I used to use the phrase “psycho demon” a lot, mostly when referring to our friend/neighbor’s cat. I bring it up again to discuss my upstairs television set.

Some of you remember this television as the one that would turn itself off, or the sound wouldn’t work, or that you had to do the combination restart of unplugging, plugging it back in, hitting it twice, turning it on, then doing the mute, hold volume for what seemed like three minutes until everything worked.

Well, it finally died.

I was watching something one night when it turned itself off. I went through the restart dance and when I turned it on, it started buzzing. All it does now is buzz at me. This was all not long after the picture went out completely. (That worked well, actually, for a little while I had a tv that moonlighted as a radio. I’d turn on the Sirius and with no picture, there was no glowing tv keeping me awake…)

On one hand, I am happy. Now, I don’t have to deal with the stupid thing being on when I want to go to sleep or the fact that it really annoyed me that if I wanted to change the channel I had to go downstairs to the satellite system. Nor will it keep me up even later at night while I watch Cheers or will I have to listen to Steve banging it when it goes out.

On the other hand, this is not a good thing. This means Steve is now shopping for a new tv.