Thursday (4 Apr) - Shooting the TV and Raising the Padres

Thursday (4 Apr) - Shooting the TV and Raising the Padres

On Sunday night we watched the first episode of Season Three's Game of Thrones. I've read the outstanding series of books by George R.R. Martin and have thoroughly enjoyed HBO's original series about the medieval goings on. In fact, I order HBO only during the ten episode series and then cancel when it's over. The bloody battles and underhanded political intrigue is a guilty pleasure we both love. And how can you not love those dragons?

Anyway, on Monday Judi casually mentioned that she "might" be ready to replace ancient family room TV. It's not that we're anti-High Definition. I have a small HDTV flat screen in my office. We have a 32" HDTV in our bedroom. I have to admit that the bedroom HDTV (a cheap Sears off brand, but it's proven to be quite good) was a blatant attempt to lure Judi into the world of HDTV. You can watch your soaps in HD, I told her. Watch "The Cat From Hell" in glorious High Definition! No matter how many times I'd switch her channels to HD, though, she watched them in the old 4:3 format. 

That brings us back to the family room. Dominating the room is one of those old behemoths that require a tractor trailer to move. It's more than ten years old and I'd made a devil's pact that as long as it worked, we kept it. It refused to die, or even get rusty. Even as I type this it sits in our family room, lording it over an almost equally ancient stereo system and a non-blueray DVD player.

In fact, it might be the DVD player that started the rebellion. We have a Bose 321 system that is almost as old as the TV. It has two little speakers, a base unit, and a DVD player. It has a proprietary setup that forces all connections into the DVD player and then to the TV. I HATE that DVD player. Bose makes great speakers, but their DVD sucks, and we can't get rid of it without getting rid of the speakers. The second hopeful nail in the TV coffin is that the TV has trouble with the dark background of most scenes in "Game of Thrones." 

Now, I have been making diabolical plans to murder that TV for many years now. Here was my chance to send it to the gallows. I had to be cautious, though. It often takes me awhile to get around to doing things, but once I make up my mind to start I move pretty fast. A sudden flurry of activity might scare off my prey. For example, the tall entertainment system would have to be replaced with one that would hold a large screen HDTV. What would we do with the old one? I checked on replacing the audio system and learned there was a way to keep the old Bose speakers in business, but it was a kludgy solution that required the old DVD player. Neither of us liked the clutter that would cause, so a new audio system was needed. We would need a blu-ray player, too. And of course, a new TV. Funny how the new TV ended up at the tail end of this process. All of the moving parts had to be carefully coordinated. Any perceived chaos and the brooding family room TV would win.

The signs were good. Judi had picked out a pretty nice wood TV stand/console that would replace the entertainment system. It would have to be ordered. Then I came across a very nice TV stand that I could buy locally. It was a little more expensive. The color might not be right, but we liked the overall look. I held back ordering the other one online. Now we aren't sure which to get, and my coordination is slipping. I've already picked out an HDTV and I know which stereo system we'd get if we go that way. But I'd better get the TV stand issue settled before I introduce anything more chancy. Once we have the TV stand, the rest of the dominos will start to fall.

In Padres news, we got our first victory! in the final game against the New York Mets.

Game #003	Result	Score
Actual	Win	2-1
Reality	Win	2-0
Promise	Win	5-2

2013 Padres Season Results Summary

Comparison	W  L  GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Padres 2012	76 86 18.0	.247	651	4.01
Reality Autoplay	84 78 10.0	.243	667	3.69
Promise Autoplay	80 82 10.0	.249	688	3.81
2013 Season	W  L  GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Actual Results	1  2  1.0	.172	8	6.84
Reality Results	3  0  ---	.276	13	1.67
Promise Results	3  0  ---	.228	11	1.33