Sephy’s Platzish

While the tone of this week is predominantly sad, there have been a couple of occasions for me to laugh, generally at other people’s stupidity (or just silly things that had been said). So, here are 3 scenarios which I faced just in the course of this day (Tuesday, not Wednesday when this is being published ). However, one really isn’t totally funny, but involves me having a bit of a saving grace.

They Speak THAT there?

I was alerted to the fact that an episode of the PBS travel show Rick Steves’ Europe featuring London was on the Create channel today. During the show, he was explaining how the Tube works, and he actually uttered this line -

Lost? Don’t worry because most of the locals speak English.

Really? I always thought they spoke Swahili or Mandarin in Tube stations…this was a shocking revelation that I would have never expected. That being said, however, Rick Steves is really the best (American) authority there is when it comes to travelling in Europe. Normally he has rock-solid information, and if you look at it in this context, you don’t get much more rock solid than that.

Gee…I wonder why he got stopped?

After work tonight, I went out to the south from my place of work in search of some less-expensive gas for my car (details of that in my next snippet). When you go to the south, you have to cross the freeway, and that involves a series of three stoplights (one is for a service road that leads to a hotel and restaurant complex, along with some banks and other services, the other two are for the freeway).

At the first of the freeway stoplights, traffic going south was stopped for the red light, and then, as they work, the light for traffic coming off of the freeway from the east was green. The first car in the line was a police car, marked and in black. Apparently the bright spark in the left lane didn’t notice this minor fact.

So what does he do? Go. While the light is still red. He didn’t even make it halfway across the freeway bridge before the cop had his lights on and getting ready to stop him, which he did just after the other stoplights. Wouldn’t you have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation? By the way, the fine for failing to obey a traffic signal is somewhere in the region of $150 and 3 points on your license.

Always pay attention to road signs, ok?

Yeah, I kinda didn’t… :blush:

As I was driving into the city that is past the gas station that I usually stop at (which was only 1 cent per gallon cheaper) in my search for cheap gas, I got to a point where I decided to turn around. This particular city is renowned for having confusing streets and you can get lost easily. I guess the good news is that I didn’t get lost, but the bad news could have been me either in a heap of trouble with the police or in a hospital.

That is, if it wasn’t for a guy in a truck yelling at me about the street. You see, I had gone to the end of what was a split set of one-way streets, and I had assumed that because it was a one-way street intersecting the other half of the one-way pair, that this street was also one-way. It didn’t click in my head that there were lights going both ways on the street, meaning that it is a 2-way street. And I wondered why there weren’t signs talking about left turns on red…

Anyway, the light turns green, and I do what I thought was right (and what would have been right if this were a one-way street) and turned into the lane closest to me. The guy behind me turns into the correct lane, which I thought was about 3 lanes too far over. He goes and passes me, yelling to me "This isn’t a one-way!" I promptly swerve into the correct lane behind him and his truck, and when we get to the next intersection that has lights, I went into the right lane and thanked him for letting me know. He said that he did it so that I didn’t get hurt. It goes to prove that there are good folks out there.

In fact, if it were one of those Miller commercials, he’d probably have been given a bottle of the product they’re selling because he was genuine.

Oh, and the gas? I wound up getting it at the station I went past in the first place after all - it was $4.169 per gallon (or $1.102 per liter) there - the highest I’ve paid so far. Sadly, I don’t think it’s going to come down appreciably at all, thanks to the speculators playing their games.

One of the things I’ve been grumpy about a lot is the way that severe weather warnings are presented on local TV. Do they need to be presented? Yes, because it is a public service to inform the viewing audience of where storms are and if you need to take cover from said storms. That’s something we all can agree on. However, there are good ways and there are bad ways to handle informing the public of severe weather.

Let’s look at a bad way first, shall we?

This picture comes from just a couple of weeks ago, on the Sunday before Memorial Day, when we had some (as you can see on the radar picture) storms in the area. They weren’t severe (at the time), and there was just a watch issued for the area.

However, the fine folks at channel 12 decided to do what they do every time there’s a watch issued for the area - squeeze the picture so that it’s completely unwatchable and essentially waste about 1/8th of the screen with their graphic telling you that you’re watching channel 12’s weather bar. Of course, not to be outdone by the weather department, you also have the convenient reminder that you’re WATCHING CHANNEL 12 in the lower right hand corner. By the way, the reason for the black bars is that this was taken from their digital feed, and if it were not for the watch bar, the show would have been in HD, and the 12 logo would have been about 1/4 the size.

