Adventures in TV Land
So I've been having problems with my TV for awhile now. It was an Insignia (aka Best Buy's in-house crap brand) 27" CRT TV; I'd gotten it back in Sept. 2007. Around Oct. '07, I exchanged that TV, since the picture seemed to be slightly canted to the left. Luckily we were within the 1 month take-back exchange period, so we just got a free exchange for another TV of the same model. That one lasted until August '08, when it lost the tuner input - cycling through the various TV inputs, it would just go from S-Video to S-Video 2 to Component, and then back again. The tuner input (aka where cable shows up) had just disappeared. So after a bit of attempted home tech-support, we exchanged that one at the beginning of Sept. 08 - about two days before the manufacturer's 1 year warranty expired, thank goodness! Anyways, this new one lasted about two days before it too lost the tuner input. Oh, and it also made a weird static-y hissing noise periodically.
So last week, in frustration, I took it back to Best Buy and said, "look, I've had three of this same model, and it's a piece of crap. Can I exchange it for a model that doesn't suck?" Fortunately I had purchased a product service plan, so they let me. The downside is, the only other CRT that they carry at that store anymore (apparently CRT TVs are all but gone?) is, you guessed it, Insignia 27". So we were forced with either exchanging for a fourth of the same model, or be given the value of the TV we'd paid with the condition that we have to use it on another TV. And so..that's what I did. Since there were effectively no CRTs at the store, I was pretty much forced to upgrade to a flat panel. The downside to this is that any decent LCD or plasma TV around the 27" size was a minimum of $400 more expensive than the shitty ol' CRT I'd bought. But the silver lining is, hoo ha, I am now the proud owner of a 26" widescreen Samsung LCD HDTV. It's pretty great! There were some additional costs from having to upgrade the Wii and the DVD player to component cables (apparently RCA and S-Video are as extinct as CRTs now?) and if we upgrade to HD cable that'll cost a pretty penny too, but hey, I am fairly pleased with how this whole TV debacle turned out. Sure I ended up spending a lot more money than I would have otherwise cared for, but ah wells. At least now if this new flat TV breaks, I can lift it with one hand to take back to the store :)
Yesterday V and I went for dinner with some of my old high school friends. Back at the end of high school, one of said friends had asked all of our old circle to pick a song, and then she'd make a mix CD of all of those songs with a brief blurb from everyone. So, nostalgically, we listened to that old CD last night. Heh, good times...it took me back a bit. Also I can't for the life of me think of why I chose an old song from the Rurouni Kenshin anime soundtrack for that CD...wow, what was I thinking.
So last week, in frustration, I took it back to Best Buy and said, "look, I've had three of this same model, and it's a piece of crap. Can I exchange it for a model that doesn't suck?" Fortunately I had purchased a product service plan, so they let me. The downside is, the only other CRT that they carry at that store anymore (apparently CRT TVs are all but gone?) is, you guessed it, Insignia 27". So we were forced with either exchanging for a fourth of the same model, or be given the value of the TV we'd paid with the condition that we have to use it on another TV. And so..that's what I did. Since there were effectively no CRTs at the store, I was pretty much forced to upgrade to a flat panel. The downside to this is that any decent LCD or plasma TV around the 27" size was a minimum of $400 more expensive than the shitty ol' CRT I'd bought. But the silver lining is, hoo ha, I am now the proud owner of a 26" widescreen Samsung LCD HDTV. It's pretty great! There were some additional costs from having to upgrade the Wii and the DVD player to component cables (apparently RCA and S-Video are as extinct as CRTs now?) and if we upgrade to HD cable that'll cost a pretty penny too, but hey, I am fairly pleased with how this whole TV debacle turned out. Sure I ended up spending a lot more money than I would have otherwise cared for, but ah wells. At least now if this new flat TV breaks, I can lift it with one hand to take back to the store :)
Yesterday V and I went for dinner with some of my old high school friends. Back at the end of high school, one of said friends had asked all of our old circle to pick a song, and then she'd make a mix CD of all of those songs with a brief blurb from everyone. So, nostalgically, we listened to that old CD last night. Heh, good times...it took me back a bit. Also I can't for the life of me think of why I chose an old song from the Rurouni Kenshin anime soundtrack for that CD...wow, what was I thinking.