Fusion Panda

Wienermobiles and Wedding Bouquet Plane Crashes

grant.154@gmail.com — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:02:28 GMT

Mom sent me an e-mail today, alerting me to the fact that the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile crashed into a home in Wisconsin, and suggesting I should write a post about it. She's right, it is deserving of mention all on its own, but I found it particularly funny because I just read this story the other day:

Oscar Mayer's Funeral Wish - No Wienermobile

Oscar Mayer, the grandson of the original Oscar Mayer, died just last week, and apparently requested that the Wienermobile not make an appearance because "it would be too much of a spectacle."

It looks like he was right - maybe the Wienermobile was despondent over not being welcome at the funeral?

And this is almost totally unrelated, but it falls under the same category of strange news, and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I heard about this on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me today:

Bride's bouquet brings down plane

Yes, you read that correctly, in Italy this week a bridal bouquet caused a plane crash.

The bride and groom had arranged for an ultralight plane to fly over the wedding and drop the bouquet. On board the plane was a passenger, whose job it was to throw the bouquet onto the crowd below - and he did, but the bouquet was promptly sucked into the engine, not unlike Canada Geese being sucked into the engines of US Airways Flight 1549, at which point the plane crashed into a youth hostel.

The pilot and all the people in the youth hostel were uninjured, but the passenger was pretty badly hurt, with broken legs and a head injury. Ouch.

Let that be a lesson for your own personal wedding plans!

This also presents a great opportunity to use my new "double facepalm" avatar.

current weather: Partly Cloudy, 65, Wind: NW 3; doesn't really feel like July - but that's fine with me

Sudden, violent comedy

grant.154@gmail.com — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:44:43 GMT

Despite having seen a lot of different pieces of Monty Python's Flying Circus, I've never sat down and attempted to watch the whole thing, until now.

I just watched the first episode, and about 20 minutes in, I was thinking that it hadn't been funny at all up to that point. I was kind of disappointed.

But then played what is probably my favorite Monty Python skit of all, the "funniest joke in the world" skit. The basic premise is that a guy writes a joke that's so funny, anyone that reads it dies of laughter:

Pittsburgh Calling (or possibly Pitetsbkrrh or Tpebtsaurgh)

grant.154@gmail.com — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:40:39 GMT

There was a story on All Things Considered this evening about an observation made by a Carnegie Mellon grad student in Pittsburgh:

The Grant Building (no relation to myself), which has been continuously blinking out "PITTSBURGH" in Morse code from a red beacon on its roof since 1929, was apparently spelling "PITETSBKRRH" instead! He noticed it while waiting for July 4th fireworks to begin.

NPR asked him to go out and check on it again yesterday, and here was the result; whatever the problem is, it's gotten worse:

On a not-entirely-related note (but I have a lot of random links to post), I came across this map which gives an idea what Earth radio and television signals are currently arriving at nearby stars.

Regulus and Mizar are still pretty much in the dark, and Capella is getting ready to watch the final season of Star Trek and the moon landing. At Wolf 359, ~~a Federation fleet is attempting to defend Earth from a Borg invasion~~, I mean, getting ready to watch Janet Jackson's boob slip out at the Super Bowl.

It's a neat diagram but I have to admit the idea of aliens really being able to watch Earth broadcasts seems a little dubious to me. I can't even pick up Channel 19 from Cleveland, and it's only 19 miles away. Does that signal really reach that far into space?

By the way, that first story really makes me wish I knew Morse code. It just seems like one of those useful things.

current weather: Partly Cloudy, 65, Wind: calm; This has been a very oddly temperate summer...

The World at War

grant.154@gmail.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:59:44 GMT

I mentioned previously that I've been watching the documentary The World at War over the last week, and I have just one episode left to watch.

The series aired in Britain in 1974. There are 26 episodes, an hour long each. It took over four years of research to produce.

When I was looking around for good documentaries/non-fiction miniseries to watch earlier this year, it was consistently appearing in the top 5 of any lists.

