A valuable addition to our modern lifestyle

As you may have noticed, the economy is in the crapper and common sense says that a middle income family like ourselves should really be scrimping every penny that we can. So what do we do?

That’s right. We went out and bought a ginormous television.

It wasn’t a totally irresponsible purchase. Our old set was slowly dying and we took advantage of a one-day sale at Wal-Mart to pick up the new one at about $400 off the regular price. Any deal that can get me to willingly go inside a Wal-Mart, much less fighting crowds at 8 o’clock on a Saturday morning, is a a pretty good deal.

And it’s not really that ginormous – just 42″. It’s not like I went out and got some monstrosity that requires us to rip out a wall or something. While it’s true that it is bigger than one of our children, it’s not bigger than the six-year old. That’s keeping things modest, isn’t it? It’s still not as big as the television we had when we lived in Colorado.

What I’m really excited about is that it’s 1080p. I’m already enjoying watching my DVDs in mind-blisteringly beautiful high definition. If I can only get The Wife to spring for digital cable, then life will be really good. Maybe I can sell her on being able to watch Jon and Kate Plus Eight in HD.

The first thing I watched on our new television was the same thing I always watch first on any new TV – The Empire Strikes Back. It’s pretty much the perfect film to test out the capabilities of any set. The white snows of Hoth, the murky darkness of Dagobah and the colorful hues of Bespin are all good yardsticks for measuring just how well your display works. I’m pleased to say that our works exceedingly well.

The Girl also enjoys the new television, but unfortunately she’s discovered that it can also be used for evil. I thought the Teletubbies were annoying before – they’re even more annoying now that they’re twice as big.

Fries at the bottom of the bag

• I would be remiss if I did not recognize that today is Festivus. I hope you and your family take the time today to enjoy those most wonderful of holiday traditions -  the Airing of Grievances and Feats of Strength.
• We departed for Lake Jackson this afternoon and will be there for about the next week or so. Posting might be kind of sparse for the next few days.
• Before writing this post, I had no idea that “ginormous” was recognized as a legitimate word by the Firefox spell checker.
• Bonus points for any one who recognized the reference in today’s post title