Tikkabik

So I went to Electronics Boutique at the mall to swap out our GameCube. We've had it since the GameCube was released and really love it. We probably get more use out of the PlayStation 2 -- especially as we use it as a DVD player as well (something the GameCube cannot do), but the GameCube is a sweet system with a lot of great games available for it.

A couple of months ago, the GameCube died. It simply stopped being able to read the discs we put in it. I'm not sure what happened exactly; I suspect it's some obscure component failure. Long out of warranty, it would have cost $70 to swap it out with a refurbished system if I'd gone through Nintendo directly.

You can buy a new GameCube for $100, and Electronics Boutique offers a $45 trade-in. So I simply traded mine in, got another one (in a different color -- we had traded in a black one and picked up a platinum model), and saved myself $15 in the process. The kids are thrilled. They've got their GameCube back, and it looks cooler than the last one did.

Now I'm just mulling over the deal they have going on the Xbox Halo Edition. It's a special green Xbox bundled with Halo: Combat Evolved for $170. Bonnie doesn't really care about the Xbox -- the games are almost all for hardcore gamers -- the Xbox has very limited mainstream family appeal. Which is, of course, why I really want one.

While we were in the mall we stopped at Best Buy so I could ogle widescreen TVs. I'd really love one; if I had a lot of disposable income I'd definitely get one. The plasmas are nice. Fantastic, actually, but still oh-so-expensive: One 50-inch model I looked at from Pioneer cost $9,000. But boy, it would look glorious hanging on a wall.

A relatively less expensive alternative is the new breed of DLP-based projection TV systems -- not wall projectors, but completely enclosed projection TVs that use DLP technology. They're every bit as good looking to my eye as the plasma displays, but they cost a fraction of the price -- $2000 - $3000, depending on the model, and they're still quite thin -- one model I saw was only about 17 inches deep, which is narrower than the 27-inch CRT-based TV I have now. That's still a hideous amount of money to fork out for a TV, but eminently more reasonable than $9,000, which is more than what I spent on my last three cars combined.

Less expensive alternatives abound. 46-inch widescreen projection TVs were available in the store as low as $1,200 (the model I saw was an open box unit or a demo system that was about $400 off its retail price). But what I'd really like to do is hang a projector off the ceiling and just put a big screen on one side of the wall and do it that way. We've borrowed a projector before and the kids love it. James calls it "turning the living room into a movie theater." It's a lot less money up front -- about $1,000 for a decent one that's flexible enough to do everything I want -- but the downside is that it's only good if you can make the room dark. All that would take is better blinds and heavy drapes, however.

Ah well. Something to think about as I'm saving up my money for that Halo edition Xbox. I'm saving the receipt for the GameCube because I figure there's gotta be some way I can write it off on taxes next year as a game reviewer. I wonder if I can do the same with a new TV? Maybe we'll think about buying a new TV after we've replaced our bed, which seems hell-bent on crippling Bonnie and me.