February 2006 Archives

This is a crosspost from my other blog, so if you read it there pass it by here.

My first real party with the basement done was the Fantasy Football banquet which was Saturday January 28th. This party was more general get together than an event to use the basement. We ate and hung out upstairs just as much as downstairs. We only played some Xbox and watched some HD boxing, didn't really watch any movies or anything. Everyone seemed to really like the basement though which was cool. It was a lot of fun having everyone over. Quite a few people made it, Roger, Travis, Kevin, Matt, Jim, Greg and Karri.

The next weekend I had a party for the superbowl. It was a very different event and mostly centered around the basement this time to watch superbowl. This time there were more kids than adults. My friend Karen came over as well as a friend from work, her sister and her sister's boyfriend. Between the three adults other than Karen they brought a total of 8 kids. The ages of the kids ranged from less than 1 to 11 or so. The kid’s reaction to the basement couldn't have been better. They ran downstairs and from upstairs you could hear the "whoa". Then they ran back upstairs to try to get their mom's to come down and see it. The liked the size of screen, the chairs and the popcorn. This event was very different thanks to the kids, lots of energy. I also had to assist them upstairs to play GameCube, Xbox and watch TV. They also really liked the arcade. The one problem with the arcade was that they didn't know what arcade games were essentially. I would say what to you want to play and they would say what types of games are there. Took me a while to adjust to that. Eventually they started playing the Simpsons arcade and they liked that. Although they kept wanting to pause it and couldn't understand why they couldn't. It was a fun time and I even got to watch a bit of the superbowl.

This weekend I just chilled and relaxed by myself. The weather pretty much decided that for me. I wasn't really up for leaving to somewhere else with 12" of snow falling.

Next weekend will be a real theater test. Several friends are coming up for a Star Wars marathon. We are planning on watching all 6 movies back to back in one day. Then the next day some people will hang out and watch the Daytona 500. Should be fun.

I wanted to put up some pictures that are more representative of the colors in my basement. I tried to grab shots from the manufacturers to make them as accurate as possible. However in many cases they are quite small. Also the color totally depends on lighting. It should give people an idea though.
Chairs - Berkline Group 3 Fabric Pattern 3133-97
Wall Fabric - Robert Allen Fabric - Show Off Midnight
Baseboard and Chair Rail Stain - Olympic Interior Stain Ebony
Theater Ceiling - Glidden Evermore Flat Dark Secret
Basement Ceiling - Glidden Evermore Flat Island View
Basement Walls = Glidden Evermore Eggshell Smoke Grey
I can't find any pictures from the manufacturer of the carpet. It is a light grey / light blue that seems to blend well with the other colors.

Today I watched a Sci-Fi Channel mini-series that I had TiVoed. It is of course SD since it is Sci-Fi and they also letterboxed it. I stretched it laterally on the TiVo which was already upconverting to 720p as well. Then I had the projector stretch it vertically to make it look right. At first especially during the credits you could tell how stretched it was. As the show continued the quality really wasn't too bad or as noticeable. There were scenes that looked worse than others. It definitely makes you appreciate HD content even more.