Avoid these common mistakes when buying a new TV on Black Friday

November 28, 2025November 22, 2025 ~ SA Otey

It can be addictive and expensive. As Black Friday deals are tempting, you have to be careful and cautious of a few things.

First, you buy a new 4K TV, then you have no 4K content. So what do you do? You go buy a 4K Movie Player with a few movies. Then you find out that your audio receiver isn’t 4K compatible with your new player and TV. So you have to buy a new receiver. Oops, your old HDMI cables don’t support Dolby Atmos or DTS-X. Oh yeah, when you have to pull out and re-fish all the wires into the walls because you are a neat freak that doesn’t like to see cables hanging from your mounted TV. Oh yeah, the TV is heavy, get a buddy to help lift it so you don’t herniate a disk.

Is it time to stop owning your media?

September 28, 2025September 29, 2025 ~ SA Otey

For as long as I’ve had money and ears I’ve been purchasing music. I started with cassette tapes in the 80s and moved on to CDs in the 90s followed by iTunes in the 00s. Now I have the AppleOne subscription where I can upload all my CD-rips and enjoy endless tunes connected to Apple Music.

Music (Yes)

I have a disappearing collection of CDs as they have all been put into Apple lossless format. I rarely purchase a physical CD anymore unless I sign up for a Kickstarter campaign and get the artist to sign it.

I purchase soundtracks for my favorite movies and have the physical CD and the auto-rip from Amazon. Once I subscribed to Apple One, and for only $39 a month, my family and I can listen to anything we want with our own playlists.

Books (Maybe)

I’m slowly removing all my physical books from my shelf and replacing them with their digital counterpart. I’ll keep a few on the shelf because I could never part with them. My Grandmother’s study bible and hymnal, my personal bible collection, and a few Star Wars books. But other than that I have everything on my Kindle. Let’s hope Amazon doesn’t close its virtual doors anytime soon.

Movies (No)

I still own many movies, I have VHS, DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K discs. I also own the original non-special edition Star Wars films on Laserdisc (and a Laserdisc player). Physical media is superior because they don’t buffer like streaming services. You get the highest quality picture and sound. They also don’t disappear from the platform every few months.

It’s a neat idea to have all your media in the cloud, it would put those time-life CD infomercials out of business because you can dig in the virtual crates and find all your favorites, all for the easy payment of $9.99 a month.

The Decline of TV Durability: A Look Back

March 20, 2025March 20, 2025 ~ SA Otey

Remember when you would visit your grandparents and they had the huge oak box with a TV in it? You go back to visit 20 years later and the same TV is still playing reruns of Andy Griffith. What happened to those quality-built TVs?

In 20 years I’ve owned a bunch of television sets. Every single one has failed me. You can’t get them repaired because replacing a button costs $500 and a new TV will cost you $550. So just toss it into the landfill and get some new tech.

I bought a $4,000 HDR UHDTV recently and it has been worth every penny of digital currency. If granny were still around, she would probably fuss. She would complain about me sticking my face so close to the screen to see those glorious pixels.