Saturday, February 23, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Give me T.V. or give me death!
A recent experience has opened my eyes to the utter insanity middle age men let themselves get roped into...T.V. It is, at times, the only thing that will take the stress and strain of daily life away. And it is also one of the only devices that will take a reasonable, intelligent man and turn him into a lunatic! I speak from experience. I had the cable people come to my home to fix the fuzzy screen that I was getting on two or three of the local channels. The highly educated 12 year old did a complete and thorough 10 second analysis of the entire situation and came to the conclusion that my T.V. was bad and if I wanted these channels to be clear I would have to buy a new T.V. Who am I to question? The thing is, I only have the very basic package and what I mostly watch is the news and sit-coms on, you guessed it, the fuzzy local channels. Well, my T.V., a 6 year old, state of the art, 600 pound, 36" JVC Super Tube was my pride and joy and to just run out and buy a new one was just insane! So we lived with it.
A year later, Super Bowl Sunday, and in somewhat better times I decided to take the family out to the local price club in my trusty Nissan. I had a year to research the perfect little 40", LCD flat screen T.V. that seemed to be all the rage and by all accounts a smart buy according to the consumer reports. So, 30 minutes later I am risking life and limb on the highway with a 50" plasma T.V. falling out of the Nissan and no clue whatsoever about how it works, if it is any good at all or where the hell I was going to put this behemoth! So...the wife and I, step by step, dragged this thing up the back stairs and into the living room. We took the sacred 36", 600 pound JVC and slid it down the hallway blocking the bedroom doors. We both read the 4 paragraphs of "unpacking" instructions and began to hook up the T.V. The excitement grew, I turned it on...no signal! O.K., 2 hour to game time, not a problem. After an hour of support I had the thing going. Yahoo!!! But what's this? The same channels are fuzzy!!!!! And not only that!!!! The one showing the game is one of them!!! AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
What a disaster, I was not a happy camper. Anyway, reasonable people come to reasonable conclusions and I accepted the fact that it was the little punks error and I could only hope that he would be the same one they send back so I could feed him to my dog.
The behemoth waited patiently and 6 days later a different cable person came to my home and I explained the whole thing. He did his series of tests and deduced that I had bad underground wires coming from the street and he no choice but to leave me with no T.V. at all and it would take them at least 2 months to fix the problem. I kindly suggested that he would not be leaving my home unless the service was re-connected and he, in return, advised me that I did not understand English. I taught him some new English words and we went outside to review the problem. He showed me a huge nest of wires that ran around the house once and had at least 12 splitters. The funny thing was that the T.V. was directly on the other side of the wall where the main cable terminal was. I then suggested that he take a 4' length of wire and go directly through the wall and he told me that he did not have a drill today...I'll get mine I said. So...it had began to snow and I was out in my flower beds in pajamas and slippers drilling a hole for 6'4" professional cable person. We finally were done after 3 hours and my new cable box with the 8 dollar per month HD upgrade was in!! Or was it? No sir , he said, that is a regular box, I did not have the Hd box with me but you can drive that one to the cable headquarters and they will switch it out at no cost to you. Smith and Wesson asked the cable person to leave and I disconnected the new box and made the hour drive to get the HD box. I hooked it up and...it doesn't work. An hour of support later we determined that the cable person must come out again but it will be in only 3 days. Three days later and who shows up? It's the 12 year old that told me my T.V. was bad...
The events you have read are true. As for the 12 year old, he was never seen again. The moral? Read.
A year later, Super Bowl Sunday, and in somewhat better times I decided to take the family out to the local price club in my trusty Nissan. I had a year to research the perfect little 40", LCD flat screen T.V. that seemed to be all the rage and by all accounts a smart buy according to the consumer reports. So, 30 minutes later I am risking life and limb on the highway with a 50" plasma T.V. falling out of the Nissan and no clue whatsoever about how it works, if it is any good at all or where the hell I was going to put this behemoth! So...the wife and I, step by step, dragged this thing up the back stairs and into the living room. We took the sacred 36", 600 pound JVC and slid it down the hallway blocking the bedroom doors. We both read the 4 paragraphs of "unpacking" instructions and began to hook up the T.V. The excitement grew, I turned it on...no signal! O.K., 2 hour to game time, not a problem. After an hour of support I had the thing going. Yahoo!!! But what's this? The same channels are fuzzy!!!!! And not only that!!!! The one showing the game is one of them!!! AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
What a disaster, I was not a happy camper. Anyway, reasonable people come to reasonable conclusions and I accepted the fact that it was the little punks error and I could only hope that he would be the same one they send back so I could feed him to my dog.
The behemoth waited patiently and 6 days later a different cable person came to my home and I explained the whole thing. He did his series of tests and deduced that I had bad underground wires coming from the street and he no choice but to leave me with no T.V. at all and it would take them at least 2 months to fix the problem. I kindly suggested that he would not be leaving my home unless the service was re-connected and he, in return, advised me that I did not understand English. I taught him some new English words and we went outside to review the problem. He showed me a huge nest of wires that ran around the house once and had at least 12 splitters. The funny thing was that the T.V. was directly on the other side of the wall where the main cable terminal was. I then suggested that he take a 4' length of wire and go directly through the wall and he told me that he did not have a drill today...I'll get mine I said. So...it had began to snow and I was out in my flower beds in pajamas and slippers drilling a hole for 6'4" professional cable person. We finally were done after 3 hours and my new cable box with the 8 dollar per month HD upgrade was in!! Or was it? No sir , he said, that is a regular box, I did not have the Hd box with me but you can drive that one to the cable headquarters and they will switch it out at no cost to you. Smith and Wesson asked the cable person to leave and I disconnected the new box and made the hour drive to get the HD box. I hooked it up and...it doesn't work. An hour of support later we determined that the cable person must come out again but it will be in only 3 days. Three days later and who shows up? It's the 12 year old that told me my T.V. was bad...
The events you have read are true. As for the 12 year old, he was never seen again. The moral? Read.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
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