EM31

Your information is out of date joebabyny. Sad to say but too many people were abusing the Costco "no questions asked any time for any reason" return policy on TV's. People were treating them like rentals and returning them for a full refund after two and three years so Costco changed that policy earlier this year. I think it is now 90 days no questions asked. They will double the manufacturers warranty from one to two years and if you buy with their Amex you can get an extra year added to that without charge. If you bought a TV under the old policy you are grandfathered in on the lifetime deal. Oh, and about this Vizio... I own this Vizio and it is rated fairly highly over at AVSForums. No complaints, the picture is fine and it plays nicely with the XBOX 360. On the other hand these have been the going prices for some time now and prices in general are about to take another big drop. You should be able to get this set cheaper within the next 45 days or alternatively be able to get something a bit better at this price point (Either a Samsung or a Sharp for example).

I realize that this is old news to many of you who have had Slingbox's for a while but I never saw a need until recently to get one. My daughter is at college in Boston and there are certain shows she can get here on long island but not up there (Robin Hood on BBC America) was one. I bought this two weeks ago. It installed in a jiffy and has been working flawlessly ever since. An added bonus is that I can watch TV from any PC on my home network. I have Versizon FIOS so my ISP upload bandwidth is not really constrained. Neat little product the Slingbox AV. The price just went back up at buy.com from $115 back to $139 but they seem to have in on a cycle where it rotates between $139, $125 and $115. Wait a few weeks and it should hit that low price again. One small tip is to configure the QOS (Quality of Service) settings on your router to lower the priority of Slingbox protocol. It does not affect TV quality appreciably but it has the effect of prioritizing your Internet surfing over the TV signal slinging.

TaborJet, Do you use a Logitech Harmony to consolidate your remotes? Although I also have my home theater connected, I only actually it on if we are watching a movie with surround sound or for music.

TaborJet, I am probably going to get one the next time I pick up a set because there will not be an appreciable premium for 1080P BUT.... just like the people who proved that there is zero difference between oxygen-free speaker wire and regular old home depot speaker wire (except the price), there do exist serious questions about the ability of the human eye to be able to tell the difference at a distance that most of us sit from the TV set and/or where the set is less than 65 inches. I do understand that there are more issues of letterboxing of content on sub 1080P resolution sets. Oh, and then there is the issue that remastering old content in 1080P is a bit like remastering old Beatles records or Robert Johnson records for today's high quality audio formats. If the precision is not in the original master then simply churning out a blu-ray copy of Casablanca for example is a pointoless excercise. Or like making a hi-res scan of a crappy JPEG if you prefer. You are not going to put back in what has been left out and in may cases you are simply going to highlight flaws in the original. Now if you personally already have a blu-ray or HD-DVD player then congratulations but you are probably not in the demographic to whom I was primarily aiming my post. In other words you are prepared (and have the wherewithal) to dig deep for the latest and greatest. Of course, if you are already paying for 1080P content, PS3 or High definition DVD, then it would be silly not to have a way to render that 1080P content. The next 5 years at least it is far more important to have good upscaling of SD content IMO. Incidentally Costco has a 42 inch Sharp 1080P LCD for $1499. Now Costco used to have an unlimited return policy no questions asked. You want to bring back you set two years from now? No questions asked. Unfortunately too many people started to use that policy as a de facto rental policy and Costco had to discontinue that one quite recently... Sharp, 42 inch, 1080P and 1500 bucks.... How times have changed. Oh, one other very important point which often gets overlooked. Even by me since I left it out of my original post. Make sure the speakers that come with the set are capable of doing the job. Many times the manufacturer will build a beautiful set from a picture perspective but then toss in a crappy pair of speakers almost as an afterthought. Yes, Yes, I know, you CAN hook it into your home theater system and by all means go ahead and do that very thing but most of the time you are going to be watching Lou Dobbs using the regular old TV speakers. Don't get caught out as I did buying a very nice (at the time) Dell HD plasma only to find out they included truly sh1tty speakers. And so it goes.

