A Class of 83 TV

Above you can see the television upgrade that sits in daunting repose on that terrific entertainment center my good friend and UNC suitemate Ronnie built for us.

That rascal looks huge and hulking to me, in all its svelte thinness (when viewed from the side). But it’s sort of a monstrosity, as I consider what it looked like as the delivery guys brought it in, and then as it sat waiting to be unboxed and set up.

The visiting crew from Oklahoma talked us into upgrading to Apple TV for managing our streaming as well. After two Amazon Firesticks that never met expectations, and with which we could never get the audio to sync, this was an overdue reckoning.

While I find it pretty troubling how short might be the lifespan of major electronics, and knowing we might have limped along another year or so or more with our current LG OLED TV, its screen had developed some annoying green line burn-ins and some major green splotching across multiple areas that did not seem to be remediable. Costco happened to have a nice price on this model with a larger screen (83 in) for less than I’d previously shelled out back in 2018 for the departing model (55 in), and a summer special on Costco Direct added mightily to the savings.

I have to say: I would love for this to be the last TV I have to buy, but that’s a ridiculous wish. I definitely can’t imagine thinking any larger than this would ever be needed even in the generous spaces of the mancave. (And yes: it's diagonal measurement lets me pay title tribute to my high school graduation year.) Just having to dispose of all the styrofoam might be a sufficient disincentive!

But the three hours it took once it was plugged in and turned on to properly log in, to load all the apps, to sign in to all the streaming services, to manage Smart connectivity, to go in and out of menu options and settings and aborted configurations, to get booted out of the LG app every time it told me to connect to some other app’s features (and then to have to start all over again)...to have inexplicable “unverified errors” even from the Apple TV set-up...

It was one of those evening’s to regret that I mostly have given up drinking.