Take the HDTV leap or not
My long term list of to-do’s has included upgrading our already huge 61 inch Sony projection tv for awhile. We bought the Sony when we moved into the house 7 years ago. It has worked great for those 7 years and still works just fine. However it is 7 years old. It has the conventional 4:3 format screen and will not work well with HDTV broadcasts.
I have had my eye on the Mitsubishi 73 inch DLP projection for quite awhile. For no particular reason I came up with the idea the other day that maybe we could swing into one sooner rather than later by taking advantage of some of Best Buys financing deals. It would allow us to slide into a new monster set pretty painlessly. Well when I went on Best Buy’s web site to see what financing they currently had I also browsed to the TV. My eye’s lit up when I saw they had the model I wanted on clearance. Evidently they have a new model of it out that is about 4k. The one I was interested in was some $1700 less than that.
Now my interest was spiked. This is about as big of a tv as our entertainment nook will accept. I will have about a half inch clearance on either side. I threw the idea out to Ali, not as an absolute necessity but as an opportunity. Ali could care less about getting a new tv but there are some side effects of getting a new tv that would appeal to her. The Sony TV is very tall. The Mitsu tv is very wide but is not a much taller than the length of the picture, meaning we would need to get a TV stand. Ali is excited about the idea of getting a tv stand as it would set up a series of changes she is looking for.
The right tv stand would allow us to move the components that are currently
on the shelf above the tv to the tv stand below. We would be able to more than likely remove that shelf totally which would eliminate the cables visible running down the wall that Ali hates. Ali also was excited about my agreement to move the front surround speakers to inside the entertainment nook, removing what she has seen as a 7 year eyesore. Ideally the tv stand would have room to store our dvd’s which in turn would allow Ali to move the media cabinet we have to the left of the tv currently and stick it where the open shelf shown in the picture currently is located, across from the kitchen. Again Ali sees this as a gushing open wound of visual horror (which no one else does). So anyway, all of these changes facilitated by a tv upgrade are tempting to her.
There are other complications with the purchase to consider. I would need to get an HDTV Tivo to accommodate HDTV programming. I also would need to upgrade my Comcast subscription to include HDTV access which would add to the monthly bill. As a small consolation I would be able to drop the local channels I get on Directv currently. Of course the TV stand will be a chunk of additional money as well. I have not pushed the issue. I threw it out there as a possibility and pretty much left it up to Ali to green light it. If she is ok with it I will happily move forward on it. If she isn’t , I’d rather not hear complaints after the fact about the purchase and will be forced to “struggle” along with a 61 incher, poor me.
My after work project for the week is going to be ripping up the remaining old landscape border around the pool. I replaced the long section along the back but the two shorter side sections are still the old, nasty stuff. Our pool has been looking progressively more nasty in recent weeks with a lot of algae building up. Last night after work I cleaned out the pool filter and then dumped a ton of shock/clarifier directly into the pool filter and then let it run all night. I was pleased this morning when I saw the pool had cleared up dramatically over night.