Ensight - Jeremy Wright’s Personal Blog

Okay, so I know this post will make it obvious that I’ve crossed some kind of threshold into “luxury living land”, but bear with me!

Over the last year or so I’ve been eyeing HDTV’s. I mean they’re big, they’re cool, they’re gorgeous. And with the Xbox 360, they take the experience to the next level.

We have a bit of extra money kicking around (not a lot, but a bit). We were planning on going away for Christmas, but that’s not happening anymore. So we have some money to splurge.

Over the last week, the HDTV eyeing has gone from “one day that might be nice” to “if we wanted, one day could be this month”. And as that transition’s happened I’ve been on a bit of a vision quest. I’ve almost figured out the difference between Plasma’s and LCD’s (ie: really not much when it comes down to it). I’ve looked at the various brands and their overall satisfaction (LG, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony good… “Prima” and Hitachi not so much). I’ve figured out the size range that’ll likely work (38-44″).

And, as of last night, I picked out the TV I wanted. It’s an LG 42″ LCD. It’s a bit pricey, but the lower end models didn’t have 1080 resolution. And to me it just seems silly to go HD and not be able to have reasonable resolution choice.

I went to bed last night fairly happy that we’d chosen the TV.

I woke up this morning wondering what the hell was wrong with me that I’d want to spend 2500$ on a freaking television!

I mean sure, better TV. Less power (slightly). Easier on the eyes. Way, way, way better gaming. Those are all good, but are they really worth a couple of grand? I mean, we don’t have a house (and don’t plan on buying one soon) so don’t really have a lot to put the money into (and we’re getting rid of our car, so that’s a no-go too).

I don’t mind splurging a couple of grand, but on a TV? How does any sane person really justify spending that much on a television set? And the evilness of it is that once you spend 2500$ on a TV, it’s pretty silly to have a 100$ sound system, so you go and upgrade that. Then you upgrade your cable, and all of a sudden you’ve gone from “oh, I want a new TV” to spending 5000$ just to sit there and gain weight.

I mean, seriously, what the hell was I thinking?!

(note to self: yes, this means that if you ever talk yourself into buying an HDTV all your friends will just laugh at you and call you a loser)

I’m not sure yet what we’ll do with the money. And, yes, I’m still feeling pulled towards buying an HDTV. Conflicted? Yeah. But even if I buy one, I’ll still think it’s crazy.

I mean, imagine the drum gear I could buy with 5000$