Accommodating newer technology

We did some furniture/TV shifting last night. We moved a smallish flat screen that travels to the lake house in the summer to my condo office and put the one that had a "hang-over" in the bedroom. But now the cat can't sit on it. But that meant we had to move some tables, too, since the little table wouldn’t hold the heavier TV in the bedroom.  Then that moved table didn’t seem steady, so I weighted it down with a very heavy piggy bank.

With our son-in-law’s help finding the bargain we bought a new TV (RCA) at Best Buy with a built in DVD player for the family room (aka office, aka man cave).  He loves to shop at that store and knew all the questions to ask.  It takes up a lot less room than the monster that was there, but he took it home to use in his basement exercise room—which seems only fair since it belonged to them. Flat screens don’t view well from the side like the rounded screens, but because they are so much lighter in weight, it’s not difficult to adjust them.

Our Christmas gift, a new TV

Maybe I'll just put a bow on the new Town and Country minivan we bought 3 weeks ago. We've started (a bit late) researching a 32" flat screen TV for the living room, and by the time our daughter got done explaining LED, LCD and plasma screens, HD, USB ports, resolutions, etc. plus the costs of the various box options from Time-Warner, our eyes had glazed over and our enthusiasm for today's shopping trip to Best Buy had waned. Any suggestions? So far we've compared (on line) Vizio, Sony, Insignia, and Panasonic. The living room set is ca. 1994, the family room ca. 1985. I truly doubt that we can expect that type of longevity from the new models. And you know what? With wearing glasses I hate and falling asleep in the middle of the programs, I'm not sure it matters. Also, we've been told by the cable company that our wiring is bad, but that we have to hire someone to redo it.

I'll accept recommendations and cautions, but no scolding for being lazy slugs who don't like to shop.

Update: We looked at all of them and selected the Sony Bravio 32L5000 and bought the 4 year extended warranty, which usually we don't. However, the life expectancy of today's models aren't even close to our old "fat" models--we have 3 TVs of various sizes from the 1980s, and one from the early 90s. The clerk said 6-8 years for this one. They'll fix it if one or two pixels go bad whereas the company warranty requires much more. We've been less fortunate with the VCR and disc players. We rarely use them and they seem to be a waste of time for us (one was actually stolen in a home burglary in the mid-80s) and then the technology changes. And we still have to call our daughter for instructions each time we turn it on.

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Flat Panel TVs

The other day we saw our neighbors' children haul away their TV armoire. They have a new flat panel TV which fits in their den (I use our den for my office and a 12 year old TV is in the living room in a nice cabinet and a 21 year old TV is in the family room).

The WSJ suggests as many as 40,000 armoires may be looking for new homes by the end of the year as they are moved out of hotels. Craig's List is loaded with them. Some liquidators have dropped the price to $50!

We have a cable box for that TV, so I think we can keep our living room set, although it's not HD. We watched a few minutes of a football game on an HDTV flat panel the other day, and I must say the picture was spectacular. But it still invades the room, so I don't mind keeping it behind closed doors. Maybe we could have someone remodel the back so it would be the same depth as the side units. I use the side units for displaying glass and pottery items and the drawers for table linens. I really need this unit!