So Long, My Gargantuan Friend...

BZZZZTTT! Poof! Those were the death knell of our TV in the living room on Tuesday night. It just happened so fast. One moment we were watching the hockey game, the next it was smoking... The picture completely disappeared and only scrambled lines left, so we turned it off. Then smoke started to come out. I frantically fan the smoke with a nearby magazine so that it won't set off the sprinkler system. One dead TV was enough for that night...

Picture somewhat related and not related... Will elaborate further on it at the end of this post.



So here is what it will look like last before it gets recycled when the delivery truck shows up. It was a 53" rear video projector television made by Sony. So when I say "gargantuan", I mean it! Though I don't really call it a friend except in the post title ^^;

This TV has been with us for 10 years now, at the end of 1999 to be exact. I remember it very well because everyone else was panicking for our technology when the Y2K hits, while we bought a big screen TV... It was a floor model, so we got quite a discount on it. We also took the seller's protection plan since it is a floor model. The warranty has long expired now, but the offer was that if nothing happened to the TV for the length of their extended warranty they'll offer something for the amount of what we paid. So we got a VCR/DVD combo for my parents.

Of course my mom wasn't too thrilled that we got something so monstrous, especially since our old house was leaning one way. We placed it at the far end of the house where it leans the most... We joked so much that it will probably make the house lean even further.

Wiring's a mess back here... Only my brother knows what's going on in here... Does it remind of you Lain?

Eventually we moved to a bigger house and so we had more room for this TV. So we have better set up for it as well.

Wow it was actually made in 1998! So this TV lasted for about 11.5 years even after being a floor model.

The ladies and gents had to move from the top of the TV... Not sure where I'm going to put them... Can't exactly put them on top of a flat screen TV.

We moved to this new house around 2001... I'm pretty sure we haven't cleaned under the TV for that long... So if you can see clearly, that's the amount of dust that's accumulated since that time!

Here's a representation of how big the TV is by showing me standing beside it. I'm 5'10"-5'11" or 178-180 cm. So pretty big TV! I'll really miss it because we never thought we'd replace it. It was so big that even widescreen movies look good on it. Plus back then I didn't wear glasses yet, so I could read anime subtitles off of it with no problem!

Alas it has to go one day... the smell of whatever made that smoke from the back of the TV really signaled its death. The smell lasted for the night... A sad reminder that I can't play Bayonetta that night =(

Anyway... I quickly looked up and researched everything that I never had to do for a TV before. Finding out what the difference between LCD, plasma and now LED. What their prices are, their lifespan, pros & cons and all the hertz and HDMI that came along with them. From all the all nighter study, I think I've made a good decision, not to mention finding a cheaper price from another store so that Best Buy can beat it.

So make way for a new television! A new table stands at the place of my "gargantuan friend" ready to receive its new resident... I don't suppose y'all be interested in what I'm getting? I don't plan on showing or posting about it, but if you're curious enough about the process then I'll be happy to type it out one day.

The part highlighted in red... if you're not distracted by Sayla herself...

As for the top picture... If you've noticed for the last few titles of my blog, I've spelled out names of my favourite Vocaloid and my favourite voice actress, "MEIKO" and "AYAKO" Kawasumi. Well this time, the last five posts titles spells out "SAYLA". My favourite girl from the original Gundam series. I originally liked Frau Bow in the beginning, but the advent of strong female characters were the in thing... Sayla Mass was Amuro Ray's backup Gundam pilot. Though she wasn't as good as him, it shows that she can kick some ass as well! Perhaps she was also the reason why I started to like blond anime characters such as Saber, and strong female leads, such as Maki from Air Master.

She also lead to my liking of Cagalli's design from Gundam Seed, even though I haven't seen the show. Once I seen it though... my desire diminished... Good thing Lunamaria showed up in Gundam Seed Destiny. A spiritual successor to Sayla Mass. There's still no Gundam show with a main character who's female and a Gundam pilot that I know of to this day.

Oh and this should be the last one that I'm doing to spell out names of people for my post titles for a while ^^;;; It can be quite a challenge to make it work depending on what you want to post about, but fun also ^^