This month marks the end of an era.After nursing my Emerson 19" TV along for the past year (I'm pretty sure the 'red' gun went out over a year ago, leaving the picture dark and a bit blue...) it was time to face the facts: She wasn't getting any younger... and there's only so much you can do with 'brightness' and 'contrast'.
Built by the good folks in Taiwan in July 1998, this TV was the Christmas gift that kept on giving. She's cable ready (up to channel 39) and wireless (provided you have a universal remote...the original died a decade ago). The control door broke off during on one of my undergraduate residence hall moves, but if you didn't fiddle with it too much it would stay in place, although slightly ajar.
A story I'm fond of telling (forgive me if you've heard it before) is when I moved into an apartment during grad school and had the local cable guys come to connect the cable and internet. While Internet Guy was in the bedroom working on the computer, Cable Guy turned on the TV to check the picture quality. "Wow. That's some picture, " Cable Guy remarked. A few minutes later, Internet Guy walked into the room to talk something over with Cable Guy and --I kid you not--stopped mid-sentence and remarked, "Wow. That's some picture." They just don't make TVs like this anymore.
While still OK for day-to-day viewing, when the Superbowl came around, we demoted my Emerson to the kitchen and moved my roommate's Philips Magnavox into the living room. A few weeks later, I found myself wishing I could change channels without getting out of my chair, so I pulled my old 13" TV/VCR combo from the closet and demoted Emerson from Kitchen TV to surplus. The picture above marks this sad occasion.
The silver lining in this story is that Emerson is now in the hands of some Indian graduate-student friends who have welcomed her into their family. Here's hoping she has many more years ahead of her...
