Stephanie arrived at 10:30.
So she bought this silver Subaru Forester, a small SUV. It LL Bean
model with leather seats and a moon roof and probably other things.
4-cylinder engine and a good suspension so it rides smoothly. It has
average trunk room in that normally you only have the same trunk space
as my For Taurus. You can put down the rear seats and put something
really big in the back, though that would only be rare occasions.
We had ham for lunch and soy sauce chicken for dinner. Dad's fish pond
looks about the same as last time though he's still working on it. I'm
not sure what else he wants to add other than some sort of tree to
provide shade for the fish. A tree that doesn't shed leaves that he'll
have to clean up constantly.
Steph and I, mostly Steph, are going to buy Dad a large-screen HDTV. I
looked through the Circuit City site and found some Sony models. 46"
projection, 42" LCD projection, 36" wide screen, 34" full screen
models. The LCD projection is cheaper than normal LCDs but you lose a
bit of the off-angle viewing since it's projection. The other three
models are all extremely heavy. In any case we'll also need a tv stand.
Sony has tv stands to fit particular models. Quite expensive though.
My preference is the 42"
LCD projection HDTV. It's light (70 pounds though too big for one
person to carry) and has a bright, clear picture. The LCD blub lasts
8000 hours and then has to be replaced, which is the only big drawback.
I looked at some reviews and people pointed out that it only has one
HDMI input so you can't get two digital sources (like a digital DVD
player and digital cable).
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So there are HDTV
televisions, which have HDTV tuners built-in. Then
there are HDTV Ready or HDTV Monitor televisions which have no tuners.
You can either buy a tuner box for about $300 or you can use a digital
cable/satellite box to do the tuning. Therefore HDTV Ready televisions
are cheaper and appropriate if you're going to use a digital cable
system that gives you a box. Built-in tuners are needed if you want
over-the-air HDTV reception, which is what we use at mom and dad's.
We take Dad to Circuit City to look at the televisions. He has a hard
time making up his mind. Mostly he's balking at the price since he
doesn't want us to spend that much money. Steph can afford it and I
will struggle with my finances for a few months. Circuit City is open
late tonight for the last minute Christmas shopping (they're also open
tomorrow but close early). Dad can't make up his mind so we'll look at
other places tomorrow.
Meanwhile we tried to use Steph's Amazon/American Express coupon. It's
actually a 25% for up to $600. I thought it was 25% of orders over
$600. I look for more stuff to buy and settle on Star Trek TOS seasons
1 to 3 for $265. After discount it comes out to about $70 each season
which is actually about street price. The problem is that retail price
for Star Trek is almost double street price so the discounts look good.
But it was short notice and something I wanted.
Anyway, the coupon code won't take. Now I would give up after a few
tries and just assume that it was all fate. Steph though emails Amazon
and they emailed back. It still doesn't work so she emails again and
hopefully we'll have it resolved by tomorrow since the coupon code
expires then.
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