Photon209

Crappy lawns and big TV's

Welcome to spring!

Once again I'm perplexed as to why I should give a damn about my grass. Every year it seems to get worse. I will admit I don't give my 100% all to fixing it, so I suppose it's just my lazy ass fault. A real fix for it would probably entail just ripping it all up and (if I could afford it) putting down sod and a nice built in water system. But, once again, what do I care, REALLY? Keeping up with the Jones'? Beh. Some kind of pride in my appearance? Dunno. It just seems to be something I should care about. Once it's 110 degrees for a month and everyone's lawn is burned to crap I'll be just like everyone else.

Another dismal failure - my Dish Network HD satellite receiver crapped out. I've now learned the lesson of buying such equipment. Don't. I got rid of 'digital' cable because the picture sucked - especially on my 55" TV. Splotchy as all hell. So I jumped in to Dish Network because they had the most HD channels. they also used less compression on their video. BTW, 'digital' is just a nice way of making people think it's 'better'. It's not. It's compressed. It takes up less bandwidth so the cable company or satellite company can cram more channels of crap in the pipe. The term 'digital' I surmise people feel is better because of CD's. CD's are digital and sound great, so 'digital' TV must be great too. Nope. It looks like crap.
But that brings me to the big TV again. I think I just got a too-big TV. I wanted HD and the rear-projection set I selected was relativly inexpensive for HD, and too boot, was BIG. I also like that I could get over the air HDTV with NO compression with the sat receiver. Thing is, the tuner in the Dish Network receiver when switched to over the air caused all kinds of problems with the receiver. IT was crap, too.
I suppose now that I really didn't need that big a set, and would be happier with something slightly smaller (no, not a 13") for more than one reason. It would fit my room better, and I wouldn't notice the splotchy compressed crap channels from cable. We watch TiVo now exclusivly, so compression is a way of life. TiVo was another reason for losing HD, besides my sat receiver dying. The sat receiver would decide to not tune to the right channel all the time. I never got to watch HD anyway, there was always something on TiVo. And now I just need to save some money. So, no more HDTV. I've reduced my Dish to just HBO (mostly for The Sopranos) and that's it. Screw buying the Dish HD DVR. I actually can't spend the $300 it would cost - plus the monthly charges, so screw it.
I guess all this just indicates I should get my fat face away from the TV and do something else with my time. Any suggestions?

posted by Ed @ 3:29 PM