we finally gave in 

Terry and I finally gave in.

On Sunday while our real estate agent was working the open house we went to Best Buy and bought a flat screen television.

Since we haven’t shopped for televisions since the CRT days we had a lot to learn. We learned that all TVs are now LED, and that plasma is so yesterday. We learned that the differences are in screen size, the brightness and sharpness of the picture, and how smart the smart TV really is.

Oh, and sound. Flat screens have terrible sound. Which means buying a sound bar. At two-thirds the cost of the television. I suppose if you buy a set with a bigger screen and more features it’s a smaller percentage. But still. What’s with that?

It’s not like we really wanted to spend the money, but our TV was old, and when our cable box died after a storm and power outage, we were fortunate that the replacement cable box had an S-Video output, as there was no coax output. We have no expectation that our set-top box when we get Verizon Fios in Hemet will be compatible with our very old TV. We therefore thought it was a rather silly idea to lug that big, old cathode-ray tube unit with us. We know our new flat screen television will be happy with the HDMI connection in the equipment that the Fios service will certainly provide.

And you know what else? The left and right sides of the picture are no longer cut off. Wow! What a concept.