Hey Slickrick,
As it goes, Ive been in exactly the same situation. The macbook (and all the apple family for that matter) are beautiful machines, I just love my macbook.
What I have come to learn is that the mini dvi port on the side of your macbook is a proprietary port, ONLY for apple products. This means to connect your macbook to any dvi port you will need to get a mini-dvi to dvi adaptor. Depending on when you bought your macbook you may even already have this adaptor.
Also I am assuming the port on your 42" tv is dvi. If it is vga, you should be able to buy another adaptor from Apple.
hope this helps