Tag Archives: plasma

Pixel envy…

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Unlike with some other electronics, I’m not a slavish devotee to having that latest and greatest television set on the market. I bought a highly rated Pioneer 42-inch plasma back in November of 2007 (read about the hilarity that ensued) and have been lugging its heavy carcass around with me ever since. It was state of the art eight years ago and still does a reasonable job, but if I’m honest, it’s getting a little finicky about what peripherals it plays nicely with and the picture quality is suffering. The old girl has seen better days, but considering how often she’s been crated, toted, and banged about, I’m a little impressed she still works at all.

I was willing to keep going along with it until last month when I bumped up the sizes of the set in the bedroom and discovered just how much better the viewing experience was on that new unit. If you’ll forgive the pun, the difference between a new smart LCD and its old, dumb predecessor was quite the eye opener. Sadly, it also means I’m just starting to peck around to decide what features a new “primary” screen should have… which means that sometime in the next three months I’ll have settled in on my actual requirement.

Now that 42-inchs feels like something fit for the bedroom, there’s little doubt that the replacement will be bigger – and I’m sure better in every single way. Still, I hate this part of the process – and wish just a little bit that I wasn’t wired quite as tightly into the compulsion for researching everything nearly to death. It tends to take the fun out of those “spur of the moment” purchase decisions. Still, it will be awfully nice to be able to sit down to watch something and not need to fiddle with every single setting under the picture menu to dial in a decent picture.

I’m afraid I’m about to succumb to a serious case of pixel envy. And you damned well can’t fix that with more cowbell.

Stupid poetic justice…

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So, next time I am bitching about not having anything to blog, someone please remind me to shut the hell up, please. This afternoon, I was expecting to take delivery of 42-inches of plasma goodness. The delivery guys were on target (yes, the Best Buy truck knows how to get to my house even though there are no maps with my neighborhood in them yet). The minute they started pulling it out of the box, I knew something wasn’t right… of course they were behind it, looking at the connections and hadn’t noticed what I was looking at yet… A simply “uhhhh… guys…” was enough to get their attention and draw it to a screen that wasn’t just cracked. It was shattered. Like a baseball through a window kind of shattered…

No problem they say, we’ll call the warehouse and swing by and pick up a new one and be back in an hour or so. They were even nice enough to call ahead and make sure a new set was waiting for them. An hour and a half later, they call back… There’s a problem. The set is out of stock. Now I know a little something about supply operations and being out of an advertised special the day before Thanksgiving is not a good thing to be, but I digress. To make what could become a long and painful rant slightly shorter, I ended up at the store with the “TV manager” trying to reach an agreement. After some extensive haggling and instance on recompense for my inconvenience, we agree that they will just give me the next higher model at no additional cost. Problem solved.

Yeah… not so much. Turns out this model was out of stock too. By this point I asked the guy to just go back to the warehouse and bring me a list of what they actually do have in stock and we’ll work from that. More haggling ensues, with corresponding increases in blood pressure and vocal volume. Finally, after two hours of dickering, finding out what they don’t have on hand, and my generally being obstinate until I got what I wanted, they agreed to a considerable upgrade. Mainly, I think, to get me out of the television section. Of course by now it’s after 7PM and they won’t be able to deliver it after the Thanksgiving weekend. Sigh. Let’s just say the Jeep has more cargo space than you think it does.

So, yes, my TV is here and working beautifully. Of course the stand I ordered with it still has to be delivered. In the grand scheme of life, it’s a minor detail, but you know how I hate it when things don’t go like clockwork.