ugly, but thankfully nothing was damaged. My dad was glad to see that Wiremold's products are made in the USA. I noticed that they're the same brand that Mark likes for cable raceways because they had the picture from the site when I'd looked them up before. I think I'll probably get some more of their products sometime now that I know they're at Home Depot.

Anyway, it felt like a productive day, and I'll eventually have pictures, like after I get my EP800 situation sorted and can clean up the room a little. Parts of the room will still look like crap because one wall has had holes in it due to renovation and hasn't been patched up and painted, but at least you'll get the gist.