Circuit City announced last week that it would fire 8.5 percent of its retail-floor staff and hire replacements at lower pay. Savor the insane panache of the press release: "The company has completed a wage management initiative that will result in the separation of approximately 3,400 store Associates. The separations...focused on Associates who were paid well above the market-based salary range for their role. New Associates will be hired for these positions and compensated at the current market range for the job." Said CEO Philip J. Schoonover: "We are taking a number of aggressive actions to improve our cost and expense structure, which will better position us for improved and sustainable returns in today's marketplace."
Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon). In January of 2006, I made it my business (literally) to be in Los Angeles for the first performance to be recorded live at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Q. I installed a home theater in my living room (which is essentially a square room) using a ceiling-mounted front projector, motorized screen, and four freestanding Magnepan speakers in the four corners of the room. It's great for watching movies. Then, my wife decided daytime viewing would be better with a plasma in the room.
On February 27, Warner Home Video released a second DVD-only cut of Oliver Stone's Alexander. Dubbed Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut, this three-and-a-half-hour version includes 38 minutes of new footage and an intermission. Stone recently talked about the importance of DVD to Alexander, and to all of his films. - Michael Gaughn
($499 for 4 gigabytes, $599 for 8 GB; apple.com) With hip-hooray and ballyhoo, Apple CEO Steve Jobs previewed the much-anticipated iPhone at the Macworld convention. Combining a 3.5-inch widescreen iPod, a Wi-Fi-enabled "Internet communications device," and, oh yes, a cellphone, it also includes a 2-megapixel camera.
($299) No, it's not called iTV, but that little white box down there does allow you to play all of your iTunes content from your PC or Mac wirelessly on your widescreen TV. The 40-GB hard drive can store up to 50 hours of video, 9,000 songs, or 25,000 photos, or a combination. Apple TV is capable of delivering high-definition images at 720p.
SHADOW DEMON JVC must have thought the badge of honor you got when you opted for a front projector could use a little polish, so it created the DLA-HD1, said to have the greatest contrast ratio in Projectorland (rated 15,000:1 - without the need for a mechanical iris that reduces the brightness of whites).
CLASSY STORAGE If that Ikea TV stand you got in college is now looking like your system's idea of a studio apartment, Salamander's Hampton 236, from its new Chameleon series, is a four-bedroom house. With its elegant black finish and options such as a plasma mount, power conditioner, and cooling fans, your gear will be living a life of luxury.
