Anyhow, just so you know what I'm up against, here is a picture of my living room at this very moment: (clickie to embiggen)
Yes, at least there is a picture on the wall, but lets take a closer look--from left to right. First of all, a couple of milk crates. The bottom one is full of books, the top one is full of toiletries. I have no idea why I haven't moved it to the bathroom yet. Then there is one of my small 3-shelf bookcases, with nothing on it but my humidor and Jack Youngblood-autographed mini Rams helmet (the first thing I unpacked after the booze). Then there is my old 27-inch Sharp TV that I bought ten years ago, sitting on the floor, angled upwards by two Anthony Bourdain paperbacks (notice the digital cable box sitting atop it, too). Lying flat in the corner is my TV stand that I bought back in November, and sitting next to it is my tool kit and yesterday's 5-shelf bookcase purchase. Beyond that, we have my Coleman camp chair and cooler (which I use as a coffee table--in fact I spilled some real live coffee on it two days ago!), and rounding out the unfinished dorm look is a stack of Rubbermaid storage totes, full of books, CDs, and DVDs. What you don't see is more totes against the wall on the right, filled with the same kind of stuff.
I've decided that I need at least one more, if not two, pieces of framed art for the living room, a big clock for the dining room wall, and oh yeah, some furniture. Since I had the day off, I figured I needed to get cracking and start making this place feel more like home. The kitchen is pretty much done, as is the bedroom, but the living room still looks and feels like a storage unit.
So I got up this morning, got dressed, and raided my coffee-can stash of Benjamins. I took a thousand bucks with me and headed off to shop. I hadn't made up my mind yet, although I knew I was either going to buy my new sectional or a new TV.
But here's the thing--as much as I want that sectional I saw at Ashley Furniture last week, it's a regular item and will always be there. But that Sharp Aquos 40" LCD with the full 1080p HD for $749 at Costco was a special one-time offer. I *know* that ain't gonna last. Hell, even Amazon, which usually has the best prices, couldn't compete. (As I write this, today's price for the exact same TV at Amazon is $879).
So the first thing I did was drive over to Costco to see if they had any left. I walked in--gone. Damn. Even the big end-cap display was gone. Talk about a missed opportunity--I really wanted that TV. A quick look around showed that they had a few 42-inchers for about a thousand bucks, but suddenly that didn't seem like such a deal. But as I turned the corner from the main big-screen aisle, I saw where they had another aisle of smaller TVs. At the far end, guess what I saw--Yep, a Sharp Aquos 40-incher! And below the display model, there were still four boxes on the shelf.
Woot!
Now, before I got too excited, I figured that they'd taken it off sale and jacked the price up again, but when I got closer, I saw that the deal got even better. Not only was it still regularly priced at $749, but they had a special this week offering an instant manufacturer's rebate of $50! $699 plus tax, baby!!!
When I saw that, the other shoppers at Costco got an extra bonus--they got to see a fat white guy doing his best Jesse Owens impersonation as I ran back out front to get a flatbed cart.
SOLD!
No way in a hundred years am I gonna beat that deal, so I grabbed it. And here it is, sitting on my dining room table:
After that, I wandered all over the place looking for HDMI cables, but apparently they don't sell those at Costco. If they do, I never found them. But while I was there, I did a little more shopping, and saw that the exact same sectional that I wanted to buy from Ashley for $899 (plus tax and delivery) was for sale there at Costco (with an ottoman, too), for only $729. Unbelievable. I guess I'll be going back in a couple of weeks and getting that, too!
Of course, you can't walk out of Costco and only buy one thing, even if that one thing costs seven hundred bucks. I ended getting a twin-pack of new queen sized pillows for my bed, and at the last minute I did a hat-tip to my late brother-in-law David and grabbed a huge plastic container of Kirkland cashews. When I lived in Nashville, I spent a lot of weekends hanging out with Cyndi and David, and we'd usually end up doing some shopping on Saturday mornings before the college football games got started. And he always bought a big jar of cashews to nibble on, and it seemed like whenever I was at their house, they always had cashews on hand. So bought some and got to relive a nice memory for a few minutes while standing in line at the checkout stand.
Of course, pushing that flatbed around the warehouse, three or four different people stopped me and asked me how much the TV cost, and when I gave them the whole story, every one of them was like Wow, that's an amazing deal. Somehow I doubt there will be any left by the time the store closes tonight.
Since I couldn't find any HDMI cables, I ended up ordering some from Amazon after all--I got three of them for twenty-one cents apiece, but with shipping and handling, it upped the price to not-quite ten bucks. A great deal if you ask me--last night after work, I stopped by the Walmart SuperCenter to buy cold medicine and a few groceries, and I swung by their electronics section to see about picking up a couple of cables just in case. The cheapest price they offered was $32 f*cking dollars, a complete ripoff if I've ever seen one, but that just goes to show, people are willing to pay it, thinking that they're getting a deal over the $100+ cables at Best Buy.
Anyhow, I saved a few bucks, but I won't be enjoying the full-on High Definition experience for a few days yet. Gotta wait for the cables to get shipped.
But at least now I'm properly motivated to get all the furniture put together and all of my books unloaded and organized. And I'm hoping for the phone to ring a couple of times this weekend so I can pick up another shift or two--I want to go back to Costco and pick up that sectional as soon as possible--the camp chair needs to go back out to the patio. Oh, and I'll probably pick up some ribeyes this time--David used to buy those, too.
Mikey
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