Morning Cereal and Ramblin Rod off the Air
I know we have turned off the analog signal, I know television is broadcasting in all digital.
I chose not to get a digital converter box for my old television. Every news organization made a very big deal about the conversion. They were of course required to, by the Feds, and the panic was infused early with a gleaming white smile, and a never ending continual patronizing patter of goo that always made it feel like they were talking to some strange population of mental deficients who apparently were left by their handlers to make the digital switch alone. And from the broadcasters slow small worded speech you would believe these people just as likely to plug their new converter boxes directly into their own ears as the back of their TVs in exactly the same manner in which you have plugged antennas into the back of TVs for the last 50 years, oh wait, I mean since TVs were invented.
Regardless I chose to go through the switch flip in the dark. This morning I rose and made my bowl of ceral as I have done for years, only now I have Almond Breeze instead of milk. I took my bowl to sit on the couch and check the status of my local analog signal. All but channel 6 was gone to the world of static. Its been like this since Friday. Channel six keeps playing a loop of prerecorded programing describing both in Spanish and English and Closed captioning how to perform the transition. The language continues to be slow and small. I happily crunch along hoping that someone with imagination might finally be put in charge of something, but I am dissappointed once again. They don't make it fun, they don't use this moment to bring people along with a feeling of excitement and joy for the switch instead they use the same scare tactics employed by Orson Welles on his War of the Worlds broadcast.
Oh if you don't switch you will be left in the dark, but really the snow, the static.
Well I am kinda glad to be there, it doesn't really feel bad to be missing CSI-Lameville.
None of this would have happened under Ramblin Rod's watch. He would have insisted that after the stations stopped broadcasting, that a loop of cartoons play continuously, with a few smile contests thrown in for good measure. So say we all!
I chose not to get a digital converter box for my old television. Every news organization made a very big deal about the conversion. They were of course required to, by the Feds, and the panic was infused early with a gleaming white smile, and a never ending continual patronizing patter of goo that always made it feel like they were talking to some strange population of mental deficients who apparently were left by their handlers to make the digital switch alone. And from the broadcasters slow small worded speech you would believe these people just as likely to plug their new converter boxes directly into their own ears as the back of their TVs in exactly the same manner in which you have plugged antennas into the back of TVs for the last 50 years, oh wait, I mean since TVs were invented.
Regardless I chose to go through the switch flip in the dark. This morning I rose and made my bowl of ceral as I have done for years, only now I have Almond Breeze instead of milk. I took my bowl to sit on the couch and check the status of my local analog signal. All but channel 6 was gone to the world of static. Its been like this since Friday. Channel six keeps playing a loop of prerecorded programing describing both in Spanish and English and Closed captioning how to perform the transition. The language continues to be slow and small. I happily crunch along hoping that someone with imagination might finally be put in charge of something, but I am dissappointed once again. They don't make it fun, they don't use this moment to bring people along with a feeling of excitement and joy for the switch instead they use the same scare tactics employed by Orson Welles on his War of the Worlds broadcast.
Oh if you don't switch you will be left in the dark, but really the snow, the static.
Well I am kinda glad to be there, it doesn't really feel bad to be missing CSI-Lameville.
None of this would have happened under Ramblin Rod's watch. He would have insisted that after the stations stopped broadcasting, that a loop of cartoons play continuously, with a few smile contests thrown in for good measure. So say we all!
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