Time to go TV Shopping?

Last Friday evening, Mother's TV broke down all of a sudden. According to Mother, the screen just went blank in the middle of her evening show. No one has any idea why it happened.

So, since Saturday morning, she has been trying to reach Philips Service Centre. But somehow, nobody ever picks up the line. Yesterday afternoon, she got my help to try calling, too. I also got the same response (actually, the non-response). So I left a message in the phonemail instead.

But they have not returned the call at all. When I tried calling this morning again, the same thing happened. Nothing at all. Very frustrating.

Sigh, maybe it is time to go TV shopping soon.

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Actually, we have owned only a few TVs all these years.

When we were in the kampong, we had a very retro-looking Sierra TV. Remember? It kept us company for a long long time. It was that Sierra which brought us joy and entertainment with all those 小宝历险记、小甜甜、万里寻父、小海獭、Ultra-man, Superman & His Friends etc etc. To me, our Sierra was a dear friend.

But months before we were scheduled to move house, our dear Sierra's screen began to flicker. Then it started to shrink. Over the weeks, the area of the viewable portion of the screen gradually reduced to almost a thin line right in the centre of the screen. I remember feeling so sad about it. Sigh.

Correction: CP confirmed that I remembered wrongly - the old TV we had in kampong time was a Sharp and not a Sierra.

When we moved to PLW, we got a new TV. It was a good steady set which lasted quite long, too. But I cannot recall its brand or make. Was it Sanyo??

Correction: CP confirmed that this TV was the Sierra. We had had to have a bulb replaced only once during the 13 years when it was with us. When it was eventually decided that we would get the new Matchline, Mother gave the working Sierra to C4 for his use at his work place then. It broke down 4 years after C4 had taken it.

Mother also confirmed that the Sierra was a house-warming gift from C2. C2 gave us a total of 2 gifts for our move to PLW. The other was the display shelf which had occupied almost the whole length of the wall facing the living room windows from 1980. It was finally retired only when Mother renovated her house in 2000.

Anyway, it was on that TV that we saw serials like 我家就在大巴窑！and the many many Hong Kong drama serials (all dubbed in Manadarin spoken by some local dubbing artistes!). We also watched serials like 小李飞刀、弯刀 etc and variety shows like 欢乐今宵 etc on that TV.

When we had this new TV, SBC was a newborn broadcasting company. In between TV programmes, they screened a lot of those snippets showing children clad in multi-cultural costumes singing community songs like "Singapura, oh Singapura, Sunny island set in the Sea....". I don't know if others had liked these, but I certainly enjoyed singing along then.

Then, somehow that TV was later replaced by a Philips bought by C2 as a gift for Mother when he struck 4D after GF's funeral. C2 had asked Mother what gift she preferred. Mother considered a while and said it would be timely to retire our old TV. And so, C2 got us a 29-inch Philips Matchline. I think he purchased another set for C4's family next door, too.

For this Matchline, Mother even went to buy a new TV console (which we still use today) from the furniture shop in Geylang East. At that time, Matchline was quite a new product and its remote control was one of the first with those fanciful 'smart controls'. (Btw, we still use that remote control.)

The Matchline served us well, too, and lasted several years. I didn't watch as many shows on this TV though, because I was mostly busy with schoolwork and ECA during those Seconday School, JC and NUS days.

But I think SBC became TCS and then MediaCorp while we were using the Matchline.

We bought several years of extended warranty for the Matchline when its original warranty expired. It was worth the 'trouble' because we had had to use the services of the Philips Service Centre quite a few times as the Matchline started to age and act up.

I remember that when I was on no-pay leave - Mother had gone an overseas trip - the Matchline lost its volume completely. Mother had asked me to help to have the Matchline diagnosed and its problem resolved by the Philips technicians.

But alas, after umpteen calls and even more visits by the technicians, the problem was still not resolved. In fact, they eventually summoned the higher technicians and then the chief technician, all of whom remained clueless as to what the problem was with the Matchline and how it should be recitfied.

Then finally, they all gave up and conceded with much embarassement that they didn't know how to repair their own product! By then, I was dealing with the Chief Marketing Manager, who later 'relented' and offered to sell us their then newly-launched, improved 29-inch PixelPlus model on a trade-in basis for a 'generous' discount normally available to only their top management. Of course this was a face-saving measure, but we agreed to the deal, lor. I think we 'saved' several hundreds for a new Philips PixelPlus.

The PixelPlus has since been with us for a few years. Now it has started to act up.

Maybe it is indeed time to retire the PixelPlus? Prices of TVs have gone down so much these days and technology has improved by leaps and bounds. Perhaps we should be looking at LCDs now and no more of the CRTs. But I have no idea what Mother has in mind...