It's very good. I think the two things that really stand out for me is the breadth of material that's covered, and the personal interviews. The interviews are pretty amazing, many of them with people who died before I was even born, some of whom were major players in the Axis and Allies, like Curtis LeMay or Albert Speer, but some of them are much more ordinary people that experienced incredible things - like Hitler's personal secretary, Traudl Junge, and Nazi concentration camp survivors.

I particularly like the format of the episodes. Although they move in a general chronological order, each episode focuses in on a particular topic, for example, the Occupation of the Netherlands, the rise of militarism in Japan, or the Holocaust.

What the series has really done for me is made everything much more emotional, and much more real. It also just drives home the level of respect that should be reserved for the people that actually lived through it. To me, World War II seems to be both the beginning of the world we live in today, and the end of the world that came before. There's not really a point at which you can draw a line between the two, but the world was a very different place between 1938 and 1946.

Multiple episodes have brought me to tears - but in particular episode 20, Genocide, which deals specifically with Nazi policies towards Jews and the "final solution," is extremely painful to watch.

I think the series brings a very open-ended view to the war and all of the events that surrounded it. I spent a lot of time pausing and reading Wikipedia articles while watching it, which was made even easier because the article for The World at War lists many of the interviewees and links to their own respective pages.

I highly recommend the series. It's easy to find, too, it looks like all of the series is actually up on YouTube, in chunks.

Here's the beginning of episode 18, Occupation:

The one comfort I take, in watching this, is that it's really somewhat surprising how many lessons humanity as a whole seems to have actually learned from the Second World War.

I think I'm probably going to watch Cosmos next. After that I'm considering The Ascent of Man, Civilisation, and The Civil War.

Blowing a CD Bubble and 1100 Paintball Guns Painting the Mona Lisa

grant.154@gmail.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:35:02 GMT

There's some question that this first video is somehow faked, but it seems reasonably convincing to me. I guess the key is that you need to just use the plastic protector part of a CD, it can't have any of the middle stuff left in it:

This second video is one that I mentioned to Gregg last week and meant to share. Apparently Adam Savage and Jamie Jamie Hyneman were part of a trade show presentation for NVIDIA, in which they were trying to give a visual representation of serial (CPU) or parallel (GPU) graphics processing. Long story short, it involves 1100 paintball guns firing all at once to paint a simplified version of the Mona Lisa. It's pretty awesome, and as always with the Mythbusters people, the slow-motion shot is amazing:

I've got all sorts of plans to make lots of fruit smoothies. I put grapes in the freezer earlier, and I just had a sudden thought that maybe that wasn't the best idea. I hope they don't explode or anything.

current weather: Partly Cloudy, 67, Wind: SW 1

Uh oh!

grant.154@gmail.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:43:39 GMT

One more reason to lose weight by autumn:

"An unexpected characteristic has emerged among many swine flu victims who become severely ill: They are fat."

Getting things in order

grant.154@gmail.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:16:17 GMT

Oops. I didn't mean to take a week's hiatus from LiveJournal.

I was dogsitting Jake in Brecksville. It was the same basic routine as usual, check on my apartment and mail and lunch, and then after work drive up there, feed Jake, let him out, maybe take a walk. Then I'd watch episodes of The World at War, go to bed, and repeat.

I actually have plenty to write about, but I'm really tired, and also dealing with a (normal) headache. Fortunately the migraines haven't recurred except for those two initial ones I had.

My friends list is completely empty. I don't think any actual people have posted in over a month and a half :(. I guess everyone's transitioned over to Facebook at this point.

I plan to keep writing here though, despite the impression I may have given over the last week!

current weather: Mostly Clear, 69, Wind: NW 2

P.S.

grant.154@gmail.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:45:28 GMT

I passed the national and Ohio portions of the Professional Surveyor test!

This means I am much more qualified for a job that isn't really being hired right now. But hey, it's something.

