That meant I needed a new TV. It was not a purchase that I had planned especially the same month I bought a new washer and dryer. That's the bad news. The good news is that I think I found a good deal on a TV. Bigger screen, 4K picture, and more features than my old TV. It also cost about half what the old one cost a few years ago.
Don't you just love technology? The products keep getting faster, better, and cheaper. That million dollar computer from 25 years ago is now outmatched by your phone.
Back to the saga of a new TV. I ordered it online and the seller chose a delivery by FedEx. I hate FedEx. The delivery was scheduled for "by 8:00 PM" so I stayed home all day. I didn't want a TV left at the door and didn't want the delivery delayed. So, the delivery was at 9:00 PM, a whole day of waiting. This is a recurring theme with FedEx. The deliveries are either extremely late in the day or not until the next day. UPS, USPS, and Amazon do a much better job for me. Complaints to FedEx have gotten no results.
I started setting up the new TV at around 9:15. First step was to attach the feet and put it on the chest I use for a TV stand. Oops, my old TV had a pedestal stand in the middle. The new TV has feet near the edges. Those feet are about 34" apart. Unfortunately, my old TV stand/chest has a 30" top. That's a problem. For the time being, I took the heavy corrugated piece of cardboard from the packing box and put it on top of the chest to extend it. It works for the very short term.
The TV setup was fairly straight forward. It is a little more complicated than years ago when you just connected the rabbit ears antenna, plugged it in, and turned it on. Now there are cable TV, antenna, internet, DVR, speakers, DVD player, Chromecast, Roku (&/or other streaming devices), and maybe other stuff. The first thing when the new TV is turned on, it requests an internet connection. As soon as that is established, it downloads and installs software updates. That's a little different than that 1960 Motorola or Zenith TV. Then you have to hook up all the other stuff. Finally, you need to go through the setup menus and maybe program a remote. If you are lucky, everything works. In my case, it did although I didn't hook up everything due to the temporary TV stand situation.
That brings me back to the domino effect part of this post. The cardboard extension to the TV stand extends a few inches past the doorframe to the den/office. I already have a chair on the other side of that door that infringed into that doorway. The path is now pretty narrow. The top is now right up against a table on the other side. In short, the new TV doesn't fit. I'm going to have to buy a new TV stand/cabinet. It will have to be bigger than the old chest I have used for years. Besides a new piece of furniture, I will have the displaced current stand. I can't get rid of it. That piece of furniture was in my bedroom when I was a kid. It is older than my long deceased Mom. I inherited much of my folks' other furniture which is all close to 80 years old. Can't get rid of that stuff. Any TV stand I get from Ikea or Amazon will not last 80 years.
I will have to rearrange the whole living room/dining room area all because I got a new TV that I really didn't want to buy. That's the domino effect. It happens all the time. Make one small change and it causes a series of others. Not just with furniture
This post is just an observation, not a rant or complaint. Having to rearrange the deck chairs to make room for a bigger and better TV is at best a minor first world problem. I will survive.
wjh
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