Figuring Out the Remote

It is one thing, when you buy your new TV, and you plug it in and hook up all the stuff thinking "At LAST -- on THIS TV, the remote control will work" because that's how your relationship with electronics works, right? Your unique-to-you-stronger-than-normal magnetic field effs with normal circuitry and causes CD players, radios, TVs, VCRs, digital cameras, computers, cars, planes, and all manners of electronic gadgets to malfunction long before their shelf life expires and you're just kind of used to it because that is how it has always been and then you buy new gadgets.

So this TV is new and shiny. Ok it's been on the shelf of Target since October 2007 but come on, you LOVE Target! You and this TV are going to be great friends. But then you're hitting the "ON" button and you've fed it the pre-requisite AA batteries which you stole from the DVD remote and thinking "what are the odds... how could I possibly have paid 200+ for a TV and still I have to get up and change the channel by hand" but once its turned on all the other remote buttons work and this is very strange, no?

And you play with it for a few weeks and you're loving the high-def of it all, thinking "the pores--look at her PORES!" and "this is the clearest signal anyone has ever gotten sans cable" and "can you believe they used to make televisions that weigh more than my cat?" and you finally figure it out: you figure out the remote. It's like the car; if you turn it off by hand, you have to turn it on by hand. Just like the car alarm will go off if you lock it with the little button and you try to unlock it with a key.

And you didn't buy the extended warrenty because let's face it, you got the October shelf TV for a sweet, sweet deal and you're really cheap but you're thinking maybe the curse has lifted -- this TV is finicky like me. Maybe this one will last.