Friday, January 27, 2006

Sweet Best Buy

I'm sitting at home last Saturday, killing time doing absolutely nothing and surfing the internet. So I'm on the Best Buy website looking to see what new DVD releases are coming out so I can put them on my Blockbuster Online queue, when I see an add for TV sales. The deal they're offering is 0% financing on all TV purchases above $999 until 2009. Yeah, that's not a typo, 2009!! Well, I've been interested in getting myself a Plasma or LCD television since my brother and my buddy Mike got one a while back, but the cost has always sort of kept me at bay. But, Christ, if I've got no interest being added on for 3 years, I can buy a pretty damned good TV for $60 a month. I can handle that.

Yeah, yeah. I know. Sucked in by the marketing...but why not. So Saturday night, I drive myself over to the Best Buy in Germantown (it's bigger and nicer than the ones in Rockville and Gaithersburg...plus I can't deal with the parking situations at both those places) and get a crash course on plasma vs. LCD. For those of you who are not versed in the differences, here's the key points I took from the discussions. Plasma TVs are a better picture but are only available in big sizes and generate a lot of heat. Plus, they may require some maintenance to the bulbs? after a couple years. Cost wise they're about the same.

Since I was originally planning to put it in my living room, I was stuck with a TV no bigger than 32", which pretty much took plasmas out of the equation, so my shopping experience was cut in half right off the bat. So, I proceeded to do what any normal TV shopping male would do when confronted with this dilemma. I stood in front of about 10 different LCD TVs for about 20 minutes watching white water canoeing and highlights of last year's Super Bowl. I'm pretty sure I came in my pants twice as they panned to the crowd and I could make out the faces of every screaming fan.

When all was said and done, I went with the best one they had, which was a Sony 26" (Amy talked me down from 32" and out of putting it in the living room) so it now sits beautifully in my bedroom, allowing me the luxury of crystal clear movies as I fall asleep.

Sweet.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Plasmas also can burn the tv image into the screen For example, if you were to leave it on Oxygen Channel...as you normally do, the Oxygen symbol that is apparently always on the lower corner of the screen would get burned into the screen itself. Thus tagging you as something which we already knew - gay.

ike

The J Man said...

Oxygen Channel? Hey, I said I sprung for a television, not this high-brow "premium cable television" you speak of. I don't even get ESPN News.

Anonymous said...

is it HDTV?

The J Man said...

Yeah, it's HDTV and I just picked up the HDTV box from Comcast today. The UNC game was just plain silly.