Channels

Like most advanced middle-agers, I recall when there were only 3 television stations to watch.  NBC, CBS, and late-comer ABC.  It was an exciting time.  If a family could swing the very hefty (for the time) price tag of 700 dollars for an Admiral, Philco or Motorola television set, then a few dollars more for a set of rabbit ears, they were in the business of being entertained.  There was nothing more to buy.  Until the next television set of course.  All the programming was free and all you had to do was sit through the commercials, which could be kind of entertaining in themselves.

Cut to today.

Last night, on a whim, I counted how many stations were available on my present cable service.  I reached 587 before I lost interest.  Of course, I couldn't access all of those channels, unless I had purchased the "Super Supreme" package from Comcast, but there were an awful lot of them that I could.  One could only speculate how much an individual would pay per month to have full access to every freaking channel available from Comcast (or "Xfinity" if you prefer ... sounds like a porn channel ... nice new name Comcast).

In our household, we purchase a cable television package one step above "basic cable".  If Comcast's packages were comparable to the Indian caste system, it would be called the Shudra.  In fact, this is not a bad idea and I ought to present this to them as a means to make more money than they presently do, which right now is comparable to the gross national product of Canada.  Just think, wouldn't you rather be a Vaishya, Kshatriya or even a Brahman ... rather than a lowly Harijan?

For a fun exercise, try this:  Count how many channels you can actually receive in your current cable package. Now, count how many of these channels that you actually watch ... hmm ... lets say more than 3 times per week. Now, take your total cable bill and divide it by the number of channels you actually watch.

Wow, that sucks, doesn't it?  In my case, it works out to 26 dollars a channel per month.  This is almost as good of a deal as the 52 dollars a month that I pay to AT&T for local calls only.  But of course, with Ma Bell, I have the "peace of mind" of knowing that my land line phone is always there in case the batteries on my cell phone die. Believe it or not, this is their latest marketing gimmick to keep you as a customer.

Once upon a time, some poor politician came up with the idea of cable companies charging you for only the channels that you wanted to watch, instead of being charged for a package that was filled with "Community Bulletin Boards" and Shamwow infomercials.  This was such a terrific idea that the politician soon found himself in the proverbial company of Luca Brasi ... i.e., sleeping with the fishes.

As I have often thought, the wobbly beginnings of the 21st century have left us facing too many choices, too many decisions to make that cause us to stress about things that didn't even exist until just recently.

But, I can still watch "The Outer Limits" on Sunday night. It just costs me the price of two weeks of groceries.

Progress.

A Diss By Any Other Name ...

The other day at work, I was bitching to some unlucky soul who had walked into my cube about how overly "computerized" the operation seemed to have become.  I speculated that 40 years ago, before computers in the work place became the norm, the task I was trying to accomplish would have taken 80% less time to do, because there wouldn't have been five different customized programs and a zillion key strokes to do it. People found a simpler way with a pencil, a piece of paper and a phone call or two in 1970.

The person I was ranting at listened for a minute, then put their hand on my shoulder and said, "Rob, you are a true luddite".  Then they left.

And I sat there.  "Luddite" ... "What the fuck is a luddite?"  Not knowing whether or not I had been insulted, I sat there for a minute and thought it through. Being a child of the 60's, I wondered if they meant I was a fan of the host of the daytime quiz show "Password" ... Mr Allen Ludden himself.  No, then I would have been a "Luddenite".

I Was A Luddenhead, And Proud Of It!

Incidentally, I remember when I was a pre-teen growing up in the land of Country Music, I was always struck by the similarity of Allen Ludden and the Country Superstar, Porter Wagoner, who graced our TeeVee sets every Saturday evening at 6:30 with the always amusing Porter Wagoner Hour.

Porter With Ingenue Dolly 

I was under the impression that they were brothers, or maybe cousins, but as I would find out years later, the only link between the two men was their brief marriages to sitcom slut Betty White.

Anyway, after I had dismissed Allen Ludden, the thought occurred to me that perhaps I was being compared to that delicious cherry lozenge that every child craved, whether or not they had a cough/sore throat ... The Ludens Cough Drop.

Better Than Twizzlers!

I could pop a whole box of these things in my mouth at one time, then walk around for an hour drooling red cough syrup juice.  This might explain my recent diagnosis of early onset dementia.

But if I was being compared to a particularly ineffective cough drop, then I would be a "Ludennite".  So that was out too.

