Several weeks ago, Katie and I decided to try to move our entertainment center about a foot to the right of where it currently sits. The way we figured it, the TV sitting in the middle of it might be a bit more well centered within the room.
Since we own a 27" SD tube TV, we pulled it off the entertainment center to relieve it of some of the weight and then we gave it the good ol' "college try."
It didn't budge.
We pushed, we shoved, we pulled, we dragged, we clawed.
And then, in one final last-ditch effort to move it, we counted to three and I jammed my shoulder into the side of it. And my shoulder went right through the side of it. Not having realized the entire thing was made of MDF (a sort of manufactured press board, I think), it just gave under the pressure and caved in. Not good since now the side of the lower portion of the unit was just a bit exposed and likely to not last much longer.
We'd been wanting a new entertainment center for some time, but this most recent event kinda pushed up our timeline a little bit. In the ensuing weeks, we scoured every bricks & mortar and online furniture store we could find for entertainment centers. There was no way we were going with a full MDF or press board unit again. With our TV, we needed something heavy duty. We wanted real wood (don't say it, Chase).
Wanna know something? They're not easy to find. And, when you do find them, they are far from inexpensive. And most of those are absolute crap. Turns out the furniture sector is already buying into the HDTV side of television viewing and have modeled most of their furniture that way. Everything is now made for plasma and LCD TVs. Nearly nothing is designed for tube TVs anymore. Nothing can withstand the weight. And if there is one, the lowest price we found was appoximately $3000.
GAHHHH!!!!
This weekend we came to the sad realization that maybe it was time to succumb to the technological revolution and buy a flat panel TV. And, yesterday, we did just that.
Will you now help us welcome the latest addition to our family? His name is Sam (as in "Samsung") and he's a 42" plasma beauty. Together with the credenza (read: "low-level dresser that doesn't go in a bedroom") we bought to put him on, the total cost was $1000 less than the only entertainment center we saw that we both could agree on in terms of appearance.
Talk about a beautiful picture. It's ridiculous how clear the picture quality is and how nice the colors are. And, yes, we are both aware of the potential for ghosting that plasma has, but we have a warranty that covers any problem that may occur and I really don't play video games enough for the millisecond response delay to be a problem. We're happy and we saved a load of money over what we were thinking we would have to spend. So it's all good.
On an unrelated aside, if anyone is thinking about going to see Breach... totally worth it. It's my firm belief that Chris Cooper can act circles around 90% of the so-called actors working in Hollywood today. And, Daaaaavve, it's got Jaye in it!
Hey! When did IMDb overhaul it's template? Dang it looks different.