Now I have to decide what my next major life goal should be. I suppose it's either a) get a girlfriend or b) lose weight, but accomplishing b first would likely help out with a. So I should get over to the Natatorium sometime this week and get started on that.

current weather: Partly Cloudy, 64, Wind: NW 11; Beautiful morning

Just a song I like

grant.154@gmail.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:43:36 GMT

Vision One, another Röyksopp song:

There was a time when all the shadows of these tall buildings
Would throw their cape around each corner of the grassy fields
And one by one, each huge shade, would color the green with black;
Allowing changes that we could not have foreseen

Everybody let us gaze upon the world we've created
Let us rest our eyes up by the great machine, as we wave goodbye
Feel the evening breeze caress us while, the cities are dying
As we watch it fall into a modern state, a modern time

Remember when we'd hear the distant sound of human life
A zillion noises whimper as they traveled through the sky
And one by one, each new sound, has faded away with time
Allowing changes that we could not have foreseen

Everybody let us say goodbye to all our notions
'Cause it's not enough to say that we're humane, when we're left behind
It's too late to think that we can worship human emotions
'Cause we've already evolved into machines, in our minds

One way to reduce clutter

grant.154@gmail.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:36:56 GMT

Entropy dictates that anytime a person moves, things inevitably get broken or just disappear. Fortunately this move went pretty smoothly, but there were some casualties:

- The black CD/DVD stand that I had next to my TV at the old apartment exploded into five pieces when I pulled it out of my car. I blame this on shoddy construction (by me).

- A set of cheap shelves I had in my bedroom had apparently been rotting away for the last two years without my knowing. I didn't really realize this, but water was seeping in one corner of my bedroom, and soaking up into the shelves, which got covered with a particularly disgusting layer of mold. I really wish I had noticed this before I went to the trouble of moving it. Anyway, it was really disgusting.

- I dropped (and by dropped, I mean, "kind of tripped and threw") my blender while trying to load it into my car this morning. I have to admit, it was actually kind of cool to see it explode on the concrete.

- I kicked one of my speakers down the steps last night in the dark. It survived, but sure was loud.

- I bought a new fan small enough to fit into my bedroom window on Sunday, but ended its life prematurely, by cutting straight through the power cord while trying to cut it out of its packaging. Awesome.

All in all not too bad I suppose. But maybe I shouldn't even be writing about this yet, there's still plenty of time for me to ruin some more personal effects before I get totally moved in.

I really don't want to even attempt to frame the new poster of Architect's Dream that Mom got for me at the Toledo Museum of Art.

Back to work tomorrow, at Employer B.

current weather: Cloudy, 65, Wind: SW 2

Back on the Interwaves

grant.154@gmail.com — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:08:56 GMT

Well, except for one more carload of cleaning equipment and dishes, I have everything over at the new apartment. All the utilities are set up and running, my car is in the garage, and I spent the night here last night.

I really, really love the new apartment. I also really, really hate moving in general. I'm really glad to be done with that for now.

There's still a lot to do here, and it looks like a war zone at the moment, but it's mostly functional, except for the kitchen, which I haven't focused on much. I need to come up with a grand strategy in there, decide where food and dishes will go and what I'm going to do with my small appliances (like the rice cooker or hot water dispenser) because my microwave takes up the entirety of my available counter space.

The shower is also pretty anemic. But that's ok, I anticipated that. One downside of living right next to a water tower is that you have the worst water pressure in the system. But the cell tower right next to it means I have a full cell signal even with the phone in my pocket, in the basement.

One thing I'm glad I didn't do is sign up for cable TV. I nearly backed down on that, because on the day of the digital switch-over, I could no longer pick up Channel 8 (which moved its digital signal from 17 to 8, UHF to VHF).

That sucked, because Channel 8 is one of the few channels I actually watched. But over here, I do pick it up. I didn't gain any other channels, but quite a few (23, 25, 43, and 55) come in a bit stronger now. Channel 19 is still nonexistent. But apparently that's true for almost everybody. I'm about the same distance from the towers as before, but now my antenna isn't in the basement of a three floor building. I ordered a converter box to use on an old TV upstairs, I'm curious to see if the reception is much better on the second floor. But that won't be here for a few days.

Maybe the biggest change, and one that I like, is that for the first time since leaving Foresthill in Stow in 10 years ago, I actually feel like I'm living in a normal neighborhood. Not student dorms, not student housing, not an apartment complex, but just a regular residential street. That's kind of cool.

One other surprise is that I can (just barely) make out church bells on the hour. I'm not entirely sure where it's coming from, maybe IHM, but I like it.