Finally, I went to that well known fountain of all factual knowledge in the civilized world, Wikipedia, to answer my question.  And the result was this:

General Ludd

Apparently, the Luddites were the follower of this cross-dressing clown, who in the first decade of the 1800's, violently opposed the mechanized looms that came into existence at the beginning of The Industrial Revolution. These textile "artisans" became so bent out of shape that they rioted and pillaged until the British government rounded a bunch of them up and shot them.  Personally, I don't think anyone would have taken them too seriously anyway given their laughable taste in clothing.  Perhaps they would have had more success if they had been fronted by this great leader ...

General Zod

Curse You Superman!

So, net-net, it appears that I was insulted!  I was accused of being a technophobe!  But ... at least it was done cleverly.  I guess that counts for something.

Luddite indeed.

Myslel Proving Známky

It's almost midnight ... Saturday is disappearing into Sunday and I've got a major case of the fuzzies, but if you can read Czech, you'll know what this is all about.

What do you want at Midnight?

Germophobe No-Cuts Asshole

Scene Fade In:

For reasons unexplained, Rob and Jan find themselves grocery shopping at the local WalMart Supercenter at 7:00 p.m. on a Saturday evening.  They stand in line putting their low, low everyday price foodstuffs on the check-out belt.

Red-Faced Old Man Holding Pink Pocketbook (RFOMHPP):  "My, this is the shortest line I could find and I only have one thing to buy."

Me:  "I do not wish to converse with you."

RFOMHPP: "Huh? Could I go ahead of you?  I only have one thing."

Me:  "Sure, if you give me ten dollars."

RFOMHPP:  (Sputter) "What?  But I only have one item."

Me:  "The price is ten dollars, or you wait".

RFOMHPP:  "Sputter" ... {Silence}

Cut to:  Ugly Mother and Troll Son in Front of Rob and Jan:

Troll Son: "AAAACHOOO!"

Ugly Mother:  "Derek!  Cover your nose when you sneeze!"

Troll Son:  "Blub." (Pulls t-shirt tail out of his shorts and wipes his nose)

Me:  "Awww SHIT kid."

Troll Son:  "AAAACHOOO!"  (Ugly Mother puts hand up to Troll Son's nose just as he lets go, then uses same hand to punch in password on card swipe keyboard, then leaves)

Me:  "Awww SHIT!"

Walmart Check-out Person (WMCOP):  "Hi!  How are you this evening?"

Me:  "Do you have any Lysol?"

WMCOP:  "Yes, in aisle 8."

Me:  "No, I mean here."

WMCOP:  "No."

Me:  "Awwww SHIT!" (Punches in password on card swipe keyboard with elbow)

Scene:  Fade Out ...

Reason #318 Why Society As We Know It Is Doomed

In a mere 10 to 15 years, something has happened so under-the-radar in our present day to day routines, that I'm not sure we really noticed it.  Being married for such a long time, I never really paid much attention to it, until this evening, when I read an article in one of the on-line news sites about ...

Dating.  About how men and women meet each other, both with the hopes of finding a companion.  The article was about several new-start up companies who specialize in managing a person's dating life. It seems that there is a large section of the population who don't even have the time to spend putting their profiles on-line and searching for someone who shares their interests or goals.

Just think about it for a minute, we've become a group of people who don't meet potential mates through school, work, church, clubs, bars; or through friends, family and acquaintances; or even by chance.  Instead, we sit in front of a computer screen, search and evaluate other people like we would for a used car, a house or a winter coat.

Now, apparently, there is a sub-group of individuals who are even too busy (translation: lazy) to do even that.  They will pay someone to write their bio, put it on line, screen their potential matches, set up "dates" and keep a running tally of what worked and what didn't.  I don't believe that these services go as far as take your potential date out on a test drive, but that seems to be the next logical extension of the concept.

If all of this has occurred in just the last 10 or 15 years, imagine what it will be like in another 50.  This sort of social activity, so cutting edge now, will seem to have belonged in the dark ages.

Sometimes I wonder if any of us who met, became friends and fell in love in the traditional ways would ever have met our husbands and wives under the way things are done now.  And of course, some people would wish they never had.  But there are others, like me, who would have missed a lot of great things.

I'm perfectly aware that society must always move forward to progress and to prosper.  Nothing can stay the same way it was forever.

But there are certain things that should be left just the way they are.