Monthly Archives: March 2005

Maxent 42 inch plasma EDTV Review

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This weekend we stopped by Target to get a few things. This Target has a Best Buy right below it and I figured with time to waste I could spend a few minutes drooling over the many flat panel TV’s they have sitting around. We were not disappointed. While looking around we saw a Maxent 42 inch plasma EDTV for $1,700. I thought for sure it was some sort of typo. Either that or this crazy EDTV was some sort of marketing trick to make people buy the thing. Come to find out EDTV is a stepping stone to HDTV. It supports a higher resolution than standard TV signals and also supports progressive scan DVD’s.

We ended up getting a great deal on the TV and I’m now watching Matrix Revolutions in all of its glory. I’ve finally figured out all of this HDTV crap and I can now recommend to all four of my readers what my take on all of this stuff is.

  1. If you are going to buy a flat panel display make sure you buy a plasma and not an LCD display. The plasma displays are, oddly enough, cheaper and have better picture quality than LCD displays.
  2. Unless you live in a magical universe where everything is already being broadcast in HDTV there isn’t any reason to buy HDTV. For the most part your shiney HDTV will be running in EDTV mode anyways so you might as well save a buttload of cash and buy an EDTV display.
  3. Make sure you get the service plan. I know, I know, they always sound like a line of crap, but LCD/plasma displays suffer from something called “dead pixels” and the service plan states if you get three dead pixels you get a new TV. This is definitely worth the money.

What I found most amazing was that the clerk at Best Buy was willing to haggle over the pricing. If we had bought the display, paid taxes and bought the service plan all at retail we would have spent about $2,250 on our TV. In reality, we only paid $1,900. To say your DVD’s have never looked this good would be a huge understatement. I’m super impressed thus far. Now I just need to get a HDTV compliant TiVo box.

Girls are teh sux on American Idol

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I’m wondering if this week we can vote off 4 girls and leave the guys alone. The girls are clearly the underdogs this year when compared to the guys. The guys have better voices, put on better performances and, overall, appear to be much more seasoned performers.

Bo Brice, as of now, is the man. His performance from Monday rocked the house. As for the girls, I’d say that the very best of them rank in the middle of the pack when compared with the guys. Lauren, I know, is rooting for Nikko. I like him, Anwan and Bo as of now.

Senator wants decency standards for cable/satellite

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A Senator from Alaska wants to push decency standards onto subscription cable and satellite services. To you Senator I say, “F*ck off, I paid to see Dennis Leary act like the asshole he is on Rescue Me.” I haven’t extensively researched the issue, but I see two major problems with pushing decency laws onto cable and satellite services.

  1. It’s a paid subscription. I paid to see supposedly “non-decent” content (ie. The Shield, Rescue Me and anything on Comedy Central). It’s like telling Playboy they need to adhere to decency standards. Give me a break! You have to be 18 to get cable so what’s the problem? I’m a big boy, I can handle a few “F” bombs and shots of various degrees of nudity.
  2. These networks are built outside of the scope of the FCC. They are private networks paid for by the companies who build them.

But what about the children?!? Screw you and the children. Just because you’re too stupid to enable and use the plethora of parental controls available to you (V Chip, TiVo’s parental controls, your cable box’s controls, etc.) or you’re too lazy to actually pay attention to what your kid watches doesn’t mean I should suffer. I’m sick and tired of people ducking their parental responsibilities. I’m really getting tired of people enabling the government to tell me what I can/should and cannot/should not watch/listen/view/read.

Wake up people! You have a responsiblity to govern what your children watch and if you personally object to a TV show then CHANGE THE CHANNEL YOU MORON! Or, RTFM and set up your TV to only display PG-13 material. Quit being lazy and take some responsiblity for your own life and for crying out loud don’t let the government tell us what to watch/view/listen to/read.