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I’ve had it less than a day, and I fully understand why so many people are buying HDTVs. I’ve seen it at friends houses and in the store, but I never really worried about getting one until I decided to spend some money and redo my home office. I bought my house a little over four years ago, and the home office was the recipient of all the leftover furniture from my apartment. It’s contents were a 15 year old couch, a 15 year old small entertainment center, a 24 inch Apex TV, my “way too big for it’s own good” computer desk and a huge coffee table.

My poor 11×11 room looked tiny.

Over the last couple of months I decided that I wanted to make that room worthwhile, remove the couch, the computer desk and the coffee table, clean out the closet, etc. When the proper motivation (aka my wonderful girlfriend) kicked me in the butt (wanting to make a space useful for both of us that we like to be in) I started looking at ways to change the room. The couch was definitely going, but I couldn’t figure out how to fit chairs in the room. My girlfriend pointed out that I should just flip flop the room and everything would work out fine.

So I found some recliners at Roomstore that weren’t too expensive, and removed the couch and coffee table. I even broke out a saw (this is highly unusual for me since I don’t do too much with tools) and cut my computer desk down to size for the opposite side of the room. The only problem I had left was what to do about the television. It became clear to me that it was time to get a flat panel HDTV and wall mount it.

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After researching a bunch of different TVs in the 26 or 32 inch range, I decided that the best bang for the buck in my budget was a 32″ Vizio. I headed down to Sam’s Club yesterday and picked up the VX32LHDTV10a. All I can say is that for under $600, I can’t find an LCD to beat it.

The picture clarity is fantastic on the HD channels, great for digital channels and average for the analog channels. In certain circumstances there is a bit of ghosting (mainly I saw it on a tennis match where the player’s dark hair on a dark blue background caused it) and dark, fast-moving, pictures are a little choppy at times. But then again, I’m sensitive to those issues (I’m the type that sees rainbows on a DLP) and for a secondary TV it’s fantastic. It has a ton of fine tuning features (you can even adjust the RGB colors independently if you wish) the sound is good for TV speakers (I prefer it with the “Surround” sound turned off and the Treble and Base pumped up quite a bit). The Red Sox / Yankees game looked fantastic on ESPN2 HD last night.

The only downside I saw is that sometimes HD is TOO clear. For instance, I didn’t need to see the bags under Ann Curry’s eyes this morning on the Today Show, nor did I need to see Brian Brohm’s pores on his closeup on College Football Live on ESPN HD last night. 720p is plenty for a 32″ TV. I honestly can’t tell the difference between 1080 and 720 until I get to the 40″ model line. The pixelation bothers me. Heck I didn’t need to see Jim Belushi in HD either, but I watched for a while because the picture looked to so good.

I can’t speak to the reliability of it yet, since it’s been less than a day. Thankfully Vizio offers in-home service with their 1-year warranty for all TVs over 30 inches. (That was the final selling point over the 26 inch model to me. I figured for $150 more, I got a bigger TV and if something breaks I’m not spending money on shipping.) It’s easy for me to see why Vizio is selling so many TVs lately. Whether I’d go with one for a “main” TV of 40 inches or more, I’m not sure. I’d have to look at the specific model when I’m ready to purchase, I have a suspicion that I’d head over the Samsung’s camp then and pay a little more, but overall I’m very, very pleased with my first HDTV!

1. Healthier Living - Not doing horrible, not doing great.  Enjoyed a hell of a dinner at The Melting Pot on Saturday night with my wonderful girlfriend though.

2. Cleanup - Let the home office reconfiguration begin.  The closet it almost done, the couch was 86′d.  The coffee table goes to Goodwill soon. I’ll likely get rid of my Apex TV for a couple of bucks and I’ll ditch my 15 year old cheap entertainment center at the dump. As for improvements, I’ll be getting a couple of inexpensive recliners, a 26 inch HDTV that I’m going to mount over the office desk, to free up some room.  Basically I’m flip-flopping the room from the way it is not.

3. Website Growth - I had an issue with Alexa not properly ranking my websites, which could lead to a loss in ad revenue. Thankfully I’ve fixed it, and I should be straightened out in another couple of weeks.  Traffic has been slower than I expected, or has it? One set of stats is conflicting the other, but it seems to me that my ad revenue is up on Google, which means I’m getting more relevant ads and visitors like them.  That’s fine with me whether it’s 10 visitors or 10,000.

So I was listening to a bit of Mike & Mike In The Morning on ESPN radio on my way into work today.  I enjoy the show.  Golic returned from a lengthy vacation. When I tuned in, I heard him talking about the Texas Rangers’ record setting (modern era) 30 runs in one ball game.  30 runs is a crazy number, and Golic did his best to compare it to the NFL and NBA.  The Rangers scored 532% above average with their 30 runs. An NFL team would have to put up 130+ in one game to match that percentage above average, and and NBA team would have to score over 600 points.

