We Did a SIlly Thing

About a week or two before the computer went out, we did a silly thing.

For about a year, my parents' television had been acting up.  They'd had the thing for twenty years or something so it was time.  I did some extensive research on flat screen TVs and came up with a Sony Bravia 46" that had amazing reviews and came in around $800 online through Best Buy.

There's more.  Shawn has been drooling on himself and down the front of his shirt for years over the Sony Bravias.  He does apartment maintenance so he regularly goes into people's homes who have such massive televisions.  And to makes things worse, most of these people are those who do not work, do not have jobs and are living on our dime because they are too cracked out to go earn a living.  Not all of them, but most of them.

Shawn has always thought it unfair that he works so hard each day and could not have one of these TVs.  On his lunch break, he used to go up to the Circuit City and stare at the Sony Bravia 50" TV.  He'd them hook up the HD and just foam at the mouth.

After discovering that the TV was only $800...not over $2000 like the like one he'd wanted originally, I finally caved.  I could really care less about the TV.  I could care less if we'd continued to use the sixty pound dinosaur or got a flat screen.  I just really don't care.  A TV is a TV and that's all there is to it to me, personally.

I was shocked at the prices of TV stands.  We finally settled on one for around $300 I think, and it took Shawn about 3.5 hours to put together.  Now this I like.  We had this HUMONGOUS entertainment center my parents had second handed to us and it took up most of the bedroom.

That's right, the bedroom.  Our main TV viewing is in the bedroom.  You cannot watch TV in the living room past 10am because whoever designed this house was a idiot.  We went to Best Buy with my parents and I haggled the manager down from store price to online price.  One problem.  They didn't have the TV in stock.

There was only one within a 60 mile radius, the other was ordered for my parents since we had already moved the beast of an entertainment center down the hallway and had built a new one for the bedroom, all ready to adorn our new television.

This really was an all day event.  We started sometime in the morning and wrapped up everything around 9 or 10pm.  Dad would have to pick up his TV that following Friday and that's a whole other story.  After we set up the TV, I to work on the surround sound system.  We discovered that only two speakers were working so we found an extra we'd stashed in the den and hooked that up.  The rear speakers were blown long ago and Shawn tried rewiring them, etc, but nothing worked.  Like I said, they were blown because someone around here like to listen to his music at blaring volumes.  (He's also going deaf as a result)

Speaker issues somewhat resolved, I finally got everything hooked up and going.  We had three front speakers and that was OK for now.  Two days ago, one the front speakers went out and we have no more reserves.  Sigh.

I'd done some extensive research on decent speakers that will work well with our system and sustain Shawn's horrible music.  Of course, we cannot afford them at the moment so I've simply tucked away all this information with a plan to buy one at a time in the near future.

Next, we needed to contact Dish Network about getting set up with High Definition TV.  I ordered a 30 foot HD cable to run from the box in the living room to our brand new flat screen TV.  That night, I called.  Dish Net would charge us $150 for setting up HDTV because we need a new box and a cable guy to go up on the roof, pretend to do something, and serve us with a bill.  This was another several-hour experience and I don't know why.

Today, we are operating on one left front speaker, one middle front speaker, and no HD.  Oh well.  At least Star Wars looks cool on DVD through this TV.