Television Interruptus

[billroper]

So on Friday, I picked up the Frys ad and saw that the big-screen TV that I've been lusting after for more than a year now was on sale. That's fine, it goes on sale about once every three weeks or so.

Except this time it was on sale for $200 less than it's ever been priced before. Oh, dear.

I discuss the situation briefly with daisy_knotwise and she agrees that I can buy the TV. The problem is that with the tendinitis in her wrists, she's not really able to lift that much TV, not to mention shuffle the other TVs and furniture that are going to need to be moved as the result of the purchase.

So I call my good buddy Sam to see if he's available to move the new TV should I acquire it. It turned out that he was going out with Bonnie to see Christmas in Connecticut on Friday night, but he'd be happy to come help move a new TV and assorted furniture and adjunct TVs on Saturday. Yay!

After decorating the Christmas tree until 2:30 AM or thereabouts, Gretchen and I crawled out of bed bright and late at 10:30 AM the following morning. I called Sam to set up the plan for the day.

Unfortunately, Plan S was DOA. Sam had wrenched his shoulder going to the movie.

Now, being an inquisitive sort, you might ask yourself just how Sam wrenched his shoulder going to the movie. I certainly did and since I was talking to Sam, who actually had the answer, I posed the question to him.

The film was showing at a small art theater that doesn't have its own parking and the city lot nearby was full. Sam dropped Bonnie off and went cruising for a parking space, finding one a few blocks away. Congratulating himself, he stepped out of the driver's door of the car.

And onto the only patch of ice in a two block radius. The first thing that Sam thought was "This is how Bill destroyed his knee." He grabbed hold of the doorframe and managed to avoid a catastrophic fall, congratulating himself on remaining upright, and headed off toward the theater.

Upon arriving at the theater, he noticed that his shoulder hurt a fair amount and that he maybe should leave his jacket on to help keep it warm.

By the time they left the theater after the movie, it was apparent that he'd wrenched the shoulder pretty badly and wasn't going to be lifting anything heavy for a while. He sent me an e-mail to that effect in the morning, which I hadn't yet read, since I'd been busy being asleep.

So I thanked Sam, wished him good luck with his shoulder, recommended aspirin, and moved on to plan B.

Plan B (for beamjockey) relied on knowing that Kelley was interested in some extra shelves that I had in my basement. If Bill wanted to join us for lunch at Fuddrucker's, he and I could proceed to Frys while Gretchen and Katie went grocery shopping so we would have something to feed decadentdave and Erin, who were arriving Saturday evening to pick up the computer with the speech software.

Bill thought this was a good idea. (Kelley was busy, so didn't join us). So we met, had lunch, and the two guys headed off to Frys. There, we bought a great many wondrous things, including Christmas presents for Gretchen and Katie, before I headed back to the back of the store to buy my big-screen TV.

It being Saturday, I actually had to wait to get someone's attention. When I did, I explained that I wanted to buy a TV, naming the manufacturer, screen size, and model. The salesman went back, grabbed the tag to get the product number and checked it in the computer. There were two in stock. Great!

And then he headed off to the storeroom to look for the TV. About fifteen minutes later, he came back to let me know they were having trouble finding it.

By forty-five minutes later, he'd vanished. I was sitting around in a vacant spot on the display, because I was tired of standing. Bill had gone off to look for other things. Another salesman asked if he could help me and I explained that I'd been waiting for a very long time for someone to find my TV.

"Who was helping you?" he asked.

I pointed to another salesman. "The one who looks like him, but isn't."

They conferred and realized that must be the department manager. Eventually, they found him.

They'd found one set in the back in a box that appeared to have been opened. When he opened it to look at it, he found a big scratch on the screen, which meant that the set needed to go back to the manufacturer. The whereabouts of the hypothetical second set were a mystery.

"Would you like a raincheck?" he asked.

"That would be a good idea."