It's also cool to know that people from each of the places I work, but especially Mark and Chrissie, are pretty much just down the street. I'm also not used to Chapel Hill Mall being so close!

current weather: Cloudy, 71, Wind: SW 6; Apparently a summer time version of a polar low is about to roll into Ohio tomorrow, and bring highs in the 60s

Gonna take it easy for the rest of the night

grant.154@gmail.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:08:06 GMT

I had a migraine yesterday, and then another today. It's probably been more than a year since I last had one - and they only have ever happened in the summer. I have no idea what caused the new ones since I was inside working at Employer M, and as far as I know well-hydrated, in both cases.

Hopefully it's not going to be a recurring thing.

I just drove over to the new apartment to take a load of things over and realized once I got there that I had forgotten the key.

That pretty much killed any further productivity for the evening. I think this is a good time to relax on the couch.

The actual move is this weekend. I will probably not have internet access between tomorrow morning and Monday evening.

current weather: Clear, 78, Wind: N 12; Still warm, but a little cooler and drier

Moon

grant.154@gmail.com — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:35:56 GMT

Has anyone heard anything about the movie Moon? I just read a glowing review of it on io9, and it's got a pretty good score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Here's the trailer:

Case Closed

grant.154@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:09:26 GMT

I stopped by the apartment lease office today to ask some questions about my move, and while I was there asked them what exactly was going on last night. They explained it, but apparently Liz's coworker knew something about it today, and the version Liz heard is more detailed and interesting (as she related in the comments from yesterday):

So my co-worker came in today, and told me about how her step-son's apartment got flooded by a sprinkler system yesterday. I said, "Does he live in Stow?" She said yes. I asked if she lived in your apartment complex, she said yes.

Turns out he's on the bottom floor next door to you. The guy on the 3rd floor got drunk, put a pan of bacon on the stove, and fell asleep, so the place caught fire.

Just FYI. :)

***

Nice.

That explains my weird interactions with drunken hillbillies last night. Man, if I was renting one of the apartments below that guy I would be pissed.

One more reason why I'm excited to no longer have an upstairs neighbor (or two).

My water's back on this evening, I can't wait to take a shower (after I make another moving trip to the new place).

current weather: Mostly Clear, 86, Wind: NW 3; Hot!

Ouch

grant.154@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:11:47 GMT

This is a guess based solely on observations, because I didn't actually ask anyone (the people involved don't seem to be in a real good mood), but I think that there might have been a small fire a couple of units over from me, that activated the sprinkler system. I've always dreaded the sprinklers in here. Although I suppose fire is just as bad/worse.

***

I should add here, I realize that any normal person would just ask someone what's going on, but me being me, I don't know any of my neighbors and I'm seriously weirded out by what's going on out there.

I'm pretty sure this is not from the makers of Comfort Wipe

grant.154@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:53:39 GMT

I'm well aware of the irony that results from my posting YouTube videos of bad commercials. It only helps them get viewed by more people, therefore making them into (slightly more) successful commercials.

Or at least, only if one of you actually went and bought a Comfort Wipe. In which case, more power to you I guess.

I have another product that may help with a particular problem I don't have, but I suppose if I gain more weight I theoretically could need.

Do your large breasts prevent you from sleeping comfortably? Not any more!

NPR and Cuyahoga

grant.154@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:38:52 GMT

Apparently NPR's All Things Considered ran a story yesterday on the 40th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River catching fire.

The story prompted a huge reaction - although not because of the story itself, but because throughout the story, Cuyahoga was pronounced "kai-uh-hog-a" ('hog' sounding like the name for a pig).

I didn't hear the story myself, but if I had, I very likely would have been one of the people writing in, because as far as I've ever known, I've pronounced it "kai-uh-hoe-ga" ('hoe' as in the garden instrument).

I've also been told that I reduce it to two syllables, but that's a different issue entirely.

Anyway, NPR received so much feedback about the pronunciation that they ran a story today dealing specifically with that, which you can hear at WKSU's page.

They contacted all sorts of organizations in the Cleveland area, and I have to admit, I'm somewhat surprised to learn that they found nearly an even split on the pronunciation.

