I would only go 7.1 if you have a long rectangular room (not a square room)...at least 15 feet long too. I got a room that 25' long and 12' wide, and having the 7.1 setup sounds great. I have tried this with a smaller (much more square) room, not to great.

Also, if your gaming (PS3 mainly) with 7.1, localization is great too. Playing Uncharted and M.A.G. (beta), you can really localize exactly what is going on behind and to the side of you. But again, in a small squarish room, you can't hear this.

Using ProLogicIIx (haven't tried ProLogicIIz because I don't have it) with the 5.1 movies actually does map out to the 4 different rear speakers pretty well. Though most of the time, the 2 rear speakers (not side surround) usually have the same effect coming out of them. So even most movies are 5.1 at the moment, if you have a long room, its great to have that 7.1 effect.

grab bag...or swag bag

This would be nice in my room.

Nice build.

Oooo pretty.

Fixing the economy? To do that, you have to end the flame wars :)
http://digg.com/d1ohT9

The Palm Pre announcment/ Palm's keynote at CES. Finally some Apple-type coverage for a non-Apple device.

booom.

@KevinC I guess it has to do with location, company, or time frame. I remember having a conversation with someone who would get $900-$1000 per month to rent the portion of property (which I don't think it was AT&T, it was someone else). Also, this property was considered to be buisness property not personal property. But I also have heard people just like you would get as low as $5000 a year. This was usually out of a dense population, like a farm. Keep in mind, it is just vauge details I get through casual conversation, so I don't know the terms I just go wow, thats a lot. I did not mean to offend any of the land owners with cell sites on their property, I was trying to imply that there should be a better way to handle cell site rental.

Plus, considering the amount of cell sites that exist, adding them all up would be a lot of money.

P.S. I'm in the San Diego region also, where a lot of "cell phone testing" goes on. Which probably would explain that outrages rental figure. Though having Qualcomm nearby is pretty cool, because sometimes you get to see the next big thing with cell phones with someone holding it around town (you have to have a good eye to catch these, I've only caught 4, which one was the MediaFlo tech before it launched).

We are paying for their marketing blitz and their "exclusive" partnership contracts. If you take a look around you, how many billboards are a cell phone company's ad, or on tv, each show has some kind of cell phone company ad, even at your local sport center (stadium, ball park, even the pool) there is an ad.

On top of the ads, AT&T pays rediculus amounts to "rent" a small space for their cell towers, or pays a thrid party to "rent" their tower for their use.

I would say only 10-20% of our bill actually pays for the operation of the cell tower and the cell phone service, the rest is pure profit, not for AT&T but for those Ad agencies or those land owners with a cell site on their property.