In 2006 or so I bought a house at the top of the real estate market (whereupon it quickly crashed and we enjoyed the wild ride of refinancing and property value swings until we finally unloaded the place at cost - at least it was a really nice neighborhood).
The real estate agents, as a token of their thanks for allowing them to claw back 6% of an outrageously priced house, gave us back some of the money in the form of a $2500 gift card to BestBuy.
Of course, I immediately used it to buy a state of the art Samsung DLP rear projection TV with more inputs than you could shake a stick at including then new HDMI and VGA. I still have that TV, it looks pretty good for 720p and 46" or so, and has a chromecast dongle permanently stuck in its HDMI port to make it useable. It works amazing as an impromptu VGA monitor, and old games console system as well. The cost, with stand, was something like $2400 plus some change and I was left with a few dollars at the end.
I wanted to finish off the gift card so I looked around the store. There, off in the corner was an absolutely massive Sony CRT tv with a yellow sticker on the side. "$1.72". I gasped.
"Is that TV really $1.72?"
"Yup, the future is these DLP or these Plasma TVs, we're getting rid of our CRTs"
Instant purchase, closed out the card, set the delivery dates for both and waited.
A week later two guys showed up "we got two TVs, one of them if fcking heavy, where do we put 'em?"
The DLP went of course into the living room without any fuss, but the Sony...well that was the heavy one. It took two guys, working hard, to move all 39" of it up a flight of stairs into an upper bedroom. It sat in its place until we sold the house and decided to move. That's when I learned what a monster it was.
For absolutely foolhardy reasons, I decided to junk it, so I had to take it to the curb. I tried to lift it. No go. I was like trying to lift Mjolnir or free Excalibur. I had a friend come over. It took us about an hour to move it down that flight of stairs and drag* it on piece of plastic to the curb.
The trash people, even prepped for an unusually heavy pickup, had to make three attempts at it before they could get it. During that time it was at the curb, two cars stopped and tried to pick it up before giving up.
Looking up the specs now, it looks like it was probably somewhere north of 300 lbs (136 kg). I see on Ebay that today it's probably worth around $600-$1000. But damn, if it wouldn't cost that much to move it within the same county. I still have a 24" I'll keep until I'll die for old gaming reasons, but man, that other monster was too big.
A guy at work the other day moved a 72" TV by himself, like it was nothing. There's a reason some tech falls away.
The real estate agents, as a token of their thanks for allowing them to claw back 6% of an outrageously priced house, gave us back some of the money in the form of a $2500 gift card to BestBuy.
Of course, I immediately used it to buy a state of the art Samsung DLP rear projection TV with more inputs than you could shake a stick at including then new HDMI and VGA. I still have that TV, it looks pretty good for 720p and 46" or so, and has a chromecast dongle permanently stuck in its HDMI port to make it useable. It works amazing as an impromptu VGA monitor, and old games console system as well. The cost, with stand, was something like $2400 plus some change and I was left with a few dollars at the end.
I wanted to finish off the gift card so I looked around the store. There, off in the corner was an absolutely massive Sony CRT tv with a yellow sticker on the side. "$1.72". I gasped.
"Is that TV really $1.72?"
"Yup, the future is these DLP or these Plasma TVs, we're getting rid of our CRTs"
Instant purchase, closed out the card, set the delivery dates for both and waited.
A week later two guys showed up "we got two TVs, one of them if fcking heavy, where do we put 'em?"
The DLP went of course into the living room without any fuss, but the Sony...well that was the heavy one. It took two guys, working hard, to move all 39" of it up a flight of stairs into an upper bedroom. It sat in its place until we sold the house and decided to move. That's when I learned what a monster it was.
For absolutely foolhardy reasons, I decided to junk it, so I had to take it to the curb. I tried to lift it. No go. I was like trying to lift Mjolnir or free Excalibur. I had a friend come over. It took us about an hour to move it down that flight of stairs and drag* it on piece of plastic to the curb.
The trash people, even prepped for an unusually heavy pickup, had to make three attempts at it before they could get it. During that time it was at the curb, two cars stopped and tried to pick it up before giving up.
Looking up the specs now, it looks like it was probably somewhere north of 300 lbs (136 kg). I see on Ebay that today it's probably worth around $600-$1000. But damn, if it wouldn't cost that much to move it within the same county. I still have a 24" I'll keep until I'll die for old gaming reasons, but man, that other monster was too big.
A guy at work the other day moved a 72" TV by himself, like it was nothing. There's a reason some tech falls away.