Toshibaland

I like Toshiba. Wifey-Do has one of their tablet PCs, and it's very nice. Their televisions have the best picture. Yeah, they sold some secrets about our submarine propellers way back, but hey, that's water under the bridge. If I had to get another tv, it would probably be a Toshiba. I can even say it like they do in Japan. TOSH-ba. The "i" is silent.

The other brands? Sorry Zenith, you were the king, but not anymore. Lucky Goldstar? Not yet. And Sony can just kiss my ass. But let me tell you something. Don't go lurking around inside the guts of one of these things. Our set has developed a problem in the vertical deflection, so I foolsihly went inside.

Can I tell you how sensitive Japanese pc boards are to heat? Yup, I boogered up a few traces. Can I tell you how easy the solder joints can crack? They do. I went from a bit of overscan on the top of the picture to no picture at all. Just a single horizontal line. I tinkered and got the picture back, but it's still not right. Damn. This is a tv that's been around since 1993. The in-laws had it for many years before we got it, and while they had it, they never turned it off. We called it the perpetual-vision. But the picture is still bright, the focus, purity, and convergence are all good. If I can just fix that one little glitch it's developed.