Positively prehistoric

As I may have mentioned a time or two ;) we're getting new bedroom furniture. With any luck, it's being delivered next weekend! We discovered, while shopping for this particular set, that the dresser with the mirror is a little bit shallower than our current mirrored dresser. This may pose a problem with the TV set we currently have in the bedroom. It's an old school, mid '90's 15" TV/VCR combo. It's big, it's chunky, it's horribly antiquated, but hey, we only watch the weather, news, and the occasional music video while getting ready in the morning, so we really don't need anything fancier. So now we're thinking the TV might be too big for the dresser, and as the LAST thing we want is to have the cat flattened by a falling Sony, we began investigating smaller, slimmer options.

We set out to find a replacement, and decided we didn't want anything bigger (screen-wise) than what we have now, and while a DVD-model would be nice, again, we rarely watch it to be worth the price. A flat-screen would be nice and space-saving. HD is not necessary (and frankly makes me sea-sick). I was thinking $250 would be a nice amount to pay for a rarely-watched but nice to have piece of electronics.

Um. Apparently I've slept through the last decade, since you are hard pressed to find ANYTHING that is not HD, flat screen, 20"+ and oh yeah at LEAST $400. I was surfing through BestBuy.com and CircuitCity.com today and was having incredible sticker shock. Unfortunately my husband is a bit of a brand snob, so no "Phony" or "Samsong" or "Tanisonic" off-label brands for us. (I can't even get him to buy faux-Tylenol without a grumble, but that's another story.) :)

I don't know what we're going to do. I really don't want to spend a fortune on a high-tech paper weight, but today's technology may not leave us much of a choice.

Just call me Barney.