Caveman Discount

When you´re somewhat un-well-off in the digital age, it´s easy to get left behind really fast. 

Eventually, I always seem to catch up. For instance, 7 years after everyone was raving about DVD, I was still buying VHS tapes from bargain bins at .99 cents a piece. There wasn´t any title I couldn´t get at a steal because the VCR was becoming defunct.  

Now I´ve got a DVD player...but I´ve also got a thousand cartons of VHS tapes taking up space in my closets while their data slowly disintegrates. =P Ahh well..   In the nineties when you got left behind, you had about five years to catch up before the next great innovation came along. In the year 2008, however, it takes about a month to be considered supremely out of the loop. I´m resisting the urge to poke fun again at iPhone owners who had to wait a year for 3G...  

...Or every iPod owner on the planet whose holding a device the size of a credit card and peering enviously over at the person with one the size of a tic tac. Hahaha..  

I saw a commercial the other day that made me think. If you haven´t seen it, it´s the one that makes fun of our great grandparents who used to sit us on their laps and say things like, "In MY days, we had to walk TEN miles everyday, in the snow, wearing holey sandals made of bamboo to get to school!"

If you were blessed, you had a relative like this in your life. It was the same amazing person who shaped who you were by telling you amazing tall tales about history and myth...the one who used to leave you mystified by pulling quarters out of your ears..the one who used to let you play with his false teeth when no one was looking...Who winked your way knowingly but said nothing when you knocked down great grandma Sarah´s favorite porcelain vase and blamed the dog.  

Except in this commercial, the old farts were ...our age??  EEEK! And they were saying things like, "In MY days we got our TV from a dish! WE had to walk 5 miles to a video store to get OUR DVDS....WE had to actually WAIT to download information..."

"Buffering...buffering...BUFFERING..!!"  

Here´s the depressing part.  I have yet to subscribe to cable or own a dish, and I can´t even afford a Verizon landline.  So if these are my ancestors..then the following would make me...prehistoric in this day and age?!  I can just see me on some evolutionary school chart, hairy and hunched over, somewhere between a monkey and a no fault insurance lawyer.  Hahah  

I'm late with this info, but not too late to be of some aid to a fellow cave person. Most of you know you'll be losing your analog television signal if you haven't got cable by February of 2009. The only way we'll be able to watch those sickening reruns of "Friends", etc on channels 2 thru 13 will be if you have something called a converter box. If you're PO-ed and wondering why YOU should have to pay for a change your government is thrusting upon you, then the coupon at the following link is for you:

https://www.dtv2009.gov/

What you may not know about converter boxes is that there are A LOT of them out there and all of them are NOT created equal. So, take my advice which is the result of over a week of research: Once you have your coupons, look for the Tivax brand unit. It's one of four machines out of dozens that have been rated by consumerreports.org AND private bloggers alike to have any functionality at all.

That's right, over a hundred of these things (including ones made by brand name makers we've always counted on like Zenith) won't give you picture and sound that meet current standards, let alone digital ones. Pick the Tivax because it's the only one that has function AND frill (perks like on-screen menu and a unit design tailored to ease of operation) The other three sacrifice one for the other. I'm about to tell you how to give yourself an 80 dollar discount on top of the one your 2 converter coupons will give you...

Consumer reports will direct you to a website that markets the Tivax for 79.99. With your discount coupons you'll get to deduct 40.00 from each unit, which brings you down to 39.99 plus shipping. If you buy two units, it'll cost you about 100 dollars for 2, shipping included.

Don't go to this website.

Instead, take a trip to another authorized site on your coupon list: consumerelecgroup.com. You'll find the Tivax for $48.95 there. After the gov. discount? $8.95. Two plus shipping? About 34 bucks.

Congratulations. You have just saved yourself 68 smackeroos on the best converter on the market at this time. I was forced to invest in 4 units for 2 caveman households, so I was thankful for the 136 dollar discount.

We cavemen have to look out for each other.

11:36 AM - August 10, 2008 - post comment