The TV locationWell, it seems we’re done. Suckered into throwing at the buyers another $4500 plus $500 that our realtor is kicking in from her comission, we are finally parting with our house. Whether the additional $1500 was worth our piece of mind, I can’t say. What I can tell you is that anything not nailed down in the house that was not mentioned in the sales agreement is not remaining in the house, I don’t care if I have to give it away to the neighbors, these buyers aren’t getting another red cent from me. This means when they beg for the bedroom’s window air conditioner because the 2nd floor is so hot they need a new central air system, they can just bugger off. Nevermind that we don’t need it in the new house, I’ll sooner give it to Goodwill than leave it for these greedy buyers. Bah, so angry!

And now on to more pleasant talk, since it’s been on my mind…

We went shopping for a few items for the new house. Since the new house will not have a washer and dryer, and our buyers are keeping ours, we bought a new set. The new washer and dryer are a matching pair of GE appliances. The washer is a front-loader, something I have no in-home experience with. The lady at Home Depot (who was infinitely more educated than the guy at Sears, who expected that just because Consumer Reports gives his appliances the top rating, we would fall over ourselves in quetionless stupidity to buy them) assured us that this was the brand to buy if we were mounting the washer on a wood floor, as opposed to on concrete block.

Since our new laundry room is above the finished basement, we will need the extra stability in the shocks on the GE washer. One of the neat things about these washers is that they spin at ridiculously high speeds in order to get the water out. What I was fascinated to learn is that all of the savings you get from a new washer/dryer combo is in the washer. This is because if the washer can wring all the water out of your clothes, the heating elements in the dryer don’t need to work as hard. Also, if the washer can wash the clothes in less water with less energy, that really will boost the overall energy savings. I think we got a good deal on the washer and dryer.

We stopped at the post office to get a change of address pack. Apparently, the pack is nothing more than an envelope full of coupons that might be useful to new home buyers. That might be useful, but the salient info for changing your address is apparently all on the US Postal Service’s web site.

On Saturday, we took the long drive out to Best Buy to shop for TVs. Berta wasn’t messing around when she said we’d get a new TV when we moved. We looked around a bit, but the kids weren’t very cooperative, and there was more than one screaming fit before I couldn’t take it any more. I was trying to discuss the options with Berta and it was just one of those evenings where Riley would not stop crying. So, scratch that.

Still, we learned a few things in our search: Most LCD TVs are not conducive to touching - it leaves a weird afterimage, and impresses upon you their complete lack of durability. Best Buy employees are helpful, but not exactly educated. At one point they told us that 1080i is the exact same thing as 720p, which just isn’t right. Plasma screens are brighter than LCD, don’t come in the resolution we’d really like to have, and also don’t come in a size we’d really like.

After fretting about this decision for a while and stopping at Circuit City with Mom earlier today, we learned something else new: When you grab the screens on the little table stands and wobble them around, they really wobble. No really, if Riley crashed into one of these sets at even half-speed, it would fall over, possibly even on him. So the whole TV-on-a-stand idea is out. That means wall-mount, and also opens up the LCD as an option. The Westinghouse LVM-42w2 is looking really good right now. Cheap, 1080p, and yet pretty much what I had set out to get in a TV in the first place. Now if I can just find a wall mount that doesn’t offset the savings, I’ll be in business.

One of my goals with the TV is to be able to put it in the family room and see it from the kitchen. The picture above is taken from just inside the dining room doorway, through the kitchen, into the family room. I don’t expect to watch the TV from the dining room, but it would be nice to be able to mount the TV on the left wall (where the old owner’s TV unit is) and see it form the kitchen. So a swivel mount would be nice. So far, I’ve found a few mounts that use the VESA 100×100mm mount that this TV requires. Some offer a 37″ extension and 180 degree rotation, but they also extend into the absurd for pricing. I’ll need to shop around.

I’ve been wondering how I’m going to mount and lift this TV onto the wall, and also wire the whole mess. Maybe I’ll stop by that Sound Advice store in Exton and see if they do installs, then I’ll not have to worry about snaking my own cable.

Also on the TV front, we’re reconsidering our delivery mechanism - that is, whether we want to stick with Dish Network. I priced out the difference between Dish and DirectTV (no, cable is not an option - I won’t allow Comcast to drain my soul) and found that we’re going to be happy with Dish. The full HD-capable programming lineup on Dish (all 130+ channels) is cheaper than DirectTV’s smallest HD channel package by $3. The Dish equipment gets better reviews, too.

We were considering using their VIP622 model receiver for the family room and the basement. It can power two TVs, and our logic was that we could control and monitor what the kids were watching from the family room if they wanted to play in the basement. But further consideration nixed that idea, so we’re going to use it to play TV in the family room and bedroom, since watching programs recorded on PVR from bed had always been something we wished we could do. (Does that sound awful? Yes, but I think if you imagine that there’s exercise equipment in the bedroom, you might understand.)

All of this seems so terrible on a re-read, like the TV is the all-important idol in the new house. Frankly, there has been very little positive about the house shifting operation apart from “getting new house”, which until yesterday looked pretty bleak too. So permit me this one little gadet freak-out, ok?

We got packing labels at Staples to mark all of our boxes for the moving people. It turns out that packing labels don’t actually stick to the boxes very well. We’d probably have been better off just writing on the boxes in marker. Berta was thinking that colored dots might have worked, but I had a few arguments against that. First of all, we have more rooms than colors of dots that Staples sells. Second, it would require that the movers decrypt our color coding for the purpose of moving. Third, it doesn’t indicate the content of the box, and whether it should be moved with extra care or placed in any particular place. Fourth, the stickers are smaller, and since they’re already prone to falling off, wouldn’t stick as well as larger stickers.

Who thought I could write so much about freaking packing stickers? Anyway, I’ve ended up taking on a few of the stickers that look like they’re not going to survive until tomorrow, much less next week.

Packing is going to be a pain. Of course, I’m sitting here typing when I really should be packing up all of the computer stuff for transport. We’re going to need to clear off the computer stuff before the movers come for the furniture it sits on, which means it not only needs to be “packed” but also out of the way. And since I’m not prone to let movers move romance-novel-sized boxes that cost $500 to replace when dropped funny, I’ve got to move all that myself anyway. The computer room is going to be a nuisance.

Things to remember: Utility shut off and turn on, especially phone service, otherwise there’s no internet and there would be withdraw. Call doctor concerning impending need of lack-of-net pills.