Sunday, August 14, 2011

Cultureshark Remembers...My TV set

R.I.P., good ol' 27" Panasonic. You brought me a quality picture and consistent, service-free operation for nearly 20 years. Oh, how happy I'll be in 20 years if anything I buy today is still running then...

...including the HD flat screen I got to replace the Panasonic. Unfortunately, for the time being, I am still mired in the world of Glorious Low-Def Television, due to a variety of factors I won't get into now (and, yes, me being cheap is one, though not the primary, factor). So I run the standard signal into the HD set, and the result is somewhat less than spectacular, but fine for Cultureshark Tower's secondary TV. Hey, as long as my daughter can enjoy Nick Jr. on it while the grownups are making dinner, it's all good.

Back to the soon-to-be departed Panasonic, though: It was a great buddy, accompanying me in college, experiencing the heady days of the DVD era, and coming along for the wonderful ride of home ownership. It will be missed.

And now how the hell do I get rid of it?

Seriously, nobody wants these old tube TVs anymore, even if they don't have intermittent picture problems. If it ain't digital, it ain't donate-able. I can't just set a TV set by the curb for the refuse collectors to pick up. Well, I probably could--those dudes take anything--but I'm not supposed to, so I have to wait for one of those electronic recycling days at the local dump (there's a great phrase to work into a blog post).

I guess for now I'll have plenty of opportunity to reflect on my longtime pal...because it'll be sitting right in my living room, practically in front of the door, until I can ditch it.

3 comments:

Ivan G Shreve Jr said...

When my beloved TV set died during a Taxi Boys 2-reeler a couple of years ago, I was able to track down a local guy through Craigslist who hauls away old electronics and appliances gratis. That would be my first suggestion to you.

Sorry to hear about the set, by the way. In lieu of flowers, I've sent a subscription to TV Guide.

Anonymous said...

You aren't going to become one of those people Jeff Foxworthy talked about who put their working TV on top of their non-working TV, are you?
-Ben

Rick Brooks said...

No, but I may have made a few jokes about "picture ON picture" when I lost the picture in picture feature after switching to FIOS. At least I think I was joking about stacking the TVs.