New TV for a Day

A few months ago, the tv in our family room began to go on the blink. And I mean that literally. When we turned it on for the first time each day, the picture would blink on for a second, and then go black. Then it would flash on and off several more times before finally staying on. As weeks went by, this flickering thing lasted longer and longer. First, the tv would blink for a couple minutes before it would stay on, then it would blink for five minutes, then ten minutes, then fifteen minutes, . . . you get the idea. The other morning, it took an hour and a half of annoying on-and-off-and-on-and-off crap until the tv set actually stayed on. We checked with our professional tv consultant – Richie – and his advice was simple and clear-cut. “Get a new tv.”

We started television shopping, and decided on a 42-inch, flat screen, plasma, HDTV set. It was a “floor model,” but it was sitting way up high on a shelf, so we assumed very few people had ever even touched it. We saved 10%, and lugged it home; reveling in how lightweight these newfangled televisions have become compared to the old ones with tubes. We plugged the tv in, and observed some sort of writing etched on the background of the screen. The television had been hooked up to a DVD player in the store, and, evidently, someone had left the menu page of a DVD inactive on the tv for quite a while. The image had become permanently burned into the screen. I am amazed that after all those lectures from electronics experts to never, ever leave any computer or tv idle without a screensaver, that a television salesperson would be guilty of this. Sigh. We played around with the various tv features. On “full screen” mode, since our WOW plan does not include high-definition service, everything was stretched out sideways. The United States map on the Weather Channel appeared at least 25% wider than the country is in reality. And Jim Cantore looked quite stubby, also. We changed back to “normal” mode, and the picture looked regular again, but it had shrunk to about the size of a 35” tv with those black boxes surrounding it. After discussing HDTV mumbo-jumbo with both Richie and Eric, we did what anyone would have done in our situation. We returned the new television to the store and decided to wait a bit before venturing into the high tech world of HDTV. Maybe until there is a big sale of some kind. And, in the meantime, we will either switch some tvs around in our house, or, as suggested by Norm, just leave the flashing set on continuously until it fizzles out completely. What do we have to lose?