By the way if you think that channel 12 are the only ones who do this kind of thing, here’s what channel 58’s bar looks like (note that this is from September 2006, during which time they were running a promotion and squeezing the picture even further than they had already with their weather bar!)

Channels 4 and 6 at least use a bit of sense (though how much sense is questionable because it just happens that they wind up wasting more space by doing this) and just shrink the picture so that the aspect ratio isn’t messed up; only the picture is smaller.

Now, let’s take a look at how this kind of thing should be pursued (or, at least how it was pursued by the local stations in the past). First off, I should commend channel 12 on their old way of doing this - they would just put up text at the bottom of the screen that read, for example, "T-STORM WARNING ___ COUNTY". It was simple, didn’t interfere too much with the picture, and was a perfect solution to a complex problem.

However, what really got me going on this was the fact that I was able to pick up stations from out of the area yesterday (ahh, the old days of TVDX, you might say, and that’s true, and this was my first time doing some digital DXing, which made it that much cooler ). Thanks to the weather, a lot of the stations had their warnings up and showing for you to see.

On every single occasion, no station had squeezed, squished, crunched, or even re-sized a picture to accommodate the warning information. All they did was put a simple overlay of the affected counties, and text telling you what warnings were out (along with the counties affected). In another instance, an ABC affiliate broke into their programming (game 2 of the NBA finals), but did something that I think would give Milwaukee TV bosses heart attacks (well, except for channel 6 back in 2007) - they kept the game on in the bottom left and had the meteorologist in the upper right!

So, you may ask, what did warnings look like in the "olden days" of TV (i.e. anywhere but Milwaukee yesterday). Well, I could show you a picture I took of one station that is literally stuck in the early 90s with just showing a storm cloud in the lower left — which is what they used to do on local TV; sometimes with an S or a T to tell you what kind of warning it was. However, as it so happens, I have an old picture from channel 4, from a taped airing of "Days of Our Lives" circa I have no idea - maybe late 90s or early 2000s.

Look! A full-screen picture (though it wouldn’t be in HD because none of the major stations have the technology yet, but you’ve got the feeling it’s coming) with a simple overlay. Can anyone tell me why the TV stations can’t make such a simple step backward that would, in the end, be a huge step forward?

Oh, and by the way, I must also give kudos to the PBS broadcaster in the area - channels 10 & 36 - because they can do an HD overlay, and the size of it is very comfortable - it looks like a postage stamp on an envelope. When viewed on a 42-inch screen, I bet it’s the perfect size.

What I’m curious about is if Milwaukee is the only TV market that does this stupidity. I have this inkling that we are. That should be a lesson to them, but I don’t think they care to listen…

About a week ago or so, I finally got my hands on one of the digital converter boxes I’d talked about not being available at Wal-Mart at all. It turns out that Best Buy has literally scads of them for sale. So, they’re $10 more than the Wal-Mart ones, but you’re getting a much better box.

Interestingly, the box that is sold at Best Buy (under their Insignia name) is manufactured by LG Electronics for Zenith. As we all probably know, LG make some darn good products, and they haven’t gotten this one wrong either.

Now that we’re finally getting towards the cutoff of analog TV and we finally have the digital converter boxes (set top box, STB for short) available in stores, and to be honest, I’d be prepared to buy another one at full price even for my room, or for the computer.

As it stands, with analog TV, using rabbit ears, we’d get 11 channels over the air, and the signals on those channels went all the way from fairly clear to barely watchable. Of course, since it is digital, now all the channels come in crystal clear, and there’s 28 of them. That’s just from Milwaukee!

The only problem is that this number goes down to around 8 when something happens. This happens when the noisy neighbor comes through. Its presence interferes with the UHF signals (I think the term for that is “multipath” - where the signals bounce off of something causing confusion), so I’m only left with the 8 channels of public TV, including one which shows Mr. Rogers Neighborhood at midnight…

However, the greatest thing is that I can get all the programs in HD now. Well, not purely HD, but it’s widescreen and just as clear as HD pictures, just downscaled to the proper resolution for an analog TV. Seriously, if you haven’t gotten a coupon for the digital boxes, you can do it at dtv2009.gov - the program should still be available for a little bit of time from now.

I’ll have some shots of the digital channels soon, because there is something annoying about some of them.

So, on Monday, I mentioned that I’d have something about a toy that I’d be getting this week. So far, I’ve gotten nothing. Well, that’s actually a lie because I did get the thing that I wanted to get so that I could save on this thing.

What is it, you ask? A digital to analog TV converter box of which there is a program underwritten by the US Government to subsidize the cost of the boxes to the effect of upwards of $80 (2 $40 coupons per household).

