Liquid crystal delight

Bob Barker never looked so good

BEN POGGEMILLER STAFF

It was a day like any other. I was eating supper with my family while watching Seinfeld (like we always do), when my father blurted out something that would change my life forever. He said, “I think it’s time to get a new TV.” I held my mouth agape for several seconds before I became extremely stern with my father. I said, “You had better be serious because you can’t say something like that to me unless you really, really mean it.” He assured me that he did mean it, and the process was underway.

Since I was the only one in my household who could confidently operate our old setup without staring at three different remotes for five minutes and then performing some sort of voodoo dance in hopes that the gods of entertainment would bestow upon us the means to make the DVD player work, the research was delegated entirely to me.

Buying a television has become a lot like nuclear fission, only more complicated. There are many more factors that go into a television decision than when your grandparents argued over whether it was acceptable to wheel the black-and-white into the dining room for the Ed Sullivan Show. It is so incredibly easy to get ripped off these days. You can end up with more bells and whistles than you’ll ever need, or worse yet, you may end up with something not ready for the next wave of technology: the dreaded 1080p. So what’s the difference between 1080i and 1080p you ask? Well if you buy a TV that is 1080i, you’ll have roughly 1,080 interested people coming to your house to watch football. However, if your TV is 1080p, you’ll have roughly 1,080 philosophers coming to your house to watch TV. You know you’ve got something special when philosophers stop arguing about the existence of this and that and just watch reruns of the A-Team. I think even Kierkegaard said, “At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies the ability to watch the Rose Bowl in high definition together.” The bottom line is, that if you have a television that can impress philosophers, (which is incredibly difficult to do), you’re doing all right.

My father made the mistake of mentioning this little project to me near the end of November, right before exam season. So instead of studying, I obsessed over retailers and manufacturers, trying to find the best TV for the best price. Should we get LCD or plasma? What size? What is the lighting like in our family room? How far away from the television will we be sitting? Is it compatible with 1080p? Do philosophers like chips? These are the important, hardbuild hitting questions that seemed far more interesting to me than multivariable calculus.

Once I had the make and model (Samsung LNS4095D 40-inch LCD with two HDMI inputs, just so you know), I was ready to find a retailer. After looking at several places I ended up at Visions. I walked in and found the TV I was looking for. A salesman swooped in and asked if I needed help. He was roughly my age and seemed very eager to take my money. I asked him if they had my dream machine in stock. He confirmed it and I told him I’d be back later with my financier (thanks, Mom) to pick it up. This headstrong young go-getter felt it was necessary to push the warranty at this point, and if I acted now he’d be my bestest friend in the whole wide world. When I returned, he greeted us like a puppy when you come home at the end of the day. When you leave he’s convinced that he’ll never see you again, and when you return he gives you a considerable discount on a fouryear warranty. As we were leaving, he confided in us that we were the easiest sale he ever had. That’s the kind of relationship we shared.

Between Dec. 12 and now, I have hardly left the couch, except when my girlfriend makes me. I find myself watching things in high-definition just because I can. Even the Packers- Vikings game looked good. However, there is one colossal problem with getting a stellar new TV. Frankly, every other TV in the world looks like crap. After becoming accustomed to a larger, better picture, any other TV feels like I’m watching The Lord of The Rings on an Etch-A-Sketch.

Now it’s College Bowl season and my father is enjoying every second of it. There were roughly sixteen thousand football games on between Dec. 27 andg Jan. 8. In addition to classics like the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl, there are lower-key ones like the Meineke Car Care Bowl and the “1993 Chevy Caprice 200,000 km $2,000 o.b.o. Bowl.” Stop by if you like, but don’t expect to put your feet up. Socrates likes the footstool.