TV or Not TV? That's No Longer the Question

Have you ever had the occasion to get some sort of cool accessory for Christmas or your birthday, only to have the object being accessorized suddenly stop working?

This has happened to me twice now.

I had a rather nice visit with my parents this weekend (yeah, I know that the weekend's not over yet, but a Mom and Dad weekend visit encompasses a Thursday and Friday, so they can swing through Austin to see my sister and her family and get back home in time for Sunday morning church). Most of the time was spent assembling this gargantuan entertainment cabinet that they gave me for my birthday. After finshing the big part that holds the TV, we plugged it in, connected the proper cables and got...regular TV channels. Period. (Understand that, up to that point, the cable had worked fine.)

We tried every possible combination: Cable directly into the back of the TV. Going through the VCR, like usual (yes, I'm still in my pre-TiVo "dinosaur period"). Various permutations of the RF modulator box that I had to get when I got my DVD player. But it was still the same old nothing, no matter what.

This morning, after some rest, I decided to experiment. I took the little TV from the kitchen and ran the living-room cable into it; nothing. Then I brought it in here and ran the cable that usually goes to my modem into it; Voilà, I has a bucket o' cable channels.

I try the living room again, on the big(ger) TV (neither of mine qualify as "big" yet); not only does it still not work, but the little pin in the end of the cable staggers and falls to the ground. Greeeeeeat. (And if you're wondering why I can't just replace the cable itself, it's because the thing was set up weirdly from the get-go. It has a coverplate with an outlet, but the cable itself goes under that outlet and disappears into the wall somewhere. So it's not a job I can do myself; the whole outlet needs to be redone.)

So here I am, with a great-looking set of furniture, and no real way to watch TV. I find out from the cable company this afternoon that they can come by and fix my outlet...but not until July 6. That's a really long time, but hopefully I'll get a lot of practicing (and reading, and blogging) done between now and then.

And the other "all dressed up and nowhere to go" incident? My sister got my car detailed and cleaned up nicely while I was out of town on a (pre-kids) trip where we'd traded cars for the weekend. It looked great. And two days afterwards, the clutch blew out on me.

Have a simllar experience? Fire away in the comments (which have been rather quiet lately).

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