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As I was listening to the group commentary on the Season 1 pilot, it seemed like the cast had a genuine camaraderie. We had a lot of fun. Yet we're all such different people - and we're not in the same age category either.

I need to get this off my chest. The Bryston amp is hurting a bit. As is the ARC preamp. The SP-14 preamp won’t go <i>out</i> of “bypass” mode into “normal” mode anymore. If you flip the “bypass” switch to “normal” you get nothing. No sound whatsoever. Never mind that I never listen to it in normal mode. I always use bypass, so, for me, it still works. There’s just the angst of knowing it doesn’t work in a mode that, frankly, I would never use. And what does “bypass” actually bypass? Well, the balance control for one, and the mode switch. If you’re in bypass mode, forget about reversing the left and right channels. I never did understand the need for that feature. Now, an absolute polarity switch – there’s a two-channel hot button topic that could easily fill a Rosetta stone. But alas, that’s not to be had either, even when “normal” worked, well, normally.

Toshiba is apparently going to attempt to swamp the market with HD DVD players ahead of the arrival in stores of standalone Blu-ray disc players or PlayStation 3, but is taking a high-risk route in doing so. The HD DVD developer and backer reached an agreement with and licensed their technology to Chinese manufacturers, opening the door to inexpensive players and the kind of price wars that have turned current standard definition DVD players into ubiquitous commodity items.