Fellow Tweeter Refugees: Go to the [Candle] Light. Buy local.

This video is clearly not mine, but that of the good folks at Walt Disney, "How to Hook Up Your Home Theater" (2007).  Watch it while you read this post... makes for good background audio. Plus I like the way they use the word "shiny" in the video and I didn't plan that.

I like shiny new gadgets. Before kids (BK), hubby and I spent serious time and dough at Tweeter, that odd aquamarine-encased shrine to geekdom, housing blue LED-lit gizmos that made our big TV go boom! Bang! Zoom! louder and with more bass.  The kind Tweeter employees were knowledgeable, sometimes cocky, but always intelligent in a "geek chic" way before geeks were cool again. They pledged to help us with our complicated equipment setup anytime.  Promised.

Then Tweeter closed.  My kids don't care that we don't have the newest home theater equipment, problems arose, and priorities get set. Years go by.  Five years, then ten.

Longing for the old days, we pay for HD channels of Verizon Fios, but gone was the Bang! Zoom!  Bam! we remembered.  Maybe it was all the years watching Barney and Thomas, we figured; we can no longer distinguish the difference between the sounds of The Matrix and the high-pitched shrieking singing by  brightly-garbed "friends" on Barney. We went from hi-fidelity to "High Five!" and frankly, didn't have time to register complaints.

As my smart tweens experience other kids' "tween-caves" and more sophisticated 3-D movies, they DO know the difference. "Why don't these rear speakers work? Why do we have six remote controls? How come our Blu-Ray doesn't sound like the one at Blockbuster?"  What's an early adopter/Tweeter refugee to do?

Buy local, that's what. We found our very own, shiny home theater geek at a local nearby store. He listened to our story, came to our house, patted our bulldog, and became our new BFF.  Mike Curry for President. We spent some cash on a local business, and all our problems are solved.

We now have Facebook, Netflix, weather and shopping on our shiny new flatscreen 1080p Samsung.  Last night, a rerun of "Modern Family" startled me - now the rear speakers work. HD = amazing.

Confession time: our old flatscreen was mounted on the mantle. Candles belong on a mantle 'cause they look pretty. Candles also make the room smell yummy, UNLESS said candles are lighting the plastic of our TV on fire. Live and learn, shiny monkeys. Live. And. Learn.  "Mommy makes mistakes sometimes too... notice how I admitted that I was wrong and that I did that because I wasn't thinking?..."