Heath's Random Thoughts

Between that time last year and now, I was awarded a promotion at work which boosted me to a higher bonus level at work. Again I was awarded the whole bonus amount for a what my bosses proclaimed an excellent job in building up a new team and coordinating the creation of a new service that we offer to our business partners. As Kelly can attest too, this was no small feat and I spent a lot of stressed out weeks last year making this new service work and it finally paid off. So this year I decided I was going to reward myself a little and splurge on something fun. Those who know me know this wasn't an easy thing to do because I usually play it safe and tuck the money away or put it toward paying off any bills or debt I may have.

So, after I got over the initial apprehensiveness, I decided to purchase a new flat panel TV. Since I graduated from undergrad back in 1998 I have had the same 27" projection TV and it has always served me well. After Kelly and I moved into together we moved my TV to the office and set her slightly nicer TV up in the living room. After careful consideration, advice from family and friends and lots of online research I finally decided on a 50" plasma TV. I spent some time going over the pros and cons of the Plasma vs the LCD, but decided on the plasma after reading reviews of how the plasma performs better when watching fast moving action (e.g. sports) and has a deeper palette of colors than the LCD. I was kind of worried about the fact that plasmas tend to show more glare than the LCD, but after talking to my dad I found out that some models come with a special coating that helps reduce the glare, so I included this in my "requirements" for the new TV.

I narrowed it down to a couple of different models that were highly rated and settled on the Panasonic PZ700U. It was one of the highest rated plasmas at that 50" size and Panasonic is one of the leading producers of quality plasma TV's. It also comes with a special remote that allows you to run all your High Definition (HD) components from one remote as well as a resolution capable of picking up 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p broadcasts. I checked out a couple of different locations but quickly realized that it was going to cost more that I was really wanting to spend. Then one day I happened to be talking to a coworker about buying a new TV and he told me he has a cousin that works at a local electronics store that could probably cut me a pretty good deal. So he put me in touch with him he was able to get a price below cost for the model plus he threw in two HDMI cables (used for HD devices) for half price for being a "friend of the family" :). Which was cool because those cables are normally about 35-50 dollars a piece.

The TV is going to be delivered next Saturday morning (delivery is free) and Kelly and I are excited to get it set up. I included a picture of the model in this post.

While were were researching we got to talking about getting a new BlueRay DVD player since it was just announced that this would be the new DVD format going forward. After careful consideration I decided to purchase a Playstation 3 gaming system. The reason for this was that it was only 100 dollars more than a BlueRay player but included internet access, and a video game system. Plus we found a package deal where we could get an extra controller, a PS3 game, BlueRay movie, and a bluetooth remote control thrown in. We also found out today that we made a good choice because it turns out that the current BlueRay players on the market will not be compatible with the next generation of BlueRay DVD's that are coming out soon, but the PS3 is (lucked out there). The PS3 is coming sometime this week so we should be set.

No worries though, I still have a good chunk of the bonus that will be going into my savings account, so I didn't blow it all on toys.