When I fail my history comps next month, you all will know why…

I am not a huge impulse buyer, but I do occasionally make somewhat extravagant purchases. Usually I manage to restrict my impulse buys to small things: movies, music, or books that I don’t really need. In general, I think that I have tended to spend more on toys for my rats rather than toys for myself. But this year… this year I lost all self-control.

Meet the PK20

This little guy (and he is little–think about the size of a small jewelry box or fat paperback novel) is a pretty kick-ass LED projector that I got brand new for supercheap on amazon. And by supercheap I mean $300 less than it’s going for now and about $500 less than the suggested retail price. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! Anyway, it’s the perfect device for home theater on a budget. Watch out–you throw one little V watching party with this thing and your friends will start demanding you install stadium seating in your apartment!

	The LEDs aren’t super bright, but it still gives a good 60″ picture even with some lights on. I think this is actually more than 60″ here. Either way, you can see that it dwarfs the size of the tv, and our tv isn’t especially small.
	With the lights out, it’s almost like being in the theater, although that means it’s hard to really capture in a photo. The graininess here is from the camera, not the projector. The projector in fact has pretty good resolution, and the image looks more crisp the smaller you make it. I just decided to go for the biggest possible picture here.

Unfortunately, the set-up of the new home theater still has some kinks that need ironing out. For example right now the dvd player has to sit in the middle of the living room floor when I use the projector because I still don’t have long enough cables. And the audio system (my 15 year old stereo) is indelicately placed on the floor in front of the tv. But these are minor issues that I will likely wait to sort out so that I am not constantly tempted to watch movies instead of doing my reading.

The mischeif caused by the pre-birthday wii however, is another story entirely…