That puts it in perspective, but I have one issue with that comparison.  Baseball isn’t timed. The NFL and NBA are timed. So it’s physically impossible to put up 600 points in one NBA game, and almost as impossible to put up 130 in an NFL game, although that one seems more possible to me.

So let’s break down the score for the Rangers game but with time included as a factor. (Granted, these comparisons are apples to oranges, but it’s fun anyway.)

The game took 3 hours and 21 minutes. That’s not unreasonable for a “normal” baseball game.  So, the Rangers scored 0.15 runs per minute. Which means under the time constraints of the NBA or NFL, the Rangers would have scored 9 runs. Hardly anything to write home about, unless you consider that the average MLB team would score 1.38 runs in the same time frame.

Looking at the records provides yet another view of the situation.  The Rangers improved upon the previous record by 1 run or 3.44%.  How do the NFL and NBA compare to that?  The Redskins put 72 up on the Giants in 1966. The new record would be 74.47, so I’ll round up to 75 since a whole point is needed. That’s not nearly as drastic as 130+. For the NBA, the Detroit Pistons scored 186 in double overtime.  So for a double overtime game, an NBA team would have to score 193 points to set the equivalent record. That’s far less than Golic’s suggested 600.

1. Healthier Living - Meh. That’s all I have to say right now. 3 weeks before the sweat begins at Doak.

2. Cleanup - I pitched the giant bag of “To Shred.” That felt good. Now I need to get rid of some extra things in the office closet and the hall closets and I’m good to go.

3. Website Growth - August continues to do well. I’m happy to have received a submission from Kate, she always has an interesting take for ScalpEm. Traffic isn’t as high as I thought it would be, but we’ll see how the last couple of weeks finishes up.

Empty Notebook is now proudly running the latest version of Wordpress, 2.2.2.

Whew, I was going through withdrawal.

I thought it would be prudent to repost my post over at the Element Owners Club about the new tires that I purchase for my 2005 Honda Element EX. I ordered from TireRack.com and had them installed at Tire Kingdom. So far I’m impressed with the value that I’m getting with my new Avon Ranger TSE’s.

This is my initial report, I’ll check back at 500 miles, 2500 miles and 5000 miles I’m thinking, and then every 5k after that.

Initial Thoughts:

1. I love that they are blackwall. OWL would look nice, but I don’t want to have to keep it clean, and finding tires that I like for the E that weren’t OWL was tough.

2. The price was worth the shot. Out the door they were under $400 for a 520 treadwear tire. If they’re awful, I’ll change them out for a set of Alenzas or Forteras, but for now I’m happy to try the Ranger’s for $200+ less.

3. The tread pattern is aggressive for a Highway All-Season. Basically I just like how it looks. But the tires have deep channels, and look like they’ll be good in the rain. For the few minutes they were in a heavy downpour they seemed to stick nicely. (Of course my Wranglers had 25k+ on them, and maybe 3/32 left on the tread, so ANYTHING might feel better to me.)

4. They feel a little slushy to me on the response. That could be the difference in the tread depth though. I’ll comment more on that as they break in.

5. Quiet, quiet, quiet! They’ve considerably reduced the road noise that I had with the original Wranglers.

500 miles:

Well, I’m over 600 miles after a long road trip down to St. Petersburg. The tires were fantastic on the interstate, much, much quieter than my old HPs. And, overall, quiet in general.

I really like the grip I get at 36 psi in the front and 38 psi in the back (my preferred psi combo).

In wet conditions I could hardly tell a difference in traction from dry. We’re talking heavy, heavy rain at 45mph and Interstate speeds (70+).

The response is better now that they are broken in more, and I need my alignment adjusted (they over corrected a bit imho and I want it checked again.)

They smooth out a lot of the bumps in the road even at my tire pressures. My “E” is still a bit bouncy, but a lot less Jeep like than with the Wranglers at the same psi combo.

I’m immensely happy with these tires for the price! See ya again at 2500+

1. Healthier Living - So… I’ve been “Getting Back On Track” for a while now. This time I mean it. More fruits and veggies. Good protein, and less crap. Hopefully my eating will stabilize over the next couple of weeks as we head into the fall season.

2. Cleanup - I’ve decided to forget about the shredder for now. I need to just pitch what I have and get back to cleaning out some of the office stuff.

3. Website Growth - August is doing well so far. In fact, I’ve sold ads on ScalpEm.com and here at EmptyNotebook. My hosting fees are officially covered and then some for August. That pleases me to no end. And, I should be getting my first AdSense check from Google next month. I’ve learned a lot about ad revenue over the last year, and while I don’t think that ScalpEm will ever be a huge money-maker, if it pays for itself, that pleases me. My stats have been acting funky on my webhost, but all indications are that August is solid, just like July.

Yes we have to wait another week, but at least we get a deleted scene.