For those wondering what makes us too busy to post on WRN anymore, you might be surprised to find that the answer is actually ‘nothing.’  We’ve just decided to move from half-assed all the way down past completely-assed and into negative-assed.  That’s right, I’ve actually been DELETING posts from WRN …  Ok, not really I’ve actually just been sitting around wasting time.

The truth is that we’ve all been busy with various things (Fulsome trying to keep the company he worked for afloat – failed, Chuckles looking for a new job – succeeded, me trying to pass my classes – succeeded for now) but more importantly we’ve all been completely lazy.  The good thing is, I’m so tired of being lazy that I now have the energy to write a new post.

Over the past week and a half, I watched the first 4 seasons of Lost.  They’re available to stream from ABC’s website for free so it seemed like a decent time waster since my GF left the country to go do her PhD research.  I know you’re probably thinking, “How could a guy who writes on a site about nerd things not already watch Lost.”  The answer I guess would be that in days of yore before I had TiVo, I didn’t really watch any TV during the week.  I usually wasn’t around until late in the evening and all of the shows were generally over before then.

It was during that time that Lost premeired and I missed the first season.  Hearing great things about it, I figured I’d watch the first season on DVD and catch up.  I got busy though and never had the time.  As more time passed there became more and more episodes that I had to see before I would be able to start watching.  By season 4, I figured it was too late and I’d just wait until the show was over and watch it on DVD.

Nearly 2 weeks ago though, I realized that I had a ton of time that I could devote to just powering through all the seasons.  So with about 85 episodes to watch (at about 43 minutes each that’s about 61 hours of TV) I started Episode 0: The Pilot.

I didn’t expect to get through them as fast as I did.  In fact I wasn’t even sure I’d like the show.  Once I started watching it though, it really hooked me.  I’d done a similar thing with Jericho (which was available to watch for free on the internet as well) and it didn’t really hold up too well … even with a truncated season 2 from crappy ratings it was just starting to fizzle out.  Lost didn’t have that problem really.  The show managed to bring something unique to almost every episode.

The way the pieces of the puzzle get revealed over different episodes and the way little items from previous episodes are built upon as the show moves on really made it easy to say ‘Well, no harm in watching just one more episode before bed.’

So at the end I’d been caught up on basically everything that had gone on so far and I have to say that it was definitely worth it.  My brain is exhausted from taking that much in and I’ve developed a healthy dislike for a few of the characters but it’s consistent quality and interesting plot have made it the show I’m probably most interested in watching at this point.

The only other show that is still running that I’d consider in the same league would be BSG and the way the characters have been distorted and altered over season 4 has really hurt the show.  So it’s really weird to have gone from not seeing a single episode to it being a favorite but it managed to happen.

If anyone has the time or the interest and never jumped in, I’d suggest hitting up the episodes on ABC.com, the experience was generally enjoyable (despite their crappy ad system that required a click to continue after it plays).  Now I just have to try to not make my eyes and brain feel like Malcolm McDowell’s character in A Clockwork Orange.  Oh, and do all the classwork and reading I was supposed to do before I started ODing on Lost.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m in the final stages of trying to relocate to Madison, WI. And in that process, I was evaluating how to best move my stuff out there. My first thought was to go with a small U-Haul. After seeing that even the smallest truck would cost me $680 + $340 trailer for car + gas I started looking at other options.

The best option seemed to be ABF Freight which for $850 would leave a trailer parked in front of my apartment which I could load stuff into and then 4 days later would show up at my new apartment. Unfortunately, it was still going to cost me at least $890 to move my stuff (if you need more than 5 feet of space in the trailer, you pay $34 per foot).

The main reason I was against paying $850 to move my current apartment’s contents is that all my stuff I have now is either from college, Ikea, or a hand me down, so I doubt it’s even worth $850. Plus, there is a bunch of stuff that I don’t really even want: like this crappy desk/chair combo I’ve had since the 4th grade, my $300 full size bed that is only comfortable in relation to the floor I was sleeping on before I got it, or the free Ikea couch/day bed thing I got from my friend that is not comfortable as either a couch or a bed. Finally getting rid of these things and forcing myself to buy new stuff that didn’t suck would be like an albatross of my back.

So, the next step was to figure out what exactly I wanted to keep. The list ended up pretty short. Basically the only thing that seemed like I would have a hard time parting with would be my recently acquired massive TV. The best option in this case then, would be to attach a trailer to my car and tow my stuff that way. Trailers are cheap enough ($150 for 4 days and unlimited miles) that it’s theoretically economically viable.

Still, as I did some more number crunching, even if the trailer rental is only $150, I’d need to acquire a new trailer ball and tongue for the hitch ($30), the wiring harness for hooking up the trailer break lights ($50), and spend supposedly twice as much on gas due to the towing of the trailer. Considering that my car regularly gets about mid 20′s MPG when driving I’d assume that with a trailer I’d maybe get 13MPG max with the trailer. Since the trip is about 850 miles, the difference in cost between 25MPG and 13MPG (assuming $3 gas) is over $110. So the total for renting a trailer would actually be $340. Plus, I’m pretty sure you get tolled higher if you’re pulling a trailer (I thought you got tolled per axel) so maybe I’d have another $10-15 in tolls.