Ultimately, they brought in Connie Schultz from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who theorized that the issue may be more of an East Side/West Side issue. She claimed that east-siders tend to pronounce it like "hoe" while west-siders tend to pronounce it "hog."

As far as I know virtually everyone in Cuyahoga Falls pronounces it like "hoe." That would seem to mess up that theory, since Cuyahoga Falls is technically on the west bank of the river, but Cuyahoga Falls is probably more of an "east side" city in the cultural sense. After all, it is actually east of the Cuyahoga as well, since it makes a U-turn in Akron.

Chrissie Hynde pronounces it as "hoe" in My City Was Gone, for what it's worth.

****

I liked this comment on the NPR story's page, which I think sums up the way I say it pretty well:

possibly the final word on cuyahoga. i lived in cuyahoga falls (and now in charlotte, nc...) but here might be the solution to the entire problem. the accent on the word is thus: CUYahoga. do not put a minor accent on the 'hoga'. you rush through the word after emphasizing the CUY so the rest of the sound is blurred. the effect is: 'CUYaguh'. the little syllables CUY-a-hog-a would never be enunciated. (one does not say en-cy-lo-ped-i-a at a snail's pace....)

Well, this is odd...

grant.154@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:57:32 GMT

I just got back home from moving some more stuff over to my new apartment.

For some reason there were a lot of cars in the parking lot. There were also a few people pacing around outside talking on cell phones.

I started noticing some other odd things. There's a City of Stow Fire Department pickup truck parked here, with a firefighter who looked like he was taking off rubber boots and putting on regular ones.

Then a bunch of hillbillies drove out of the grass behind my apartment in a pickup truck, with a trailer attached, which had a bunch of random apartment crap in it, like a futon, and some endtables.

Then some other hillbilly walked by, holding a beer, and just said "hey, how's it going?" to me.

Then another pickup truck came out of the back, this time with four people inside.

Whatever. It's been a long day, and I didn't really care.

I came in, sat down at the computer, and then went to the bathroom.

But when I flushed, no more water came in. I turned the sink faucet. No water.

This is really weird.

current weather: Clear, 79, Wind: NE 7

"Oooh F@*#! We're out of thyme!"

grant.154@gmail.com — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:57:39 GMT

I'm nearly out of time to write something for Monday, so this seems appropriate.

There are plenty of Star Trek timelines available out there. Heck, there's even a book, although it's pretty out of date now, I got my copy early in high school.

But the makers of Star Trek Online put together a little graphical timeline of the Star Trek universe to show where their game fits in with the existing shows and the new movie, and it's kind of cool.

Someone else put together a cool chart showing when certain science fiction stories take place.

Freejack, for example, takes place this year, while Snake Plissken Escaped from New York 12 years ago, and Dune is just plain off the chart!

I just hope 2015 and 2019 live up to Back to the Future 2 and Blade Runner, respectively. Well, maybe not Blade Runner so much.

current weather: Partly Cloudy, 70, Wind: N 5; Hot all of a sudden, summer's here now for sure

Clearview in Akron, and some other random notes

grant.154@gmail.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 01:07:39 GMT

I drove down to Columbus today to see Dad and Grandpa Wilson for Father's Day.

On the way down, I was surprised to see that there are new highway signs on I-77 south of the Central Interchange in Akron - and they're all in Clearview. I know, who cares, but I figure I've written so much about that it was worth mentioning. I thought it looked great. Of course, they replaced all the Route 8 signs this winter, with the old font, so it probably won't show up there until 2025 or something.

On the way back, NPR had a great story on All Things Considered about the Battlestar Galactica concert that was held in Los Angeles last week, and about the music of Battlestar Galactica in general. I love the BSG soundtrack so much - in fact, it's one of my favorite things about the show. It was a great story, clearly Guy Ross (or whoever wrote for him) is a BSG fan. I actually got goosebumps when they started playing the 12-note piano piece from the last few episodes. I guess Katee Sackhoff actually performs that part on stage with Bear McCreary at the concerts.

