My t.v. is posessed by Satan...

Well, maybe not Satan himself. I mean it is kind of a menial job, and he's prolly got one of the lesser daemons working on it, but one or more of the denizens of the underworld is/are playing havoc with it.

The t.v. is old. It's a Sylvania, and when I received it, it came with an after market remote control. At first, there were no problems at all. Clear picture, great sound, remote worked like a charm. Over the course of time tho, some pretty strange things have happened.

The first thing to go wrong was the remote, of course. Now, I'm not one of the children raised to think that a t.v. with a remote is a standard issue item. I remember when I was the remote. I also remember twist dials, and the era of 12 channel cable t.v. Being that my t.v.'s set up pretty close to my desk, it's not even that far to turn it on, or change the channel, so that's not why I miss the remote.

Most remotes have 2 functions that, if they were the only 2 they performed, it would be enough for me. The last channel button, and the mute button get a lot of use in this house. There are so many commercials out there that earn a 'mute' award from me, that it's not even funny. Well, maybe a little. The worst are usually muted, as I flip to another channel, courtesy of the 'last channel' button. Needless to say, I now suffer through the crap.

Then, there's the picture. Somedays, it's nearly perfect. Somedays, it's so bad you can't tell what you're watching. One of the wierd things is, it seems to depend on the time of day, or more distressing, what I want to watch. Sometimes, if there's something on channel 8 that I want to watch, channels 7 and 9 will be perfect, while channel 8 looks like a digtal snowstorm. Sometimes the picture is really bad, but the sound is perfect. Sometimes it's the other way around.

That's aggravating enough, but sometimes it refuses to turn off. I get up, hit the power button, and what happens? The digital readout goes off, and the sound stops, but the t.v. stays on, showing a soundless version of whatever channel I was on. The only way to make it stop is to unplug it. This will go on for days, weeks at a time, then it will turn off normally again. Sometimes.

The t.v. is old, as I've said, and it was free, so I guess you could say I got my money's worth. I hear you asking 'why don't you just buy a new one.' My answer to you is I'm too fucking broke to do so. Maybe after Dland, but in the crunch months, there's hardly money for anything.

So, that's the story of my crazy t.v.

Any of you have one you're not using?

If you fed ex it to me, I'll be your friend forever.

Bcq,

T.