July 01, 2006 :: Watching it snow

My cable went out on Thursday.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't be remarkable news. My cable's gone out before, but it usually comes back on in a few hours. This time, though, my cable's been off for 48 hours, and it's still off.

I've been caught.

For the past 3 1/2 years, I've had a remarkable run of "unanticipated" cable tv viewing. For some unexplainable reason, some contractor guy for Comshaft decided to turn on my cable a few months after I moved here, and it's been on ever since, at least until Thursday. I can't imagine how that would have happened.

OK, I guess there's no need to play the charade... I saw the guy come over to hook up my neighbor's cable, and I asked him what I needed to do to get cable. He said I should call Comshaft, but when I told him I didn't want to call Comshaft, he offered to do it for $40. I was already prepared to start negotiating at $50 and go up to $100, so I jumped on it... he undersold himself. The truly sad part is that he still made more off my hookup than he made doing the legitimate hookup - and Comcast wondered why so many people had unbilled cable tv.

So I got about 43 months of extended basic, analog cable for $40... not bad. But now I am faced with some choices. This free cable was viewed on my 20" old school cathode ray tube tv that I bought in 1996 for $225, and nothing else. I'm not a huge TV person... I turn on Sportscenter in the morning for background noise, I turn on Law & Order or NBA basketball in the evening, and I turn on the Sopranos when I remember to watch it... and that's pretty much it. So with free cable, the cost of upgrading to digital, or the purpose of buying a new fancy 16:9 ratio tv with HD and all the bells and whistles didn't make sense, because my costs were low. I've wanted a new tv, but I sure as hell didn't want to pay Comshaft anything at all, ever. I've considered satellite, but going from $0 per month to anything over $40 just wasn't appealing. And without upgrading cable, it didn't make sense to upgrade the tv.

But now, it's upgrade or nothing. And while I could probably live without tv, it's nice to know whether or not a flash flood is headed this way sometimes. So I'm considering upgrading. And I figure, while I'm at it, I might as well get something that's appropriate to the room... squinting at a blurry tv across the room is an artifact of college living that's hung around too long. So I'm looking at 32 inch LCD tvs... but geez, $1400 for a tv is just crazy to me, considering that the $225 tv was the most expensive tv I've ever bought... matter of fact, it was the only tv I've ever bought. I guess there are people who watch tv enough that spending $1400 or more make sense, but I am not sure I am one of them.

But it's so pretty....

Maybe I'll use the proceeds from selling the beloved Prelude to finance a new tv. Circuit City has a nice 32" Polaroid LCD HDTV for $899 after what appears to be a $200 rebate (ugh, I hate rebates, but that's another rant). Polaroid makes tvs now?!? I can remember when Polaroid was synonymous with instant photography... ok I've just dated myself. SO let me end this rambling post.

Let me know what you think... is a $1000 tv utterly ridiculous, or am I just behind the times?

posted by Rainmayun at 11:29 AM -