Monday, February 16, 2009

Digital Daze

Well, in case you haven't heard (because you live in a van down by the river), the DTV conversion from analog TV to digital TV which was to happen on Feb. 17th., has been officially delayed by four months until June 12th. On Wed. Feb 11th President Obama said, "During these challenging economic times, the needs of American consumers are a top priority of my administration." Now, I do not want to criticize the new President, but here are 2 reasons why I do not like this change. First, we have all heard about this upcoming event for most of this past year. I wrote about it on my blog on Nov. 17th (92 Days), when at the time, we still had 92 days to go. Every local TV station has included either a PSA or scroll during each newscast, to let everyone know how to prepare for this change. So now, just because only 6 million people (or 2% of the population) has not done anything to get ready for this switch, we (the 98% who have) must endure 4 more months of tired warnings and infomercials on how to get your converter box or what to do with your government rebate card. Second, June 12th is my birthday, so now I will be haunted by this non-event on a day when everyone should be celebrating my 46th birthday! In my opinion, the only way to get these 6 million people to get their act together on this issue, and either get a converter box, buy a new TV, or switch to cable or satellite, is to pull the plug on their analog TV service. There is nothing like a TV with no signal, to get a person out of their LazyBoy lounge chair and over to BestBuy in a hurry! Their motto is, "Why do today what can be put off to tomorrow!" Well, President Obama just gave you 4 more months. I wonder how many people will be ready on June 12th?

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