about just getting it over with and replacing the TV

After over 3 years' procrastinating, I scheduled a day to replace my old TV.

The day came, so I left work early and Googled something like, “things to know before buying a new TV.” I spent several minutes skimming a few pages that each listed 9 or 10 factors, like the different screen-lighting technologies, how many and what kinds of ports and jacks you might want, the relevance of frames displayed per second, and so on. None of this was especially helpful. I probably couldn’t tell the difference between an LED, QLED, OLED, or UHD.

But one hint made sense: a good 55” TV will cost around $500.

Okay, so on to Best Buy, where I found a wall of 55” TVs. Only three of them cost about $500. Obviously, no Best Buy employee would go near a customer, so I took the time to Google each model’s specs and a couple reviews until I found a reason to justify picking one TV over the others.

Including research, driving, checking out, and everything, I spent maybe an hour buying an appliance worth over $500—an appliance that I spend significant quantities of time using and want to enjoy almost every day. It was the only way to pull the trigger.

Before I even dragged the box all the way into the house, I realized the TV was too big for my TV stand. I was so focused on the thing itself that I forgot about where it would go, placing time and value before physical space.

A person can get bogged down overthinking these things.

something on "Here at The New Yorker" by Brendan Gill

Here at The New Yorker is a collection of anecdotes about personalities that contributed to and shaped the The New Yorker. The book also includes some short fiction and nonfiction pieces reprinted in full, as well as cartoons and sketches. This is a book you can keep bedside and leaf through leisurely before sleep. All of it is entertaining; some parts are laugh-out-loud funny.

Note: I enjoyed James Thurber's The Years With Ross a little more than Here at The New Yorker.

about "I Wear The Black Hat" by Chuck Klosterman

I Wear the Black Hat bounces around the topic of villainy with a collection of deftly written essays by American writer and essayist Chuck Klosterman. The reading flies by thanks to Klosterman's fresh prose. He's at his best when musing over the finer points of individuals and pop culture references; one of the best passages in I Wear the Black Hat finds Klosterman articulating the nuances of his (and many others') intolerance for the classic rock band The Eagles.

But, unfortunately, Klosterman too easily gives in to the temptation to sound profound, and the result is a handful of hasty generalizations; a prime example from this book is when he attempts to extrapolate a larger cultural lesson from the decline of 1980's flash-in-the-pan comedian Andrew Dice Clay.* This kind of fallacy is pervasive in the pop culture-centric variety of writing commonly found in sources like The New Yorker, Gawker, and Deadspin among others. Nevertheless, I Wear the Black Hat is an overall agreeable read by an astute observer and talented writer.


Notes:
* There have been so, so many Andrew Dice Clays--performers and artists who seem to suddenly appear but then disappear--that putting any single one of them under a microscope should attract a good measure of skepticism. In the case of the "Diceman," maybe interest in him waned simply because he only had one joke.

Something on "The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, & the Network Battle for the Night" by Bill Carter

In the early 1990's, late night television is owned by NBC's staple "The Tonight Show" starring Johnny Carson. But as the much-revered host neared his 30th year, the program's static offerings and rapidly aging audience sent murmurs of discontent through NBC's corporate offices. Carson, for whatever reasons, offered no resistance and abruptly announced his retirement just ahead of his anniversary season. Meanwhile, Jay Leno, with his unmatched work ethic and consistent performance, rose from leader of the new generation of stand-up comedians to frequent guest host of "The Tonight Show". And David Letterman, with wits and an innate and cultivated gift for entertaining, earned his way to hosting a late show that aired after Carson. In The Late Shift, Bill Carter details--and I mean details--the personalities and the drama, decision-making, and the consequences surrounding "The Tonight Show" hosting change of 1992.

Carter seems to respect Leno, but it's Letterman he admires as a talent. Leno comes off as a nice but also very repressed, complicated guy who excels at stand-up and had a pit bull for a manager. Letterman sounds like an under-appreciated star who's also stubborn, fickle, and plagued by self-doubt.

I mostly enjoyed The Late Shift, though the first half is better than the last. This story includes a lot of characters and the audit of who said and thought what can be exhausting.