These things come in threes, or so I’ve heard. So hopefully the death of the 50-inch plasma TV in our living room is the last of the trio.
A few months ago, my small chest freezer, which my late grandparents gave me for graduation 25 years ago, decided that there should continually be water under it in the basement freezer room. So, with great reluctance, it ended up in the garage, awaiting disposal. Twenty-five years is a good life for an appliance. But we don’t see that anymore.
A little over a month ago, the microwave died. It was a $600 model meant to be installed over the kitchen stove and to act as a range hood. But I had not yet installed it because the kids were too small to access it over the stove. Instead, it’s been sitting on a table in the kitchen in the interim. I was going to finally get around to putting it up this summer, when it, too, decided it no longer needed to work. The light went on, the turntable turned, and the food did not cook.
This led to a minor crisis since the microwave oven is kind of crucial for our ability to feed ourselves, and lacking the funds to go get a new one, we picked up a small cheapie for just over $100 to tide us over. Perhaps we can get the big one fixed? I don’t know.
Is it worth it, and if so, how long can we expect it to last? Thus, the behemoth is sitting in the living room, awaiting its fate.
A few weeks after that, I went to turn the TV on, and no dice. The little light went on in the corner, but nothing on the screen. I did every permutation of troubleshooting I could think of. I turned it on and off. I unplugged everything and plugged it in again. I tried every different input.
I used different cables in case the cable was fault. Nothing worked at all. So it’s dead.
This TV isn’t just any TV. When we got it about seven years ago, I was still actively trying to restart my wedding photography business. I shot 13 weddings in North Battleford in 2007, but only a small handful since coming to Estevan the following year. As in, next to none.
So I tried exhibiting at the local showcase and even attended a Regina wedding show. Since the human eye is drawn to movement, I figured I needed the best quality TV with the best colours and contrast to take to these shows in order to display my slideshows.
I took a thumb drive into the local electronics store and tried viewing the slideshow on almost every TV there. At the time, the plasma was far and away the best picture, but it was also among the priciest. It was one of the first with 3D capabilities, but I wasn’t going to spend an additional $150 per set of 3D glasses, so that never got used.
Suffice it to say, there was a lot of money invested in this, and it still didn’t garner me additional wedding bookings.
But now the TV is dead as a doornail, and, like the microwave, it’s not likely worth fixing, not economically, at least. And there are no funds right now to replace it and the microwave. The less capable TV from the basement will be moved to take its place in the meantime.
But since the plasma’s demise, we’ve noticed we really don’t miss TV yet. My wife is on the fence, as she has a few series that she does not miss. I asked the kids last night if they miss it, and the answer from both was no.
While Spencer would spend days in front of it, blocking some channels broke him of that habit, and now he’d much rather use his computer or iPad. Katrina is the same way. All of us have taken to binge-watching whatever’s good and available on Netflix, and I will occasionally use Amazon Prime.
All this has me thinking, that for the summer at least, I may pare down our TV package to next to nothing. I’m not ready to cut the cord entirely yet, and by putting the other TV in the living room, perhaps my affinity for the boob tube will rekindle. But most of what I watch is news, history or science, and I can find pretty much all of that on various websites, Netflix or YouTube.
It may be quite a while before we replace the TV, and I don’t think we’re the worse off for taking that time.
Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net.
