New TV

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a fan of gadgets and technology. As a kid I longed for electronic games of all kinds. Do you remember that little football game that everyone seemed to have but me? Yeah, that one. I loved it and wanted it so badly, but that was one electronic game that eluded me. Anyway...


I have always been a fan of big tv's and fancy home entertainment centers. I know very little about how to hook that kind of stuff up, but I always dream about having a room that with a huge tv and a surround system. I secretly want one of those gaming chairs too, but that is another story...

Hitch's television was a bad one. It was this old school rear projection RCA with a washed out picture and it reflected as much as a mirror. When you walked slightly off to the side, even just a few degrees you couldn't see the screen anymore. It said that it was an HDTV, but you couldn't tell a difference when you put it on those channels. The picture constantly changed sizes on it's own going from full screen to 4:3 ratio to stretch mode back to normal. Don't even get me started on how obtrusive it looked in his living room. It was awful and I have been on him about changing it for months to no avail...then my sister came to visit...

My sister also noticed how bad the picture was and commented to me, which of course, I relayed onto him. This isn't anything new, he has heard it 100 times from me, but suddenly when she said it it meant something.

Lo and behold, a few weeks later I find myself sitting in front of a beautiful 50" Panasonic Plasma tv. I found a good deal at Costco and, although the televsion doesn't have a ton of bells and whistles, it is a huge improvement in what was here. The colors are true, the blacks are blacks, and the HD is evident. It looks great on the little stand that I bought and built for it and opens up the room.

I was home by myself when it was dropped off and needed to find someone to help me put it on it's stand. It isn't all that heavy, but it is awkward and you definitely two people to lift it on it's stand. After several attempts at knocking on the neighbors door to no avail, I set out towards the parking lot to find a passer-by. Finally I spotted a small orange dot raising and lowering slightly in front of a hazed out image. Perfect! A random smoker. I called up in my the best 'damsel in distress' voice I could muster and explained my situation. It must have been persuasive because before long 'Ryan', the gay smoker, was in my house.

We hoisted the tv out of the box, to my surprise the stand that attaches to the bottom of the tv, wasn't attached. Now, I felt terrible because what I thought would be a 5 second job, turned into about a 5 mintue one while I figured out how to attach the stand to the tv. Meanwhile, I was forced to make Ryan stand there and hold the television while I bumbled around and got the stand screwed on. I was sweating that nervous kind of sweat that you get in a somewhat awkward situation. I apologized for making him stand there but he was cool about it.

Finally I got the stand put together an we lowered it onto it's pegs. I thanked him and he left. I finished hooking up the cable and DVD player, although I am not convinced i have it totally right and I will figure it out later today, but for now it is up and running and looks great.

Thank goodness for Ryan's smoking addiction or I might have been forced to watch the jackets on that old crappy RCA.