So now I have a raincheck for my equally hypothetical new TV. Frys doesn't do callbacks, so I need to call to see when they get some more in. Supposedly, that should happen soon.

*sigh*

Comments

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

what's the tv, and how good is the deal?

you see, ours is dying....

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

I'm also curious as to how heavy the durn thing is.

We have a big tube set here; there are three tube TVs in the house - our older one in the basement library, one in the bedroom, and the big one in the living room. The BIG one weighs about 200 pounds, and I have always insisted (as the guy who has to deal with Getting A/V and Computer Stuff To Work in the house) that we have this and the related A/V equipment on a rolling, solid TV stand thingy. It's way too heavy to lift much.

[billroper]

69 pounds, according to the website. For more specs, see above.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I know you didn't ask me, but I think I've about settled on a Toshiba. It's about $150 more than the Olevia, but it has a QAM tuner, and the story on the Olevia from reading reviews is that "it's a good set, but hope you never need service because they have pretty much nonexistant support." Same is true for all the 2nd string brands (up to and including Westinghouse and RCA). The Toshiba is also a newer design, with better blacks and smoother dynamic contrast, and it has good enough video processing that SD signals look less horrible than they do on many other < $1000 sets.

I'm probably getting mine from Amazon. They have white glove service, they bring it in and unpack it, and take it away if there's damage. I don't really need that level of service, the TV is only about 60 pounds (I'm looking at a 37" set for our smallish living room).

[billroper]

Ok. This is a 56 inch set for the family room, so a bit larger.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Yikes. A 56 inch set would pretty much BE the wall in any of our rooms. 42 would be really pushing it. We're currently using a 27" tube set, which is a touch small for current sensibilities (actually, for the current world where most things are broadcast in letterbox format). I made a cardboard cutout and I think 37" is about perfect for this room.

Then again, we aren't buying it to watch movies, just TV. We have a projector in a dedicated room with a 100" screen for movies. That's for the immersive experience. For TV, we just want to watch it, not crawl inside it. From what I saw when I was walking around the neighborhood selling popcorn, it seems that it IS common for people to buy a set that covers half their wall area.

[billroper]

The set is the 56 inch Samsung HL-T5687SAX. It's a DLP, so you can't hang it on the wall, but it's $1499 until Tuesday at Frys, which is $150 cheaper than Amazon (who just cut their price by $50 -- before that, the cheapest I'd seen it was $1699).

The joker here is that this set uses an LED light source, so there's no bulb to replace and no color wheel. It's DLP, so no burn-in problem. And it has both an HD and a QAM tuner, so it should tune digital signals without a box. We'll see...

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

If you have been looking at this model for over a year, then it should be discontinued and highly discounted. You might want to see if current models have better specs.

-Ryan

[billroper]

I've been looking at this model and its predecessor for over a year. The new models will come out around May of next year.

[dek9.livejournal.com]

Next weekend I will be stocked up on children, but if Gretch would be willing to babysit I can help you lift things. Or if it won't be until the following weekend, we can work that out, too.

I hope Sam is feeling better soon.

[billroper]

Thanks! I'll keep it in mind.

Sam says that he's improving. :)

[dek9.livejournal.com]

He's certainly your better bet, but I'm here to help if needed.

[(Anonymous)]

Doing somewhat better, I'm nowhere near as stiff as I was yesterday. I even managed to move a bit of my own furniture, and rearranged some books this afternoon. My shoulder is being a whining little puppy about the whole thing, but I figure a little gentle exercise is better for it than letting it freeze up, which I'm sure it would be happy to do if left to its own devices.

Sam Winolj

[catalana.livejournal.com]

An impressive saga - good luck with it! So what are you doing about a stand for the thing? I seem to remember there were issues about fitting stands into space or TVs into stands or something like that.

[billroper]

For the moment, it will go on the stand in the family room where it will fit quite well. The old TV from the family room will go into the bedroom onto the cedar chest from the library while we decide what to do about a new stand there.