The rules of 8-ball are fairly simple:  bust the rack with an open break, choose solids or striped balls (the first you knock down determines your balls) and keep putting them away — when you’re done, sink the 8-ball for the win.  8-ball can also be called solids and stripes billiards, but you can also play lows and highs — which is where one player sinks all balls 1 through 7 while the opponent sinks 9 through 15.

Starting 8-ball billiards

Make an open break, smashing all of the balls apart.  If you pocket a ball on the break, the type of ball (solid/stripe or low/high) you knock in determines what you hit for the rest of the game.  If you don’t hit a ball in, your turn is over and your opponent starts their turn.

Playing 8-ball billiards

Once you have determined stripes/solids and have begun playing, each following stroke must first hit one of your balls first.  Failure to hit one of your balls first when striking yields ball-in-hand to your opponent.

Ball-in-hand is also awarded when any cue scratch occurs.

Ending 8-ball billiards

8-ball rules state that scratching while occurring to sink the 8-ball is not a loss of game, unless the 8-ball goes into a pocket as well.  If the 8-ball goes lands into a pocket different than the one that is called, the game is immediately over and that player loses.

About House

House is an hour long television program broadcasted weekly on FOX.  The show’s name comes from it’s main character, Gregory House M.D (Hugh Laurie).  The show follows House and his supporting cast of diagnosticians as they treat patients and interact with each other.  It’s one of the top watched shows on televisions due to (in my opinion) it’s broad appeal — comedy, dark comedy, suspense, and drama.

Supporting Cast: Lisa Edelstein, Robert Sean Leonard, Omar Epps, Jennifer Morrison, Jesse Spencer, Peter Jacobson, Kal Penn, Olivia Wilde

House Memorabilia - Where to Buy, Ideas, Buying Tips

Since House is a relatively new show you shouldn’t have much trouble finding memorabilia.  Because the show is currently in production, set props may be hard to come by (unless they were temporary).  The most common thing you’ll be able to find are signed autographs, posters, and while rare, possibly clothing that was worn on the show by one of the cast members.

The best place to buy House memorabilia is eBay.  Take a look:

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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

That’s where we begin our list:

5.  Saving Private Ryan - Periods for emphasis.  The first 15-20 minutes of the movie where Hanks storms the beaches of Normandy are hard to beat.  If someone was visiting and you wanted to show them a quick, solid test of your surround sound’s capability — you should put on Saving Private Ryan.

4.  The Fifth Element - Also on our list of movies with the best HD.  Not only is there tons of action, but the soundtrack is amazing as well.  A pretty fun movie overall to watch in your home theater.

3.  Perfect Storm - Sound effects from high seas with gusty wind can be heard in about 90% of the movie’s scenes, in addition to several larger moments that highlight your surround sound capability.  The moments of jaw-dropping awe are not as numerous as with other films, but it’s outstanding overall.

2.  Titanic - I know, I know.  It’s a click flick, it’s 9 hours long, but the surround sound is awesome.  You hear everything all the time — the roar of the ship’s engines, the water, dialogue in the background, plus some pretty intense scenes for the last hour of the movie when the ship hits the iceburg, splits, and sinks.

1.  Twister. There are so many movies that can be on this list, particularly at number one — but for the surround sound most likely to get your cops called on you, put Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt in your DVD player.  The opening scene of the movie gets you ready for the long line of lightning, hail, tornadoes you’ll hear for the next couple of hours, along with all the destruction they cause.  Just perfect.

There are several honorable mentions:

Kids:  Finding Nemo, Titan AE, Toy Story 2, Wall-E
Guys & Gals: Terminator 3, Gladiator, U571, The Rock, Signs

What are your favorite movies to listen to in surround sound?  Post below!

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.

The Shield Memorabilia - Where to Buy, Ideas, Buying Tips

Looking to buy The Shield memorabilia? Memorabilia can include a variety of items such as signed photos, items used on the show like clothing, fake guns, badges, items from The Barn and related paraphernalia.

The best place to buy The Shield memorabilia is eBay. I’ve seen promotional materials, autographs, Lem’s actual tombstone (auction ends 12/01/2008), and a variety of other things on there.

Notable Actors/Actresses in The Shield:

• Michael Chiklis
• Catherine Dent
• Walton Goggins
• Michael Jace
• Kenneth Johnson
• Jay Karnes
• Forrest Whitaker
• David Marciano
• Benito Martinez
• Cathy Cahlin Ryan
• David Rees Snell
• Glenn Close
• CCH Pounder

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.

Pink Floyd Memorabilia Ideas

Looking to buy Pink Floyd memorabilia? Whether you’re a seasoned memorabilia collector or are just getting started, your search should begin with autographs, equipment they used to do theirjob (microphones, guitars, guitar pics, drums, keyboards, etc) and related paraphernalia like concert ticket stubs.

Career Highlights:

• 1967: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
• 1968: A Saucerful of Secrets
• 1969: Soundtrack from the Film More
• 1967: Ummagumma
• 1968: Atom Heart Mother
• 1971: Meddle
• 1972: Obscured by Clouds
• 1973: The Dark Side of the Moon
• 1975: Wish You Were Here
• 1977: Animals
• 1979: The Wall
• 1983: The Final Cut
• 1987: A Momentary Lapse of Reason
• 1994: The Division Bell

Cobain and Nirvana was introduced into the mainstream after “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and with it he brought a subgenre known as grunge.  Kurt Cobain was hailed to be the “spokesman of a generation” by the media, a leader for “Generation X.”

Rolling Stone magazine ranks Kurt Cobain as the 45h greatest singer of all time.

Kurt Cobain Memorabilia Ideas

Looking to buy Kurt Cobain memorabilia? Whether you’re a seasoned memorabilia collector or are just getting started, your search should begin with autographs, equipment he used to do his job (microphones, guitars, guitar pics, etc) and related paraphernalia like concert ticket stubs.

Career Highlights:

• 1989:  Bleach
• 1991:  Nevermind
• 1993:  In Utero

Nirvana also released twenty singles and two live albums. It’s remarkable the amount of success, popularity, and following Kurt Cobain and Nirvana obtained in only a few short years.