I'm not cheap, but I hate spending money unnecessarily. Sometimes, though, events force it upon you.
Father's Day is coming up, and two months later, my sixtieth birthday, which I am thinking of as a Threshold Birthday. I may not be old, but I'm getting there. Now I get to check the sixty and older box on forms. Two months after that, we've got our twenty fifth anniversary. All of those, put together, make us think that we should Buy Something Lavish. But what?
Over the last couple of months, we've been mulling over getting a flatscreen TV, and today, while we were at Best Buy getting the refrigerator, we wandered over to look at the televisions on display. I must admit, they're seductive. Big, glossy, glittering. Usually, showing a demo tape from a Blu-Ray player, sometimes an HD cable channel. Good golly, that's nice. What the real world would look like if George Lucas had built it. Funny how they never show what's on at our house -- which is to say, basic cable -- or what's on basic cable, which is to say: The Same Old Thing.
My wife says that we ought to do it anyway, for the reasons cited above. We've been talking about it for a while. But the money! The TV alone is about $1700 (that's the mid-range price for a 46 inch LCD); we'd have to buy a table for it, because it'd be too big for the coffee table we've used as a TV table for the last twenty five years; that's about $300. $2100, and we don't get better TV, in either quality or quantity. We could up the level of service on cable, so that we'd get the HD channels (another ten dollars a month, every damn month). We could get a Blu-Ray player to go with it, but thats another $300 or so (I'm guessing about that point), but what good's the higher capability player without higher capacity videos? So now any new videos have to be at the higher quality level....though I think Blu-Ray can made regular DVDs look better. Maybe not.
And, oh yes, the current DVD/VHS player....how to connect that? And, gee, should we think about eventually adding some kind of audio system? We've got an amp down there.... that never gets used, and a tape deck that really doesn't work. And a turntable that does....when we use it. How would that all fit in?
Hey, what about a riding mower instead?
2 comments:
Our TV cost $1300 about three years ago...we love it. I would think you can get a decent one much cheaper. I have seen nice ones at $800 that are in the 40+ range.
I agree. It's not the TV, per se, its what you need to make it useful. My impression is that an HD capable TV without HD input is a fast car on the highway at rush hour. Which reminds me of when I was on US 75 in Dallas once, doing about 15 miles an hour; I looked to my left, and there was a Lamborhini there. Hey, I thought, I'm going as fast as a Lamborghini!
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