Our old TV was giving out – it would regularly pick an inopportune moment to shut off automatically, and wouldn't allow itself to be turned back on for a while – so we were in the market for a new TV. The most comparable televisions have 27-inch screens and run from $200-$250. We were about settled on buying a Panasonic from Costco, but hadn't quite done it yet, when we spotted a Fred Meyer ad for a similar Panasonic TV. As it turns out, that television was one model better and $20 cheaper, so we jumped on the deal. It's a few inches bigger than our old TV, but the picture and sound are really good, and we got a great deal, so I'm happy.

The irony is that I watch little television these days. The only shows I watch on a regular basis are The West Wing and Smallville, and those are over until fall. I'm not watching much baseball this summer, and we don't seem to rent many movies... But it's still a useful device, so we need to keep it running, and I'm certainly enjoying the enhanced picture when I do watch a DVD. (We're up to season five of Babylon 5...)

The other irony is that the TV in our bedroom – yes, we have a television in our bedroom, but we don't watch it in bed, so there – is an old 13-inch that I owned way back when I was in high school! That makes it more than twelve years old, and it's still going strong. Now that was a good deal!