guilty consumerism

i'd been thinking about buying this lcd tv for a year or so - 32 inches of flat-screen heaven. then, on black friday ,they dropped the price to $699. i asked jenn if it could be xmas gift, she sighed deeply then agreed to give into almost a year of me mentioning (aka, nagging) how awesome a tv like this would be. it will surely enrich our lives and make us better people. ha!

a few hours later at microcenter, as i eyed 32" of flat-screen wonder with my bro-in-law chris riding shotgun, i realized this was it - pure unadulturated consumerism at it's very best. in the spirit of the moment (and being told the 32" lcd had sold-out at 10am), i reached for the stars and asked about the 37 inch'er. 5 extra inches in the right hands holds a lot of potential. chris was all about the extra 5 inches - and it included a built-in hd tuner, which the smaller one did not. with $500 of black friday rebates on the table, i nabbed the 37" and waited for it to arrive in the warehouse. and waited and waited and waited.

when i finally brought the sucker home, i'd had plenty of time to thinkabout all the benjamins we'd sacrificed for this not-so-small pleasure. when we took the sleak black screen out of the box, i was floored. it was huge! in the showroom, they put 32" tv's next to 50" tv's and the 32" looks tiny... at home the 37" of flat-screen nirvana seemed way too much.

jenn and i slowly got accustomed to this massive new screen, even looked forward to watching some shows, but it wasn't as clear as expected. cable is plugged-in, but nothing is in hd? what gives? i was pretty bummed and disappointed in myself for dropping some many duckets on such a silly item, especially with the picture quality only so-so. but wait, the story has redemption! kinda. jenn finally sniffed-out the dealeo when we were at a favorite pub for dinner watching some college hoops on espn hd. she realized we're simply not getting the hd channels and to call the cable company... brilliant!

wham! 10 channels of hd perfection now grace our hallowed halls. watching the Steelers pound the piss out of the broncos was incredible. you can see the grass and dirt flying-off their cleats. the guilt for being such a rapid consumer is still there, but it doesn't feel so bad at all now. not bad at all.