Well it's not happening until February, so it's not instant.

I am out of laundry soap. What a shame I can't do laundry today.

I'm so sorry, Betty! Now you're just going to have to grab some bon-bons and spend some quality time couch luge-ing. :D

Dishwashing liquid works just as good.....

Well it only took two trips to Compton, but we have a brand new gigantor TV.

It's puurrdy. 55" LG LED. Perfect size for our room and makes our 40" look like a toy. And it happens to be a 3D tv. We weren't looking for a 3D TV but it was the best deal by far. Passive, so it's not the bulky expensive glasses. And it's go the fakey 2D->3D mode which we just tried with the Kinect Disneyland game...which was surprisingly cool!

The only downside is some glare off the orange wall opposite it. Going to have to consider draping it or painting it a more neutral color.

Enjoy it. Looks like I might be moving up soon. 62" screen doesn't quite fill the space the way it used to ;)

This aspect of Fahrenheit 451 comes ever closer to fruition.

TV size seems to be where I am going to be the old man left behind by the times. We've had it for four years and I still look at our 36" TV from the couch 7 feet away and wonder "Do I really need something that big?"

But when interactive soap operas come along I'm going to splurge for the second wall.

We could have gone 60" for cheaper, but 55" definitely feels like the limit for our room. A 60" wouldn't physically fit well in the room. On top of that, sitting in front of the 55" I can tell that any bigger and I wouldn't be able to watch anything without having to pan-and-scan with my eyes.

So far the biggest benefit can be seen with the xBox. I can actually read all the text from the couch without squinting or scooting forward! I will never understand, however, what manufacturers are thinking with their preset "game" picture modes. Not one TV I've owned that had that setting have video games look any good in it.

I'm off to Fry's today to grab the one extra HDMI cable I need to hook up the new receiver. Nothing fancy, just a 500W Yamaha. Haven't even added any speakers yet, sticking with just our 2 Kenwood floor boxes that do a find job of filling our room. Maybe come birthday time we'll consider adding channels.

I spent a while debating whether I cared whether any of the AV components (TV, blueray, or receiver) was "smart" (i.e., internet connected with streaming apps built in). It felt stupid to get a brand new system that lacked such a forward-looking feature. But with a real computer connected to the TV I just can't see the point in worrying about whether my TV had slow, featureless apps that I can't even use a keyboard to input with. That made shopping much easier since we didn't have to compare any of the connected options between models and in the end we ended up with zero connectivity (actually, I think the BlueRay player can connect for firmware updates).

Which reminds me, can anyone give me some pros and cons of running all my components through the receiver then to the TV vs. running components to the TV and optical audio out from the TV to the receiver? Or a mix (e.g., I've read that some receivers have issues synching game system video, so perhaps I should put the BlueRay, TiVo, and cpu through the receiver but the xbox through the TV)? TOO MANY OPTIONS.

I'm going to stock up on all the cables I need to do any of the possible combinations, just so keep things flexible.