Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Movies on the Lawn

I guess Tony'd been thinking about getting a projector thingy for a while, but he hardly ever lets on when he wants something, so it was kind of a surprise to me. So yesterday, we're driving around - I'd suggested we find a B&N so I could get Michel Thomas' Spanish lesson CDs (that's how I learned what Italian I know -- his stuff is great), and he stops off at a Best Buy.

"What for?" I ask.

"Oh, just to look around," he says.

Now, this is unusual in itself as Tony is not really a shopper. Let me repeat that. He's not a shopper. Like many guys, he formulates a plan in his head, goes to the store, spends as little time as possible there, and comes out with just whatever the thing was he wanted to buy. He's bought an entire wardrobe in, like, 5 minutes. I kid you not.

So we wander around Best Buy for a while. I find all kinds of stuff I wouldn't mind getting (I am a shopper, I'm afraid). Then he finally admits what it is he's actually looking for (after he couldn't find it -- they have the projectors hidden in a dark aisle at the back of the store where they were storing a ladder). Pretty pricey at Best Buy and we didn't really find anyone to give us any input (ha, ha, big surprise).

So we leave, me thinking he'll just do some research online or whatnot. We go to the Barnes & Noble over in the Summit Center off of Hurstborne, and I find the Spanish CDs (which I really, really need to start today -- I'm so behind....) Then he spies an Office Depot and we stop in there "just to see what they have."

Well, everything the OD has is w-a-y cheaper than what BB had. Even the screens (you know, the white screen thingies on a stand that you pull down, kinda like what they used to have in classrooms) was 1/2 the price. Tony finds an Optoma projector with great specs for 1/3 the price of a comparable thing at BB. And so we get it. Me, I hem and haw over stuff like that, but when Tony sees what he wants -- bam! Boom! The good news -- besides being so much cheaper at OD, I also already had an Advantage membership, so we should get 10% back in OD gift certificates. Works for me!

So, anyway...we make a pilgrimage...er, stop at Lowe's and get a large canvas dropcloth. Tony gets that all strung up between the pillars of our back porch and Alakazam! We have movies on the lawn! We watched Star Wars: Episode IV (A New Hope). How cool is that? I so wanna have a movies on the lawn party now. The projector is nice and portable at only 4ish pounds. Now we can watch movies anywhere! We still don't have cable, but movies are great. Got lots of DVDs that'll be fun to watch on the "big screen" :-) and a NetFlix membership that maybe we'll use more now.

5 comments:

Kim / POWER OF RUN said...

That sounds like so much fun! (Also quite the impulse purchase!) I never knew such a thing existed. I want one too. A movie party on the lawn could be very fun!

liraelwiddershins said...

That's how Tony shops. Me, my impulse purchases are just little things. :-) It's really cool though. And if you don't go for an HDTV compatible one, you can get one for pretty inexpensive. We'll probably just be replacing our TV with it in the long term -- some people use the screens (which you can hide away pretty easy) or just use a wall, if it is light colored. The projectors are small too, so you can hide 'em pretty easy, unlike big monster TVs! And the movies on the lawn thing is really really fun! (now, if I can just find a way to get rid of all the mosquitoes). You can hook it up to either a DVD player or to a laptop, so it is very portable. I guess the big names are Sharp and InFocus. We got an Optoma, which is a relatively new brand and unheard of -- but the feature set was great and being a non-big-brand made it a little cheaper, I think. I ssoooooo want to have a neighborhood block movie party now!

Erin said...

I want one! That sounds VERY cool. :)

liraelwiddershins said...

It really is cool! We watched Hotel Rwanda last night (Gah, what a tear jerker! But a great movie) in the house on the pull-up screen. Much better picture than our TV and pretty much whatever size you want to watch it! :-) Sometimes, I gotta say, my husband has some good impulse purchases. Of course, he'd say it wasn't an "impulse" purchase...

Pamela Wisniewski said...

Probably a lot cheaper than the flat panel I just bought.