Technology strikes again

I am married to a nerd. ?I don’t feel bad calling him out on the interwebz because he is fully aware of his nerdyness. ?As a child the trusty husband would take computers apart for fun. ?Ask the trusty MIL about the time he did something to their computer during mid-terms during her masters coursework and she had to wake him up to fix it. ?No technological upgrade in our house comes without a price. ?It has been well documented on various blogs (here, here, here and here). ?I may pay the price for all of this work, but in the end it is pretty cool. ?My computer is custom built and our TV set-up is da bomb. ?It does come with written instructions for all babysitters, but it’s all good. ?I can stream Netflix, Hulu and LastFM from my computer to the TV. ?I have a DVR, Wii and Xbox. ?There are benefits to having a nerdy husband.

Last week the trusty husband finally received a bonus from work. ?It has been a very long time since he’s received a bonus or a merit increase (thankyouverymuch a-hole ex-president). ?My husband works his ass off. ?He never fully takes a vacation. ?He is forever checking his email on his phone and does it all with such grace it is amazing. ?So when he found out he was going to get this bonus he said he was going to buy himself a new TV. ?He is horribly jealous of anyone who has a flat screen TV. ?I was ok with the purchase. ?It wasn’t my money to spend so why not.

Let’ take a moment to also note that along with the nerdyness, my husband is a cheap Swede. ?This isn’t derogatory, just a fact of life.

Here’s where buying a TV gets painful.

Our entertainment center was not large enough to hold a new 42″ television thus requiring the purchase of a new entertainment center. ?Trusty husband looks online and finds what he thinks will work. ?Being the cheap Swede that he is cheap Swedish furniture is an excellent compromise. ?Last Thursday we head north to the big blue building where you get to keep your pants on*. ?When seeing the new entertainment center in person I hemmed and hawed over it. ?I wasn’t sure. ?I caved, but made a few add-on adjustments like drawers and doors. ?Read: I spent more money. ?We walked out having spent more money than he was originally anticipating. ? He pretty much had a panic attack the rest of the night.

By Friday he had recovered because that was TV buying day. ?In addition to the TV he also purchased a blueray player. ?I spent the afternoon at the church preparing for a fundraiser dinner that was Saturday night. ?When I got home the trusty husband had assembled the entertainment center and I had to do the adjoining book case. ?No prob. ?I’m pro at IKEA furniture. ?I slap together the book case and drawers. ?We go to put on the doors, but have to move the drawer hardware up because I had it in the wrong spot. ?Then we went to put in the drawers. ?They didn’t fit. A 20 minute discussion argument over doors and drawers ensued. ?Screw it and move on. ?I just want to watch TV. ?The Canada vs. Slovakia hockey game was on and I was missing it.

We get the TV mounted in the cabinet. ?(It is slightly crooked, but we are trying to ignore that for the time being) ?We start putting other stuff into the cabinet. ?Blueray player, check. ?Xbox… feck. ?It doesn’t fit into the spot we wanted it to go. ?Try the cable box in that spot. ?Nope. ?Does the stereo (which pretty much controls all of the sound for all of this stuff) fit? ?Nope. ?Danger! Danger! ?Elle is over tired, sore from standing all day and missing a very important hockey game. ?I gave up and went to bed.

Where we stand at the moment is more cables had to be purchased. ?The trusty husband also has to purchase a USB hub because apparently I either sold our extra one in a garage sale or it was in a box that went to the Goodwill. ?How was I supposed to know we’d need that? ?We had to move the stereo to the book case and cut a hole in the back so the cables will come out. ?He has to extend all of the speaker wire because it won’t reach the stereo. ?We have to return the doors we purchased for the cabinet and purchase two more drawers and to run the whole shebang we still need a PhD.

Basically, purchasing a new TV was a complete disaster with the exception that the picture is utterly amazing. ?We keep putting DVDs in the player just to see the difference. ?The new Star Trek in high def on a blueray player is almost as good as in the theater. ?Now if we only had surround sound**…

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*Years ago there was a radio commercial for IKEA and they were giving directions. ?They were it’s the big blue building where you get to keep your pants on, not the big white building where you have to take your pants off (the neighboring hospital)

**When we had our house re-roofed last fall all of the banging around loosened the surround sound speakers from the housings and one fell out and was hanging by the wires. ?I didn’t want to leave it like that so I pulled it down. ?When I did that I broke a connector so we also need new surround sound speakers.