The Joy of HD

For veterans' day, Charles's classes were canceled and I had the day off, so we were able to spend the day window shopping in Ventura. We stopped by Best Buy to check out their flat panel TV's and fell in love with with a 42 inch high definition TV. So we decided to get it.

We knew the TV itself would fit in our car, but we didn't know that the box the TV came in would be so much bigger then the TV. So the TV box would not fit in the car. The guy loading the TV didn't seem to be in a spacial-puzzle solving mood, so we brought the TV back into the store to use their delivery.

So apparently, we needed to return the TV first, but it would take a few days before that would be credited back to our bank account, so we'd have a hold on a large lump of money in our account. So, the sales clerk came up with the idea of returning the TV for a store gift card, which could then be used to purchase a new TV to be delivered. So we do that, while being reassured that it will deliver in a few days and should only be an extra $25. The good news is that they do delivery all the way to were we live in Goleta, but the delivery that far away wouldn't be until 10 days later. Oh, and it would cost $150 since it's such a far trek. I said no way. I want my TV now!

So, we unreturned the TV, and said just hold it for about 20 minutes. We went over to Walmart and bought some bungee cords, then we went back to Best Buy and grabbed our TV. We wedged the box into the trunk as far as it would go, then secured the trunk down with the bungee cords. The TV made it home just fine.

Setting up high-definition cable was a completely different story. We stopped by our cable store, said "Hey, we got a new TV!" and the sales rep gave us a new cable box to handle high def and told up that the upgrade in service is free. Very cool.

The discovery channel has a really cool high-def version, and all of the network channels are broadcast in high-def. Not to mention the model we bought is smart enough to nicely zoom and stretch anything else to fill the screen. I'm happy.

Oh did I mention, we all got a bonus at the bank since we passed our audit. Woohoo!