Quintessential Me

A man and electronics.

Ok, I admit it. Owing to certain male genetics, I love electronics. This lifelong passion however has forced me to realize something: Women love electronics too.

Specifically my wife loves electronics. More specifically, she does not love them in the way that some women and seemingly all men love them. She loves the moment that she gets to tell friends and acquaintances alike that I am obsessed. "I'm going to get," she remarks, "one of those handheld click counters to see how many times in a day he says 'receiver'."

I've considered actually buying her one off eBay- another obsession. The counters are easily found by "handheld tally", but since I've told her that I'm going to avoid spending money on eBay, I'll make is short and sweet: Less than five.

Ok, ok, I'll concede... That if we were to include the times that I thought about electronics, including the word receiver, it would be an arduous task.

When selecting our new receiver, I spent atleast a month wavering between products always looking for the absolute best deal. I have a partial preference for brands that were sold under the "Home Entertainment" franchise before it was swallowed in the Tweeter Corporation. As such, I always look at Sony, Pioneer, Denon, and Yamaha. I'm aware enough to know names better than these, but when my wife heard that I wanted to buy "nice" models from their respective lines, I knew instantly that higher prices were out of the question.

When I first met my wife's brother, he felt slighted when I admitted I knew little about the Onkyo brand. This admission was nothing more or less. He knew that I had worked at Home Entertainment before. He interpreted that the brand was unworthy of the store which isn't the case. The real secret around Houston wasn't Home Entertainment (or Tweeter), it was "The Home Theater" store on Westhiemer. There one could dream and even buy with an extremely and generously endowed wallet. Home Entertainment made Circuit City feel like Wal-Mart. Oddly enough the Home Theater store doesn't make the feel of any other chain seem like a bargain basement clearance center or diminish them at all. It is Disney World for geeks, nerds, and technophiles--well audiophiles at least. You'll still need to shop Fry's electronics for your other technophile dreams.

So when my wife claims I'm obsessed, I know it's true even if I might pretend it isn't.

posted by mokru @ 5:35 PM