word!

Surprise, surprise.

With a giant eye on the future of technology, the government has decided it no longer needs analog TV signals transmitting a loved and long cherished obsession. So out with the old and in with the new – digital TV.

Oh, but wait, the populous will need to either a) buy new TVs with a digital tuner or b) get a setup converter to dumb down digital broadcasts. This in itself has led to a great reason for most people to ditch the old clunker TV that in many cases would still work fine for years to come. This is regardless if they actually would need a digital TV for general viewing, do to the fact that cable and satellite TV are already digital pictures.

That leaves the rest of us, namely the poor and/or rural left with the other option – convert the digital to analog. The government in it’s wisdom decides that since these boxes will sell for 40+ that it will offer a discount on these boxes, which for almost obvious reasons will never cost just $40. Rather than provide the masses these setup converters free via a local federal institution (i.e. Post Office), they sell them at any electronics shop.

Wal-mart, the king of cheap, promptly has a run on these as they are about the only company willing to sell them near cost. This pushes the rest of the suckers out to the high priced outfits that sell these units for greatly inflated prices.

While a fairly easy device to set up, the devil is in the details. Now instead of one remote for a TV, you must either juggle two or figure out a quasi universal remote to function as your goto TV manipulator. Yuck. I don’t really wanna power on/off two things just to watch my old TV. No doubt this in itself is another great ploy for you to go out and upgrade TVs as well.

While is awesome to have a weather station affiliated with KARE TV and a FOX affiliate out of Mankato, it’s just another bunch of fairly useless TV options to flip through.

I can’t imagine what the uproar will be when all those poor, unenlightened and/or old people find next that things don’t work like they had. After all, that’s who will be the most effected by this turnover. The government will be to blame for selling out this demographic in return for the millions they can make by auctioning off the old TV spectrum we loved. They will also be giving the electronics industry a second boost by people scrapping out their old TVs for something that just plain works without all the trouble and pain this transition.

What a joke!