DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

So you’ve decided to buy a plasma TV. You’ve even decided what model to buy. And you’ve decided to buy it online, because the model you want isn’t sold locally and even if it were, you’re allergic to the hair gel all the salespeople at the appliance store wear.

Where do you begin? At shopper.com, home of a thousand etailers you’ve never heard of. Thankfully, an arbitrary ratings system helps inform you whom to trust.

What do the stars mean? You have no idea! You’re not buying stars — you’re buying a television. You thought that was clear.

You watch the prices for a few days. Suddenly they drop $200. You are pleasantly surprised and suddenly motivated. You spring into action: you call the three stores with the lowest prices. The voice mail system for all three stores sounds the same. The accents are straight out of the Sopranos.

You check addresses. They’re all in Brooklyn. You have visions of buying a television in an alley behind a butcher shop from a guy named Joey. But hey, this is mail order. So long as there isn’t any blood on the packaging, you’d just as soon save the $200.

So you connect to a salesman. You wonder if he’s wearing hair gel. You think perhaps it’s a good thing videophones aren’t in common use.

You give Joey your credit card number and you wonder if he’ll be on the next plane to Greece. You think, if so, at least you’ll get a good journal story out of it. Besides, your credit card is insured against fraud… right?

You order the TV stand separately because you figure your wife will get tired of holding the thing vertical during the year’s 9th viewing of the Matrix, especially when you’ve just made popcorn. But you realize that Joey’s asking $200 more for the stand than the manufacturer does, and you go “Hmmmm…” You begin to get an idea of how the store can afford to beat every other vendor by $350.

So you call him on it. You tell him you can get the exact same stand, shipped, off of Ebay for less than retail. And you think, you’re sure glad you haven’t yet told him where you live.

Joey says, “I can match that.” You are again surprised.

You ask about shipping. You then realize that the same guy who calculated the markup on TV stands calculated the markup on shipping. You ask for another deal. And you get it, and you’re real surprised.

So you wait a week, and just about the time you’re wondering if Joey will send a postcard from Santorini, a big-assed delivery truck rumbles down the driveway and a guy whose name is probably Tony leans out and says “Hey! You order a TV?”

And you think, if you get any more surprised you’re going to have to shave off your eyebrows.

The best thing is, you got a journal story out of it anyway.

Our PV installer sent a 7-month followup analysis, comparing actual production and consumption to projected, month by month. It boils down to two interesting numbers:

PG&E account balance: $4.51 in credit
PG&E bills we didn’t have to pay: $470.57

As electricity rates continue to rise, the second number above will grow quickly. If rates were to stay the same, it would take us about 15 more years to pay for the PV system, but a more honest prediction (accounting for rate increases) puts the breakeven date at January, 2015 — 11 years from our launch date, assuming an average usage of $70/month (2004 equivalent) and 6% per year cost increase.

In fact, juggling these numbers is about as interesting as watching the interest accrue on my savings account. Here’s a number that I’d rather see:

lbs. of CO₂ saved, to date: = 5378

SF Chronicle photographer Darryl Bush captures the dire side-effects of Western medical malpractice in this stunning image: the patient’s head has grown to twice its normal size!

[Photo removed at the request of the photographer; see the original here.]

After monitoring the plasma television market for 18 months, we saw the price drop we were waiting for. Your local appliance chain might have you believe a name-brand 42'' plasma TV costs $3300, but you can find significantly better prices online. With all the money you save, you can treat your local appliance-chain TV salesman to a nice dinner in hopes he gets over his apoplexy.

Yes, he will spin you some disturbing tales about off-market goods, poor warranties, and disreputable dealers. I had one salesman try to talk me out of a specific model with a claim that it emits unsafe levels of radiation.

Here is a sample cost comparison, demonstrating the advantages of buying consumer electronics online:

I was briefly tempted by a floor demo from Magnolia Hi-Fi (a regional chain). The store was asking $2500 for a 42'' Samsung. The only real drawback is that it had been in use, 12 hours/day, 7 days/week for at least three months, enduring button-pushing and tire-kicking from sticky-fingered home theater tourists along the way. As a percentage of a plasma TV’s lifetime, these 1100 hours of use are not significant, but on the other hand those floor-demo hours are equivalent to seven years’ worth of my projected usage (i.e. roughly 1.5 movies per week).

Our selection criteria seemed simple enough:

• 42'' screen
• EDTV, not HDTV — we’ll use it only for DVDs and old videotapes
• no built-in speakers
• no gray-market products or mystery brands

Numerous investigative forays into google led me to the Panasonic TH-42PWD6UY. It met all our criteria. It benefits from several positive reviews (1, 2) which for all I know were written by the Panasonic marketing department — that’s one of the risks of doing research online. A website that appears to be authoritative might be run by a shill. Then again, the same thing could be said of the sales staff at your local big-box retailer. I also found a review for the TH-42PA20U, which uses the same plasma module, at CNET.

The TH-42PWD6UY is sold as a “commercial” unit, intended for office rather than home use. It’s really a monitor rather than a television. It costs hundreds less than the home unit, because of numerous differences, all of which were acceptable if not favorable for our application.

• The commercial unit has no in-home warranty; Panasonic intends its business customers to bring these plasma displays to an authorized service center for repair. Third-party warranties can cover this deficiency.
• The commercial unit has no (NTSC) television tuner. Our VCR does, though, so this seemed irrelevant, especially given that our next scheduled television usage is on 10 February 2006 (the Winter Olympics in Turin).
• The commercial unit does not include a stand, although it can be purchased separately, as can the wall-mount kit.
• The commercial unit has a more basic remote-control. Presumably this is because there’s no need to control the missing TV tuner and internal speakers. Third-party universal remotes seem to provide a superior solution anyway.
• The commercial version has different input bays. I thought this would be a problem, but it’s not: this plasma unit has enough inputs for a DVD player, a VCR, and a computer. Also, this display has an expansion slot, to enable additional inputs (e.g. DVI).
• The commercial version is rated Class A by the FCC because it emits a higher level of electromagnetic interference than does the home model (Class B). This is the characteristic misunderstood by the salesman who wanted to sell me a $4000 plasma, for my health. I’ll write more about EMI in a future update.
• The commercial unit has no built-in speakers. I find this to be an advantage; built-in TV speakers are likely to be inferior in size and quality to any stand-alone stereo, even the cheesy sub/sat “multimedia” system that’s holding a place for my next home-theater upgrade, a six-figure, all-tube, 7.1 fiberoptic digital high-current speaker extravaganza that’s mixed in “Dubly.”

Our current television is a 20'' tube, purchased in 1995 for about $300. I’d wager we’ve spent less on televisions over the years than anybody we know. But we’ve made up for that now…

When I came home from rehearsal Wednesday night, I noticed a slightly funky smell in the kitchen. I couldn’t find any obvious explanation; the smell seemed to hang in the middle of the room without having actually come from anywhere.

Thursday afternoon the indoor temperature hit 90°, hot enough to melt the fatbucket. The heat must have advanced the mystery decay; by Thursday night the odor had aquired an unpleasant piquancy: an edge of sewer scent to accompany the rottenness. I began to search, nose first.

I sniffed under the sink (dank vinyl floor scrap, cleaning products in plastic bottles). I sniffed the refrigerator (fresh produce). I sniffed the baking cabinet (dusty grains). I sniffed the tea and spice cabinet (a wild mix of dried, crushed plant parts). Desperate, I started to sniff the silverware drawer when I realized what the source of the bad smell must be.

Oh yeah! That pan of discarded sourdough starter that’s been sitting on the counter for 30 days! Gah.