Brenda's Most Excellent Blu-ray Movies Adventure

For those of you who don't know me, let me introduce myself. I am an eBay power seller and a Squidoo Lensmaster and a Wife and a Mom of two great teenage boys. (Not in that order!) My husband, Chris, is a big fan of technology and my sons Douglas and Ian are, quite naturally for teenage boys, great movie fans.

I am known on Squidoo by my eBay store name Treasures By Brenda and, let me say up front as I always do, that I am NOT an expert on blu-ray technology. I have, however, learned a lot about blu-ray in the last eight months or so and I have shared some of this information on the pages of my Squidoo blu-ray niche. If you are just learning about blu-ray, hopefully my pages will prove helpful. However, this page is not about those pages. It is not meant to be about blu-ray movies or about blu-ray players. It is the story of How Blu-ray Came To Live In My House.

In the fall of 2008, I wrote my first blu-ray page. It was about Sound & Vision Magazine's summer 2008 best blu-ray movies list. I thought it was an excellent list and a great guide for someone trying to figure out what blu-ray movies to bring home with their new blu-ray player. (You'll find the page about those blu-ray movies at Top 10 Blu-ray Movies and the latest one about the best blu-ray movies of 2008 at Best Blu-ray Movies of 2008.) It was well received and led to a lot of research and a few more blu-ray themed pages.

My family was awestruck when I started talking about blu-ray technology using some of the actual technical jargon! (Previously, I had just glazed over when THEY talked about it.)

My husband had always wanted a high definition television and, more recently, a blu-ray player. When he heard me talking 'blu-ray' I think he made some giant cognitive leap that because I was TALKING ABOUT blu-ray, I had given my silent GO AHEAD to the purchase of a new television and blu-ray player.

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending upon how you look at it, this meant that at least half of our unfinished basement needed to be finished. Chris knew that if he was going to convince ME to watch movies in the basement (also previously know as the dungeon or the cave) it was going to have to be warm and cozy and this is where our real, work-filled adventure began.

Well, finishing a basement (for those who do not know) can be a huge task. It requires an electrician (one plug every so many feet), insulation and vapour barrier, drywall, drywall putty, sanding, painting, lighting, flooring, ceiling...and so on and so on. Some people even require new furniture. (So far we are keeping our current mismatched sofas although Chris would love to have a burgundy red sectional to go with our amazing chamois yellow walls.)

More importantly for an eBay seller like myself, a new basement requires moving everything in one-half of your basement and maybe doing so more than once...

It has been quite an adventure, not quite every moment I would call Brenda's Most Excellent Blu-ray Adventure...

And, as the pictures show, our adventure is not over yet. For the time being, we are not putting in new flooring although we do have a subfloor and we are not installing a 'ceiling.'

Our adventure may not be over but our home theatre is open for business!

Yes, this is the first movie I ever watched on blu-ray! My sons were out and I think my husband picked it because HE picked blu-ray. Tinker Bell was pretty and I can see why little girls would ooh and aah over it but there is NO WAY that I would ask a teenage boy to watch it! (No, I have not written my Tinker Bell blu-ray review yet, but there is quite a bit of information and reviews from other experts and parents on my page Disney's Blu-ray Movies.)

Click here to buy Tinker Bell from Amazon
$21.99

My husband shopped for years for his high definition television. He wanted one when they were $12,000 but was willing to concede that that was a bit much for a television so he waited and waited and waited some more.

Finally, the prices came down to a point at which he was comfortable. He shopped the after-Christmas sales and put a deposit on a high definition television which was BUNDLED with a free blu-ray player. It wasn't perhaps the best blu-ray player, but it was one that he considered to be quite all right. (Which means it was a pretty good one.)

The deposit guaranteed the sale price on our television. The store was happy, of course, to take our money well in advance of delivering the set. (Chris knew the basement was a BIG project and that the new television would be safer if it was not in the house while the work was being done.)

Not only did it turn out to be a great idea to take delivery of the television AFTER the renovations were mostly done, it had an interesting and unexpected bonus. In order to fulfill their promise of the free blu-ray player, the store had to upgrade the player -- twice -- by the time we were ready to take delivery of the television! So you can see that we were 'given' two blu-ray players!