A grandmother is a mother who has a second chance

Friday, November 20, 2009

The way to a man's heart

Last weekend we went to Chicago for a few days to visit with my aunt and my brother. All in all it was a very relaxing and fun weekend. Only one small glitch. The morning of the day we visited my brother he had just installed a 55" LED, LCD tv in his family room. Now, this may not seem like such a big deal. Unless you're married to my dear Ed. When he saw the size of the screen (and yes, Virginia, size does matter) and the nice clear picture, the game was on. On the way back to my aunt's house the next day we had to find a Best Buy (thank you Garmin) to look at the tv's and try to get information on Comcast services because there was no way Ed was waiting until we got back home in 48 hours.

By the time we did get home, Ed was hyperventilating over the whole project. Now, he'll tell you it wasn't THAT big a deal to him and I'm being overly dramatic. If you wish to believe that, it's fine with me.

Currently we have three TVs, 2 PCs, 2 laptops, 2 phone lines. Our services include Direct TV, Tivo, AT&T for phones, Comcast for cable. I know, that's so 20th Century. So we decided to look at the package deals out there. The major focus of our next two days was Comcast vs AT&T U-Verse. Ed was totally in the Comcast camp because of some "less-than-pleasant" experiences we had with AT&T DSL a few years ago. But with Comcast you can't transfer recordings from one room to the other which is a biggie for me. Comcast has On Demand (which AT&T only has a weak version of) and that was big for Ed. I called AT&T, got all the information, and was offered $100 in cold, hard cash if I signed on right then! But we weren't ready just yet. Ed got the scoop from Comcast and then he called AT&T with a few more questions. This time he was offered a $100 VISA card if he signed on immediately.

Finally we did a Ben Franklin balance sheet and listing pros and cons for both - with lovely highlights for the winning entry in each category (yes, we're OCD) and decided on AT&T U-Verse which will be installed in early December. First, it will save us around $100 a month vs the piecemeal system we have now.

And it might prevent Ed from buying that really big tv he wants if we can get a better picture on our itsy bitsy 46" screen!

5 comments:

Mellodee said...

If I live to be 100, I'll never understand most mens' obsession with having the newest, usually costliest, biggest, most complicated technology available and to have it RIGHT NOW! Hell, I still haven't figured out how to work the DVD player we have!! And you know what? That's OK!

Luz said...

Too funny about the Garmin and I can just picture Ed hyperventillating! My nephew who now lives with me recently purchased a 46 inch flat screen because in his words the old 2 year TV wasn't "masculine enough"! IMAGINE! Anyway, his trash become my treasure! ;-) Men!

namaste said...

i really love the way you did your homework before you two made a choice. i think i'll call you for my next major purchase. seriously, sandi. i'm not kidding.

:-)

Sandi said...

Maria - Ed would LOVE that! When he runs out of projects to research for us, he love to do it for others. I'm more of an impulse buyer. He researches until his ears bleed!

Saj said...

We have had AT&T U-verse for about 5 months now, and we LOVE it! I especially love the Total Home DVR-I can watch my recorded shows in my bedroom, and not have to fight my hubby for the living room TV when the game is on! I think you'll be pleased!

(BTW-I'm Catheroo's sister-in-law!)