I'm starting to feel the moving crunch. I've been moving things over steadily but it seems like it's taking forever. I have a truck reserved for Sunday the 28th, so that will be the "big items" move day. I need to do a lot of address updating this week, probably time for a mass e-mail too. Everyone loves mass e-mails, right?

current weather: Partly Cloudy, 68, Wind: N 6; It was hot today in Columbus but apparently it never got so hot here (78)

Equilibrium

grant.154@gmail.com — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:34:20 GMT

I was so proud of myself today because, thanks to the internet, I was finally able to solve a problem I had been having with my car radio. The solution involved pulling a fuse and leaving it out for a few minutes.

Then I came home this evening, and discovered that the same green LED that went dim on the first LED clock I bought last year, has gone dim on the one I have now.

You fix one thing, and another thing breaks.

current weather: Partly Cloudy, 73, Wind: SW 5, Rain today: 0.38"; Hot and muggy today

Old College Notes Don't Die, They Just Fade Away

grant.154@gmail.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:06:52 GMT

I like to think that I'm good about not holding onto useless things, and not much of a packrat, but moving my things to the new apartment has me questioning whether that's really true.

I understand, for example, why I keep my college notes that specifically relate to surveying - I consult them surprisingly often, and I was using them quite a bit when I was studying for the Professional Surveyor test.

But Math 255 - Differential Equations? Or Engineering 367, my engineering writing class?

At least I'm not alone in holding onto these overly heavy objects. I was talking to my new landlord a couple of days ago, he's in his mid-eighties and a retired math teacher. He still has his college notebooks, from the 1940s!

I really don't know why I keep them. The primary theories I have are:

1) Fear that for some strange reason, knowledge of one of these classes may be required of me at some point in my work career. I never know when I might need to know something from my Japanese 251 (Japanese Culture) or History 152 notes, right? Nevermind that I could probably find anything I need to know much faster on the Internet.

or

2) Fear of some sort of major world calamity, like a nuclear war, economic collapse, or zombie outbreak that might make me one of the last people on Earth with access to notes (that I didn't understand when I wrote) about triple integrals from Math 254.

I think it's mainly reason 2 in my case. It's at times like these, when I have to physically move them, that I question the point of keeping them. But I know in the case of my college notes, I will keep them. At least for now.

As for my Gundam Wing 2001 calendar, I have no idea why I held on to that. Trashed!

Side note:

On a similar subject to needing one's college notes in the case of nuclear war, if you ever find yourself in the past, you may want to have this handy Time Travel Cheat Sheet on you. I think it's really cool. It helps you compress 150,000 years of human achievement into little things you can do yourself, and hey, maybe even take credit for. It's probably worth printing out and stuffing into your wallet, because chances are good that if you do travel through time, you might not have had time to prepare for it. And hopefully your time travel is through a different means than in the Terminator movies, because they never seem capable of traveling through time with clothes, in which case, this cheat sheet is of no help to you.

current weather: Cloudy, 68, Wind: W 6, Rain today: 1.82"; That's a lot of rain. I got drenched walking out of the grocery store today.

Even the preview won an award

grant.154@gmail.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:47:16 GMT

According to TrekMovie.com, the Star Trek movie recently won a "Best in Show" award for its preview trailer.

It's not certain exactly which trailer it was that won the award, but it's generally assumed to be "Trailer 3," which I think is really damn awesome:

Note to self: I need to find out what that music is.

Apparently that particular trailer has spawned lots of new version on the internet. I thought these two in particular were great, there are also Star Wars (Prequel) and Pirates of the Caribbean versions at that link above.

I absolutely adore the Star Trek + Battlestar Galactica trailer:

And the Star Trek + Simpsons Movie version (of Trailer 2) is great too:

Genius.

****

UPDATE: Apparently the music for Trailers 2 and 3 were produced specifically for those trailers by Two Steps From Hell:
http://www.twostepsfromhell.com/index-home.php

Finally, there's a better way!

grant.154@gmail.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:04:23 GMT

So tomorrow is the "for real this time" deadline for the switchover from analog to digital over-the-air television broadcasts.

I'm glad it's finally happening. I represent a particularly small segment of the TV-viewing population, i.e. people with HDTVs who solely receive TV from an antenna.

I have been considering starting up cable TV service when I move at the end of the month, but the more I think about it, the more I think I'm not going to do it. At least not right away, but maybe never. It mainly comes down to cheapness and my strange TV viewing habits.

