Well, I thought that we were not splurging much on presents this year.  After we became hooked on some new Wii games, including Guitar Hero world tour, we got a few good days of playing.  Then on Monday, we turned on the TV, and the red was all over the screen.

Stupid rear projection TV.  Every 2-3 years, they burn out the convergence ships.  This is the 2nd time.  I got a quote for just under $300.  On top of that, in a month I’d need to get one of those digital tuners.  It was HD ready, just didn’t have a built in tuner.  So, I was guessing it would take $400 to keep it running.  So…..

I searched for a TV, and found a sweet 46″ plasma for $950.  HDMI inputs, digital tuner, and the same size screen we had.  Plus, it’s tiny thin.  Plasma has a better picture for action and color than LCD.  LCD works better in bright rooms.  Our TV is in the basement.  Perfect.  I sent Reagan to Costco that night to pick one up.
WOW.  I had a great antenna up in the attic for regular channels before.  We don’t have any cable or satellite feeds since we hardly watch regular TV.  I let it search for stations, and we found a bunch of them.  HOLY COW, talk about clear and pretty.  We are 40 miles out of a city, so we had snow on most channels, but this is crystal clear and detailed.  I could read the lettering on the pencils sitting in the cup on Dave Letterman’s desk.

We tried the upconverting DVD player (1080i) and the HD-DVD drive on the xBox (1080p) and it is so amazing.  Plus, I removed a huge stack of cables that were replaced by 3 tiny HDMI cables.  BONUS.  I hate cables.

Business update.  I know I said we will announce it at the start of the year.  Well, as of today we are in operation and licensed and etc.  Quite a few friends and acquaintances know what we are doing, and the buzz seems really good.  I’m not making the official announcement until I get a little more marketing material ready.  Hang on