Flat Bertha has arrived

Following on from my purchase of a half-decent computer earlier this year, my recent purchase of a flat-screen TV has really made me feel like I have moved into the 21st century.  Flat Bertha is a 37-inch TCL flat-screen telly that has taken up residence in my bedroom.  It goes without saying of course that figuring out how Flat Bertha works has been somewhat annoying.  As always, the manual is a piece of shit and the onscreen English menus are dotted with grammar and spelling mistakes.  In this regard, TCL really needs to do better.  However, the TV wasn’t too expensive, especially compared to the popular Sony Bravia series, which has been immortalised by the following slogan: ‘I prefer red, especially the red that Chinese people like.’  The main problem with Flat Bertha’s functionality is its recording features.  I can plug in an external hard drive and recorded files can be saved there, but programming the damn machine can be difficult.  Whatever happened to the serial numbers used by advanced VCRs to record programs?  Even if Flat Bertha could use serial numbers to record programs, it would be difficult to find out what the serial numbers are because there aren’t any reliable guides to Chinese television.  Unlike their Australian counterparts, Chinese newspapers don’t seem to publish program guides.  I often have to wait until the start of the 10pm movie on CCTV6 to find out what movie is on.  Chinese TV stations rarely tell viewers about what programs are coming up.  Anyway, I hope to use Flat Bertha’s recording capabilities to make a video featuring some of the best bloopers by Yang Rui, the host of CCTV9’s Dialogue program. Flat Bertha has settled down in my bedroom

Posted: 6:00 PM, 23/9/2007 in Personal Share on Facebook

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