There's no doubt that I certainly do watch TV, but it's almost entirely in the form of television shows that can be watched on sites like Hulu or just downloaded. The fact that digital HDTV is available over the airwaves makes cable a little less attractive than it otherwise might be because of the excellent quality of the images and also the fact that stations can put out more than one channel in their stream.

The main reason I would want cable is for some live news (like The Weather Channel, or CNN) or live sports (like The Big Ten Network, MLB Network, or Fox Sports Ohio). Programming from any other channels I might be interested in, like on SciFi, Comedy Central or Discovery, I can get from the internet in some form, or probably just isn't worth watching.

So really there's only like 5-6 stations of programming, besides local channels, which of course I can get for free, that I would really want to watch. All the rest, and even, arguably, those channels, would just turn into time-wasters.

Which might be ok, but it's something like $60 a month. I've been throwing the "but my rent is so much cheaper now, I can afford it" argument around in my head, but that's a slippery slope. It's easy to justify any expense on that basis, but pretty soon I'm paying as much a month as I was before, and the whole idea is to give myself some breathing room and start saving more again.

So I don't think I'm going to get cable TV. And for that reason I'm looking forward to the transition.

At the moment, I can pick up the digital signals of:

WEWS 5 (ABC)
WJW 8 (FOX)
WDLI 17 (5 channels of Christian SD programming)
WUAB 43 (MNT) - sometimes, not very good signal
WOAC 47 (Infomercials)
WEAO 49 (PBS)
WBNX 55 (CW)
WQHS 61 (Univision - Spanish)

Of those, WDLI and WOAC are basically useless. I can't believe it's actually economically viable to run a station like WOAC which airs nothing but infomercials all day long. WQHS is in Spanish, obviously incomprehensible to me but still kind of amusing sometimes.

Channel 8 is by far my most watched channel, for the news. Channel 5 and 8 sometimes have sports I want to see, like OSU football games on 5.

There are some notable gaps. For example, I can't pick up a CBS station. The CBS station in Cleveland is WOIO, channel 19. Like most of these stations, their digital signal is actually broadcast on a different channel, in this case 10. Unfortunately their signal is underpowered, partially because there's a channel 10 on the Canadian side of Lake Erie that apparently drowns out most of the signal (although I can't actually pick it up). Hopefully this will change soon, but possibly not. It's WOIO's fault for picking such a bad channel.

I can't currently pick up WKYC 3 (NBC) or WVIZ 25 (PBS) just yet. But then, almost no one can, or at least, that was true until within the last 24 hours. WKYC has been broadcasting on channel 2, and at very low power. Apparently channel 2 is a particularly poor channel for digital TV, because of some sort of multi-path or interference problem with low channel numbers. As for WVIZ, for most of the last two years they have been broadcasting from a van parked in the parking lot of their old building (just down the road from Gregg) at only about 1kW. You would basically need to be within a half mile of the parking lot to get the signal.

That's changed this week though, because WKYC and WVIZ are now sharing a brand new tower and antenna that apparently just came online yesterday, just in the nick of time. I haven't scanned for them yet, I'll do that Saturday morning, because a bunch of channels will be swapping to different channels on Saturday.

Channel 3, for example, will switch from digital channel 2 to digital channel 17. Yes, it's super confusing, because the stations (at least for now) will continue to use their analog station branding even though they actually broadcast from another channel.

4 or 5 Cleveland stations are doing a switcheroo tomorrow. I just hope I can continue to pick up WJW, which I believe is going to reduce power somewhat and move (back?) to channel 8. I've pretty much given up on WOIO, although I'm really hoping to get WKYC and WVIZ.

Whew, I wrote a lot more about that than I anticipated.

So at any rate, I'm not going to get cable, I like over-the-air HDTV, and who cares, it's just TV anyway. I'd rather be playing a videogame or reading a book.

Also, it means I don't need to see things like this (THIS IS A REAL COMMERCIAL):

current weather: Light Rain, 64, Wind: N 3, Rain today: 0.22

Ode to Joy, Presented by Beaker

grant.154@gmail.com — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:31:03 GMT