So, the degree of negative TV karma I have accumulated has been kicked up a notch. You know it's going to be bad when the TV repair guy calls and says "are you sitting down?"
TV Diagnosis: the "digital hyper module" is bad and has to be replaced.
The Punchline: the part is on back order and will not be available until the end of April.
That primal scream you hear? That would be me.
OK. I admit it. I love my television. Not Television, that stinking sludge oozed into our homes courtesy of Comcast, but the device itself. I love movies, and movies in widescreen and 5.1 surround in the comfort of one's living room is, truly, one of the great technological joys of the 00's.
Today at work, I happened to mention my infatuation with this particular home electronic in front of a new acquaintance, who promptly encouraged me to "read a book sometime." Hey! I read three books last week, bucko, how many pages can you claim? Don't EVEN get me started about how many words my eyes ingest off the screen via the blogosphere and Shrook. Stop persecuting me!!!
OK. So I'm a little edgy. I was right in the middle of a "Kill Bill" fest last Sunday, happily buzzing from KBv1 and making good progress on KBv2. I looked away from the screen briefly to check my Gmail (hey, it's my Match.com account!), and when I looked back up, the screen was black.
AAAARRRRRGH!!
I pushed remote buttons, switched components on and off, even unplugged and plugged in the TV but, alas, it was not to recover. How wonderfully brilliant that the TV had it's first birthday only two weeks ago! Even more astonishing - I decided not to buy the extended warranty package. Whoo hoo!
Ah well. Once again, the Universe has decided I need to pay tuition to the School of Life. First of all, the physical twinge I felt when I realized I had no television was pretty disturbing. Seems like it's time to unplug for a bit anyway. Second of all, there are plenty of projects to do and books to read. Third, time to reassess whether or not the extended service plan is always a rip off.
My observation for today is that the TV provides a kind of artificial social buzz in the house. Without it, I feel a little more by myself. Not necessarily good or bad - it's what it is. More ponderings on this tomorrow, since I don't expect to see my sweet precious - I mean, my video monitor, for some time.
"I'd blown my mind, couldn't work," he told Playboy. "So finally I just started jerking pages out of my notebook and numbering them and sending them to the printer. I was sure it was the last article I was ever going to do for anybody."
Instead, he said, the story drew raves and he was inundated with letters and phone calls from people calling it "a breakthrough in journalism," an experience he likened to "falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool of mermaids."
He went on to become a counter cultural hero with books and articles that skewered America's hypocrisy.
Hunter S. Thompson was an early companion in my journey into the "counter culture." I spent many an altered hour, laughing hysterically over Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or enjoying the irony and humor oozing out of his latest article in Rolling Stone. Completely bent, explosively opinionated, and always glancing askance at the world - I'll miss him.
