TV; Episode One. Buying a Set.

 “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.”  ~ John Lennon.

“People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.”  ~ Jess C. Scott

With Black Friday looming and all the pre and post-holiday sales yet to come, the wife and I have resurrected the, “should we get a new TV” discussion.  It happens about this time every year.  We don’t really exchange gifts so the idea is to get the big gift for the household (which is just the two of us now).  This year the idea got a little more impetus by a short stay at the Atlantis in Reno.  The room’s 55” flat panel made us realize that our circa 2000 tube television could be improved on. 

I’m wandering around the aisles of Fry’s Electronics, looking at televisions, dazzled by the bright vivid colors of the pictures.  Normally I would be at Best Buy but they aren't getting my business this year for being open on Thanksgiving Day.  I’m looking at different features, scratching my head and asking myself, “why oh, why does it seem that you need at least an associates’ degree in computer science to buy things these days?”  I dread these kinds of purchases because I go into the store feeling utterly stupid and I play a ridiculous game of asking the salesperson questions while trying to appear that I have some basic knowledge.  I’m sure that my blank stare gives me away as a posturing pretender; a know nothing.  I could defer to my son.  He’s pretty knowledgeable about this stuff.  So is my nephew but he’s a top of the line kind of guy.  Listening to him might get me a ten thousand dollar home entertainment system.  Or I suppose as a last resort I can always bite the bullet and, ugh, do research. 

Can a TV really be smart? 

I noticed that they now have smart TVs.  My first thought was, wow what a great concept.  A TV that’s smart enough to filter out shows about hillbillies, hoarders, child beauty pageants (and associated parents), Will Ferrell (I get heat for this one), the entire Fox Network and anything Kardashian.  Then I realized that smart TV must mean something else.  If a TV filtered out the stupid there would hardly be anything left for the TV to show and that would be a bad marketing move on the part of TV manufacturers.  Which brings up an interesting observation I made when browsing TVs.  All of those display TVs were showing loops of nature programs, I guess the idea being that you really don’t want potential buyers to see Hillbilly Fishing and decide that spending 1000 dollars or more to see nonsense in vivid color isn’t money well spent. 

After doing some basic research on smart TVs I found that these wonders have all sorts of interactive and helpful features.  Without leaving the program that I’m watching I can see what’s coming up next or what I’m missing on other channels.  Umm, kind of like the remote lets me do now?  I can view my photos on the TV.  Smart TVs apparently come with aps.  I’m not really up on aps.  You see I don’t have a smart phone (and no I’m not getting on my smart phone soapbox today) and so I don’t use aps so much.  I have Windows 8 but I more or less skip over the aps.  But I've digressed.  Samsung is touting the feature that lets you use Facebook on your TV which begs the question; is that a good thing?  Do I really want to see the Facebook page on Walmartians on a bright 65” color screen?  A smart TV would allow me to stream movies.  It would but for the fact that my AT&T service is glacially slow.

Smart TVs are also voice interactive.  According to the Samsung website, Your voice is all you need to power on your Smart TV, navigate menus and find your favorite movies, shows and more. Just use natural language and Smart TV does the rest.  What does natural language mean?  Does it mean that if I can’t get it to do something and I scream “Change the channel you stupid fuck,” it won’t do anything?  After all there are times when that can be pretty close to my natural language.  My wife’s natural language has an accent you can cut with a knife.  Does it understand Tag-lish or is she just out of luck?  And what if I’m talking but not to the TV?  Will it think I've given it a command and change channels right at that crucial fourth and one play?  I don’t know if it’s worth an extra few hundred dollars for voice interaction. 

What I’m waiting for is real interaction.  You know; with the folks you’re actually watching at the time.  The possibilities are not only endless they’re, well, tantalizing.

To Guy Fieri: Hey Guy, you obnoxious lout.  Who ever told you that all those chains and that ridiculous spiked hair is a good look for a grown up man?  Are you really wearing sunglasses on the back of your head you stupid fuck?  I hope you choke on that burrito.

To any Fox News commentator:  Go to hell, you divisive, lying moron.

To the various and sundry ghost hunters:  Do you really expect us to believe this drivel?

To Kim Kardashian: Go get a job you worthless leach. 

Now I might spend a few thousand extra for that feature.  It’s one that should probably be disallowed on any sports contest employing umpires or referees or shows featuring Miley Cyrus. 

Buying a TV was a lot easier when I was a kid.  The sets often came encased in a big wooden console so the biggest problem was finding a cabinet that best matched the home décor.  Once color TVs became available the big decision was when to upgrade from black and white.  When color TVs went mainstream, hanging on to that black and white set could affect your standing in the neighborhood, especially if you were a kid.  No one wanted to come to your house to watch TV if all you had was a black and white.  My parents were one of the last ones to upgrade to color so I spent a couple of years as a social pariah. 

An old console TV

We don’t have to choose a cabinet color but for Cora the whole décor thing is an issue.  Our current TV stand is admittedly unattractive and we have components sitting on an ancient stereo stand that matches nothing else in the house.  I told Cora that Fry’s has some nice TV stands with plenty of storage for components and DVDs but she’s angling for a trip to Ikea for a TV stand.  And why not?  It isn't a problem for her because she won’t be spending a whole day assembling the damn thing.  I suggested that we might want to figure out what size TV to get before visiting Ikea.  And who knows, while at Fry's she might fall in love with one of those already assembled stands. 

In over thirty years of marriage Cora and I have owned three televisions, and one, the first, was the little Sony that she had when she was single.  For us this decision has never been easy, not because we’re cheap but because given the amount of time we watch TV we have to ask ourselves if it’s really worth it.  Many is the evening when Cora is working on her second hour of watching news and I ask her if we can please turn off the news because nothing new has happened in this second hour and we’re watching that house fire in San Jose for the third time now.  So we channel surf to find out that, sadly, the most compelling viewing is the house fire in San Jose, and we shut the set down for the night.   In the end any doubts about this purchase might be settled by tuning in to the Food Network on any Tuesday evening.  Back to back to back episodes of Chopped will be all I need to decide that our current TV is just fine thank you.