What had spurred me on to applying for the coupons in the first place was the appearance of the boxes in the local Wal-Mart store. I had noticed them at the beginning of March, on the day when I was doing the test drive to and from work, and we stopped at the store which I pass every day to check it out.

When I first saw them, they literally had stacks and stacks of the boxes. At the time, I thought that they would be in plentiful supply for quite some time. Since seeing them at first, and seeing them in a whole bunch of other stores, I didn’t think anything about it until I received my coupons on Tuesday (I knew that they were coming because the site said that they were sent out on Friday or so), and I had an item on my list that said I’d look at getting the box after work.

So, I stop at Wal-Mart on my way home from work. I had an inkling (from other stores disappearing the boxes in recent days) that they might not have any out, but I checked anyway, expecting to just walk in and walk out with a box for $10 after the coupon.

I get to the electronics section, and there’s nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. Even the display unit has disappeared. I go to ask the clerk in the area, and they make a comment that they’re sold out, but might have some on Thursday or early next week.

Just a side note here - you can tell I want something when I have this unending desire to get it. Do you want an example of this? Well, at midnight, I called up the store which had just opened up in the area.

Lesson 1: Don’t call Wal-Mart at midnight.

Why? Well, you tend to get some of the densest folks in the store. I call them and ask if they have the digital converter boxes. I get put on hold, and after a minute or so, the person comes back and asks if I’m meaning for an audio system. In the end, as far as I can tell, they don’t sell them there. I’d just guess they’re out as well.

We get to Thursday, and I need to go over to another city to pick up some medicine from my clinic, so I decide to make a pit stop at the Wal-Mart there (they’re like viruses, in just about any city now [but not as bad as Walgreen’s, which appear on every street corner {I pass 2 on my way to work every day}]). I head over to the electronics department, and they actually have a box there. Well, not exactly. It is just a display model with a clock ticking down to February 19th, the switch off date for analog TV. Any boxes? Nope. Any in the back? Nope.

So, I go back to the first store which said they might have one Thursday night. They don’t have any, but fortunately, the gal remembers me from Tuesday night, and mentions one important thing - they are backordered. They don’t have any at the store, and even the distribution centre is having a backlog of orders as well, and the next time they might have some available is unknown.

Lesson 2: Do stop at a Wal-Mart early in the morning.

This brings us to Friday morning, and since I have an hour or so between when I arrive and when I start to volunteer, I decided to head down to the Wal-Mart that is about 3 miles south of where I was to see if they had any. The setup was the same as the second store I went to - display unit with countdown clock. No other display, no boxes. I decided to skip over the folks at the electronics counter because I was listening to the reason for stopping at Wal-Mart at 7AM: the Wal-Mart Radio network. They were reading out a list of employees who had worked for them for 20 plus years. It was a simple format - Employee name at store number in city name, x years. It was such a fascinating thing to listen to  because of all the numbers they just roll off in such a short succession. Plus, it was completely content-free radio. Just names read out by some guy, along with some music (which he claimed was requested music).

I get to the door, and strike up a chat with the greeter (because frankly, there ain’t much going on at 7am in a Wal-Mart which has just opened), and I mentioned the converter boxes. She said that they didn’t have any, but I should try the store I had tried (I explained what I was told), along with one that was, well, just too far out of the way

She then mentioned that she had cable and was OK with the conversion to digital, which is completely true. I’m safe with it as well, but the biggest reason that I want the box is all the channels that you don’t get on cable (luckily she has the same cable company as I do so she can appreciate it ). She also made a comment along the lines that I observed - in March, they had stacks and stacks with no clue what to do with them. Now, you can’t find them.

It’s like they’re disappearing like they’re going out of style!

An idea that’s been floating through my head after thinking about the kinds of shows I watch (and realizing that I don’t watch all that much American TV, and a lot of foreign TV) is one of what channels would you have if you could have any channels available in the world.

For me personally, it would be a heavy focus on two areas - news and sports. Before I get to my channel list, let me set out the challenge to you: What if you had your own TV service? What channels would you want to have if money, time and satellite coverage were not issues?

So, without further ado, here’s my channel list.

