Well, I recently (last Tuesday night) picked up this baby. I find myself browsing craigslist pretty offen, looking at computers, electronics and games. Someone local was selling that tv. However all I had to go by as far as model was an awful picture and his description. He was selling it as a 1080p 52″ samsung tv and was asking 950. I seen that shit and instantly thought “I must have it”.

I talk to him and arrange to meet up at his place to check it out. At first sight I think,. ok I’ll take it. we fuck around with the settings a bit- I’m looking for any strange flickers or defects.

I eventually say.. “ok I like it, you wanted 950 right?”. he says, well thats what I bought it for but we can make an offer. before I can really process what he had just said my girlfriend jumps in and says with the tv stand, 950! hes like, ok it’s yours.

I’m thinking… shit I was going to offer him like 800 lol. then think oh well, I did need something to put it on when I get home.

Loading this thing inside an SUV was not fun man. I got a four door, full size and it looks huge inside but the tv is a lot bigger when you need to make it fit somewhere. then at home we finally managed to get it out which was just as difficult.

The next day when I get time to enjoy it, it starts turning off while I’m playing GTA4. just randomly shutting off. I’m like,. OH FUCK!!! it was then I decide to investigate a bit. I find that there is a safety switch in the back door of the tv where you replace the lamp. when this thing gets tripped the tv turns off as it was. sort of like how your cpu might shut down if it reaches 80 degrees. (or at least mine is set up as such, or actually 78).

anyway.. I take the door off and put the blue switch in the down position, then pull the tv away from the wall some more as I think it might not have been getting enough air. ta da problem solved.

at any rate the guy told me he barely used the tv. said it probably had 500 hours of use on it. while researching the tv I found out how to get in the service menu. from here you can look at the lamp timer which tells you how long the tv has been ‘on’. it had something like 1280 hours on it! mother fucker! futher research tells me that the tvs top resolution is 720p, NOT 1080p as advertised. and to top it off the tv goes for 799-999 online. brand new! (or if you can find it, its now an obsolete model as newer samsung dlps are already out).

I’m kinda upset about it but not much I can do. I can only really be upset with myself, see I didn’t buy the tv right after I talked to him the first time. I went home afterwards because it was raining and I didn’t want to load the tv for obvious reasons. At this point I could have researched the model of tv, etc. I would have loved to walk into his living room and get in the service menu and say… 500 hours?

I would have loved have offered him 700 instead of the 950 I gave him. *sighs*. He also was trying to sell a surround sound system. I strangely enough went home and researched that one. he claimed to of paid 500 for it new and wanted 250.. when it is 250 brand new now. hell he might of when it was fresh off the shelf, but fuck him.

so I’m pretty much over it all and happy to have a huge 50″ tv to play games on. the way I look at it right now is that a) there is very little noticeable difference between 720p and 1080p on the size of tv I have. b) if using it for cable tv nothing would be broadcast on 1080p anyway. and finally c) the fact I find most important is this; if I didn’t buy this tv now I wouldn’t have a big screen for a while and by the time I did there is no doubt I would have bought it on credit which means I’d end up paying over 2 grand for something with similar or slightly better quality anyway. yah thats right I don’t make huge credit card payments. I pay slightly over the min payment lol.

never make an offer before you know exactly what its worth… lesson learned. I did that with the car I’m driving now, which helped a bunch. but with my credit not being so great the high interest ended up killing me anyway. but hey, could have been worse had I of bought it for what they were trying to sell it to me for.

….

I’m related news I recently bought a BlackBerry Pearl 8120. these just came out a few weeks ago (in america). yah.. I had to have one. I damn near got fucked on that deal too.. I found one on ebay for rather cheap but got outbid. I ended up winning one from a retailer at a much more expensive price but didn’t have a choice as all the others were roughly the same price.

A week later I’m using the phone and loving it. I’m checking my email from the phone and get an email from eBay advising me not to buy anything from the person I had originally tried to get a blackberry from. turns out he was some fraudster lol. man I would have been so fucking pissed if I forked out 200 and got nothing, which damn near happened. lucky for me some other bastard was the one who got ripped off.

I had a strange feeling about the auction too.. I was just thinking I’d sort of feel better if I was buying this phone from an actual retailer and not a private party.. why is someone getting rid of a brand new one? hmm…

ok well I guess it’s time to get some GTA4 on.