This debate could take up the library of congress. Just spend a month one night perusing AVSForums and you will see what I mean... A whole bunch of bigotry and bias on message boards like this one, usually from posters who are attempting support of a personal buying decision that they have already made. I own several competing formats, Plasma, LCD, RPTV and I spent alot of time looking into DLP. If you wait a short while the whole lamp DLP replacement issue will go away with because the newest models are no longer using lamps. If hanging the thing on a wall is not important to you and you watch much of your tv in a room that does not have a lot of ambient light then DLP probably has the best bang for the buck right now. However, here are some "rules of thumb" that apply no matter what type of set you are looking at... Never buy the newest and the best of anything because, like buying the highest rated CPU from Intel or AMD. It will be half the price in six months and it was only marginally better than the last kingof the hill. You are paying a hefty premium for bragging rights that will last about three months. Anyone who argues about LCD Vs. Plasma Vs. anything else for that matter by talking about "the long term" is seriously full of sh1t. I would be very surprised if ANY of the current set of technologies, LCD, Plasma, DLP or Projection will be the dominant player in ten years. There are better technologies already in the pipeline. My personal bet is on OLED technology but there are several others out there which blow away what we have available right now. One rule of thumb might be to try and get the best bargain you can ON LAST Year's top-of-the-line set. The chances are that a prudent buyer can get last year's $3000 set for $1500 within a year if they shop at the right places. My personal preference is for a premium brand such as Samsung or even <wince> a sharp LCD but only once the price cutting on that model has begun in ernest. Do not believe your own eyes if you are relying on viewing side-by-side setups in places like best buy. It is a piece of cake and one of the oldest tricks in the book to screw with the signal on one TV so that you can be steered towards another set where the floor salesperson is going to make a bigger commission. Once again, AVSForums are your friend. Do the research once you have narrowed your choices. Go check out Best Buy by all means if you want to inspect the cabinetry or overall quality of the unit. Just do not rely on the picture quality you see. Basically forget about 1080P as being important unless you are buying an LCD and are planning to play a lot of FPS games. If you are then by all means get 1080P with a very low latency. 1080P is already becoming mainstream, the price will come down significantly in the next six months but you should look at that as presenting some really excellent buying opportuinities for lower native screen resolutions. For most sets even with a true 1080p source it is impossible to tell the difference from a normal living room viewing distance. There is a 50 inch Samsung plasma on sale right now at costco.com for example which is an excellent value at $1500. Nobody is broadcating ANYTHING in 1080P. Let me repeat NOBODY IS BROADCASTING ANYTHING IN 1080P!!! Don't talk to me about how there are plans to have things changed over in three years, or five years, or whenever. Broadcast spectrum is cash money to the broadcasters who currently own it. Nobody is going to voluntarily give it back show fewer higher quality channels. Your TV will die of old age before you see any significant market penetration for 1080P HD broadcast signals. Far more important than a 1080P capable native resolution is the quality of the hardware and firmware, and the ability of the TV to show lower resoulution non HD signals and make them look halfway decent. Most LCD's and Plasmas do a horrible job showing SD content. Even some "premium brand" sets. In other words HD looks great but 90% of what you watch on TV looks like crap. To recap. Get the best bargain NOW because all TV's are going to drop in value like a stone anyway. Have a resonable expectation that the set will last you exactly as long as the warranty because fixing it will be like fixing a VCR. It will cost $150 to fix a $50 VCR. A reasonable guess might be to expect from 5-10 years service from your TV.

If this proposed rule change goes through, can Chad's Sword-thrust-point-to-the-endzone-karate-chop pose be very far behind one wonders? Perhaps towel waving should similarly come under the microscope? effin' stupid

Sure, but I doubt there are any admins or mods over here who labor under the impression that being and admin or mod confers and extra two inches onto their dick size. I am not necessarily sure that the same can be said of the mods over at TGG in all cases. Of course there is probably a correllation between the set of mods who hold this belief and the set for whom it would represent a 100% increase over their natural erm "giftedness". Did we get to the subject of IQ's yet? Or tolerance for differing opinions?

Maybe this is like the whole Mormon thing where young people in the church go forth for a couple of years to preach the word. I get the sense that if TGG comes up in almost any context here that GreenMachine is going to be right there ready to dive in and toe the party line, preachin' the word doncha know.

There would need to be a truly exceptional alignment of events in order for the Dolphins to cease being a joke in the AFC east.

Any player in the league is one play away from an injury retirement. There do not exist any guarantees looking forward even with a bonafide superstar who is established at the NFL level. Even without injury, players get old fast at the running back position. Mileage is ALWAYS a factor. The salary cap is a zero sum game. Any dollars allocated to one position/player are, by definition, dollars that are no longer available to be allocated to another position/player. As a GM, you are always robbing Peter to pay Paul. (Unless you are negotiating with the Redskins in which case you are always robbing Daniel). Screwing another team to the wall in trade negotiations is part of being a good GM. So is walking away from a deal if the terms of the deal are not good enough. Refusing to entertain or even listen to offers for ANYONE ON YOUR FRANCHISE are, for a GM, grounds to be fired FOR INCOMPETENCE. I think you need to reexamine some of the positions you have taken here.

Well they are back now. Perhaps just an errant link. Now I can see the local reaction to the "Culpepper may be cut" rumor... in Saban we trust !!!

At that price perhaps she was providing a "loving environment" for more than the children

Nine years in the NFL already is a lot of mileage for a MLB. Whoever the buyer is needs to kick the tires very thoroughly on this one. On the other hand if there is useful tread left on the tires Al Wilson could really help to solidify a defense. Especially a young defense. I guess it all depends on the price.

It looks like they have decided to go private. You need to sign up to be able to read. Well good luck to them. I always enjoyed going over there to see what was abuzz in Dolphins land but never felt the need to sign up. Once a board goes private that is like cutting off their future oxygen supply. Very little walk in traffic is death in message board land. Once again, good luck to them.

