Alas, this is what happened to us this year on Good Friday. Not so good as it turns out, if you're expecting to be able to watch TV, DVD's or play any kind of board game that includes a DVD component. This was just part of our "interesting" weekend, which Kirsten has discussed in more detail opposite.
My hardy, yet aging (it's around 8 years old), Sony 51cm Trinitron finally gave up the ghost. I was in the computer room, when my keen olfactory senses detected a distinctly burning-electronics smell. Alarmed (as I thought it was my PC that was burning up from the inside), I checked inside it to discover it was not in fact my PC that was producing such wonderful odours. By this time, both Kirsten and Jules had also picked up on the smell, which was even more prevalent in the lounge room. The lack of a red stand-by light on the TV, even though it was plugged in with the power turned on, gave me the clue I needed to solve the mystery of the odourous appliance. That and a quick sniff around the back of the TV, which also confirmed my hypothesis - the TV had passed away. Being Easter, I suppose I could have wrapped it in a nice robe, sealed it in a conveniently located cave, and hope for a miracle. However, being the realist I am, I thought this was probably not an option worth taking. So, with heavy heart, I unplugged the RCA composite cables and power cord for the final time (excuse me while I dry that tear). I was now officially persona sans televisio.
Thankfully, we had a small child in the house to occupy us. Can't imagine what we'd do without TV - we'd have to make our own fun! (cue shock and horror) All was not lost however. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of timing. We had been discussing for a little while, that we should get a digital set-top box for a number of reasons, mostly though so we could actually watch Iron Chef without being assaulted by unnaturally loud white noise and "I can barely see it" picture. As many programs are now also broadcast in widescreen, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to go digital and upgrade to widescreen.
I did my homework, and narrowed down my choice of TV's to a few options. Then on Saturday, it was off to JB Hi-fi were we ended up picking up this model, the LG Flatron RT-28FZ85RX:
It's a 66cm, widescreen TV, and was actually in the current JB catalog on special (unbeknownst to me before we got to the store). In fact, we paid, to the dollar, what I paid for the Sony originally (and that was with a I-know-the-guys-who-own-the-store discount). The picture quality was actually the best of the TVs on display in the same size, and significantly better than some bigger name brands that were nearly twice the price. It's very easy to compare as well, since they run the same source (in this case digital TV) into all the sets so you can see how they stack up against each other. We also picked up a digital set-top box, and some new cables (S-Video and component video if you want to know) as well. We also decided to get an extended 5 year warranty - something I've not usually done in the past, but the wisdom of which was made apparent recently when our friend Daniel had his TV go wonky 2 months after his 1 year warranty ended. And we got all of this for about the same price as the next-lowest-priced TV would have cost (which had a crappier picture).
After we finished at JB, and the IKEA debacle (see Kirsten's post) was over, we came home and after managing to inflict bodily harm on our guest (unintentionally - so sorry Jules!), we got everything set up. So far we've watched some DVDs, hooked up the computer to watch a DiVX, and checked out some shows on digital TV. I think we're both pretty happy. I personally, really notice an increased picture quality when watching DVDs through the component input rather than composite. And I love digital TV. I'm sure if we could afford pay TV I'd love that too, but we must make do with free-to-air at the moment. It's great having stuff broadcast in widescreen, having TV guide and weather information, better reception, and getting a few extra channels that we never had before (they had Japanese baseball league on SBS - sweet!).
There's a moral in here somewhere. I guess it's "things happen for a reason". Is that the meaning of life? Probably not, since the world hasn't ended after I thought it. In this case, what was for us, a reasonably significant inconvenience, worked out so that in the end we were better off than when we began. So there you go - better living, though widescreen digital television. And now I have a perfect excuse to watch all my DVD's again :)
Posted: 7:47 PM
May the comments be with you. 2 so far.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
The Wedding Web Site
Well, after some solid days of development (spread out over a couple of hours each night for the past week-and-a-half or so), it's finally ready to go. What is? Our new wedding web site is! You can visit it at:
http://wedding.oneinfivebillion.com/
(go on, bookmark it. You know you want to). We'll update it further as we get closer to the big day, so check it out every so often. We'll also post notices of updates to the wedding site here (assuming we remember...). Amongst other things, the wedding site includes a page of frequently asked questions (FAQ) - there's also a form on that page you can fill in if you have a question that hasn't been answered there.
We hope you like it and find it useful! Now it's on to the redesign and relocation of this site...
Posted: 9:41 PM
May the comments be with you. 3 so far.