...And we're in!

After the Ranger's shellacking of those poor, innocent Toronto Maple Leafs, the Atlanta Thrashers finally have their ticket to the playoffs guaranteed - no questions asked. With all of the ups and downs throughout not only this season (literally, hello streaks!) but in the team's short history, the city of Atlanta has another team to be proud of - and y'all best recognize if you haven't already!

Congratulations to the members of the Thrashers for all of their hard work during the chaotic season! Let's continue to push further with this renewed sense of life as y'all have completed only one step in the process for ultimate success. The next stop is to go for the great distinction of a Southeast Division champion. Everything is in our court right now - don't hesitate and even consider laying back a bit just because of the recent triumphs. The time is now - this saying will never get old.

Also, thank you thank you thank you to the players, the upper management, and everyone else affiliated with the team. After all of the late nite phone calls to improve the team, all of the last-second tallies that determine victory or heartbreak, all of the injuries that just happen to occur at the "worst time", all of the passes and no shots on the power play, all of the fist-pumps to the heavens in celebration, all of the ticket-scanners at the entrance of the arena, all of the sheer volume from the Nasty Nest, you've done it. Everyone should take the time to revel in this glory.

We finally did it, Atlanta - let's not stop here.

AJC Blog: Thrashers clinch
AJC: Thrashers clinch first playoff bid
SeSo: Playoff Bound!
NastyNest: Big Moment Coming
Blueland Blog: It's Official- Here Come the Playoffs!

OMG WTF LOLZ LMAO - Yeah, they're all applicable

This past Christmas, I got the ultimate gift of Sirius satellite radio for my car. I've wanted satellite radio for as long as I can remember it being around, which has definitely been a few years. I immediately set it up the next day and I couldn't believe I had this feature in my car now. What was unfortunate, though, was that my FM reception was very poor. I could pick up Sirius stations as long as my hand was on the player (which is an S50, BTW). Once I took my right hand off of the unit, I would lose all reception and glaring static would take over, causing much aggravation with the situation.

There HAD to be a better way to work this thing.

What was most shocking, though, was that my iPod works the same way as the S50 does - wirelessly. I have a Monster iCarPlay adapter in my car and it works flawlessly 95% of the time, and the other 5% it's tolerable (much better than the iTrip that I've seen and heard about). So for my wireless Sirius device to not work so well, but my Monster cable to be quite the opposite was really weird. At that point, I started looking into various adapters to make my terrestrial radio work better with the satellite radio.

I came across two different products, both suggested by Sirius. The one I went with was the FM Direct Adapter (Model #FMDA25), made by Sirius. After looking around at both websites and local retailers, I couldn't find this product for less than $30. If I did find it, I still knew NOTHING about installing this kind of thing, so that meant more money forked over because of installation fees and other crap. I was told installation could take an hour to all day long. I was also told that installation could be as much as $40, making the entire thing about $70. Considering I got this for Christmas, it was hard to justify spending that much "maintenance" money on something that I got for free. But whatever. I still got it for free. Ehh... loopholes!



Regardless, I finally stumbled onto crutchfield.com, a company that I've heard about before. I've seen their catalogues and I've heard their commercials on radio and maybe even on television. They're all about helping people with their electronic needs, for both car and home. So I tried them out and, what-do-you-know, the adapter was only $20. After all other charges (which was just shipping), my total still ran less than $30. I already had one-up on the local outlets that sold the same product. The only bad-side of using Crutchfield is that the product was on backorder. I ordered it on the 14th and received it about a week ago. I was actually told it would be in by the 12th of February, so the early arrival was nice.

Remember how I mentioned that I had zero knowledge of anything having to do with car maintenance or electronics? I still don't, but this is another amazing thing about Crutchfield. When you order something like this for your car, you fill out a few forms about what kind of car your drive (or the car that you're working on) so that they can include MasterSheet Instructions. Basically, these are diagrams with step-by-step directions on how to disassemble your car for this particular part. The best part about this feature of their website is that it is ENTIRELY FREE. So not only did I get the product I wanted for cheaper, I also had instructions for removing my car stereo and doing the job, completely free of charge.

My main concern after this was how long installation would take. Of course, it sounds so easy on paper, but there are always curve-balls thrown into the mix to make things, eh, interesting. Once I started working on my car, installation was a snap and was done in less than 10 minutes.

Even after I typed that, I had to stare at the screen because I still didn't believe myself there.

Cheaper prices for the same product + free installation directions + retarded easy installation = Crutchfield is amazing!

And that's the moral of the story, kids. If you ever want to install anything in your car in terms of electronics, visit Crutchfield and they will hook you up. I still cannot believe how easy all of this was.

The best thing of all - my satellite radio reception is perfect... a 100% improvement over how it was about a half an hour ago, when I first started the installation.

website: crutchfield.com
FM Direct Adapter: FMDA25