New TV

I haven’t posted in a while because we’re getting ready to start the new semester, so things are crazy for me at work right now. I’m scrambling to get some summer projects completed, and seem to keep running into speed bumps that slow me down. The latest happened today and apparently was of my own doing. When throwing away boxes, make sure you remove any power cables you may have left in the box. Grrrrr. And of course these aren’t normal cables, so I can’t just run over to Best Buy and get a new one. I have replacements coming from Dell on Monday (hopefully), but I still may check out some electrical supply places during their morning hours tomorrow to see if I can pick up a couple to get me going.

Anyway, you probably want to hear about the TV, right? I finally broke down and ordered a new TV. I decided to go with the Westinghouse LVM42-w2 42-inch LCD Monitor. It is the biggest display that will fit in our entertainment center and is the best-priced 1080p LCD display around. Reviews are consistently good, and the demo unit at Best Buy met with approval from my better half as well. I picked it up from Crutchfield for $1799. They have a $300 price break as well as an instant rebate of $200 plus free delivery and no payments until 2008. Won’t be in stock until 9/1, but I can wait.

Technically the unit isn’t a TV. It doesn’t have any tuners, so it is actually a monitor. I watch everything through satellite, so that isn’t a problem. Leaving out tuners lets Westinghouse avoid the FCC mandate that all TVs eventually have to have HDTV tuners and keep the cost down.

Of course with a a HD set, now I need to upgrade my DirecTV equipment. They have promotions going on now for Sunday Ticket subscribers, so I picked up an HR10-250 HD TiVo, new AT9 disk, installation, and four free months of HD programming for $19.95 to cover the shipping. Plus when the HR20-700 DVR is available in Saint Louis, it will be a free upgrade (since DTV leases their equipment now). Can’t beat that! The HE10 won’t record HD locals over satellite, but I can record OTA HD so that will be good enough.

So the my work day ended on a sour note today, but a new TV helps the mood a little bit.