On Saturday we visited Fry's Electronics to geek out. While there I checked out large screen TVs and believe that Fry's (and likely Best Buy, Circuit City as well) are doing a terrible job selling $2000-$8000 sets. What is wrong?

• The TVs are not connected via DVI. According to the salesperson it is too expensive for them to hook up all DVI enabled sets to a DVI source. So instead they hook up the sets with component cables which gives a much poorer picture.
• The TVs are not connected to a variety of input sources. The TVs are only connected via component to a shared HD source. While people will watch HD content on their new TVs it is likely that they will also be viewing a standard NTSC signal. Why not enable them to compare how the different signals look on a set?
• The TVs are not positioned for the optimal viewing distance. At both Frys and Best Buy they pack the TVs in really tight meaning that for the vast majority of the sets the furtherest you can get away from the set is 6' while optimal viewing range for these sets is in the 8'-15' range. These TVs are not meant to be viewed close up.
• Can't compare similar sets. Their TVs are dispersed around the showroom floor in a seemingly random pattern. If I'm looking at DLPs then put all the DLPs together. Likewise group the LCD projectors together too. Make it easy for me to compare the Samsung HLN to the HLP or the Samsung DLP's to the Optoma DLP's.
• The TVs are not calibrated. Most likely someone has picked up the remote and messed with the settings so there is no way to know if the picture quality you are seeing is the best that it can be. They should calibrate all the sets using the same mechanism and ensure those settings stick.

3:13:35 PM   []

We could really talk now, even exchange emails at the end of the conversation. Because now it was clear neither of us wanted to sleep with the other.

This is the dismal magic of the Straight Sign. It's a way of saying, "Dude, I'm not gay. I'm not putting the moves on you."

1:01:20 PM   []

Last Thursday we rode home from work. Since bikes aren't allowed on the 520 bridge we have to bike around the top of Lake Washington; it's about a 50km trip! Of course what made it worthwhile was that we stopped in the U-District for fish tacos. We couldn't fill up though since we still had to bike up 'the Hill'. Sometimes I hate living on a hill!

Friday, was, well, a regular Friday night :).

Saturday we went to Bite of Seattle, which is a food festival. We primarily ate atKathy Casey's Alley. She's a food critic and 'selected' a number of fine restaurants where you get a sampling from each for $8. At the rest of the other food stands the portions where much larger which made it difficult to sample. It'd be great if they had more alleys enabling you to sample a number of dishes for a low price.

After recovering from all the food we went biking down in Renton. Biking proved to be an absolute disaster; I was just completely uncoordinated and had an awful time. Then we geeked out and went to Fry's Electronics. Don't judge them by their website. The place really is amazing! It's like an Ikea/Costco for electronics and has absolutely everything. Though they do an awful job of selling expensive TVs; I'll blog about that tomorrow. After Fry's we went to Ikea to return Ming's lamp which was dead on arrival. For the last two months he has been pestering everyone with a car to help him return it so I'm glad to see it finally returned.

Of course all this took forever and we missed Dan's poker game. John and I then went to our local pub with great burgers, Six Arms, for a late dinner and once the food arrived we did not say a word until it was done. We then were joined by Ben, Bria, Alex and Katrina and played cards and Hustler rules Scrabble (10 points for every word that could appear in Hustler). Ben, Ming and I proceeded to close the night out at Chapel.

Sunday we woke up late (realize that we never start planning anything before noon) and tried to organize a hike. Needless to say we did not make it to the trailhead until 4pm. Short story, we thought we were hiking 6 miles but we ended up hiking over 12 miles! Better yet, it only took us 4 hours. Here is Ming's version (yeah, I'm now too lazy to write my own blog copy):

The book said it was 5 miles. Easy. So after driving for a hour, we started on the hike at about 4 pm. We didn't bring the trail book with us since we were in a state park, and there were maps. But we need a refresher course on careful reading (both the book, and maps), since we eventually ended up on a logging road to a lake (that was less than spectacular once we got there), and the 5 mile hike turned into a 12 mile trek. Needless to say, we were quite spent once we got back. But the sausages we cooked up on the barbeque at Cormie's at 10:30 at night was satisfying, to say the least.

Tonight, John and I had a hockey game in Everett which is the furthest away rink. Despite out shooting the other team 42 to 20 we lost! So frustrating.

And now, I must sleep as the weekend is finally over.
12:58:54 AM   []