[AiboPet]

yes.... I'm new (just registered THIS morning actually)

It starts with ONE set, that your Dad gave you 15 years ago. THEN, you lose your Dad :-( ...but find out that he had a small COLLECTION of the little TVs.

You schlep them all back to San Diego from LA to keep the rest of the family from just TOSSING them. You have to buy a little plastic shelving unit from Target, and engineer some power strips so the sets will run all in one place just for shock value. THEN you decide you want ALL of them to come on with the simple push of a remote X10 switch.....for even MORE shock value.

Before you know it, you are learning to "care and feed" the sets that get sick.... and then you buy ANOTHER shelving unit, because you became enamored by some particular design and now have TWELVE of those. One day you look up, and realize you could light the apartment with JUST the cool glow of almost 50 little 2"-5" CRTs. Just when you think "This is silly, I don't even speak Spanish", you read about someone making their OWN little TV station in the house JUST for this sort of collection.

You KNOW it's too late when you are walking the swap meet....and realize you ONLY went there with a single image to look for. The unmistakeable shape of a 5" gray CRT peering out from among someone's junk. You've GOTTA look.....and in the case of the little Sony 8-301 I just found Sunday, you've GOTTA have it. The thought of something so cool just being tossed away and being GONE....or not KNOWING if this set is alive or not, needs some minor tweaking, or is going to turn you into a different form of collector....like maybe you go find the SAMS photofact and decide to restore something, and not just look at it.

I have like FIFTY of these little TV sets now...from like a dozen less than six months ago. Good thing my "alternative" lifestyle will never piss off any wife :-)