Goodbye Old Friend

I had to banish an old friend today… A friend that had been there for me through thick and thin, to whose bosom I rushed whenever I had to forget my daily troubles. Sadly, my friend had worn out his usefulness and I had him taken away.
No, it wasn’t just Darth. It was my old reliable 32” Toshiba. The times had just passed him by and a younger, sleeker model caught my eye.

Hello, new friend!

This is my new friend, the Samsung 46” LCD. I think I’ll call him Samson. (It would have been just “Sammy”, but I already have one of those.)

Oh how I love your smooth lines. So much more picture to love and a remote as long as my arm. I’ve already seen one hockey game with you and it was life changing. We are going to party, my friend.
No wussy chick flicks on you, Samson. It’s going to be nothing but sports and action flicks. I’ll have Independence Day running on a 24-hour loop, with Rambo in the Picture in Picture. Maybe once in a while, I’ll switch to a cooking show, while they celebrate Bacon Week. Yeah, life with Samson will be great.

Still, Toshiba and I have been through a lot together. We met back in 1993 or ’94, back when I lived in Albany NY and was married. (Cold chill runs down back.)

Man, we’ve seen a lot of history. We’ve seen three Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl runs, one of which still gives me nightmares but is more than made up for by the other two. We’ve seen countless Steelers Monday Nighters and playoff games. We’ve seen hundreds of Penguins hockey games, most of which came in the last three years when I’ve had the NHL Center Ice package. We’ve seen the Orioles suck for 11 straight years. Haven’t seen many Pirates games, but that’s probably a blessing.

We’ve seen 4 sets of Olympic games. So many sights there… Kerri Strug sticking a vault on one leg, Brandy Chastain nailing down a soccer gold and becoming the poster-girl for buff women, Michael Phelps winning every medal in sight, even with a little help from his friends. There was Tonya and Nancy going head to head or knee to knee for skating gold, as well as countless other twisting and spinning ballerinas with blades on their feet.

We’ve seen the entire run of ER and Friends and all of 24 and Lost so far. We’ve seen series finales of NYPD Blue, Seinfeld and countless other quality shows that came and went; torpedoed by the lowest common denominator demands of the American public.

And there’s been history!

We’ve seen four Presidential elections: half thrilling, half nauseating. We choked back tears watching Diana’s funeral. We wept openly the afternoon of 9/11. We’ve seen Jon Stewart make mincemeat of the powerful and pretentious, making us laugh till we cry the good kind of tears.

So it wasn’t at all an easy decision to upgrade. Toshiba probably would have lasted many more years. But progress is inevitable and 3-years free financing is a powerful argument. I woke up on Saturday knowing I would be greeting my new and promising friend Samson and any apprehensions I may have had flew right out the window when the Best Buy guys brought that giant box in the door. They set him up, hoisted the remote into my hand and wished me well.

Into the manual I flew, wanting to know everything I could about my new friend. After some stops and starts, I got the DVD, the Wii and the surround sound into working order.

Now, let’s see what she’s got!

OK, not so fast. Sadly, I failed to realize that regardless of Samson’s broadcasting prowess, it was still a Saturday afternoon, meaning there wasn’t shit on TV (unless you count golf, which isn’t as much TV as it is the best cure for insomnia, right next to NASCAR).

Sigh.

OK, let’s check out the “E” channel and their special on “The Best and Worst Beach Bodies.” We’ll start working on making new history later.