I Don't Deserve Electronics

It's been a rough few months for me when it comes to electronics, faithful readers. It all started back a few months ago when the VCR in my bedroom crapped out. So I swapped out the VCR from the living room and bought a very cool VCR/DVD recorder for the cable TV in the living room. Are you with me so far? Well, first of all I bought the wrong VCR/DVD combo - I bought one that was only a DVD player, not a recorder. So I had to take it back to the store and get the right model that I wanted. After a week and a half of connecting and disconnecting and reconnecting I finally go the new VCR/DVD recorder connected and in fine working order.

Things were fine until a couple of weeks ago. I haven't explained this before, but I don't have cable in my bedroom; I use an old school antenna and one of the new digital converter boxes. With all of the channels that I can get in and with the awesome picture quality, it's like having a mini version of cable. But I digress. Ever since the power outage in September from the windstorm, I hadn't been able to get in five different channel 21 channels. I tried and did everything I could but they just would not come in. To make the very long and stupid story short, the power cord had come unplugged from the antenna. Once I crawled around and snaked the plug back up to the antenna and plugged it back in, lo and behold all of the channel 21 channels came in. And this time I was getting six of the channel 21 channels instead of five like before the power outage.

Flash forward to last night. I rewound the video tape and was settled in to watch the day's "All My Children" episode when I saw that the picture was filled with snow and static. I spent thirty minutes adjusting and readjusting but I couldn't get the picture to straighten out. I ejected the tape and played it in the VCR in the living room and imagine my surprise when the picture was perfect on that VCR. So then I deducted that the VCR in my bedroom had bit the dust. I had resigned myself to buying a new one, only to be surprised when I looked online at Walmart.com and discovered that they no longer sell just plain old VCR's; they all have the VCR/DVD combos. No biggie - I decided I would just buy one just like the one in my living room.

I was explaining my electronics drama to someone and they offered a suggestion: why not try a VCR cleaner first before peeling for a VCR/DVD recorder that I might not need. It was worth a shot, so I stopped at WalMart on the way to work this morning and bought the cleaner, and as soon as I got home from work tonight, I ran it through a couple of cycles and voila! The VCR is playing back crystal clear once again. But to repeat what I said at the beginning of this entry, I just do not deserve electronics. I need to be in The Flintstones era