I'm A Technological Curmudgeon?

Where Are My 45 RPM Records?


Gosh darn it Ladies and Gentlemen, but this morning finds me once again beside myself...ready to pull the remaining hair out of my ever greying, ever balding head.

Why...you might ask?

Because I'm faced with "upgrading" our home cable system.

Why, you might ask?

Because I don't own a single freaking DIGITAL TELEVISION because I own four perfectly good analogue TV's and an Analog TV card installed in my server Computer.

Sometime in the past ten years I've slipped off of the planet of ultimate consumerism and these days I generally wait until something breaks and I can't fix it with duct or electrical tape before I replace it.

Computers being an exception in upgrading every three to five years, the rest of my lifes' accessories including things like Cars and Trucks and even UNDERWEAR are only replaced when they fail me and/or leave me stranded on the side of the road or otherwise embarrassed in the emergency room as they cut the clothes off of my body.

So any way, after helping my mother negotiate the transition from the conversion of broadcast TV signals parallel to her Direct TV Satellite service a couple of years ago, I forgot that Comcast and the other cable TV companies were also moving toward converting their Cable TV services to Digital only...

...and that deadline is in the Month of February 2011 here in Knoxtown.

Last month I sent away for their "Self Installation" package for four TVs...forgetting about the under the counter unit we have in the kitchen.

Then I've fooled around ignoring the package and just opened it tonight and my head nearly exploded when I realized what I was going to have to do to use the contents.

EVERY SINGLE FREAKING TV IN MY HOUSE WILL HAVE A NEW--ADDITIONAL--REMOTE CONTROL ASSOCIATED WITH IT IN ORDER TO CHANGE CHANNELS.

Of course the blue tooth DVD player and VCR in the Living room will continue to have their own separate remote controls and the non-surround sound system will have it's own remote,and now the TV in the Master bedroom will require two remotes to operate and likewise the TV in my basement Shop.

And my server PC?

I don't know if it will work at all but instead of changing channels with the keyboard or the mouse now I have to have a remote control for that system.

I've completely rewired the cable system in this house in the past nearly four years and now I have to crawl around in the floor and poke my head under and inside of the cabinets holding TV's to get this crap to work and I'm tired of fooling with unwanted technology upgrades.

We don't do "On Demand Video"

We don't have the "Ultimate Sports" packages.

For that matter I don't have Satellite Radio and I don't have an I-Phone or I-Box or I-Pad  or I-Cat or I-Dog or I or Eye ANYTHING.

I haven't been to a Movie in a theater since 2002 and I haven't bought a CD since about then, and the only DVD's I've bought were gifts for relatives.

I just don't care about advancing much further technically anymore.

This coming from a guy that read BYTE Magazine and PC World from cover to cover every month in 1984...

But still...

I've gotten along for most of a half century without all of this current crap.  I absolutely hate my Cell phone, love my GPS, enjoy a good laptop computer, but other than that I just want a TV signal with about a half dozen channels on it.

FOX News...

The Weather Channel...

The Discover Channel...

Food Network...

The Military Channel...

And Comedy Central when Southpark is on...

Other than that?

You can have the balance because it's all just distracting noise to me.

...taking a big breath here boss...

So now it's time to get my wire cutters and electrical tape out and see if I can make the crap in all of these boxes work and get my TV service back to where it was yesterday morning.

Someone send up a flare if you don't hear from me in a couple of days.