What’s up, Blogosphere?

Got some bears in the news.

Man jailed in India for riding around with a bear on his bicycle:

We’re trying to domesticate them closer to home, too.

The news around me is that I’m all about upgrading this week. I’ve been wanting a widescreen TV for quite a while. Don’t have any pressing need to actually pay for HD cable, I just think it would be more fun to watch movies on one of those things.

Eventually I’d like a 40-42-inch in the main TV-watching room, and a 32-inch in the bedroom. I thought I’d get the 32-inch first…but then we’d wind up only wanting to watch TV in the bedroom, so I think I’ll put it in the big room and then when we get the big TV, move the small TV to the bedroom. Pretty sure a 32-inch widescreen will be better than what we have now.

I’d be all for getting HD cable, but evidently, you need a whole different TiVo for that. I learned this while shopping around for a new TiVo because the $5 garage sale one in the bedroom is dying. And really, there’s no going back. I simply can’t watch The Today Show without the ability to pause and instant replay. Rob’s put on a brave front, but I think he’ll suffer without a constantly rotating assortment of Seinfelds in the queue.

I’ve found a $40 “new in box, barely used” TiVo on Craigslist, so that ought to tide us over. It seemed so silly to pay $100+ for a new standard TV TiVo, only to have to upgrade it in a few years to an HDTiVO.

Very confusing. I think I’ve determined that it’s OK to have an HDTV without HD cable (although not preferred, I understand), but you can’t have HD cable without HD TiVo…so that upgrade will have to happen simultaneously. And expensively.

Right.

Then there’s the cell phone thing. I’m eligible for an upgrade! I don’t even care if my phone has a camera in it, and I’m not going to pay $30 more a month for all that GPS, data, BlackBerry nonsense. But I do rely on my cell phone as my primary line. The home line is for business. Call my house, the answering machine doesn’t even mention my name. I don’t mind. Gets me off the hook for ever having to answer the thing.

Is it tragic that I’m tempted by something called the Pantech Breeze, which was designed with senior citizens and the disabled in mind? Big buttons, big display, easy to navigate, what’s not to like? I think though, that I’ll be going with Motorola RZR2, which if you’ll click through, you’ll see that I will get paid to purchase. $24.99 minus $50 rebate = -$25.01, which of course is +$25.01 in my bank account.

Now, I know I have a lot of readers here, so if this phone sells out, or the deal is no longer available by July 1, when I am eligible for the upgrade, I’m going to be so pissed at all of you.