First Large Purchase of 2010

I can hardly believe we purchased a large and somewhat fun and exciting item 2.5 weeks ago (on Jan. 1) and I didn't think to post about it until yesterday.  Large meaning expensive, but also meaning large in size.

Over a year ago my boyfriend started talking about buying a new tv.  He started doing all kinds of research on them.  Talking with friends, reading reviews, learning about the different aspects of tvs in general.  This went on for months and months and months.  Fast forward to about a year later and I was starting to get slightly impatient that will still didn't have a tv!  We were still using the tv I purchased for about $300 when I first moved out of my parents house and into my own apartment nearly ten years ago.  We had a few chats about it and he finally decided what he wanted -- a 50" plasma made by Panasonic.  The thing is BIG.  Also, I love it.

The next thing we needed to decide on, preferably before purchasing the tv, was a tv stand.  We did some shopping online and went to several stores but couldn't really find anything we really loved.  We ended up stopping at Best Buy and finally found something we both liked and in our price range.  So we picked that up at the same time we picked up the tv.

Now, there's actually a little story behind this tv stand.  We read a few reviews on it and one particular review was from a woman who said she and her 72 or 73 year old father put it together in about an hour and a half.  So we figured we could do it in that amount of time or maybe less.  We started putting it together at around 7:40 pm.  Probably around 9 or 9:30 it was all assembled and we were ready to mount it on the pole on the back of the stand.  I was very nervous because the tv was quite heavy and it was a struggle for me to lift it high enough to mount.  I was so afraid of dropping the thing.  Had that happened, I think I would have been killed on the spot.  On the second try we got it up.  I went to the loveseat to admire the new stand with the super huge tv and... kind of cocked my head to the side.  "I think it's crooked," I said timidly.  My boyfriend came over next to me and agreed that it was indeed crooked.  Very crooked.  I wasn't sure I had it in me to move the tv again but it had to be done.  We took it off the mount (oh so carefully) and then proceeded to see if we could figure out why the heck the thing was so off.  We un-did and re-did the approximately 1000 screws with the stupid little allen wrenches.  We used a level at every stage of the process checking out the various different locations to see what wasn't level.  After an hour or two I gave up.  But my boyfriend was still determined.  He kept at it for another while longer but ultimatly decided that whatever was wrong with it was a manfucturing problem.  We eventually removed the tall mounting pole from the back and replaced it with the shorter ron and just placed the tv on the top shelf of the stand instead of mounting it.  It must have been around 2 am when all was said and done and the new tv was safely resting in its new home.  We may eventually mount it on the wall, but for now it is staying put.