Some background: The last time I bought a new TV was in 1990, after I had moved to Chicago and the super-charged outlet in my apartment fried the new little Motorola TV I bought (so I wouldn't have to lug my old big TV up from Austin) after something like three months. For the next six months I lived without one. How did I spend my time? I read a lot. I didn't even have a decent sound system so I couldn't listen to music. I read a lot of literary theory and philosophy and, because I didn't know anyone yet and had no-one to talk to about all of the ideas that were accumulating in my brain and no one to distract me from them, I do believe I went a little crazy for a while. It all came to a head on Presidents day - it was cold and grey and rainy and all I wanted to do was stay home and watch TV all day. I wanted it so badly, in fact, that I ordered one over the phone from Sears. It was basically the same Zenith I had owned in Austin, maybe a little updated, but still just your basic TV.It lasted almost ten years and then it died a sudden death. I bought my next TV, a Toshiba Stereo speaker, from a friend who had a couple of extra TVs in her house. It was already over ten years old when I bought it. It was a good deal and I really didn't want to spend money on something new, so it was perfect.
Until it started developing these little white lines across the top of the screen. And then, when the sound started going out every fifteen minutes or so a few months ago, I resigned myself to the idea that I was going to need a new TV. Which scared me, because the technology had changed so much that I had no idea how to go about selecting one. It kind of became a game to me to see how long I could hold out with my rapidly declining Toshiba before having to buy a new one.
I had discovered that if I turned the cable off instead of the TV, I could reduce the number of times the sound went out, so I got in the habit of leaving the TV itself on. One day the week before last I turned the TV on in the morning to check the weather and all I got was a big white screen. Uh Oh. I knew the time had come - I was going to have to suck it up and buy a new one. And even though the picture was ok later that night (I guess it just needed to be turned off for a while), I knew I couldn't count on it.
So last weekend I trekked on over to Best Buy, at Stacey's suggestion, and got some excellent help in figuring out what kind of TV I wanted and which one I should buy. That's it up there - a Sony Bravia. They delivered it yesterday morning and I haven't come up for air since. I can't stop myself from watching all kinds of different kinds of shows to see how great the picture is. I hope to get over my obsession pretty quickly and back to normal, but that won't be happening today. I'm too obsessed with seeing how awesome Spiderman is on my new TV, and how good all the food looks on the FoodTV network (see, I did manage to write about food after all), and how real the courtroom looks on Law & Order for now.
I have to say that my experience at Best Buy was positive from start to finish. I got excellent help and information while I was trying to decide what I needed. The person who helped me did not try to sell me more than I needed, although I did end up buying one size bigger than I had originally intended (for which I am thrilled now that it's here and I'm watching it). When we were talking about whether or not I could get it home by myself in a cab, he offered to match the free delivery I would have gotten if I had bought it online. I decided to wait until the weekend to have it delivered so I wouldn't have to take off work. They called me the night before to confirm delivery and told me it would be between 10:30 and 12:30 Saturday morning. When 12:30 rolled around and I was trying to figure out how long to wait before calling to see where they were, they called me to tell me the truck was on its way. They would have set it up for me, but I wanted to do that myself so I would know how. It was pretty easy.
So I will see you later, hopefully next week. I have to catch the top five celebrity meltdowns.
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