DTV and Smoking

Topic for the day: Digital TV and smoking. What do these have in common? Not much, but stick with me for a few minutes and you'll find out.
My story begins a few weeks ago.......... our lovely government has decided that TV stations need to broadcast their signals over the airwaves using digital signals instead of the old analog signals. Something about needing more signals or channels. I don't really understand it all myself, if you want more info go here https://www.dtv2009.gov/ If you have cable or satellite it doesn't affect you. However, if you don't, then you're in big trouble and will no longer receive any tv signals after February 2009 if your tv is over a few years old. Long story short, my tv is older and I don't have cable so I was going to be staring at a blank screen come this February.

I did what alot of people are doing, sending for the coupon from the government that helps you pay for the converter box which changes the signal your television receives from analog to digital. I got my new box a few weeks ago (thanks to my pals Lesley and her dad Jerry, love you guys *smooch*) and got it all hooked up after a quick side trip to Radio Shack for some cables. What you may not know, and I learned after a story on the local news station, was that DTV has got a whole lot going on and is a great improvement over the old analog signal. The picture is crystal clear, you get alot more channels and on screen program information like the title of the show, duration and what's on that channel for the next couple hours.

Each TV channel can have what I'll call sub-channels. So local station 9 has become 9.1 and 9.2. Got it? 9.1 is the regular station just like the old days but 9.2 is just the weather, it's like my own personal "Weather Channel" excepy only local. This is great because the way I look at it, unless you're travelling, who cares what the weather is in Idaho. Well, I found a new station that I particularly enjoy, it's 27.2 and it plays all the old shows from mostly the 60's & 70's. During the day it's alot of cops and medical shows like Dragnet, Adam 12, Emergency and late at night is Alfred Hitchcock and Night Gallery.

So what does this have to do with smoking? Well, watching those old I realized that everybody smoked back then and they smoked everywhere. They smoked on planes, they smoked in restaraunts, they smoked in the police station and in the hospital (although not in the ICU I assume) Smoke Smoke Smoke have a cigarette. No wonder I smoked. Everybody had an ashtray in their house even if they didn't smoke. June and Ward Cleaver had one, they didn't smoke. I remember when I was a kid, mom would come home from grocery shopping and it was my job to open the cartons of cigarettes and put them in this one special drawer in the kitchen which they fit perfectly. If I remember correctly it was a carton of Salems for mom and dad smoked Kools. Yuck, menthols are like smoking a stick of gum. Not only could you smoke inside a restaurant, there weren't even "smoking" sections. Can you imagine strolling through Wal-Mart and lighting up a ciggy-butt? Or smoking on a plane! On a PLANE, seriously!? I remember going to indoor concerts as a teenager and not only was it open seating but the smoke was so thick you could barely see the stage. Granted, not all of that was cigarette smoke but still, smoke none the less.

The whole anti- smoking thing is to the point now that some cities are trying to ban smoking in your own car!! I admit, I used to smoke but I quit a few years ago. And I can understand banning smoking in public places with the whole second hand smoke thing and all. BUT, and that's a big BUT, I would like to think that my own personal vehicle is an extension of my home being that it is a mobile "personal space". I should be able to smoke legal substances in it if I so choose. My space, my air, I'll do with it as I choose. Sometimes Big Brother gets a little to big for his britches and we must keep him in check because our civil liberties are already dwindling. The bigger our society becomes, the fewer freedoms we have.

It's amazing how things change over the years.................