December is here, which means that it’s time to get your Christmas wish lists in the mail to Santa. Assuming you celebrate the holiday, what goodies are you hoping to find under your tree this year?
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A few Christmases ago, my family stopped trying to guess what to buy me for the holidays and just started getting me gift cards to places they know I’d use them \u2013 like Amazon.com or Cinemark theaters. It saved me the embarrassment of having to tell them “I already have this” when they bought me a Blu-ray or DVD set. <\/p>\n
With that in mind, I have to say I wouldn’t be too upset if I got surprised<\/em> with some ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ merchandise this Christmas. Unlike when the prequels came out, I’ve been pretty sparse in my collecting, buying only a couple of Lego sets (Poe Dameron’s X-Wing and the new version of the Millennium Falcon) that I really wanted, as well as that super-cool Sphero BB-8 robot<\/a>. Other than those few things and a couple exclusive Funko figures (via the Smuggler’s Bounty program), I’m pretty much sans new ‘Star Wars’ merchandise. I’d love to get the new soundtrack, or a couple action figures, or one of the great coffee table books (like ‘The Art of The Force Awakens’), many of which are being released around December 18th, when the movie hits theaters. Even if I don’t, chances are pretty good that I’ll take any gift cards and use them for purchasing said items. Unless the movie sucks, of course.<\/p>\n I really can’t think of a thing that I NEED this year. But WANT, that I can do. Friends, family, if we really focus on this, I think we can make it happen. I’d like a late-1970s to mid-’80s Porsche 911. The good old-fashioned air cooled variety \u2013 ideally with black exterior and leather interior (any color but red, please). If possible, I’d like something with a few dings in the paint. I’m looking for nice but not perfect condition, so I won’t feel bad when something bangs into it. These suckers are shooting up in value really quickly, so this is the year to make it happen. Thank you in advance.<\/p>\n This is likely more a January thing, but it may just be time to go crazy with a new acronym studded display. Upgrading a major part of the home theater can lead to a chain reaction, especially with DTS:X finally coming online. That means I’ll need more Atmos Blu-ray discs, and things like the ‘Roger Waters: The Wall<\/a>‘ SE Blu-ray. <\/p>\n Of course, the best gifts are surprises, and usually ones that you can share. If four or so members of my family all read the same interesting book, that would be a nice gift.<\/p>\n Aside from upgrading a couple items in my home theater system, such as switching my OPPO Blu-ray player to the BDP-103 model, I would like a new seating arrangement for Christmas. Not that there’s anything wrong with the current seats I use, but I’m thinking about making more space for guests. I keep debating between an L-shaped sectional or a small row of theater recliners. I love the idea of adding another row, but the couch would provide more room for people to sit. <\/p>\n I’m also contemplating upgrading my front soundstage to a pair of Bowers & Wilkins CM10 S2 speakers, moving my current CM9s to the side surround positions. I haven’t really made up my mind on the speaker situation since I’m also tempted to experiment with Josh’s patent-pending “Zatmos” idea<\/a>. Nevertheless, here’s hoping Santa is listening and might help make my decision easier. <\/p>\n Surprisingly \u2013 even to me \u2013 the only home theater-related item on my Christmas wish list is a decibel meter. I want to calibrate my 7.1 sound system on my own. Because I know a guy who used to do it professionally, I’ve got a maestro to help me along the way.<\/p>\n Aside from that, I’ve only asked Santa for four other items. On top of being a movie snob, I’m also a music snob. With vinyl records becoming an elitist hipster trend, it’s been easier and cheaper to add my favorite albums to my vinyl collection. In that area, I’ve asked for any records by The Cars, The Killers’ “Battleborn,” and Eddie Vedder’s fantastic soundtrack for ‘Into the Wild’.<\/p>\n In addition to the vinyls, I’ve also asked for two books to round out a collection. Because I’m a huge fan of the series ‘Justified’ and have just added the Blu-ray collector’s box set<\/a> to my collection, I’ve started reading Elmore Leonard’s book series that inspired the FX television series. I own the first two books (‘Pronto’ and ‘Riding the Rap’), so I just need the short story collection ‘Fire in the Hole’ and the final novel in the series ‘Raylan’ to have them all on my shelf.<\/p>\n I’m cursed with a a birthday barely a month before Christmas, and that often means I get every realistic gift on my wish list before the holidays roll around. That turned out to very much be the case this year, although I was able to scrounge together a few more things I want: Warner’s ‘Special Effects Collection<\/a>‘ on Blu-ray, a set of cymbals for ‘Rock Band 4’, ‘Yoshi’s Woolly World’ for the Wii U, and a ridiculous Japanese toy\/instrument called an Otamatone<\/a> chief among them. Less realistically, I’d be all over one of those 65″ 4K, HDR-friendly LG OLED displays.<\/p>\n Ever since I had kids, I stopped thinking about Christmas as a holiday for myself anymore. The boys are on the verge of turning 2, which means this will be the first year they have some concept of what’s happening when they receive gifts. Honestly, I’ve hardly given any thought at all to what I<\/em> might want. <\/p>\n If I were to shoot for the stars here, I’d love a copy of the recent ‘Collected Works of Hayao Miyazaki<\/a>‘ Blu-ray box set. Thinking more modestly, I could use this rug<\/a> to hide some cords running across my home theater room floor.<\/p>\n Have you been good boys and girls this year? What would you like Santa to bring you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" December is here, which means that it’s time to get your Christmas wish lists in the mail to Santa. Assuming you celebrate the holiday, what goodies are you hoping to find under your tree this year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":74453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140,143,5399],"tags":[67,8605,1632,5111,2095,1771,711,8604,82,1701,3569,90,264,551],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74377"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74463,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74377\/revisions\/74463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Mike Attebery<\/span><\/h3>\n
Brian Hoss<\/span><\/h3>\n
M. Enois Duarte<\/span><\/h3>\n
Luke Hickman<\/span><\/h3>\n
Adam Tyner (DVDTalk<\/a>)<\/span><\/h3>\n
Josh Zyber<\/span><\/h3>\n
Your Turn<\/h2>\n