We were living in a tawdry universe of expensive mediocre television but we didn’t know what to do about it. We needed an intervention. That’s when the Daves stepped up.
The Daves were our first tenants in the rental house next door. My Dave (Old Dave) and I needed new friends, because of that attrition thing, and we didn’t know how to work the Grumblr and OKCupThis apps, so we just bought a house and rented it out, and it’s been one big unbroken stream of spectacular humans ever since. The Daves started us off, 22 years ago. As has been the case with every tenant we’ve had since, they fulfilled our requirement to be awesome and our friends forever.
So Dave W was over for dinner the other day and I happened to mention I had no idea what to do about the TV situation. Too many choices. Too goddamn many choices. Too many devices. Too many ways to go wrong. I had consumer paralysis.
Dave W, because it’s how he is, immediately popped up and said he’d fix me up. A minute later he’s checking out our old TV and taking photos of the connections and whatnot and shortly thereafter he had Other Dave on the line and they conferred and they wanted to know what we like to watch—Movies? Horror? Baseball? News? Real Housewives? Porn? etc., and all I knew was it could be anything, but should include Family Feud. And since I needed a new TV, all I could contribute to the conversation was that it shouldn’t be too big. I don’t want the TV to dominate the room.
I knew to mention this because we visited Other Dave right after he got his TV. We don’t have a wall in this house that TV would fit on. It was appalling. It was terrifying. That television could qualify you to hang out a shingle for dermatology. You have to sit well back so the actors can’t actually spit on you. A screen that big is a shrine to sloth. I’d like to pretend to having a life, anyway.
“Okay, 48 inches then—that’s about as small as you can get,” he said, and sent me a link to buy a TV, which I did, slated to land on my porch the next day, because that’s how things work now. And a Roku soundbar which, being smaller, shot directly into our living room and winged the cat as soon as I entered the security code for my credit card. I felt calm until I opened the front door the next day and there on the porch was an ape shaking a bone, in the shadow of a massive box. My smallest-possible TV had arrived.
A few days later, during which time the box hulked in the house and freaked out the cat so bad she quit using the litter box, Dave W showed back up in person to disbox the TV and make it go. Other Dave was looped in from Pittsburgh for the consult and remained a disembodied voice, not that there’s anything wrong with his body, just sayin’.
Fortunately a lot of the box was taken up by closed-cell extruded polystyrene foam doing a short rotation before retiring to eternal life in the ocean. The television wasn’t as big as it looked. Everything’s working. We’re still learning how to suck the amazing shows out of space, but we’re getting used to it. We’ve got Roku, Haiku, Hulu, and Hoohoo. Our old TV is sulking in the dining room now until it finds a home.
It looks really, really, really small.
Two Pooties? What did I miss!
Ah! That is Hajerle, Pootie’s best friend. He used to live with my sister Margaret.
Pleased to meet you, Hajerle. It’s kinda like meeting Snoopy’s brother Spike.
Family Feud? What do you like about it?
Dave likes it.
When we bought that TV we had to order an Uber van to get it home because it wouldn’t fit in our car. But we love our shrine to sloth. As far as I can tell it doesn’t have HAL installed, and I have yet to turn into a moon-sized floating fetus.
Good thing you have a Ph.D in AI. Because *that’s* what’s going to fetusize your TV.
One of my idiot neighbors (there’s been a few) invited me over one day to see his new TV. It was an early plasma and huge. It covered one wall of his living room. His living room wasn’t all that big. Think shotgun cottage.
His TV was so big and his living room so small that I couldn’t see the entire image. Just couldn’t get back far enough.
His solution was to knock out the wall between his living room and his porch and convert his porch from an outside space into a living space.
It was a very expensive solution to a crazy big TV dilemma.
God bless America!
Can I borrow The Dave’s to solve MY tv madnesses? Just sayin………..
I shall hire them out. Don’t tell the IRS: strictly under the table.
Add me to the list also Murr.
Okay, cougars–find your own adorable young men.
I’m praying there’s a Part III to this adventure and it’s the one that helps with the password dystopia and explains how to NOT subscribe to HULU on several different platforms simultaneously. We have subscriptions on Prime and the same subscriptions on Hulu.com, etc. etc. it’s a nightmare of a mess. At this point we just need the 24 hour Cricket channel and the holiday edition of Great British Baking Show. Oh, and the nature channel where Benedict Cumberbatch keeps mispronouncing “penQuins.” And no passwords.
Uh-oh. Sounds like there’s a Dilemma I have to look forward to.
Two Pooties!! Well, one Pootie and one Hajerle.
Are they still available in stores? Where can I get one?
48 inches is about the smallest TV you can get? not in my country. Mine is 39 inches and I know several people with smaller ones, about 36 inches. I also know people with TVs so big I can watch from the other end of their giant family/dining rooms.
I don’t think Pootie’s wannabes are still available. Hajerle’s might be. We found another Pootie in a thrift store once though! I mean, in the Arfnage.
I remember the story of the second Pootie, but don’t remember if he came home with you.
He went to the home of a remarkable girl who named him Price Bugle.
Well, glad to hear that the two Daves got you all set up so that you and Dave #1 can watch what you want. I too was surprised that 48″ is now the small end of the range of TVs in Portland! Ours is a whopping 80 (cm) — that’s 32″ for ya’ll. I guess we just sit closer to it. Some people on the news are scary enough on an iPad let alone a big screen TV. But, not everyone in the Great White North has a modest TV. There are a few TVs in our neighbourhood that are big enough that I thought they were opening a drive-in theatre. Remember drive-ins? Ah…mosquitos and crappy sound. A lot of things ARE getting better.
You weren’t supposed to notice the mosquitoes in the drive-in. Or the movie either.
Him (making out at the drive-in): Ooh, ooooh, Susie, do you want to get in the back seat?
Me: Oh, no I’d rather stay here with you.
You’re welcome 🙂
Thank you!
“Family Feud” is shown in the afternoons at my mom’s Memory Care facility. When did that show stop being family friendly?!? Was it with the advent of Steve Harvey, or earlier? Recently (and I realize it was a clip show from reruns, so who knows when it originally aired?) I heard a horrendous survey question (paraphrased, ’cause I don’t remember the exact wording): ‘Which piece of sports equipment could a wife kill her husband with?’
When did murder become a subject for a game show?!? I’m appalled it made it out of the writers’ room and past the censors.
I’m thinking now…it was more lascivious in real time with Richard Dawson, the Kissinator. And unfortunately, now I’m finding myself wondering what piece of sports equipment I would use. There are so many possibilities. Fortunately, I’m a badminton gal.
I was shocked, shocked I tell you, that when we got our big TV set up, the commercials were HUGE TOO! Dang!!!
I know! Gigantic sanitary napkins absorbing liquid!
We finally gave in and got a 55″ smart TV at home. Now when we go up to our cottage on the Cape the 32″ one here looks tiny! Everything is relative. And Vicki’s right, the biggest problem is not dual-subscribing to stuff. I have Paramount+ through Prime Video but I may also have it as a separate subscription! I need to check that…I finally dumped Hulu for Sling just to save a few bucks. We use it at home mainly to watch MSNBC because we cut the cable and that’s the only cable station I absolutely have to have. I’m sure we’re now paying more than we did when we had cable, LOL.
A cottage on the Cape! How sweet! We almost had one. My parents got as far as buying a lot, then got divorced and sold it. 🙁 Had they ever got around to building a cottage there, I might have remained on the east coast. My father, in Connecticut still kept some connection with the Cape — I remember seeing a Ciro & Sal’s cookbook on his shelf.