Relationships are hard; let's go shopping!

[muckefuck]

Sakes alive, that was one tiring conversation. A very necessary one, since it soon emerged that we've both been avoiding ticklish subjects because we're afraid of the reaction from the other person. Fortunately, most of it came out without anyone having to storm off into the other room (although I came very close) and we ended with compromise, reconciliation, and an action plan. (Which reminds me: Before I put this to bed, I need to do some looking at CD storage solutions. Bleagh!)

As for the precipitating incident, monshu said that there's really no way he can predict these breaking points. It's only after the fact that he can see the accumulation of exhausting effort and thwarted expectations that led up to them. That doesn't mean the situation's hopeless, just that we have to pay more attention to the root causes. And hire maids!

Comments

[grahamwest.livejournal.com]

Who's Felix and who's Oscar?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Ironically, I played Felix in my high school play. I really was Felix back then. Then I came out of the closet.

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

Good for the outcome :)

And advice from the lazy bear in me: buy storage options that keep CD's closed, so there's less dust that accumulates. If not, simple cabinets with glass dors really work but, alas, it depends on style!

I want a maid too, but having another job just to pay for one... I already work 60 hours a week

[grahamwest.livejournal.com]

Oh and for CD storage, I have 6 of these:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8287356&type=product&id=1171672960500

They're somewhat cheaply made but I like them because they're almost all wood, they are configurable (I have a couple that are set up part-CD part-DVD) and they hold a LOT of stuff.

Your needs and aesthetic may vary, naturally.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

What's with the metal crossbraces?

[grahamwest.livejournal.com]

They keep them rigid. Because you can set the shelves at any height they just rest on pegs and the sides just fix into the bottom, so they can bend without the braces.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

Good!

By the way, what I did for CD storage for myself is just put them on a bookcase -- but I had the hardware store cut a board that I could put between the shelves so I could have two rows of CDs on there.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

Oh and PS -- 57th Street Bookcase will build CD shelves for you.

Another option: tyrannio has ripped all his CDs to digital files and put the CDs into storage.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

(1) Yeah, this was a major point of contention: We decided early on to have 57th St. build shelves for the library. monshu wants it finished so badly that he was willing to pay for the whole job himself (as a present to me). But this makes me feel so pressured that I almost told him that the only present I wanted for Christmas this year was just not to be hassled about it for a month or two.

(2) This is my preferred solution, but monshu nixed wireless Internet, so there's no way to pipe my music files on the computer down to the lower level. We made just need to buy a cheap computer solely for the purpose of playing audio files in the den.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

You could run an ethernet cable to connect the computers, if you want. We did that since the wireless was a bit flakey in the dining room. Come see the not-horrible-looking job I did with the cable!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

All the way down the stairs? I'm not sure the Old Man would go for that.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Drill a hole in your floor.

(Seriously. We did in our last house.)

[mlr.livejournal.com]

Old Man? Gee - since you're 112, that makes him...?

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

We didn't have stairs to go down, but I ran the cable along the baseboards or the molding around the door frames. It isn't up to professional standards of beauty, but it doesn't look horrible and I'm not tripping all over wires.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

Are you having them do a custom job that goes floor-to-ceiling? Maybe we should look into that. But I feel po' right now ahead of my potential lay-off. I'm contributing to the downward spiral of the economy. :-/

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

That's what we're planning, but it's complicated by the fact that I want additional soundproofing and I don't know how much of our ceiling height that will take.

[prilicla.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this will work for you, but I just plug my iPod into a dock with speakers when I want to listen to music in the kitchen. I'm pretty sure it could be set up to play through our stereo, too, but I've never needed to do that.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in getting something like this (once I feel rich again). What do you recommend?

[lhn.livejournal.com]

We've got an inMotion dock which still seems to be available and which I think is quite good given its size. Here's a recent roundup of some alternatives.

Or, as prilicla says, if you have a stereo, you can just run an audio cable from the headphone jack or the dock connector to that. (Though while we have a cable running to the receiver, we don't use it much since prilicla mostly listens to the iPod in rooms other than the living room.) Similarly, if you have an old boombox with a cassette player, you could get a cassette adapter and run the iPod through that. (Which, at $9, might be a stopgap till you're feeling rich in any case.)

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'll look into those.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I have one of those but (a) the sound isn't great and (b) my iPod can't hold even a majority of my albums, let alone his, and swapping tracks in and out on the fly is a royal pain. We're wondering if there's something like a freestanding hard drive that we could simply hook up to a stereo console.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Assuming you want a network (and it's not a bad idea-- while the music delivery could be handled differently, there are going to be more and more consumer electronics that want a connection to the net, and it's convenient to be able to use a laptop in places other than the office) an alternative to drilling holes might be powerline Ethernet. (Here's a review.) Basically, you plug adapters into your electrical outlets and it uses your house wiring as network cable.) It's not quite as fast as standard Ethernet cabling, but it's comparable in speed to wireless, way faster than any current broadband Internet connection a home user will have, and obviates the need to run wires.

(BTW, what's monshu's objection to wireless?)

As far as delivering music to your living room goes, you could connect a networked computer to your stereo and/or speakers, or get an Apple TV box (which functions as an extender for your local iTunes music library as well as video, and looks a bit more aesthetic as part of an A/V setup). Or, of course, skip the networking and just get a big iPod for home use (if your music library will fit on one-- I think the biggest these days are 160gb), periodically sync it with your music library, and plug it into your stereo (or a dock).

There are also other media extenders and MP3 players available, though I think you'd have to be willing to switch to managing your music with something other than iTunes to use them. (I don't remember if you have a Mac or Windows computer, which might also affect what's easiest to use, but I'm guessing that if you've got an iPod, sticking with Apple will probably be the most painless option.)