Atmospheric Disturbance is Disturbing Me, and I’m Buying Junk to Stimulate the Economy
By Andy Alt / Mental Dimensions
Aug 26, 2008 – I don’t watch much television anymore, but there are still a few sitcoms I enjoy watching when I’d like to veg out. A few minutes ago, I logged off the Internet to watch an episode of Cheers on KSTC45. My new DTV converter box works well enough, it’s my reception that disturbs me. There must be some atmospheric disturbance tonight, for many nights I can receive Cheers, and also Friends (though Friends on KSTC seems to be cutting out around 10:30pm more frequently the last few weeks).
I prefer analog. Don’t quickly believe the hype about the switch to Digital Television. A standard or amplified rabbit ears can be hooked in to receive the digital signal, and the antenna must still be adjusted. I’m sure people are familiar with how those work: when the station is tuned in and one goes to sit down, the picture fails. With analog reception, however, I would get a picture with some static but I could still watch a show. With DTV, first the sound disappears, then the picture becomes distorted, and finally you get a screen saver flashing “no signal.”
From this time on, I will no longer be surprised when thing break or work in a broken manner. I went camping last weekend. I took along two rain ponchos — one I bought two months ago and ripped one month ago. The red blinking beacon on my camping lantern is only visible from two feet away, on a lantern which I purchased one year ago. I was wearing cargo pants my wonderful mother had purchased for me three years ago — one of the zippers was broken and had several teeth missing. One of the flashlights I had with me contained lightly-used double-A batteries, both of which failed miserably after one day. The night I arrived home, I put a videocassette in my VCR to record Friends while I read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Three times I hit rewind, and three times the vcr shut off. I put a different tape in. The same thing happened, but additionally, the VCR ate, violated, and destroyed the tape. I bought that VCR two years ago.
Is the new method of stimulating the economy to buy junk? I preferred the rebate. I used it to buy an HP Officejet J3600, which of course didn’t come with software I could use because most publicly-traded companies aren’t likely to care about the demographic of their customers who use Linux. I can print and fax with it, but there are some features hidden to me because I’m a communist who prefers an open source operating system.
I know I could have easily returned that ripped rain poncho after only a month, but it was only five dollars. That is was cheap is not my point.
Addendum – Sep 9, 2008: I forgot to be more fair and balanced. All the stations I receive broadcast from the urban or suburban regions of the Minnesota Twin Cities Minnesota area. Sometimes my reception is poor because I live a significant distance away from the nearest television station transmitters.
Another factor to consider: before I got my converter box, channels 2 (PBS), 4 (CBS), and 5 (ABC) were completely unwatchable with my amplified rabbit ears. Now, with my DTV converter box, although sometimes I have trouble with reception, I at least have a better than 70% chance of being able to watch those three stations.
I do apologize for not being more accurate and detailed in my initial ranting analysis regarding the future of today, which is here now, and arrived a few months ago.
See Also:
- For C++ developers – Condiskdat, Console Disk Cataloger (Please take over this project)
- Gibson Research Corporation
Yes Andy, I commiserate with you! Too often I have spent many a dollar on absolute junk. For example, I love jewelry and recently bought a sterling silver and red jasper (type of stone) ring. After wearing it for a day, it began to turn my finger green. I was under the impression that I was purchasing a *real* silver ring and its not silver if its going to turn a finger green for goodness sakes! When I went to return it, the sales lady said, “Oh its just the acid content in your skin, its real though”. Ha!
Anywho, I too, sometimes feel that I am stimulating the economy by buying junk and being lured into buying things at a dollar tree store, which might as well be a Target, Kmart or even a Macys because even junk can hide in well-lit, perfume-smelling, pretty little stores.