I did. I took a hammer to it, and ripped it apart in the World’s Most Irrational Bout of Rage.
You know, I don’t watch a lot of television. In fact, in true Doper fashion, I have gone many years without watching any television at all, and many years plain not owning one. Most recently, I had a television, then the whole conversion thing happened, so my TV ended up being something I watched Netflix DVDs on. Then, some months ago, I happened to find that my friend had an extra converter box that she didn’t know how to dispose of, it came up that I didn’t have one at all, and I inherited it. My TV watching didn’t change much, but I often used it as white noise, and caught up on some shows I used to watch, but fell behind on.
So why was I thrown into this wildly irrational bit of rage, you might ask, considering I don’t watch that much TV. Well, because the goddamn thing doesn’t work, and that makes me angry. One day, a Saturday, I turned on the TV and converter, and received a black screen. I thought my TV was broken, but after testing the TV with my DVD player and Nintendo (yes, NES, not this Wii crap), I realized it was the box. So I solved my problem the way I solved all of my problems, which was to reboot. So that was the deal. It occasionally didn’t work when I turned it on, but if I turned it off and on again a few times, the magic would happen, and I could watch TV. It was a mild nuisance, but it’d soon enough start functioning, which was good enough for me. There have only been a handful of times when I just could not get it to work.
These times were all Wednesdays and Sundays. Folks, those are the ONLY two days a week when I actually care about what’s on TV. As in, “Ooh, I’m going to watch TV tonight,” as opposed to just turning it on, and watching whatever I see.
Why in god’s unholy green pastures have the ONLY times my converter box refused to work been the ONLY two days of TV that I care about at all? Tell me. Now there’s nothing good on that I simply must see, mind you, but the device failing exactly and only when I wanted it to function pissed me off in ways a simple electronic device should not. In previous failings, I’ve been tempted to smash the thing to bits, but decided against it. But today, oh god today, I don’t know if I’m in a mood or what, but I decided this thing needed to DIE. Before acting rashly, I checked to see how much a new one would cost, to see if my rage was worth it. $40.
Terrific. Well that does it. This goddamn son of a whore was going to get killed to death. So I tore it open, ripped the plugs out, smashed it with a hammer, and went full on Office Space on the bastard.
Can digital converter boxes feel pain? I hope so.