HISTORY - it gets old.

I guess you could say we gave ourselves a Christmas present, but we've been planning to do this for some time and the specifics came together this week. This is our old TV. It's a 27" that we've had for about eight years, and it makes a high-pitch whistling sound for the first few minutes it's on that has been getting louder and lasting longer over the last few months. We bought it back in MI as an "open box" (returned) item from Best Buy and never had a remote or a manual. But we only paid $200 for it and it has served us well.
This is the replacement, a 42" plasma HDTV. (And yes, it's on ESPN. What did you expect?)
But the best part is the deal we got.
We hate Cox, our cable/internet/phone provider. We pay WAY too much and their customer service is a total headache.

Best Buy and DirectTV are running a deal until Feb. 9th. If you sign up for Direct TV at a Best Buy store and spend at least $499 on a TV you get a $250 Best Buy gift card. You also get all the standard DirectTV sign-up bene's, incl. a lower price for the first year, a free HD-DVR, up to four extra boxes for additional TV's in other rooms and other stuff.

This TV went on sale yesterday for $499. Steve found a site on the net that will buy gift cards, and they'll give us $220 for a $250 gift card. So that $499 TV will really cost us $279. And by dropping Cox cable and our land line (their internet is the only provider available where we live) we'll save about $30 per month in costs AND get more channels AND get HDTV AND a DVR. Pam doesn't yet know that the NFL channel is one of those we'll get with DirectTV, but imagine her excitement when she finds out we'll now get Thursday night games, too!

The DirectTV guy will come sometime Wednesday morning to install everything and I'll call Cox and tell them I have to arrange my sock drawer.

I hate spending money, especially in amounts over $2.50. But even I couldn't pass up this one. That would have been almost irresponsible.

I was sorry to see Singletary get canned. It's not like he had a real football team to work with. And any coach who calls out a prima donna WR gets my vote.

One of the commercial breaks during the NBC Nightly News ran three consecutive Rx drug ads. I wonder if the same pharmaceutical company was behind all three. Either way, that's a lot of $$$.

It's been a long time since I memorized anything, and they say that's a use-it-or-lose-it skill. So I'm going to see how much of the Latin Credo I can learn. We're beginning a sermon series this Sunday I've titled "Credo," which is how I came to look up the Latin text.

Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem,
Factorem ceoli et terrae
Visibilium omnium, et invisibilium.

That's all I've got so far. Wanna join me?