I had a real belly laugh last night. My friend calls me up, says his TV has a flat line running horizontally across the middle of the screen. "You're lacking vertical deflection", I said, in my best technical know-it-all voice. It's a not-so-common symptom anymore, my old TV shop used to pay the rent on such repairs. It has one of two causes. One is electronic, the other a physical "open" in a circuit - like a bad solder connection. So I says, "Smack it."
"What?"
"Hit it!"
"How hard?"
"Well, not hard enough to knock it off the table, but hard enough." Count 1, 2,
"Hey! It worked!"
"See, you can be a technician, too."
I told him that it would probably happen again, till we could get it fixed.
It's probably a paper-thin solder connection on his printed circuit board that has broken with the repeated heating and cooling of the TV. We should be able to find it, and all will be well with the world, for a while.
It made my day to help a friend, especially in such a simple and fun way. I hung up and just guffawed.
"Technical Support, this is Popeye, can I help you?" "Augh-ag-ag-ag-ag-awwww."
