Last night was the Season Premiere of Family Guy, my all-time favorite television comedy. Unfortunately for me, I only saw enough of it to be highly pissed. Here’s what happened:

I turn on the Tele, and lo-and-behold, the signal is fading in and out every handful of seconds. Just great. I did sorta find out why, but this hardly makes sense. OK, so every time a car drove by, the signal broke up. Yeah it seems odd that cars – at ground level, driving by 50-60 feet away – would be able to muck up the signal, but I kid you not this is my experience. So anyway, I didn’t hear any of the punchlines, and only occasionally heard enough in a row to make out a buildup to a punchline. Yeah, great, this is great for my already-short temper. Have I told you I’m Italian? Fugedaboudit.

So how does Ju-Jitsu tie into this? Well let’s just say that I took out my frustrations on the gawdamn antenna, and contemplated putting a fist through the TV too. I pounded on ears so hard that now my hand hurts. Seriously. And I know that the antenna’s feelin’ it too, dammit. It better be at least. All that damage, and I don’t even have any formal hand-to-hand combat training, just imagine the damage I’d do with Ju-Jitsu training under my belt? Yeah, scary stuff. Flying Tiger Claw through the 52” HDTV, anyone? Let’s not imagine that.



Today – we attempt a Doggy Doctor visit
I say attempt because we’ve never done it here and who knows how that goes? Anyway, it’s more than just a check-up/check-in, as the Dumb One (Zoey) recently came up with a booboo on her head. We noticed she had scraped it or banged it or something, then it started scabbing – and getting bigger. Wounds shouldn’t get bigger, they should get smaller, right? So yeah, the timing’s great, even if we’d rather it not have been an event at all. What I mean is, we had planned to register our dogs this month anyways, so it’s convenient that she chose now to get the Black Death Plague or whatever it is she has, though obviously we’d rather it never happened at all.

We came to suspect that perhaps she had fleas or something, because The Girl bathed her (she stinks for whatever reason) and noticed a whole bunch of things (that’s the technical term) crawling away in haste to escape the water. Personally I think they are not fleas (seemed too big), but something of the small insect pest variety. Also, another point against fleas: We don’t seem to have any in the house. Miles, the Smart One, is fine. No fleas on us. No fleas anywhere. Just some bugs on her (probably because she stinks).

We feared at first that Miles would too be afflicted, but it dawned on me that it’s a slim possibility. Why? Because he plays with Sea Lions. Not that sea lions repel fleas or anything, but if you’re out in their territory – the water – as much as he is, well fleas need air to ‘breathe’ and as such probably wouldn’t take residence on a dog that thinks he’s a fish. Or sea lion.

No, seriously: Miles spends more time in the water than 95% of most fish species. I can’t keep him from diving in. If I gave him a snorkel he’d probably turn into a dolphin or something. He’s a magnet for water. Whever we go, if there’s water, he’ll find it. It’s like he can smell it. Does water smell?



But back to Electronics for a moment
This lack of steady signal coupled with the lack of HD content is going to drive me insane. I watch maybe 6 hours of television a month. Yeah, that’s it, not counting a few minutes of news here & there (most in gleaned from the internet). So for me, there’s really no way to justify spending $60+ a month to watch that 6 hours of TV in HD over cable or satellite.

Which leads me to believe that maybe, just maybe, Apple & iTunes should jump on the HD content bandwagon, so I can jump on it too. I had balked at the idea of spending $1.99 to watch a show that’s free on TV, but since I can’t get HD anyways, and it’s commercial-free & I can archive it, it’d worth it. I’d be spending $16 a month to watch the TV I watch, instead of $70. Yeah I’d lose some programming options, but I’d get more of what I want for less.

This really is the new model I think. Cut out the middle men (advertising) and get the content direct, paying for it what you think it’s worth. Of course that brings up the issue of pirating it. I thought about it – and still am somewhat, as at least Family Guy is not on iTunes – but it just seems like more than I want to get involved in just to watch some TV programming. I mean, I don’t want to be giving up my bandwidth to schmucks around the globe. It’s a free ticket to my system, you know? I just want to download the content I want, then play it on my TV at my choosing.

Yeah, Apple TV is looking nicer & nicer. F*ck, with a laptop the way I roll, I could skip that. My Apple Laptop could be the ultimate home entertainment center! If they equip the next-gens with Blu-Ray disc players, they already have digital audio out (I just have to find out how to hook it up), I could just plug it in to the TV and watch what I want when I want, and archive to HUGE BD discs. And if they ever get HD content on iTunes? We’re totally in business.

Dammit, someone transcribe this for me; I need to mail a letter to Mr. Jobs!

Peace.

Tags: Technology, hate, Animals