WAF Tales

[waicool]

Long ago I learned of the concept of WAF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_acceptance_factor
but I never paid much attention to it because basically, in our home, the wife (and daughter) got their tv/dvd/vhs feeds from various tv’s and stand-alone dvd/vcr players around the house.  They knew better than touch or mess with my htpc setup.  We never did TIVO or directTV to know better (EPG, time shifting, etc.).
Fiddling around with my pc’s and developing a functional htpc has been a worthy hobby for several years now.    From my most humble beginnings with my first All-In-Wonder, I personally have enjoyed tv on my pc, amassed a respectable library of music and video and have built a pretty amazing (to me anyways) htpc network. 
This year I made the bold move to make the network accessible to the w’s in the house and jest replaced the bedroom tv/dvd combo device with a full fledged htpc and theater in a box audio setup.  I tested and tested (and tested) this system for bugs and flawless operability on my test bench and thought I had a system that was ready for prime time….
Boy, was I wrong.
Enter the WAF factor.  ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!

Right off the bat, “THAT’S TOO LOUD!” she moans…as if 5.1 surround sound and special effects audio processing is gonna ruin your hearing, c’mon.  Now, I turn down the sub, adjust the fronts and rears, and am left with an “empty” sounding center speaker.  🙁

Then, I hear  “where is the sleep timer?, you know I HATE getting up in the middle of the night to turn off those annoying repeating menu’s and your silly news programs.”  Jeeezz,  Of course, I am now downloading every sleep timer addon known to man to get something that will shut down the damn thing at 2 am when we are asleep and the movie is over.  >:(

You would think those complaints would have exhausted the woman, right? wrong!!!!!  “Why does that thing make that noise?  I can barely hear anything with those fans running in the background!!!”  Like I just scoured the earth to find every quiet component available to man and it is still not enough, i mean i am down around 15db…. :-[

So, I am frustrated as all get out and now I have to “get that thing out of here!” and put back that simple combo unit that I thought I could delegate to the spare bedroom.  :'(

Anyways, I searched WAF here at the missing remote hoping I would find some comfort from someone (anyone?) else’s lament regarding WAF and only found one hit (WAFfled), this is not acceptable!!! so I started this thread -WAF TALES-

This is my WAF tale, maybe it will help someone else facing the same issue(s) to know that you are not alone friend.  At the very least it is nice to know I can type out my frustrations on a forum of like minded home theater junkies.  I would really enjoy reading some other WAF tales…misery loves company.

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