You’ve seen The Story of Stuff, yes? The fairly enlightening, partly animated video about how we North Americans all have too much stuff, and why that’s a problem? It has made me think. (99% of what I acquire is discarded within 6 months? Really?) But so far, I don’t think it’s really made me change my behavior.

It’s just so ingrained. Just watch this beautiful justification for why two people having three television sets just isn’t enough….

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Many television series ran their course for the season back in May or so, but we’ve been getting by with season 1 of True Blood (never did develop the love, though), season 1 of Californication (whereas I really did get caught up with all these flawed people), and even finally finishing all my PVR’ed episodes of Flashforward. (And the TV critic who claimed the last episode was confusing and open-ended was an idiot. The last episode wasn’t in the least hard to follow, and the series tied itself up very nicely, leaving some areas open for the future, yes, but hardly to a frustrating extent. The whole thing is recommended for all who like sci-fi, physics, and philosophical questions of will vs. fate, as presented by pretty people.)

But now all those are done, too, so Jean and I have near run out of shows we both like to watch. This is a problem, because we both tend to like to settle down around 9:00 for a bit of TV. What to watch, what to watch, when all I want to do is catch up with So You Think You Can Dance (nestled there on the PVR) but he’s already engrossed in an action thriller on AMC?

What, you only have TV, you ask? Well, no. But the thing, we only have one TV in a location where it’s actually comfortable to sit down and watch it. The second one is in the kitchen, where your only seating option are the high stools at the breakfast bar. Fine for catching the news while preparing and eating dinner, but not so great for settling in for a long watch. (Plus, being that close to the food also leads to way too much snacking.)

And the third? If you can even call that a TV, given that it’s–and I’m serious–a Commodore 64 monitor. So it’s very old and therefore prone to some flickering, and also very small. And, it’s in the exercise room. Being an exercise room, there are no seats in there, unless you count the big weight machine chair. So it’s a great place to play exercise or other videos while exercising. But if you just want to watch TV, you’re kind of stuck with a yoga mat on the floor as “seating”.

This, combined with the grumpiness that comes with the heat and humidity of late, that has led to us arguing over our respective television preferences, and who is to be banished to the uncomfortable upstairs. Adding insult to injury, upstairs person also loses PVR access. Stuck with live TV, with its many, many long commercial breaks (all telling you that you suck and need to buy more stuff)…

So, clearly, we need to put a TV in the living room.

Much like TV in the bedroom, this is something I’ve always resisted, with some idea that the living room should be about “higher” culture like books and music and paintings and conversation.

But one has to be practical. Fact is, it is the only other room in the house with couches and chairs.

But we ain’t putting a TV cabinet in there. So, the thing will have to wall-mounted. And, it’s the living room; it’s going to have to look good. So there’s no question of moving one of the existing extra TVs into that room (and besides, we need them where they are!). Clearly, we need a new TV.

A lovely, sleek, new flatscreen television.

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See how that works? And the lovely new television will, in turn, lead to justifications for high-definition TV receivers and service and PVRs, not to mention BlueRay DVD players and discs. And won’t that mean some sort of sound system upgrade? …

And hence we demonstrate our value in this culture of consumerism.