Local Channels

A note about local channels: There will be multiple listings for some channels and networks because of the fact some stations in my area carry multiple signals, plus the local channels would all be brought in by antenna, so the actual list would vary from day to day

• WISC (TV3, Madison - CBS; no subchannels)
• WTMJ (Channel 4, Milwaukee - NBC, 1 subchannel - 4.2, Weather Plus)
• WITI (Channel 6, Milwaukee - Fox, no subchannels)
• WGN (Channel 9, Chicago - CW, no subchannels; for sport in HD)
• WMVS (Channels 10-1 through 10-7, Milwaukee -  various PBS networks)
• WISN (Channel 12, Milwaukee - ABC, no subchannels)
• WMTV (Channel 15, Madison - NBC, 1 subchannel, weather)
• WVTV (Channel 18, Milwaukee - CW, no subchannels)
• WHA (Channel 21, Madison - PBS, varying subchannels)
• WCGV (Channel 24, Milwaukee - My Network, possibly 1 subchannel)
• WKOW (Channel 27, Madison - ABC; no subchannels, NO logo over all pictures!)
• WMVT (Channel 36, Milwaukee - PBS HD)
• WMSN (Channel 47, Madison - Fox, unknown subchannels)
• WDJT (Channel 58, Milwaukee, 2 subchannels - WMLW & Me TV)
• WYTU (Channel 63, Milwaukee, analog only, Telemundo)
• And some religious channels that I can’t be stuffed listing

Entertainment channels

Now, all of these channels would be in HD or Widescreen, when possible. Note that this is definitely not an exhaustive list as I’m probably not aware of all the channels in the world.

• A&E
• Discovery Channel
• Discovery Home & Living
• TLC
• Animal Planet
• Cartoon Network
• Boomerang
• Nickelodeon (the channel that airs the good shows)
• TV Land
• HDNet
• TBS
• TNT (not so much for the programming, but for the six races in summer)
• UKTV (Aust.)
• Other UKTV Networks (UK)
• G4TechTV (Canada)
• How-to Channel (Aust.)
• Discovery RealTime (UK)
• BBC America (before it went to pot)
• Travel Channel
• Comedy Central
• Fox8 (Aust.)
• Lifestyle (Aust. - probably just a sample for a while)
• National Geographic (US)
• GSN

News Channels

• CNN (US)
• CNN International
• CNN Headline News
• CNBC (US)
• CNBC World
• MSNBC
• BBC World News
• BBC News Channel (formerly News 24)
• Sky News UK
• Sky News Aust.
• Fox Business Channel
• Fox News Channel
• Sky Business Channel (Aust.)
• Euronews
• CBC Newsworld (does that even exist anymore?)
• Bloomberg
• Times Now (India/US)
• Al-Jazeera English
• Weather Channel (US)
• Weather Channel (Aust.)

Sports Channels

• All Regional Channels (i.e. the Fox Sports Net channels, Comcast Sports Network, etc.)
• Setanta US
• Cricket Channel
• ESPN
• ESPN2
• ESPNews
• ESPN Classic (US)
• ESPN Classic (UK)
• ESPNU
• ESPN360 (internet service)
• ESPN Deportes
• Speed
• Versus
• NASCAR Hot Pass
• Motors TV (UK or mainland Europe)
• Fox Sports 1, 2, 3 (Aust.)
• ESPN (Asia/Pacific)
• Zee Sports (South Asia/India)
• Sky Sports 1, 2, 3, Xtra (UK)
• Sky Sports News (UK)
• Fox Sports News (Aust.)
• Fox Soccer Channel
• Eurosport News
• Eurosport 1, 2
• Fox College Sports
• Rogers SportsNet (or whatever the main Canadian regional sports net is)
• GolTV

Spanish Channels

• Univision
• mun2 (if that’s still on the air…)
• Telefutura
• Galavisión
• Azteca América
• Fox Sports en Español

Movie Channels

For the most part, the Movie channels are for the shows aired on there, such as Dexter and Flight of the Conchords (and apparently Summer Heights High is coming to HBO this year)

• I think I’d have all of them available in the US, just because there might be a time when I find a movie that I haven’t watched (not that there are many of those out there, eh? )
• Turner Classic Movies
• Fox Movie Channel
• Sundance Channel
• Independent Movie Channels

Music Channels

• VH1
• VH1 MegaHits (though that ain’t coming back )

Yeah, that’s about it…I’ve never been one for watching music videos; if I want to listen to music, I’ll listen to it on the computer or the radio.

So, there you go. 25-plus local channels, 24 general entertainment channels, about 60 sports channels, 20 news channels, dozens of movie channels, at least 6 Spanish Channels, so a total of about 150 channels, plus the obligatory Video-On-Demand probably.

Also, I’d have to have about a 3-terabyte DVR to record all the stuff I’d never watch anyway, but think I had time to watch.

What do you think? Am I just crazy for wanting to have all of these channels? How much do you think this would cost? For some reason I don’t want to think about it because I know it would probably be in the hundreds of dollars a month, just for the various equipment, such as PAL-> NTSC converters (or just a PAL TV )…