Scared stiff...

I thought that my tv had a stroke Thursday night.

As Earl was a repeat, I tried to watch CSI. However, the picture was giving me a headache because it had a phantom picture superimposed on it... So I'd see one and a 1/2 of Grissom's face, the regular face and then a not as clear right 1/2 of his face next to him.
I called the cable company and complained, because watching this gave me a headache. They could not help me fix it and so agreed to send a tech here next week. I asked them if I could get credit for my cable not working until then... never mind part of the problem is I didn't know what times I had off Monday and Tuesday because the schedule isn't done( and yeah I was stupid enough to agree to work 5 days next week but that's another story)....

Then I turn on my VCR and I noticed that the VCR menu had the same problem as the cable tv. At first I was like 'well the cable goes through the vcr so maybe it's messing up the vcr'; but I figured it couldn't hurt to check out the dvd player. See the dvd player is connect directly into the tv.
And the dvd player had the same problems that the cable did, making me think the problem is my tv.
Crap Cakes.


I went to bed Thursday night, worried about my tv, but deciding that there was nothing to do until Friday morning. So the next morning, I borrowed from the game store the portable dvd/tv we use there. I connected it to my tv... and low and behold I had image problems with the portable dvd player as well. While the dvd appeared fine on the dvd/tv combo... it was wacked on my TV. Heck it looked WORSE on the tv then cable did.

So I was all set to beg friends to tape stuff for me and cancel my cable until I got back from Amsterdam, as I figured there was NO WAY I'd be able to afford a tv until after my trip. Likewise I saw myself being tighter with my money in amsterdam, as I'd want to have money left over to start a tv fund.
I was majorly depressed.

THEN a friend suggested that I unplug the tv and give it a day or two off. I was about to do that when I noticed how gross the power strip that the dvd player, cable box, and tv are plugged into looked gross and the 'power' on/off switch was flickering. I knew I had an extra power cable... I forgot why I bought it( on sale?) but I knew I had one... so I swapped out the power strip...

And that did the trick. My cable and dvd player have perfect pictures again..

Yippie!

So I had a bit of stress Thrusday night, and stress filled Friday morning, but everything has turned out ok.... Save for me missing the gym Friday( and not sending out a package) to deal with this crap.
I've also repromised myself to cleaning up a bit... that was my new year's res and I haven't done diddly about it but want to clean up arround the tv, so that NEXT time( god I hope there isn't one) I can better get to the cables, as it was a pain in the butt to check the wires out on everything... and my DVD remote is currently MIA.

I'm glad that it all worked out, that I while I was stressed I still kept troubleshooting and trying to find a resolution to my problem- which ended up being getting a new power strip instead of waiting 5 days or so for a repair person( who wouldn't have been able to solve anything) or figuring out how to buy a new tv( which likewise wouldn't have solved the problem and would've taken months). And again I see the wisdom in cleaning things up as it would've made the job easier( not all that shorter but easier).

And to be honest while I would've liked to see CSI, I haven't missed as much as I thought as I would since Earl went on against it. And I plan this week to buy another 'spare' power strip as it was rather nice to have one in the house.