TVs (or, I Only Ever Talk About Buying Stuff)

I came *this close* (holds up two fingers *really* close together) to making an impulse [LCD TV purchase](http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10084416&catid=23244) today. *This close!*

I actually still might go ahead with it. My TV situation is kinda crappy. And I’ve got people coming over this coming weekend to watch Doctor Who. It’s the 44th anniversary, after all.

Currently, I’ve got two TVs. One is a 20″ SVGA computer monitor (which I bought for $1000 more than a decade ago because it could scan down to Amiga scanning frequencies, thus allowing me to work in resolutions higher than 640×200) that can double as a television. And it doubles as a television very well, except that it’s 20″. 20″ is not very big for lots of people watching stuff.

So when my parents upgraded all their TVs to LCD HDTVs, they gave me their 27″ Sony Trinitron, which, honestly, wasn’t working very well. But hey, free TV. So I lugged it to Waterloo, got it hooked up and it worked great!

It worked great for two days. Then some utility workers were messing around with the transformer thingy in the middle of my cul de sac and cut my power. When it came back on, the TV came on too, oddly, and the top of the screen is kind of squished in and pushed down two inches.

At least you can see the whole picture. I played pretty much all of Super Paper Mario that way.

I’ve been hoping the TV would fix itself. Something similar happened to my parents (prompting them to consider upgrading TVs in the first place), but the TV fixed itself eventually. It’s been almost a month now and I’m not optimistic.

I’ve been holding off on a new TV because I really haven’t been watching stuff, and my goal for having people over is to build a home theatre room in the basement. That, however, has gone almost nowhere. So maybe I should just give into reality and get a cheap, decent LCD.

5 thoughts on “TVs (or, I Only Ever Talk About Buying Stuff)”

  1. My beau has a basement “home theatre”… nothing too ambitious, ’cause he’s a bit of a cheapskate ;> He’s got a cast-off couch, another seat (small but multi-person) of sorts on a shallow plywood platform right behind it, and a white bed sheet tacked on the wall. Oh, and a large throw rug on the cement floor. The REAL investment was his projector, which he’s got tied into a computer somehow so that he loads a dvd, signs on to his home network via WindowXP, and runs the movie that way. And speakers. I forgot about the speakers. Some rather big ones in the corners, and maybe a couple of littler ones next to them. What do they call those, tweaters or something? Or maybe they are all just regular speakers of different sizes. I dunno. I also don’t know, although he’s got all of his TV stuff on his home network (I can’t even begin to maneuver through his remotes!), if he could somehow show actual TV programming through the projector. If not, I don’t suppose that would be any help for a Dr. Who festival, just an anime frenzy. ;>

    But you see, doesn’t have to be fancy. Unless your friends are snobs. In which case, poor you!

    (Of course, you could always buy the LCD, and then move it into your basement later as an added feature when your theatre finally manifests…)

  2. Asked the beau about if he could use his projector for Tv programming. He said he could, if he plugged the projector into the computer with the Tv card, but that regular broadcast doesn’t actually look very good that way–it loses too much resolution. He said that HDTv would be fine. But he isn’t willing to pay for that cable service option, it costs a fair amount more than his basic package. (Like I said, he’s a bit of a nip-cheese…)

    So there you go, Squirrel! Just buy a projector and a bedsheet, pick up a second-hand couch or two, toss in a couple of speakers and voila! You’ll be filling your walls with Dr. Who in no time! :D

  3. A projector is definitely in the plans. As are a decent audio system and some modest basement renovations.

    I’m pretty cheap too, though. The LCD TV is more of a stop-gap measure, and an admission that I probably don’t want to fire up the projector every time I want to play Super Mario Galaxies.

    I should probably do a post about the whole home theatre thing. Even if it is mostly about buying stuff…

  4. Is not (she protests). “Buying stuff” is just consumerism. Building a home theatre is designing.

    Duh!

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