VCR Voodoo

Setting up a home entertainment system is kind of like playing Operation blindfolded. You hit the buzzer alot, but sooner or later you're gonna get that water on the knee... or the bread basket if that's your fancy. I have set up a hell of a lot of entertainment systems in my short life, and I know I'm going to set up alot more in the eventual future, and it never fails that I come across oddities along the way. The really perplexing thing is the unpredictability of the correct setup actually working the first time through. Let me explain...

It's all logical... I'm going to hook this TV cable into the VCR, and then hook the VCR up to the TV. Okay, that works. And now I'm going to hook the X Box up to the VCR as well... and a 5 Disc DVD changer... with surround sound. Whoa, now nothing is working!? Yeah, that's the logic behind all of this. And no matter what we do, it's not going to work until the magical saints of entertainment grant us picture and sound at the same time.

This afternoon, Comcast came and installed cable TV into The Boss. It came a week and a half late, but it's better than nothing. Josh and I sprung into action and began setting up the entertainment system (what was there previous was a big TV, a gaggle of wires, and a small end table) which consisted of a small art desk that a friend gave us, and a blunt object. Josh used the object (which was like a small iron ruler of some sort) to smash the wire shelves out of the side of the desk. This allowed us to fit the tasty sub woofer in there. Then we set up the TV and the cable. Once that was working, we turned our attention to getting the VCR to work. Okay, that is fine. Then I plugged in the XBox... but it wasn't working. Why? God only knows. The RCA jacks were in the correct spots, but no picture and no sound. Same with the 5 disc DVD changer. This is when things began to get frustrating.

"This should be working," are the only words Josh and I, and anyone else in this situation, can say. But that's when you have to remember to toss logic out the window. No one becomes a manager at Radio Shack by listening to their logic! So you unplug everything, trying new combinations, new daisy-chains, new configurations... something has to work eventually.

I began to get frustrated, so I took out my forty ounce bottle of IBC Root Beer and began drowning my sorrows as Josh sat and watched some messed up WQED children's show. Jon came into the room, trying to help the situation, but you know how that goes: someone always comes into the room while you are trying to hook up entertainment equipment, and all they can do is ask you to do things you've already tried. It's not their fault, they're just trying to help, but it only leads to sour looks and frazzled nerves.

So then, while sitting on the floor of the Boss, a floor that I'm not particularly happy with since it has a high concentration of filth right now, defeated and exhausted-- not to mention having sore fingers from unscrewing the cable cord so many times-- Josh decides to turn on the TV again. Huh? What? It's the XBox! That gigantic magical videogaming machine was actually on the screen... and we could hear it to! It was an utter miracle and we still have no idea why. We had everything plugged in the same as it was when we started, we did everything the same, but like so many other times before, it didn't work until everyone had completely given up. I sat there for a moment, waiting for someone to start a slow clap.

"Why did that work?" Josh asked me.
"I don't know, man... just back away and don't touch anything," I replied.

And so we did...