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it rained today. all day, from morning into the night. i suppose i should be thankful, because had the temperature been a few degrees colder and this was a snow event, the city would've been buried again. unable to go out, i spent the day listening to the tapping of rain against the house.

the fixed SC board for elias' HDTV was arriving today. fearing i might have to sign for it, i spent the day in the living room, afraid that i might not hear the doorbell when the postman comes. this gave me the perfect excuse to play a little more bioshock 2. i made it to inner persephone, which is already the final level. i'll probably finish the game by tomorrow.

when mail finally arrived, i was disappointed to see there was no package. could the tracking information be wrong? maybe it got lost again, and i won't get it until tomorrow. but a short time later i heard a thump on my doorstep and saw a box waiting for me.

the television repair service didn't do a very good job packaging the board. i think i did a better job, and paid less to ship it (at parcel rate with no insurance and no delivery confirmation). the board was wrapped tightly in 3 layers of bubble wrap and then stuffed snuggly in a cardboard box. the rain had soaked portion of the box so parts of it was falling apart. i inspected the board once i got it out to make sure it didn't get damaged during shipping.

this was the same board i shipped to have fixed with one difference: one of the MOSFET had been replaced. maybe this is typical for a MOSFET repair, but it didn't look like they did a very good job, with globs of solder and parts of the circuit board looking like it'd be scorched.

nevertheless, the only way to tell if it was okay was by putting it back into the HDTV. it wasn't very hard and i went slow and careful so i wouldn't accidentally break something. the replacement SC board went in first, followed by the SU and SD boards. i then put back the side terminal component, before reconnecting all the internal wires. before closing up the HDTV, i plugged it in to test. because the tv was facedown on the table and too heavy to lift upright by myself, i could only see the bottom part of the screen. when i turned it on it wasn't blinking anymore and the screen turned on (although there was no picture).

the final step was putting back the rear cover with its nearly 3 dozen screws. when that was done i fired up the HTDV one more time. i managed to get the menu to come up which is another good sign. i'm pretty sure it's fixed, i just need my roommate's help to stand the HDTV upright so i can watch it in all it's glory.

out of curiosity, i did a power measurement. initially it was using 220 watts, but after a minute it dropped down to 89 watts. this is just with the television not even displaying anything. these numbers will change once i can get an actual image.

i've been eating a lot of sandwiches recently. they're simple to make and they seem healthy enough. my typical sandwich is: wheat bread, mayonnaise, sandwich meat, american cheese, lettuce. tonight i kicked it up a notch and added some sriracha sauce.

david finally came home around 9:30. with his help i was able to stand up the HDTV and set it on the dining table for testing. it took me a while to get an image, and i was starting to get worried that maybe something else was broken. the first thing i got to work was to display a photo on the SD memory card reader.

i have the pdf manual but figured it should be simple enough to switch the video input without consulting the documentation. i finally realized that the DVD player input is linked to the HDMI port 1. once i knew that, i got my mini HDMP to work withe HDTV. success! a broken television brought back to life for the low price of $80! the repair would've been even cheaper if i only knew how to test and replace a broken mosfet.

this is a very nice HDTV but the only thing that concerns me is the power consumption. when i was testing a movie playback, the average was around 400 watts. compare that to my 27" CRT television which only uses 58 watts. that'd be like running 6 television sets at the same time. perhaps this is common with all HDTV since the screen is so much bigger (42" in this). this panasonic is also a plasma screen, which does use a bit more power but with brighter colors and better viewing angles. i'll have to test my parents' HDTV to see much how they use.

but i really don't watch all that much television anymore these days. in a typical day, i'll tune in to the news at 12:00 for half an hour, then i won't turn on the tv until 6:00 for another hour of news, and then i usually leave the tv on until i got to bed, or a bit earlier if none of the talk shows have any interesting guests. so maybe it won't be that bad. but my feeling is 400 watts is more power than all my current appliances (minus fridge) added together, including laptop and lights and CRT television.

david finished the rest of his pita bread along with some simple instant soup. we watched the americans, and i talked him into taking an advil for his back which was starting to hurt (an old recurring weight lifting injury, he assured me it wasn't because we were moving the heavy HDTV earlier). i finally found out how old he is (1978); he was surprised when i revealed my true age, he thought i was younger, or at most around his age.