TV and family

We finally have a proper TV in the house, which means we're finally using some of our furniture (the TV unit) correctly. For the geeks out there: 40" wisescreen LCD, 720p high definition. Thank goodness for interest free loans! (which is amazing in this country where the interest rate is insane.) Don't worry, we'll have it paid off!

Part of the deal for the TV included an HD DVD recorder, but you have to send away for it so it's not here yet... and the salesman threw in some nice Monster cables and a little George Foreman grill (just what we needed!)

We had an experience getting the TV home - it doesn't look so big in the shop, but in all its carboard-boxed glory, there was no way this thing would fit into the back of the car! However at the same time we were at the back of the shop trying to figure out what we were going to do, someone else was there picking up a washing machine with a rented trailer. He immediately offered to transport it for us. It felt a bit weird loading our brand new TV onto a complete stranger's trailer and hoping he would follow us home without disappearing, but he was true to his word and we had the box home in minutes, followed by a bit more time unpacking, setting up, stashing all the packaging in the attic for when we need to move this thing again, and finally sitting down to dial in the colour from the usual overblown neon colours that make TVs lok so good in the shop next to 50 others.

Unfortunately having a big TV doesn't make the local programming any better. Local free-to-air isn't in high definition until next year, Sky have only just started digital transmission this month, so we'll consider if that's worth paying up for, but most of the channels are more of the same (ie crap), and it's extra for sports or movies or any of the good stuff. I'm sure there's more interesting stuff we coud do with that money each month.

(However, I'm sure there's some motorsport on there that I'm mising out on, such as the V8s from Pukekohe this weekend... I'd get down there, but we're going to see Jenny and Stuart's new house on Sunday. About the only motorsport that does get shown is the A1, not surprisingly Team NZ is doing very well!)

You can also see our new rug in the photo, which was cheap but very nice and fuzzy, feels great underfoot (if you're brave enough to take shoes off and risk the icy cold floorboards, the weather is turning very cold here in the mornings)

On Thursday night I went out to dinner with auntie Gilly and Michael at the home of Tim and Diana Shaw (Tim is Berry's cousin). Very nice people and a great house in Remuera, and Diana put on some great Moroccan food. We dug through some archival photos that Tim's sister had collated in a scrap book, got to catch up on some family history that I'm not too familiar with.

I'll have more family stories after tomorrow.

cheers all!