Perfect timing

Dana and I decided on Friday night to enjoy ourselves and get some shopping done and go see a movie. I had accumulated a lot of money in Best Buy gift cards from Christmas and from other means, as well as some cash from my awesome wife’s side of the family congratulating me on graduating from LTU. My wife and I agreed that if we didn’t get a PS3 now we won’t for a long time. We decided to put our TV purchase further into the future as we make sure we can afford other important things we’ll need when we move in the next couple months.

We did some shopping and decided to get the PS3 after the movie so it wouldn’t sit in the cold for hours. We enjoyed a great dinner at Rojo and saw “Up in the Air” at Emagine. It was a good movie but pretty depressing, especially with the state of the economy here in MI.

After the movie, we went straight to Best Buy near the theater. Of course they were sold out. The only Best Buys in the area that had PS3’s in stock were Ohio (which isn’t in the area at all…) and Ann Arbor. We decided to drive to Ann Arbor to get it instead of wait a couple weeks for new shipments. We didn’t have our GPS on us, so we used my phone to get some general directions and luckily we found it.

On our way home, we weren’t sure exactly where we were going, but we had a general idea of what we had to take to get back. I accidentally got off the expressway early, so I had to get back onto it. That added 5 minutes to our drive, but the rest was easy.

When we got home, Dana’s parents were watching TV and we stayed in the living room talking with them as I was holding my new PS3. We were talking to them about the fact we’re going to put off getting a TV for now because we couldn’t afford the one we wanted yet and we didn’t have a lot of room.

I went down into our room to put my PS3 on my desk to get ready to play it on my 23″ monitor I bought recently. When I opened the door, I saw a huge box sitting near our bed. It was basically the same TV Dana and I had wanted to get all along. I was totally stunned when I saw it there.

Dana’s parents got it for us as a late wedding gift. It was totally unexpected. They were silently laughing at us when we were telling them that we were going to find a way to use the PS3 on my monitor. The funny thing about this was that they just got home from a different Best Buy 5 minutes before we walked in the door. Had I not have taken the wrong exit earlier, we would’ve been home at the same time. That little delay allowed them to complete their full surprise, and us getting the PS3 was perfect timing 🙂

Obviously the Dana’s dad and I set it up while the girls watched. We set it on top of my computer desk which has become a massive entertainment desk now (complete with 2 computers, 23″ monitor and now a PS3 and 40″ TV). I had bought an HDMI cable for $30 from Best Buy because I didn’t want to wait, but i instead borrowed one from my bro-in-law to test it out. We watched Wall*E on Blu-ray.

I spent the next day “testing” it out by playing NHL ’10 and confirmed that it kicked ass.

Today, I was looking up an HDMI cable to buy and I saw that I could get a MONSTER cable for 90 bucks, or spend 3.07 for the same thing from another retailer… I really can’t believe that people buy those… Research saves a ton of money guys!

That’s my story. This Christmas week has been a very busy one but probably one of the best weeks in a LOOONG time 🙂

-MC