That TV is Shot

A few years ago, our TV went on the “blink” as my father used to say. It just stopped working. It was only 14 months old and the warrantee had expired. I never buy supplementary protection plans. Once, I was offered a two year extension on the warrantee on a $99 toaster for the bargain price of $25. I passed. After five years, the toaster is still going strong. Not my TV though. It’s “shot” to use more of my father's vernacular.

A call to the Samsung customer support led me to believe a simple external connection hub, called a "One Connect," was the culprit. I bought a new one for $100. Now I couldn’t care less about TV. I rarely watch it unless there's a new Naked and Afraid or, American Chopper reboot. I just love watching the Teutuls yell at each other. Apart from being the visual component to a game console, television doesn’t offer much in the way of entertainment. In fact, I think it causes Alzheimers.

The new connect component didn’t fix the set so I took the TV off the wall and pried open the backing in search of blown capacitors, a common problem that plagued Samsung TVs in the past. Since nothing seemed fried, I called in the big guns in the form of a congenial repair dude, named "Tim," who was originally from Georgia.

TV With Back Removed

Now that my TV shat the futon, the person in my family most affected was my sister, Jeannine. It’s not like “Aunt Jeannine” as my kids call her because, well, that’s who she is to them, lives with us or anything. She’s also not much older than me so get that image out of your mind of an old lady sitting in a rocking chair, covered by a knitted blanket, shaking a defunct remote control at a blank TV screen while yelling for more canned pears. The reason my TV being jacked affected my sister most of all was because she’s my PubG partner.

Now, Player Unknown Battlegrounds, PubG for short, is a first person survival game which we team play over the internet. The goal of PubG is to parachute into a region of Russia with a hundred other people, loot weapons, then try to kill everyone else. The last one standing wins a chicken dinner as the game displays,

“Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!”

I haven’t been able to achieve chicken dinner status as of yet although Aunt Jeannine has twice. It’s not likely I’ll ever win in PubG because I can’t shoot for beans, and I occasionally can’t get my avatar through a doorway. In gaming terms, I’m what is called a "noob," that is a newbie. The last video game I played required a quarter so I’m also a noob to the Xbox and associated controller as well.

My sister and I played together most of our childhood. We’re close in age and similar in many ways. Anything good which I can recall about my youth always involved her. I think she wants to team with me when playing PubG because it reminds her of when we played with Hot Wheels or Lincoln Logs together as kids. It’s certainly not for any of my stellar gaming skills.

After replacing most of the circuit boards, Tim determined that it was probably the panel which is too expensive to fix. Reluctantly, I took the TV to the dump. While this was going on over several weeks, my sister was experiencing gamer's withdrawal as she refused to play PubG without her bro. Her text messages reflected a growing anguish over the many delays.

First Week

Second Week

Third Week


When my wife, Christine, got involved, she researched the television I picked out only to conclude that the "900F" version was better than the "850E." Of course, it is. It's fifty and one letter better.

"The 900F is superior at rendering black tones," she declared.

I'm not sure why rendering black is all the rage with flat panel TVs. I thought rendering color was the big thing, but apparently handling the absence of light is the cutting edge of flat screen technology. Upgrading to the more advanced set cost another $800, plus a bit longer wait since the new fancier TV is back ordered until July. Our youngest, Willy, didn't want to see the TV discarded.

"I was raised on that TV," he sobbed.

One Way Trip

But he made the best of it.

Time to Create

 And off to the dump.

Goodbye, Ole Friend

Here is some of William's screen art,

TV Graffiti

My sister took the delay reasonably in stride. I'm confident the bigger, better, 900F TV will improve my gaming skills when I return to PubG. If not, there's always Monsters Inside Me.

Editor's Note: Originally published on June 12, 2018.