bookmark_borderPuppy Class

Mike and I went to our first Puppy Class. We had a blast! Then we had a bang.

Lorna and I had decided it was Feed Your Own Damn Self night. While I was gone, Lorna would make something disgusting (usually egg and/or mushroom related) and I would pick something up while out. On my way home, I debated the various places and decided Wendy’s was the least dangerous to my exhausted system. Ha. First, I did the drive-thru. I got a #8 (bacon/chicken/cheese sammich with fries and a coke) and pulled into a parking spot to eat. Problem was, the chicken was their spicy (which Lorna says isn’t spicy at all but my delicate mouth disagrees!). I figured I could eat it anyway but didn’t get very far. I went inside and got another, making sure it was not spicy. Went back out and finished eating. Mike discovered french fries and decided he liked them. After finishing the sammich, I drove around the place to get in the exit lane. In front of me was a big-ass Ford truck. We waited a short while and then….the truck started backing up.

I laid on the horn but it was too late. We were only a few feet apart anyway. The truck was so high and the Subaru so low that all it did was hit the hood. We pulled to the side and checked everything over. Since the hood opened and closed just fine, we all decided to just go home. Meanwhile, the woman was smacking the snot out of her husband. “You will NEVER talk about how bad my driving is EVER again.” (smack) “EVER again!” (smack) She had me laughing and him wincing. Their kid was playing with Mike through the window. The man had his wife drive instead. As they pulled away, she was hitting him again. Mike, meanwhile, had eaten all the fries.

bookmark_borderAnalog to Digital

I have long thought that the switch from analog to digital television signals was a mistake. Somebody is making money from this. Why else do it? And that group making the money is the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) which has made roughly $19 billion (yes, billion) from the sale of the wireless frequencies analog television occupies. The FCC has been auctioning off spectrum slots/sections. A local example is what happened to a rock station here in Asheville a few years ago. WZLS had the rights, allotted by the FCC, to a radio frequency. However, the FCC later auctioned that frequency and WZLS and its friends didn’t have the funds to keep it. After a lengthy legal battle, the station was forced off the air. What this means is that only those groups or individuals with the funds can be assured of frequency allotments. Public radio has also suffered as high income church groups buy up their frequencies and push them off the air. (we all know Satan is heavily involved in the public radio segment, right?)

Then came the news that the coupon program (the gov’t offered coupons to help the purchase of converter boxes for people who use antennas) has run out of money. They were allowed only $1.34 billion to go toward those coupons. (19 – 1.34 = 17.66) The FCC has given grants toward educating the public (roughly 10 million in-house for their call center and 8.4 million for 12 groups such as the AARP). So subtract 18.4 million from the 17.66 billion (no clue how to do this myself) and you can see that there’s still nearly 17 billion US dollars available….somewhere.

Source for data: Coupon woes are only part of digital TV concerns