Serenity Prayer
"God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change those things I can
And the wisdom to understand that having my lamp burn out on
the 65" Mitsubishi DLP big screen HD TV on New Year's Eve,
right before the Rose Bowl and the Orange Bowl and the Capital
One Bowl and all the rest of 'em, probably falls into the second
category.
Amen."
What you see above is our Mitsubishi FWD (Football Watching Device), which is in the Football Watching Room
What you do not see above is the Music City Bowl, which was on TV when I took this picture.
By "on TV", I mean that ESPN was sending the signal to DirecTV, which was sending the signal to our receiver, which was sending the signal to the Mitsubishi Football Watching Device, which was refusing to show the picture. Instead, it just shows a little red light at the bottom that says "Lamp".
What that means is that the DLP thingie - the bulb that actually does the shining into all of the little mirrors that makes the pictures of the football players appear on the FWD - has died, after 2.5 years.
This is not a bad thing. This is supposed to happen, and when I bought the FWD, I alsoI bought the 2 year extended warranty so that when the bulb burned out (which was supposed to be in two years) it would be replaced by an in-home technician at no extra cost.
Since the only time we have the FWD is is when watching football, or when watching DVDs, it took longer for the bulb to burn out. No huhu, cobber - when the extended warranty ran out, I bought a THREE year extension to that warranty.
However, when the bulb goes out on New Year's Eve, they won't come fix it until the day AFTER New Year's Day.
Excuse me - I have to go back to chanting the Serenity Prayer again....
The funny thing is this - a couple of months ago, I believe that I had a premonition of this event (*"Premonition" is the name of one of the movies that we got on DVD for Xmas, but we can't watch it because the DLP lamp is burned out. Excuse me) - I knew that we should be getting near the end of the lifetime for that DLP bulb, and I remember thinking "Wouldn't it be interesting if the bulb burned out right before all of the bowl games?""God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change those things I can
And the wisdom to understand that just because I can't
watch the bowl games in HD on a 65 inch screen, it's not
okay for me to plan and plot how I'm gonna blow up the
home office of those Circuit City folks who sold me the
extended warranty but didn't mention that when the bulb
burned out on New Year's Eve, I'd have to wait until the
day after New Year's to get it fixed.
Amen."
Well, yes, it was interesting.
"God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change those things I can
And the wisdom to talk Ethel into driving down
to Floyd's house to watch the games on his big
LG TV.
Amen."
About a year ago, my lowly 60" DLP was flashing warning lights which the manual stated meant "replace lamp" which wasn't covered by my warranty. I went to eBay and tracked down a replacement bulb. A week later when the bulb arrived, the old bulb started working again, so now I have a spare! I guess the old bulb just needed a little vacation? So, as stupid as it sounds, you may want to sneak in when nobody is looking and try turning the tv on, just to see if something unexpected happens.
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It's just as well. You'd of had to put a boot or two through it anyway. As they say, sometimes God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers...!
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