"So... it is down to you, and it is down to me."

It's a battle of wits between me and my electronics. I believe some fairy has entered my house and fried them all, except this computer (on which I am presently typing) and our dvd player. *knock on wood*

It all started one Sunday afternoon. Candace wanted to watch what we call a "Sunday movie". They're religious/scripture cartoons that are mostly housed in vhs cassettes. Enter - the vcr. This little beauty (or shall I say large, hefty brick of old 1980's technology) was given to us by my sister-in-law when she upgraded to a vcr/dvd combo when they first came out. This was quite a few years ago. It was great. It worked. It was ugly and GINORMOUS but it served its purpose...until it started eating our tapes. This did not make me happy. This past Sunday it almost wouldn't cough up one of our "Sunday movies". Sorry ol' Betsy, time to break my back tossing your largeness into the "circular filing cabinet" known as the trash can.

Next we tried a few dvds. We have our dvd player sound hooked up through my old 3-disc cd player that I got when I was a freshman in college. It was kind of like an easy home theater. I did it mainly because there weren't enough audio/video plugs in the back of the tv to support all of our ancient electronics. But, it gave much better sound than our tv...until it too went the way of all the earth. A few years ago it stopped recognizing cds. That's okay, it will still play tapes and it does our dvd sound. Then it stopped playing tapes, and, you guessed it, now there is no sound coming out of it. I know it's receiving the sound. It lights up, but nothing comes out. Solution = TRASH. At this point it's starting to feel cathartic. The trash can and I are quickly becoming friends.

Now I've hooked up the sound through our tv since the back plugs have opened up after the vcr died. It's terrible. I can hardly hear people talking. I'm changing the channel and volume with the buttons on the front of the tv and it's going in the opposite direction. Something fishy is going on here.

Next up is our wii. Great fun, unless there is an error and it won't read the discs. After some research I found out it is a problem with the wii system itself and I would have to send it in to get repaired for $75 because it is no longer covered under warranty. A lot of people have this same issue. This, however, I will not throw in the trash. It still works most of the time and it would be too much $ to spend on something we don't REALLY need right now. I have to save my money for the myriad of electronics that have already "bitten the dust" so far.

Then there's the laptop. We got it through the Chickasaw nation, Justin's tribe (he's such a white boy) as a laptop scholarship since he's a student. It's been really great. He can do his complicated math programs on it for work/school and we can watch movies on it at night in bed. My favorite thing. Now it's restarting itself after I turn it on from some unexpected error. I've run a virus scan and I can't figure it out. It still works okay for now, but with my luck with computers I think it will start having more problems soon.

Let's see, what else. The girls had a v-smile that won't turn on any more. It's an educational video game system for little kids, basically. They tried it after the wii was having problems. The entertainment center is looking pretty barren right now. In fact, I may set fire to the entire thing. Anyone in the market for a charred, gigantic tv? It's a 27" CRT beauty....? No? Well, I may have to keep that. It still works after all.


Seriously though, does anyone want to sell/give me their old vcr? As long as it was made in the last 10 years and doesn't look like a dinosaur. I'm also open to suggestions about home theater systems. I think I want to get one with a blu-ray player in it. I hear those discs are a little more resistant to tiny tot scratches. ;) I can't handle the sound coming out of the tv.