Teams that have inadequate depth such as ourselves, need to turn over rocks and look wherever they can to try and get some depth quickly. Someone scan the waiver wire, someone else hop on a plane to Australia and yet someone else again go look at former high draft picks who were bust for one reason or another. After all we all remember the movie "the Replacements"...... "Clifford Franklin is a one man cold girl... Clifford Franklin is the only one catching it.... Clifford Franklin is the only one coming down with it..." While it is true that somebody can and does win the lottery, it is pretty much always somebody else. We are Jets fans and those things do not happen to our team as a general rule. So nobody should be getting their dicks hard over any of these long shots.

As I said JoeWillie I am not totally down on the move. I really think that Jones and Houston will give us a nice meat tenderizer one-two punch and Washington will fall nicely into the Dave Megget role here. Any semblence of a running game will make Chad much more effective inside the twenties which is where many of our drives stalled last year. My gut feel is that people will be surprized at split in carries between Jones and Houston though. I think that many people see Houston getting next to zero carries in 2007 and I see him coming in whenever we need two yards or less anywhere on the field. I see him staying in if he is effective. All in all a substantial upgrade over Blaylowlock.

The Drew Brees deal only the backup in this case is not a top-5 draft choice as Phillip Rivers is and the player to be traded is not coming off a serious injury as Drew Brees was. As much as they hate to do it I think that the Chargers are going to have to pay LT. Unless someone offers Hershel Walker type compensation. In that case you listen. Of course you listen.

Seven million guaranteed? That does not seem too over the top from the guys who is going to be your starter next year. If he bombs totally you have blown seven million. If not then both sides get to enjoy the fruits of being successful. He is your starter you have to pay him like you expect him to be a starting quality NFL quarterback I would think. This deal does not seem over the top. Both sides are taking risks.

And in the interests of balance I wouild point out that we got a running back who is now coming to his 4th NFL team in eight years. For one reason or another, he is a player whom none of his previous three teams knocked themselves out to keep on their roster. Two of those teams are the Cardinals and the Bucs. He has 1000 yards only twice in his eight year career. He has achieved this on a team playing in a historically weak conference and which has a totally dominant defense to help the offense out. We also purchased Thomas Jones at the absolute peak of the market given that he was coming off a superbowl team and at a point in time when the league is awash in unused cap dollars. Can anyone name me any player at any positon that performed at an all pro level once he got to his 4th team? What are we expecting from him? Mid-pack NFL? Top-10 NFL? <edited to add> I am not totally down on this guy but I think we need to temper our expectations to a point of reasonableness

Alex going out there on a limb much? In other news, Alex reports that it could be hot or cold tomorrow depending on the weather.

It is not like picking red at a roulette table. It is more like picking "not zero" at a roulette table

Maybe the old PM is actually a frame up job on Smizzy.... I never got invited here at all. I must be an interloper of sorts. Perhaps the site just went mainstream and they let any old trash in here. If that is the case, how long until we have a pay for play section I wonder? So what ever happened to this TomShane fellow? I see him at 'tother place and if he was one of insurgents who originally founded this place then I can only assume there is some localized dirty laundry as yet undiscovered by us newcomers.

I am having this vision of a kind of continuous fortune cookie that is perpetually extruded from a machine somewhere. The makers of such a machine of course would need to fill their fortune cookies up with a more of less continuous flow of "words of wisdom" from somewhere. Where better to go that the perpetual extruder of folksy asides that do not actually parse properly than our own (scratch that) THE CHIEFS own Herman Edwards. It isn't who has the Skeeyull men... it is who has the Weeyull ! Did you know it is possible to caress your own erogenous zones with an interview microphone?

Here I am thinking this is going to be a tossup between Wesley Walker and Al Toon... At least from those who I have seen play and with all due respect to Jets fans from an earlier era of course. Wow, it seems that Al wasn't the only one who must have had a head injury or two. Big miss for the pollster here on this one.

This time last year people were issuing stone cold guarantees that Chad Pennington would never play another meaningful down in the NFL. Ever. These people were doing this with without any medical background to begin with and certainly without any direct knowledge of Pennington's specific injuries. If Schlegel ends up being even one scintilla better than the worst linebacker ever to dress in the NFL, a lot of the folks around here are going to look awfully stupid. The grade on Schlegel is clearly an "incomplete" as it stands right now. "Incomplete" because nobody has seen enough to be able to form a proper opinion unless that poster is a member of the Jets coaching staff. Nobody is in a position to infer anything or draw any conclusions from the small amount of time he saw in his rookie cvampaign. Mangold (and the Jets) lucked into significant playing time because of injuries ahead of him. Brick was the number four overall pick and had a vacuum ahead of him on the depth chart. You would expect him to play. Clemens saw next to no playing time. We were not involved in enough blowouts.