Manufactured September 2000
If you happened to keep up with the Top 50 I ran, this is the same television set that ran the title cards for each entry. It's been around for a long while and I'm super fond of it. I don't remember when exactly, but my Dad originally bought it for his office when he still worked at the car dealership. It sat on a counter adjacent to his desk, and he would leave it on just for background noise while he worked I guess. After he got hired at the City, (I would have been early high school age. '04, '05?) the TV came home where it made it's way to my room. This is the television set that I would stay up way too late watching Adult Swim on, absorbing as much of the Saturday night anime block as I could, knowing good and well how bleary eyed I'd be for church in the upcoming morning. This is the television set that I would play hours of N64 with. (Super Smash Brothers mostly.) When my brother quit playing the PS2, I hooked it up to this set and got absorbed in a loaned copy of Final Fantasy X for the first time. I remember watching the Democratic primary debates on this set, trying to do my best to be informed for my first presidential vote in the fall of '08. This is the TV set that sat on the makeshift cinder block shelving in the living room of my first apartment, right next to the boombox.
I got it repaired once, I think in 2011. The infrared receiver had stopped working, which meant switching to GAME from regular signal wasn't an option, since the only button for it is on the remote. I took it to one of the only specialty repair shops left in town at that point, knowing full well it was probably a fool's errand. The shop owner looked at me like I'd just flown in from Mars, but said he'd see what he could do. After a few days I got a call back. He'd managed to pull the replacement part off of a similar nonworking model that happened to be in the back. I was ecstatic; he was baffled.
No matter where I've moved, or how many times I rearrange the house, this little set has always found a place of frequent use. Right now it's on my giant desk, hooked up to the A/V switch box for the retro consoles, perched happily on the VCR. I've kept it's antenna on through the years, even after over the air signals went the way of the dinosaur. It just doesn't look right without it. I admittedly watch much less on it than I used to, but that's just a side effect of not having cable to binge on the weekends.
Happy 20th, little TV set. Thanks for the years of joy and entertainment. I'm glad you're still going strong.