Home Bars: Buy, Build, or Hire?

You woke up this morning and decided you want to add a home bar to your rec room.  Good move smart citizen, you can get as drunk as you want and not have to worry about driving home.  You have two (three, really) options:

You could buy a bar already assembled.  You could build your home bar.  Or you could have it built, but outsource the work to a general contractor or the sort.  I’ll go over each option for you.

You got skills?  Build a home bar.
We’re not talking about hanging the Christmas lights or changing the oil in your Volvo.  This is a considerable job reserved for a handyman of intermediate to advanced knowledge.  Even if you do know what you’re doing, do you have the required tools and available time necessary to build a home bar?  Also remember that while you may be talented with a buzz saw, most home bars (depending on your design) would require electrical and plumbing work.

Not ready to build your own bar?  Keep reading.

Who says happiness can’t be bought?  Buy a home bar someone else made.
There are a variety of sites where you can buy home bars.  Prices vary wildly from $600 to $20,000+.  Pre-packaged home bars come with very little assembly required and once unpacked, they shouldn’t take more than a few hours to setup.  If you still need someone to connect it to the electrical and plumbing systems, a reasonable general contractor (GC) can be hired for about $50/hour.

You’re lazy, know nothing, and/or you have a lot of money.  Hire.
General contractors are notoriously unreliable.  They overcharge you, show up late/not at all, produce shoddy work… the list goes on.

HDTV Buying Guide

Buying a HDTV for the first time?  Not really sure what to look for when buying a HDTV?  I’ll give you some tips and tricks to shop around with.

I spent about 2 months shopping around, visiting Circuit City, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, HHGregg, as well as a plethora of websites (I ended up buying online).   I learned a lot and eventually had a 52″ Philips Plasma HDTV shipped to my door for $1,499 — best purchase I ever made.

Should you get an LCD or Plasma HDTV?
Cost wise, LCD and plasma are pretty much the same these days.  The main difference between LCD and Plasma HDTVs lies in the picture quality.  Technical jargon aside, plasma HDTVs have darker and more vibrant black levels — meaning movies that you watch with a lot of dark in them, The Matrix for example, would look a lot better on a plasma screen.  Alternatively, LCDs have a slighly better picture when it comes to movies with a lot of color — practically any children’s movie.

Plasma HDTV Advantages

• Overall, better picture quality vs. LCDs
• Albeit close, slightly cheaper than LCD
• Widest viewing angle available
• Deeper, more vibrant blacks
• Strong front glass (good for Wiis and kids)

LCD HDTV Advantages

• Higher brightness levels, better for rooms with a lot of lighting
• Larger available screen sizes
• Weighs less than plasma, easier to move
• Generally consumes less power than plasma

What about DLP rear-projection HDTVs?
DLP is good when you need a massive HDTV for a relatively cheap price.  You can pickup a 60″ DLP for around a couple ground, with neither LCDs or plasmas coming anywhere close to that.  The largest downsides on DLPs (and projection screens for that matter) are:

• Overhead lights don’t mix well.  If you want to watch television, you’ll need the room in almost complete darkness or the picture quality will be extremely poor.
• Very poor viewing angle.  Meaning, if you’re not directly in front of the DLP,  the picture quality will begin to deteroriate as you move sideways.  LCDs also have a problem with limited viewing angles, not so much with plasma diplays though.

If you’re buying an HDTV for a home movie theater, DLP is definitely a great option.  If the television will be a fixture in a room with other activities (game room, living room, etc), I’d suggest sticking with LCD or plasma.

720p vs 1080p
This is basically picture quality.  If you buy a smaller HDTV set under a few feet in dimensions, it’ll be hard to notice the difference between 720p and 1080p.  Any screen over 40-45 inches or so will want 1080p, but it all comes down to value.  Will a 52″ 1080p look better than a 52″ 720p?  Yes, but most likely, you won’t care enough to pay for the 1080p.

Check the contrast levels.
These represent how well a television can display deep, dark color levels.  As I mentioned before, LCDs are usually pretty weak in this category — but that doesn’t mean all plasmas are perfect.  Before you buy a television, insist on viewing something that is extremely dark on it.  You shouldn’t feel silly for bringing a movie from home and asking the Best Buy employee to put it in the DVD player for you.

Ports!
How many ports do you (or will you) need?  Not just component, but HDMI ports… HDMI cables provide the best picture for all the newest technology items like XBOX360, PS3, cable/satellite DVRs, etc.

Good luck with your search!

Michael Jordan Memorabilia

Michael Jordan, “His Airness,” is one of the greatest basketball players to ever step onto the court.  According to his official biography on the NBA’s website, he is the greatest player of all time by acclamation.  Aside from his supernatural talent, Jordan can also claim that he helped make the NBA become popular in other countries around the world during the late 80s and 90s.

His exceptional four years at UNC is a great source of memorabilia, such as game jerseys, practice jerseys, and game balls, which are all fairly hard if not impossible to find these days.  After college, Jordan joined the Chicago Bulls where he won six national championships throughout the 90s.

Michael Jordan Memorabilia – Ideas & Where to Buy

Looking to buy Michael Jordan memorabilia?  Try to find items from when he was back at UNC.    While easier to find, yet still tough, are items from his days at the Bulls and the short-lived Wizards.  This can be game basketballs, practice basketballs, jerseys, sweat bands,  worn Nikes, etc.  Another idea for memorabilia would be an item from his baseball days.  There weren’t that many of them, so that makes any item like a used bat or glove extremely rare.

