It was Saturady morning golf, although after about an inch of rain, things were pretty sloppy. No rain during the round, but I shot a crappy 91. That's after carding a nice 77 on Monday.
The Saudi Formula 1 race was run today, so I got home, dumped the dirty clothes into the washer, got my nice soft sweats on, and proceeded up to the kitchen to make some leftover spaghetti for lunch. Plate in hand, I get to the den, turn on the TV and sit back for lunch and the F1 race. After about 10 minutes I hear "POP", and the TV goes very dark with a bit of red. CRAP! The 20 year old HP 42" plasma finally gave up the ghost. There were signs of possible issues, some sparkling in the upper left corner in dark areas when first turned on.
So I finish lunch, pull out the computer and start browsing TVs. I thought about going cheap... under $300 for a 55". There were a couple of candidates on the website for the local Walmart, but I get over there and they don't have any in stock, just the demo. Check Target across the street. Pickings were slim there as well. So I head off to the local Best Buy. After a bit of evaluating, it came down to a Sony and a Samsung. I rethink going cheap... I end up with a Sony X85K, 55" LED 120Hz, 4 HDMI, 2 USB. Looking at the plain white screen, the brightness was pretty constant across the whole. Colors look pretty darn good. It does Google TV, Youtube, etc. $800+ tax and it's in the trunk. Considering that I spent that much for a 27" Trinitron 40 years ago, I can't complain.
After about 4 1/2 hours of shopping, assembling and setup, I'm finally watching the prerace show. The 55 inch screen looks HUGE. It's nice and crisp. I might have to get another Blu-Ray player. I have a basic one downstairs. A new one with good upconverting for DVDs would be nice.
