My life has improved by 7.3%
Because I got me this:
JBL Onstage
In a word, mildlyawesome. My only complaints are that it doesn't run on batteries or come with a remote, but it's not like I'm going to use it as a ghettoblaster and I would lose the remote anyway. I'm especially happy since Amazon had it for $106 (I think it MSRPs for $169).
Yay me.