The Digital TV Revolution Is Wasted On Me

The morning started out gloomy, wet, and humid again. I watched the second disc of Get Smart, baked Molasses-Oatmeal Cookies, dressed the Sailor Soldiers in their summer outfits, and worked on editing the role-play. (All the Soldiers got their usual retro minidresses and poodle skirts except for Sailor Moon. Her cullottes were stretched so badly, I had to tie a ribbon around her waist to keep them on, and her "top" was an old baby doll shirt wrapped several times around her chest. I ditched them and gave her a short silver skirt and the pink and silver tank top from the 80s/90s gown collection instead.)

One of my all-time favorite Get Smart episodes was on the second disc. I couldn't remember if it was the third or the fourth season that had "The King Lives?", the wonderful spoof of The Prisoner of Zenda. Max takes the place of the king of a fictional European country after he's shot right before his coronation. If the king is not crowned, his half-brother will take over...and cooperate with Kaos. They did a pretty accurate mock-up of Zenda, right down to Max falling for the King's betrothed. And for a guy who is clumsy at just about everything else, Maxwell Smart is one heck of a swordsman!

Work was steady-to-dead, no major problems. I even got to finish a little early in order to take a work-related survey. Maybe the weather cleared things out. It was still cloudy when I went to work, but the sun was just starting to come out as I came home, despite it remaining sticky, hot, and humid.

As for tonight's digital TV revolution...to paraphrase Oscar the Grouch, "I stick out my tongue!" I don't see what the big deal is. How many people are there left with antennas on their TVs anyway, two?

I'm not old enough to really remember the Golden Age of Analog Television, between approximately the early 50s and the early 80s. I do remember Mom having one of those huge old wooden box TVs, but it was always in color, and both sides of the family has had cable since the early 80s, so we never had bleeding channels or channels skipping or whatever. (I wonder if this is what it was like when TV started broadcasting in color?)

One of my fondest memories of no-longer existing TV phenomenons involves the beginning and end of the broadcasting day. It was well into the 80s before many cable channels ran programming 24/7. I would get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings and creep into the living room to watch test patterns and the daily listing of programming on Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel. (Yes, I was that much of a couch potato as a kid.) At 6AM sharp, the translucent glass Mickey Mouse head would fly across the satellite in space, or the Nickelodeon ball would bounce through the air, and I'd know Cableland was ready to begin it's broadcast day!