Add in the fact that the max recommended speed in my car for pulling a trailer is 55MPH and that I’d be driving the very hilly PA Turnpike for some time, I thought the additional time it would take me (assuming I do go faster than recommended at say 62MPH vs. my regular 75-80MPH highway speed) would take at least an extra 2 hours. Plus, my car says that the max towing weight is actually 1000 lbs and the trailer itself weighs 850 lbs. The TV weighs 100 lbs and that would leave me with a scant 50 lbs for other uses. Plus, I’m not sure they’re considering that the rest of my car would be laden with stuff as well so who knows how bad my gas mileage would really be or how slow my car would actually go (it ony has a 190 HP engine)

Considering all of these things, I decided that my best option would be to actually just sell my glorious dream TV for $300-400 less than I paid for it and just buy it again after I move.

So with those choices, here’s the breakdown in cost:

	Uhaul	ABF	Trailer	Nothing
Value of Moved Goods	$ 2,975	$ 2,975	$ 2,200	$ -
Value of Sold Goods	$ -	$ -	$ 240	$ 2,040
Cost of Rental	$ 680	$ 890	$ 150	$ -
MPG	8	25	13	25
Cost Total Gas (mpg x dist x gas$)	$ 319	$ 102	$ 196	$ 102
Cost Tolls	$ 40	$ 25	$ 40	$ 25
(Value – Cost) TOTAL	$ 1,636	$ 1,983	$ 2,014	$ 1,938

As you can see, there is a slight benefit to driving with a trailer in total value of goods moved, but I have to deal with the hassle of driving a trailer halfway across the country. The ABF is pretty good as well, by eliminating the need to tow anything, it would probably be the best bet if I wanted to keep my stuff.

Basically though, I kind of decided that now was the time to start fresh. Get rid of all that old stuff that gave me an excuse not to upgrade because I’m cheap.

Yesterday then, I listed my precious on craigslist (I’d listed a number of other things as well … but so far the only thing that has sold has been my Dreamcast for a sweet $60). You can see the craigslist entry here. That morning after I posted the entry, I walked into work and started accosting my coworkers and asking them if they were interested in buying a TV. Strangely, one of them said yes.

After pressuring her to firmly commit 100% yes or no she’s now decided she wants it and we’re just trying to figure out how to get the TV over to her apartment. It’s too big to fit in the back of a smaller SUV so it’s an interesting challenge.

Still, her husband has been out of the country for while and now that he’s coming back, they were just going to start trying to find a decent TV to buy. Now I’ve saved them the trouble and even given them a good discount. And I’ll get to go through the joy of buying a TV all over again. Excellent.

fulsome and I have recently been having discussions about him possibly buying a new TV. I’ve obviously got some experience in this department since I’ve bought 2 TV’s in my life (but have spent about half of it researching the purchasing of those 2 TV’s) and fulsome is obviously a cheap bastard.

Living in the SF area, fulsome has been hoping to procure one of those HDTV’s that the rich upper-crust discards like used tissues as new models come out. In this case, it involves sending me pictures of TV’s and asking me what I think about them.

I’m obviously coming from a different place them him when it comes to TV’s but I think we can all agree that we want the most bang for the buck.

So here’s a little bit of a primer about how you want to shop for an HDTV (more…)

Alternate title: Perhaps they should examine each quote before using it in an ad campaign

I didn’t think buying a new TV would really change all that much (besides making my bank account emptier) but over the past week and a half I’ve realized that I’m half wrong.

First, I am now of the opinion that watching non-HD material is painful. I watched a couple movies on my PS2 over the weekend and it was almost too much to bear. While the movies used to look crisp and nice on my old TV, they’re now blurry and ugly on the new television. I don’t know if it’s simply because of the inferior connection I have for it (I have it hooked up via the non-HD S-Video cable) or the fact that I haven’t put time into calibrating it yet but some of these discs just look bad.

I’ve got a plan to rectify this via a PS3 and some Blu-Ray movies but I’m still waiting on my Best Buy gift certificates to come in the mail from my credit card rewards program. Supposedly they mailed out on Valentine’s Day so hopefully they’ll come sometime this week.

Besides that though, there’s the fact that if something is in HD I will consider watching it just because IT’S IN HD. I was kind of sick this past weekend so I was just lounging around on Sunday when I noticed that the Daytona 500 was on.

I’ve never watched an entire racing event (except the one time I went to the Target Grand Prix in Chicago with some free tickets) let alone NASCAR before that. And yet, I sat here watching almost the entire thing. I would switch occasionally between the HD golf on CBS and the HD NHL on NBC but 90% of my time was spent watching the race.

I’d have never even considered watching that race if it weren’t for th HD. The same is true of PBS. I’ve now watched more PBS in the past week and a half than I did in the past 10 years combined. And all because it’s in HD. This stuff is like a drug. A crystal-clear, vibrant drug.

This of course highlights the newfound inadequacy of my non-HD TiVo but hey, we’ll solve that problem eventually. I probably don’t need MORE HD content distracting me from writing updates for the blog right now anyway.