Robin Trower 'Bridge Of Sighs'

I’m pissed!

A long and understanding relationship is over… My television decided to say “Screw it… I’m old and I don’t give a sh*t anymore” and smelled up the place with that electronic burning funk. It’s dead and I’m not happy.

I guess it’s to be expected. The television was older than my recently departed cat, Monroe. It’s been with me through 3 girlfriends and an ex-fiancée. We saw Challenger explode, the replayed events that occurred on 9/11, and O.J. Simpson’s white Bronco chase. I would say that I got my money’s worth with that Sanyo. I’d ballpark her around 20 years of age.

I threw in the NASCAR: IMAX DVD that I got from Netflix into my player and settled in for a little off season NASCAR pleasure. You know… A little something to get me through January until things get cooking in Daytona next month. I’m jonesing for some NASCAR!

I didn’t even get through 10 minutes until the screen closed in on each side. I turned it off thinking that maybe that would reset it. It didn’t. So I turned her back on thinking that maybe she just needed to warm up a bit. The picture started spreading towards the normal parameters, but then all of a sudden… She made a sound inside and the picture shrank to a 6 inch block. And that’s when I noticed that smell… That electronic burning kind of smell. I got the fire extinguisher just in case the Sanyo didn’t want to go down without a fight. I turned off the power strip to weaken her in case she did want to fight out her last remaining minutes.

I’ve been toying with getting a laptop computer, but my television needs come first. So I’m not too happy. As Ed Anger from the Weekly World News used to say… “I’m pig biting mad.”

I’ll probably go out over the weekend and start looking at TV’s. I just got off an electronic retailers site and I wasn’t impressed with what is out there. I don’t care about High-Def. I don’t care about Digital. I just want something to watch my shows and DVD’s on.

The upside of getting a new TV… The latest models don’t weigh anywhere near the back-breaking televisions of yesteryear. My TV that just bit the dust was a 26” model that weighed more than an entire 5th grade class. I can get the same size TV now that weighs about as much as 8 Pop Tarts and is just about as flat as those pastries stacked upon each other.

Bottom line… I just don’t want to spend the money. But what can I do? That television monkey on my back can be a total bitch and I just wanna keep her ass quiet.