No TV

For two weeks we’ve been without television.
No Jeopardy in hi-def with Vapid Vanna; no Lost Final Season (I bet!); no Bachelor Whatever strutting his pecks.
No great loss for us.
All we ever watched was the Evening News on tape delay while eating supper.
The other day a friend visited, and she noted our puny SONY with its 8&1/2 inch wide screen.
“Is that all the TV you guys got?” she cried, laughing.
“Yep,” I said. “Nothing on there is worth watching. Our money is in our computers.”
We get cable-TV. I have a special gizmo that puts TV on my ‘pyooter monitor, and sound through its speakers.
So the test to see if our cable is viable is to see if I can get TV on this here rig.
When we go way, I unplug the TV to avoid fire.
Unplugging the VCR is a hairball. Plugged back in it refuses to timer-record lest I “abracadabra” it.
I’ve dealt with it many times, and have yet to deduce a procedure.
We had gone to Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh”), PA, so unplugged the TV.
Plugged back in there was a POOF, and smoke appeared.
Sound, but no video.
Both the TV and VCR are together on the same table.
First we thought it was the TV, a CRT around 10 years old.
But now we’re not so sure.
Actually our VCR is a combination DVR/VCR that can also play and dub.
We connected the VCR to my ‘pyooter, and no video there either.
So the drill becomes:
—1) Test cable first.
—2) Buy another VCR, and
if still no video to a TV......
—3) Buy a new TV.
Hopefully this will solve the problem, of what little significance it is.
News at supper is a custom, one of the few occasions we get to do anything together throughout the day.
Right now we eat apart; me watching train DVDs on my ‘pyooter, and my wife eating on her aunt’s old hoosier in the kitchen.
Supposedly I could record the news with my ‘pyooter, but I doubt this rig would swallow a one-hour video-file.
Such a file would be HUGE!

• “We” is my wife of 42+ years and I.
• “Altoona, PA” is the location of Horseshoe Curve, by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is now a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child. —I’ve been there hundreds of times, since it’s only about five hours away.