Another Major Purchase

When it rains it pours.  In the last couple months I have purchased a new laptop and a new refrigerator.  Then last week my television set died on me.  On Thursday I went and bought a new one.

As I have said before, I am in many ways a dinosaur.  I do not have cable.  My television is hooked up to the antenna on the rooftop.  I have no desire to have cable.  Why pay for 100 channels of rubbish, especially when I do not watch that much TV.  In the morning when I eat breakfast I turn it on to see if there is anything interesting on PBS.  (For those readers who are not from the U.S., that's the Public Broadcast Service... what we used to call "educational TV.)  Then when I have dinner I watch either a DVD from Netflix or something  streaming from Aleckz's Netflix account.  (That might be coming to an end.  A friend told me that Netflix is going to crack down on customers who share their accounts with other households.  It doesn't matter since my old fashioned account in which discs are sent to my home has a much wider selection of choices.)  

I was in no great rush to buy a new television, and I actually went several days without one.  When I finally went out TV shopping, I headed first to Sam's Club.  But since there is no one there to answer questions about the products, I then went to Best Buy.  I wanted another Samsung since my old one had lasted me more than fifteen years.  It had a thirty two inch screen, and I didn't want to go too much bigger since it has to sit on top of my entertainment cabinet.  I definitely did not want one of those humungous ones that hang on the wall.  I went with a forty-two inch screen; anything bigger would not have fit.

I came home with my new purchase, and I spent the whole afternoon getting it set up.  Before I could do anything, I had to figure out the tangle of wires behind the entertainment cabinet, and which wires would go where on the new set.  (And that area needed a good sweeping and dusting too.)  

I moved out the old set, plugged in the new one and hooked it up to the antenna.  I turned it on, and before going any further I had to go onto the laptop and create an account with Samsung.  Next, will the broadcast channels come through the antenna?  Yes, they did!  And not only that, but on this "smart TV" there are a myriad of other channels available too.  It's almost like having cable.  And just like cable most of the channels were of no interest to me. But unlike cable, I don't have to pay for this extra rubbish.  At this point I have looked at only one of the additional channels.  It has old game shows like "Password" and "Match Game", shows that I used to enjoy in my younger days.

An enormous menu of available programming, the vast majority of which I will never use.

The "smart TV" also offers a menu of free movies, but so far I haven't spotted any that I want to watch.  Even this dinosaur already knew that a "smart TV" connects with the internet.  There is a button on the remote just for Netflix.  I clicked on it, and I signed in with Alejandro's email and password. There it was. (At least there it is until Netflix decides to crack down on sharing accounts.)  Now if I want to watch a streaming video from his account, I don't have to take the laptop into the living room and hook it up to the TV with a cable.

The next step was to see if I had hooked up the DVD player correctly.  I was not used the menu on the screen, and I could not find where I switch from broadcast TV to the DVD player.  I was getting frustrated, but finally I found it.  I put one of the travel DVDs that I have made into the player, and it worked just fine.

  

So, the dinosaur is a little bit more up to date... but I still don't want cable!