I’ve just recently discovered that when it comes to tv/movie-related entertainment, people can be separated in the following categories:

1. Regular person. You have a 32″ RCA television set, a Magnavox DVD player, and a 3-year old Gateway computer with promotional stickers to “get free Earthlink for 3 months!” still attached. The only way you watch television is by turning on the TV. The only way you watch movies is by popping a DVD into the DVD player. Oh, and you still haven’t set up Direct Deposit at work even though it has nothing to do with this. You have a couch in front of the TV. You still rent DVDs at a local grocery store. You have a DVD collection comprised 75% of Disney titles. The DVD jackets to those titles are either missing or eaten by the big fluffy dog you also have. You like “Friends” and “Hitch”. You have dial-up. You chase after people who take pictures of your crappy car (too “inside”, I know).

2. Advanced … ish user. You’ve tried Netflix and you like it. You have a TV, a 2-3 year old Dell computer that you play Internet games on, and a DVD player. When you bought the DVD player, you actually asked a Target employee whether this DVD player skips most DVDs. After receiving an “I dunno”, you bought the DVD player anyway. You like movies like “Patriot” and “What Women Want”. You wondered about how you could watch a movie on your PC, but you’ve never actually done it. You have cable.

3. Advanced user. You’ve used P2P to download music and movies, and if the codec is giving you grief, you know how to re-install it. You’ve encoded, copied, and watched movies on your PC. You’ve created labels for burnt CDs and DVDs. Your video card’s name ends with “…Vidia” or “…TI”, and you actually know how many FPS you’re getting on Oblivion.

I decided to not pussyfoot around the very important issue of quality time watching “Firefly” and “Godfather 2″, so here’s my rig:

I have a wireless Linux fileserver that automatically scans all binary newsgroups for rotating keywords of my choice (while I’m at work), then downloads found DVD images onto its homemade RAID-array, after which it wirelessly shoots combined video to my new 42″ tube and audio to the Soundblaster X-Fi-driven 7.1 surround sound speaker rig. I control the server with a wireless mouse and a small LCD display. I do not own a DVD player.

The best way to feed your inner geek, entertain yourself, and spend a grand EVER.