Just What The HELL Is It With Us and TVs???

No.. this is NOT my tv but you get the idea

hmph.

Ok.

Remember that post I wrote a few days ago about how our 50" Flat Screen just up and died and we had to go on a quest to find a ceramic fuse the size of a finger nail?

And how we moved the really heavy and really old 36" tv from the bedroom into the living room because, yknow, HEAVEN FORBID the little princes didn't have anything to entertain them!

Well.. we finally did find the little fuse and even though it did make the tv go on... it doesn't stay on. Maybe 10-15 minutes at the most before it clicks off again.

Tim seems to think it's the power board itself and was able to find one online for something like 80 bucks but right now that's not in our budget so the old tv remained in the living room.

Last night we had the house to ourselves. One kid was there and the other kid was someplace else so I took the opportunity to sit in the living room and play Call of Duty on the flat screen.

I know.. I know.. I JUST SAID that it pops off every 10 or 15 minutes or so but what can I tell you? I'm a glutton for disappointment!

After having two games ruined, Tim hooked the PS3 to the old tv. Let me tell you, there's a BIG difference between 36 and 50 but I was happy just to sit on the lounge chair!

Now, here's the thing (as if it couldn't get any worse) .. we had two plugs that connect the PS3 to the old television. One was bad (it made everything look blurry) and the other was good. When we first set up the old tv, Tim told his 15 year old Matt to throw out the bad cord and give me the good cord so that I could put it away where it was suppose to go.

So what the the Lord of Laziness do? He gives me both cords. There was no way of knowing which was the good one and which was the bad one so I had to put them both way. So of course, when Tim hooked up the PS3, he did it with the bad cord.

Since it was kind of an ordeal, I tried playing with a blurry screen but after a few rounds I started getting a headache so I asked Tim if we could just change the cord before he went to sleep.

No problem.. he asked me to unplug the cord from behind the PS3 while he connected or disconnected the wire from the back of the tv.

All of a sudden?

CRASH BAM BOOM

I snapped my head around and there's the tv laying face down on the floor. Laying on the floor after having fallen off the 3.5 foot kitchen cart (the one with wheels). I guess he pulled on the wire.. or I pulled on the wire too hard and the cart went one way and the tv the other.

Neither of us wanted to pick it up because we were both afraid that the tube was shattered but we couldn't live in laying in the middle of the living room floor either.

We finally did. The screen wasn't broke and when we plugged it in and turned it on, it worked fine.

Except the screen looked like a rainbow on crack. Obviously the color tubes got screwed up and there really isn't much you can do about that.

Honestly, I'm not worried about it. The flat screen in my bedroom works just fine and I could care less that the boys have to watch rainbow tv or only 15 minutes at a shot.

But really.. I think we need a break (no pun intended) from wrecking tv's.

You Gotta Be Fucking Kidding Me...

See this flat screen on the left?

Isn't it pretty?

It's mine.

Well.. THAT one isn't mine but I have a 50' Vizio.

That suddenly decided not to work.

Tonight.

Spent a few hours playing Call Of Duty: Black Ops with the boys and everything was fine. No issues at all.

Then Matt went on the computer.. I went into the bedroom to check my email.. Tim was in the kitchen checking on dinner and all of a sudden we here Josh sarcastically saying, ".. thanks DAD!"
Tim was all like, ".. what the hell did I do?" and Josh told him that he turned the tv off while he was watching it.

Because... um... Tim being in the KITCHEN could turn the tv off.

Or am I missing something?

Anyway.. Tim goes to check on it and it didn't work. No lights.. no hum.. no fan.. no nothing that makes the inside of these things do what they're suppose to do so that I can watch Skating With the Stars in HD.

Seriously, I was like DOUBLE U .. TEE .. EFF ..!!!

Of all time for this ridiculously expensive tv to blow and it's now.

NOW.

With the holidays a month away.. a lost business.. trying to find another house.. and having way too much piss to piss in a pot that I don't even HAVE .. the damn tv has to break.

It wasn't the kid's fault .. not unless you count the endless times he's left it on all night or all day for no apparent reason other then being lazy as all hell.. it was just bad timing.

To not really blow my cool, I went back into the bedroom where Tim followed me and we dueled banjo laptops trying to find out anything that could help us get it working.

All praise be to God, we found something. A 5mm x 20 mm little 8amp 250v ceramic fuse something. Could it be that it was just as simple as the problem the guy on a random internet forum had?

So with a broken flat screen that couldn't get any MORE broke.. but just maybe fixed.. we unscrewed the million screws on the back cover.. layed it face down on about a hundred blankets on top the dining room table and found the fuse.

Tim, knowing about these kinds of random ass things, wrapped the fuses with tin foil to see if there would be some kind of transfer of electricity by bypassing the fuse and wouldn't you know it, the damn thing worked.

NOTE: I would not recommend you try this yourselves. We ARE the King and Queen of Idiocy, yknow.
He immediately pulled the plug in case the thing got to over heated and blew out the circuit board and off to Radio Shack we went to get more fuses.

But we couldn't find the car keys.

Anywhere.

Either set.

High.. low.. over.. under.. behind.. in front... no where. At all.

Are you KIDDING me?

But finally after about a half hour, he found a set in the jacket that I had hung up on the front porch and away we went to the Radio Shack that he swore was on the Pike but wasn't there...

Then off to the Radio Shack he INSISTED was in the mall but wasn't there...

We finally jumped the highway and went down to a shopping center that I don't know the name of and right there next to Shop Rite was a Radio Shack.

But they didn't have the fuse.. because why would they carry it? Lord knows somebody might NEED it or something.

Then we tried the hobby store.. nope.

We tried Auto Zone.. nope.

We tried Home Depot.. nope.

NOTE: I told him that Home Depot was a wasted trip but he insisted and I needed to use the bathroom anyway so..
We tried Pep Boys.. nope. Kind of.

They did have a few that was the same size but a little wider. Tim said he could make it fit.. I told him it was wishful thinking.

I won. Didn't fit.

So tomorrow we're going to drive over to this place in Drexel Hill that fixes televisions and if he doesn't have it, I'll order them online.

Which I was going to do like 4 hours earlier but Mr. I-Have-To-Fix-Something-I-Don't-Even-Watch-Anyway couldn't wait.

We wound up moving the old 36" television into the living room and I swear that if I hear the kids complain one more time that the remote doesn't work on that tv.. and the Playstation isn't set up for that tv.. and why can't they use the flat screen in my bedroom... they're going to get their ears boxed.