Anything related to his baseball days would not only be rare, but an extraordinary and creative item in any memorabilia collector’s showcase.

If you’re looking to easily find Michael Jordan memorabilia at a price that isn’t astronomical, you may want to stick to items that His Airness has signed like basketballs, jerseys, photographs and the sort.

Rec Room Furniture

I know a lot of you guys have the wife’s old flower-pattern couch in your rec room.  You should stop reading this and drive down the street to Sofas-R-Us to finance a manly furniture set for 0% APR with no payments until 2016.   I’m kidding, of course — take the financing option with no payments until 2020!

Whether you pay cash for your rec room furniture, have a room filled with hand-me-downs, or finance your first born through Sofas-R-Us, your furniture needs remain the same.

A typical rec room setup includes:

• Drinking/eating area with a small home bar, pub table, and a couple of stools
• Television/movie area with a couch, a couple of recliners, coffee table
• Gaming area with a billiard table, foosball table, poker table (or just a card table)

That’s the most generic furniture setup for a rec room  If you have a specific purpose for your rec room (like a home theater), your furniture needs will be different.  Answer the following questions and you’ll have a better understanding of what you’ll need for your rec room:

What do you do the most in your rec room?
Do you only watch movies?  If you don’t have any billiards, table games, or don’t do a lot of socializing in your rec room, set the entire thing up with reclining theater seats.  Do you drink, socialize, and watch sports most of the time with a few friends?  Setup a small home bar with a few pub stools and a leather couch (and coffee table for beer/chips/nachos/pizza/popcorn/pretzels/etc) for when a larger crowd is over.

How many people will be visiting your man’s room?
You could obviously have a mix of chairs, stools, and couches if you have a lot of money (and room).  But if you’re limited on one (or both) of those, you definitely want to stick to stools.  But, having said that…

Who exactly will be occupying your man room?
Stools are a bad choice for rec rooms that see a lot of kids, elderly, and overweight people.  But, if you’re all blonde-hair blue-eyed fit 30 year old men, stools are a great choice!   I kid, but the point is still valid — if your father or someone older visits, a bar stool will get uncomfortable really fast.

Styles/Themes
Once you decide on the type of furniture you want in your rec room, think about how you want it to look.  I shouldn’t have to tell you that you can find all the furniture mentioned above in both leather and fabric.  Every color under the rainbow is available, as well.  Apart from the fabric and colors choices though, you have the option of buying furniture branded with your favorite NCAA/NFL team’s logo.  Nascar too.

All I ask is that you don’t buy any furniture with Ohio State’s logo on it — unless of course you don’t mind sitting on it while you watch an SEC team own them.  Oddly enough, it occurs on the same day in January every few years.  How strange is that?

Best Movies in Surround Sound

As with the best movies to watch in HD, we’re not judging movies on quality here.  The movie may be absolutely terrible (here’s looking at you Matrix sequels), but if it sounds great on surround sound it’s going on the list.

With that said, the best surround sound movies aren’t necessarily action — albeit most are.  It all depends on the quality of the movie and how important sound was during production.  Of course, if you’re talking about the loudest, earth-shaking, cop-inviting sound, why yes, they come from action movies.
Read the story »

The Shield Memorabilia

The only television show I watch (or watched, as of 11/25) is The Shield on FX.  After season 7 is over, I plan on disconnecting my cable until creator Shawn Ryan comes out with a new cop-drama centered around Vic Mackey. I can hope, right?

The Shield is a cop-show, but it’s typical.  It’s gritty, filmed with a handheld camera part of the time, and enters into story lines any other show would not.  Originally the show was going to be called “Rampart,” referencing the true lie Rampart Division police scandal, but was eventually renamed to The Shield. Read the story »

Pink Floyd Memorabilia

Pink Floyd was a rock band from London that earned it’s initial fame for it’s psychedelic and spacey music.  As they evolved, they became a powerhouse in progressive rock.  The band has a few flagstaff traits including it’s philosophical lyrics, elaborate live shows, and extremely creative album covert art.

Pink Floyd is one of rock’s most successful (read: profitable) acts ever, selling over 74.5 million albums in the United States alone with another 200+ million being sold worldwide. Read the story »

Kurt Cobain Memorabilia

Kurt Cobain was a musician from Seattle who created not only music, but a generation.  Not many musicians can claim that, but Kurt Cobain was certainly one who could.  He was the lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist for a little band you might have heard of before:  Nirvana.
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Babe Ruth Memorabilia

Babe Ruth, also commonly referred to as “The Bambino,” “Babe,” and “The Sultan of Swat,” was and is still today one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture.  In a variety of surveys, polls, and rankings within the past several decades, Babe Ruth has consistently been named the greatest baseball player in history.

The Bambino had a very charismatic personality with the ability to hit home run balls.  He was the first player to ever hit 60 home runs, a record which stood for 34 years until Roger Maris broke it in 1961.
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Tiger Woods Memorabilia

Tiger Woods is a (or the) pro American golfer whose long list of achievements in the sport rank him as one of the most successful golfers — ever.  Tiger Woods was the highest paid athlete, regardless of sport, in 2007 pulling in $122 million.  From 1996 to 2007, Tiger made nearly $800 million.
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