The Good, The Bad ...... and The Ugly

By now, most of you have figured out that I'm given to Clint Eastwood quotes. To me, this image is the one that I'll always have in my head as the quintessential Eastwood look! I'd also like to image that it's the look on my face (minus the little cigar of course) when my latest foray into Craig's List went slightly awry. 

I've been plotting over the course of the last few months (ever since I finished the bedroom HTPC aka "Viking") to shuffle my TV situation. That was the tipping point of dissatisfaction with my various displays. First of all, my main (living room) A/V system TV only did something like 1366 x 768 which, as you can see, isn't up to HD standard, plus the bedroom TV turned out to be somewhat less than that. Something in the 800 x 600 range....which is pretty pathetic by today's standards, and absolutely horrific if you are trying to watch anything HD through the internet. So, after selling off a bunch of stuff, fixing various people's computers and such, I had somewhere between $300 and $400 extra. How, I've been keeping an eye on a 42" Sony at Costco which barely fit in the opening in my cabinet, but it's $500 or so. One evening last weekend, I was scanning the local Craig's List ads when I came across an ad for a six month old 40" Sony LCD about 30 minutes away. They wanted $300. I offered $250. They took it. We met at a neighboring town, made the transaction, and that was that!

No, I did not get held up or anything like that ... in a manner of speaking, anyway! As any Craig's List veteran would do, I agreed to a meet in a public place in broad daylight. The only issue was that since this is a complex electronic device, I couldn't test it ......in the parking lot of a convenience store! So, I figuratively held my breath till I got it home, got the TV out of the bedroom, moved the living room TV to the bedroom, connected it all up, cleaned up all the TVs, put the "new" one in place, connected it......and fired it up .....to be greeted by a ....black screen..... I got the green "power" LED, but no picture! I tried a variety of things, but still "no joy"! 

If I'd of had those people there with me; this is what it figuratively would have looked like! Fortunately, I don't have a pistol, or a cool looking zarape' either. For the next several days, I contemplated the problem in silence. I finally even told my wife about it, and she felt so bad for me that she said I should go to Costco and buy the new one. But of course, that's not how Frugal Propellarheads roll. One afternoon, I pulled it out and turned it on and gave it a few strategic whacks on the sides and various places on the bad until I was rewarded with a picture (for a little while), which confirmed my suspicion that the people didn't intend to sell me a bad TV, just one with a loose connector. In the meantime, I had emailed them about the problem and they had even replied, but none after that first one. So, finally on Sunday afternoon, I got out my tools, opened up the back (many, many screws), pulled ALL the connectors and reconnected them. Sure enough, it worked, and has continued to do so ever since.

Is there a moral to this story? Some Frugal Propellerhead lesson to be learned? You bet! You aren't going to win every time. However, if you are prepared and willing to do what's necessary, things mostly come out OK, the vast majority of the time. Do I think those people are "bad" and tried to pawn off a broken product? No, not really. I'd bet that it was in fact working OK for them, but when it came down to it and had a problem, they didn't want to take a hit to stand behind it. After all, it's not their "business", just something they didn't need any more. Once the money was handed over, the risk was mine. If you aren't willing to deal with that, then do your shopping at Best Buy.