Sovereignty of SeaWitch

After 18 months of computer paraphernalia, manuals, books, and cabling strewn about my house, my husband has finally finished his piece de resistance...the HTPC. For those of us who have had it *up to here* with computer acronyms, the HTPC simply means Home Theatre Personal Computer and this little box is amazing. It's a one-stop shop for every audiophile and cinephile out there.

I'm so impressed with the work my husband has done, I decided to devote this blog to his determination, ambition and creativity. I've also decided to give myself a pat on the back for having learned not only how to use it but just what all those THX, DVI, DTS, ProLogic and DivX acronyms mean. Learning Greek was only marginally more difficult.

Last April, I bought him a computer magazine and he saw an article on the future of HTPCs and decided then and there that he didn't have to buy one, he could build it himself. I thought "sure, go ahead...that'll keep you busy for a bit", not imagining that this little box would revolutionize my life. I use it all the time. I never load a CD in the CD player anymore. All my photos and MP3s are now stored on this device. Now, I can force all my friends to 38 years of SeaWitch family pictures on the Big Screen!

I surf the internet on it and I copied all of my DVDs to make backups. Now, when my son's friends watch movies, the DVD isn't broken into several pieces or scratched beyond all recognition.

I can rent 10 movies at a time and copy them to the hard drive and watch them on my big screen in the comfort of my own living room with no one to bother me. I've stopped going to the cinema. The greatest thing for me is the fact that now I can see movies in digital and audio perfection. I was disappointed when we got our first projector and hooked it up to the DVD player because it really didn't look any better than the blotchy cinema quality but I tolerated that because at least I didn't have to listen to 20 poeople yapping to their boyfriends/girlfriends/kids on their cell phones or spoiling all the scenes by laughing before the lines were spoken.

The only thing this contraption doesn't do is housework. But that's OK. If he sells enough of them, I can hire a full time maid! Just think...even MORE time to blog!