It’s been a long time since I posted one of these and with good reason. It’s been a very busy time in our lives. I sold my old place and moved to a new one.
The latter half of 2020 was spent futzing over details on how to sell the house, purging/organizing personal belongings, and trying to figure out what we will need in the new place. You would think it would be easier while working from home, trying to juggle house related things while staying engaged with work is tougher than it ought to be.
Smarter House
Nest Hello, TP-Link smart light switches, smart garage door opener, smart stove, smart fridge, smart washers/dryers. I went from just a Nest Protect and Nest to everything has wi-fi now. For the most part, it works very well. The light switches are very convenient and the door bell saves us a trip to the door, but the smart appliances in the kitchen leave a lot to be desired. The smartness of the washer and dryer are a must for us considering they’re now tucked away in the basement.
Nothing Fits; Everything Must Go
We moved bedroom furniture, 5.1 surround speakers, and other stuff thinking it would work in the new space, but it turns out that’s not the case at all and we’re undergoing a post-move purge as well. Bed frames, headboards, and my entire Harman Kardon 5.1 surround system were sold or in the process of being sold. On the plus side, we’ll get stuff that better fits our new space.
Sound Bar Life
I purchased these Sanus speaker stands and it turns out they aren’t compatible with my speaker mounts at all. Frustrated and fed up with the whole setup, I’m ready to move on and just live the high quality sound bar life. Unfortunately, that life isn’t as simple as it should be and I’m better off just waiting until the latest sound bars launch and see how they fair. I was all set to either go for a Sonos Arc, JBL Bar 9.1, or the Samsung HW-Q950T, but they all had some kind of limitation or oversight that wasn’t okay with. So now I wait and live that TV speaker life.
New PC for me?
My gaming PC suddenly bit the dust. I hoped it was a power supply, but after swapping it out without any luck, I isolated it to either the motherboard or the CPU. The ASUS Z270i PRO GAMING board has troubleshooting LEDs, but only the standby lights up. I’ve been meaning to upgrade for a while; I wanted to return to AMD with their Ryzen 5 5600X. I was about to shove that new PC into the trusty BitFenix Prodigy case, but then I realized I would be building this new PC just to sit there. The GeForce GTX 1070 is very long in the tooth and I spend most of my time on the new consoles.
So this new PC will be for the fiancee who will be more than happy with the GTX 1070. She primarily plays shooters like CS:GO, Valorant, and Overwatch on a 1440p 144Hz monitor so this video card coupled with that new AMD Ryzen CPU should work well. We’ll also be able to eventually get rid of that huge NZXT case of hers. It’s just a beast of a case that I find unnecessary.
I thought it was going to be quite difficult to obtain the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU, but I lucked out and managed to get my name onto a list at Canada Computers and was able to pick one up within a day or so. The challenge now is finding slim 120mm case fans which may or may not be necessary depending on how everything in the Cooler Master NR200P case that I chose for her ends up.
Gaming Limbo
I was in a bit of a gaming limbo as I purchased a copy of The Last of Us Part II late last year, but realized that it may receive a next-gen patch so I held off on it. Instead I’m just playing a lot of Apex Legends and Overwatch. I’m starting to dabble into Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on the Xbox Series X, but it hasn’t taken root yet. I will probably stick with it, but we’ll see if that is actually the case.
I realized that I didn’t do my game of the year 2020 round-up in January due to all the commotion of life. I don’t believe I have enough 2020 games for a top 10 or maybe even a top 5, but I should find the time to document it all.
Research & More Research
Blinds, sound bars, and PCs. There’s a lot of research going on around here and I’m finding myself spending quite a bit of time looking up what’s the best for us. It’s been a long time since I went down so many rabbit holes at once, but it’s been fun!
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