Category: Uncategorized

Focal review time is a mixed bag. It is the time of salary increases, but it also the time of justifying said increases.

I don’t suppose just putting “I worked on a bunch of bugs” would work for listing 2008’s accomplishments, as true as that statement may be.

So the broken TV in the living room as a constant reminder finally got to me. I started doing research into LCD HDTVs in the $1000-$1500 range (not ever spending $4000 on a TV again) and wrote down prices that I could find online for the various recommended models, which were almost all Samsungs.

I planned on going by Fry’s on the way home from work to get a visual sense of the televisions, because no amount of “off-axis vertical luminosity percentage” and “optimal viewing distance” and “black color” numbers on a webpage is every going to make up for actually seeing the televisions next to each other. I told myself though, if I saw a model there that was significantly less than what I saw online, I would get it.

After getting there and finding that most of the models were indeed on sale, and looking at the LN4XA650 model (both the 40″ and 46″ version) and finding that I could hardly see the picture getting dimmer even when looking at the oddest of angles when a salesman walked up. (Technically he’d walked up the second I set foot in the department, as they are oft to do, but I shooed him away the first time.) The price on the LN40A650 was $50 cheaper than I’d found online, which was not enough to get me to jump in, when he said “you know, that’s on sale for $1199?” Evidently it was a leftover Black Friday special, and even though he didn’t mention it, the special ended today.

So in one of the quickest decisions that probably made that guy’s day, I said I’d take it. It even fit nicely in my car. Sadly, it doesn’t quite fit in the room on the stand that matches the old TV, it’s a bit low and now the couch is a bit too far away, but the picture is amazing. I didn’t have 1080p before, and the difference from 1080i with a signal that uses it (and DirectTV does) is scary. I watched the DVRed episode of Heroes and the image looked too real. It was creeping me out.

So now I need to get a stand that’s a foot higher or so. And then get rid of the old TV, probably via a Craigslist post saying “free TV, if you can get it working, all you have to bother with is getting it out of my house.”

So, the real justification in my head for getting a TV? I need to DDR more. Changing my diet wasn’t enough, I’m still not losing any weight.