Well, she sure f*#ked that up!
Yeah. So, you know how I try to have a minimum 24 hour waiting period on purchases of non-necessities?
This is recommended by many many thrifty folks. Some have much longer waiting periods but I got with 24 hours since I've been living in a town without stores. Most purchases are out of town so the 24 hours is usually a de facto week waiting period in practice.
Anywhoo....so I sees this great deal on something I've wanted. A video projector. We're all familiar with my love of the movies. I figure a projector I can hook to my laptop would be the way to go. Small, easily storable, and shouldn't take much electricity. But, they are usually quite spendy.
Then I look at the Grocery Outlet ad because I'm going to be in a town with one of those. I see this:
Now that is a good price. I read a couple of online reviews and see that it's sort of a crap shoot but hey, 40$ right!
I stop in for groceries (which were a fabulous deal! 1lb of organic tahini for 2$, avocados 3 for 2$, etc) and grab the last one of these that is available.
When I get home I go to hook it up. It won't hook to the computer. After much hemming and hawing, I go to thrift and pick up a used DVD player with no remote for 10$. OK, 50$ in to this now.
It does hook to the DVD player just fine. I pop in a DVD I have from the library and do a quick test. Yes. All systems are go. As I was warned in a couple of reviews, while it will project up to 120" wide (10 feet!!!), it looks like you're watching the movie through a screen door. BIG PIXELS. Not a huge deal as all movies used to pretty much look like that, but his is more of a chain link fence than a screen door. STILL, I figure, cheap and kind of awesome. Even has a speaker.
At this point I notice that I grabbed a the DVD player with play, pause, and eject as the only options. Damn. Can't fast forward, go back, or skip between scenes. There were no players with remotes but some did have "skip forward" and "skip back" buttons. As it is, I will need to just sit and watch the movie. If I stop, it will be back to the beginning (pause didn't last long) and just watch all of that again. So, no problem. We USED to just sit and watch an entire movie. It's what the directors want.
I go get a cup of tea and settle in. I move the player to a better location after shutting it down and then plug it in. It turns on without me touching the "power" button. Hmmmm...
I try to shut it off. the button doesn't button anymore. No clicking. No effect. But the movie is starting so I just watch it.
The movie has subtitles which are a bit of a challenge at chain link fence resolution. I keep going. I pause it long enough to darken the room a bit more. I watch the rest of the film. It's a great film. Too bad I can't access the menu to see the extras. Maybe later on the computer.
I try to shut off the projector. It won't respond to the button. Those of us who have used these know that the light bulb in there is blazing hot so you need to use the button. It lets the fan keep running after shutting off the light. Once the bulb is cool and won't bust, the fan automatically shuts off.
I keep punching the button. Nothing. I try unplugging and replugging it in quickly...it just comes entirely back on. Crap. I lower the brightness to the least bright possible in hopes the bulb won't be so hot. I let that run, fan on the whole time, for a bit, then unplug awaiting the "pop" of an exploded bulb. Nothing. I got away with it.
But alas, this is not going to be a worthwhile thing.
So, I pack it up as I will be back at Grocery Outlet the next day.
I return it and they do a refund. Sigh.
Of course I can't return electronics to the thrift store. So, I'm out 10$ for this little lesson. Had I thought it through and researched a bit, all of this would have been foreseeable. Lesson Learned.
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