New TV And More Space

We did buy a new TV. And a new Blue Ray DVD player, which was only $69.00. Electronics certainly have come down in price since we bought our first VCR (video cassette recorder for you young folks who have no clue what a VCR is). I think we paid about $400 for our VCR many years ago, quite a huge purchase for way back when, but something that we did enjoy for years and years. The DVD player that we replaced with the new Blue Ray was actually a combination DVD/VCR, but the VCR part of it broke a few years back and who wants to watch a scratchy grainy old video tape anyway? I think we paid about $135.00 for that, which we thought was a pretty good price, and again, we enjoyed the heck out of it.

We got a huge TV, 55", so now we can have our TV on one side of the living room and the seating on the other and we can't get over how much roomier our living/dining area is. Plus how wonderful a huge TV with an excellent picture is. The TV was not cheap at $899.00, but we used our Target red card and saved 5% on it, which on a big purchase does make a difference. We also got the fancy wall mount that tilts and moves so that if you want to watch TV from the kitchen you can.

The TV also came with apps available, like Netflix and Amazon plus a bunch of others that we will probably never use. The Netflix and Amazon give you a free month when you sign up but the monthly cost is so cheap that we'll definitely be keeping both of those. So far I am LOVING Netflix, it's so easy to use and has a great selection of TV shows that I would normally have to wait to see until they came out on DVD. I've already started watching The Fall with Gillian Anderson from the X Files, and it's a great show if you  have a chance to see it.

I wish we'd gotten big TV and Netflix a long time ago!

And here is our new improved and much more spacious living room. It's still a work in progress, we are going to give the old TV cabinet to Joe and have been looking at coffee tables now that we have enough room for one, but so far haven't found anything we like. I did find a big poufy footstool thing at Target for $20.00, sometimes I just need to put my feet up which is what I was thinking about a coffee table for, but the pouf will work in the meantime.

We also got a new floor lamp that I just love, we found it at Lowe's after going to three or four other places, and found a new table lamp at Hobby Lobby that has a tilting shade that we also really like. I do like to read and that side of the room is impossible to read in without some kind of lighting. The lamp is great for TV watching, too, just enough light so you're not sitting in the dark but not enough to make a glare on the TV.

DirecTV But Now No TV

So, after 12 years of living in this house with no cable or satellite TV just an antenna (oh, the hardship!) we finally decided we could afford to get DirecTV installed. They have a new thing with AT&T now where you can get DirecTV through them and it all goes on your phone/internet bill. Handy, yes?

The guy came and installed it today. Millie was actually quite well behaved having strangers in the house and outside the house, she barked a few times but when I told her to stop and get in her chair, she did! She stayed out of the way and just kind of watched what was going on, even tried to sniff the guy's pant leg once. Mimi thought the box that the DVR receiver thing came in was pretty cool.

The perfect size for a kitty cat.

I played with the new remote, checking out some of the channels and I guess Saturday DirecTV is about the same as Saturday regular TV, just a bunch of crap on. I tried watching one of the shark shows and got bored in a few minutes, then watched a few minutes of the Kardashians show. I really don't understand why people would watch a bunch of vapid narcissistic women talking about nothing and showing off their clothes, besides the fact that the little bit I saw of it was really boring.

Now, our TV has been acting a bit funny for a few weeks, taking forever for the screen to come on and then some rolling before the picture comes on. We thought it might be branches from our tree blocking the signal to the antenna, so Keith trimmed those back the other day but that didn't fix it. Then we thought maybe the antenna itself was just wearing out, being out in the elements all day and night. But that wasn't it either as I found out tonight.

Since there was nothing on this evening either, I put a DVD in to watch, a show called Power that I started watching last night, all about drug dealers with lots of violence and all, a pretty good show that so far has sucked me in and I want to see what happens. I'm watching and all of a sudden the TV picture starts cutting in and out and rolling and I'm like Hey, what the heck? And then it just goes blank and the picture never comes back.

I think the TV is done.

It is older, we've had it for the entire 12 years that we've been here, so we'll have to see about getting a new one so we can enjoy our new DirecTV. They have come way down in price since we bought ours, you can get a huge off brand TV at Walmart for just a few hundred dollars but I think we'll go with a brand we've heard of. Not that we wanted to buy a new TV right now, but oh well, we're stuck with a contract for the DirecTV for 2 years and it would be nice to have something to watch it on.