As most of you may know, I have rabbit ears.
I didn't start out my life with rabbit ears - I had a full blown...not rabbit ears (wow, what do you have if you don't have rabbit ears?). Up until fourth grade, I think, when we moved out of my first house and into the house I live in now. The house hadn't been built yet, so we had to rent a house for a few months during the summer. When there, we decided to save money and now pay for cable (or satellite or whatever) sense none of our shows were on.
Strangely enough, a show my Mom wanted to watch, called 'The Mole', was playing that summer, so we watched it. It was really hard to watch, because rabbit ears give you a sandstorm behind both the audio and visual of every station, even the better ones. However, we suffered through it, and when we moved into our new house, decided not to pay for cable (or satellite or whatever), since we'd learned to live without it.
When we had cable (or satellite or whatever), the only shows I would watch were the ones on cable networks, like Nickelodeon and Disney and Animal Planet. Afterward, when we only had the local stations (I.E. Fox, ABC, and NBC), I started watching the hour-long dramas there. Since switching to Rabbit Ears, I have started to watch a lot of the local dramas, and now the shows on cable networks look kind of silly to me.
(Oh, in case you didn't know, local networks actually broadcast across the country, just like cable networks, except that they happen to have broadcasting towers nearby that analog antennas will pick up)
Recently, however, the local networks have been hosting a lot of their shows online. During the second season, if I missed an episode of Bones, the only thing I could do was read a very detail episode summary online; now, the entire episode is online for a few weeks after it aired. The same goes for all of my shows - Bones, Chuck, Heroes, Lie to Me, Castle, and anything else I decide to start in September.
After watching my shows online, the sandstorm on the TV really started to bug me. I mean seriously, I had to turn my volume up way high just to hear over the dishwasher, and half the sound coming out was sandstorm. It got to the point that I just planned to watch every show the next day online, whether I'd missed it or not. When this whole "digital switch" thing started to make the papers, I though 'good - let's just get cable (or satellite or whatever) and get over with it.'
Mom went out today to get the converter box for our rabbit ears. It's just one more electrical box sitting on top of our screen, and we have to go to the third input to access it. And you know what? NO SANDSTORM! It's like watching Online Television - but on our actual television!!
I was amazed. Then dad bumped the antenna and it took us twenty minutes to get it back to normal. Then I was amazed again. We actually watched "So You Think You Can Dance" for about twenty minutes, admiring the costumes that we could now properly discern. I think I can finally cut three hours of my computer use each week! *.*
(Or maybe I'll just use that extra time to watch Japanese dramas - Because, you know, I can't get THOSE with my rabbit ears.)
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Touch of the Master's Voice
There is a very famous logo of a dog listening to a gramophone - it's supposed to be the owner's voice on the record, and after the owner passed away, the dog finds peace through listening to his voice. We used to have a photo (or was it a painting? One can never tell) of a cat listening to a record player, as a parody.
In case you didn't know, Mom and I are going to Europe for a few weeks this summer. It promises to be a grand adventure. However, I was worried because my cat goes nuts whenever I'm not around for a day. And this time, because my brothers are all gone and my dad would be taking off too, she'll actually be home alone, with an expendable supply of food and water. Since it's only a few days, Mom doesn't want to get someone to watch her, and I'm not too worried about her dieing, but I am worried about how much she'll miss me (and, in the long run, drive the neighborhood crazy with her yowling).
Today, Dad suggested I record my voice on the computer, and set a 'Run Program' to play it every 2-5 hours. I would be clicking my tongue and saying "Megabyte! Here kitty kitty!"
I think that is hilarious. And I think Megabyte would fall for it, too. Which is kind of sad. But mostly hilarious.
In case you didn't know, Mom and I are going to Europe for a few weeks this summer. It promises to be a grand adventure. However, I was worried because my cat goes nuts whenever I'm not around for a day. And this time, because my brothers are all gone and my dad would be taking off too, she'll actually be home alone, with an expendable supply of food and water. Since it's only a few days, Mom doesn't want to get someone to watch her, and I'm not too worried about her dieing, but I am worried about how much she'll miss me (and, in the long run, drive the neighborhood crazy with her yowling).
Today, Dad suggested I record my voice on the computer, and set a 'Run Program' to play it every 2-5 hours. I would be clicking my tongue and saying "Megabyte! Here kitty kitty!"
I think that is hilarious. And I think Megabyte would fall for it, too. Which is kind of sad. But mostly hilarious.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Everybody to the Limit!
(The Cheat, he's to the limit! Everybody, come on Fhqwhgads!)
I used to hate the phrase, "The sky's the limit." When I was young, it didn't make any sense to me.
It sounded like it was trying to say that the only limit on mankind was a distant, unreachable one, and that there were endless possibilities even with this limit on us. That didn't make any sense to me, because the metaphor was the sky, and with the advances in technology this past century, we've gone up and above the sky, into Outer Space (Quick question: is there a better term for that? 'Space' doesn't work, because everything is space. Hmm...)
As I got older, I talked to others who had the same opinion as I. Originally, I though I was alone in this line of thought, but I realized this was the general agreement on the matter. And of course, whenever something becomes the general agreement, I have to find a way to question it.
So I thought. I did research. And I formulated a new opinion.
"The sky's the limit" is thought to have originate just before WWI, after the invention of the flying machine by Wilbur and Orville Wright. The idea, at the time, was that there were endless possibilities, and no one could know what could be done, since before the flying machine was made no one seriously believed it could be done. It was, at the time of it coinage, a literal and figurative mixed metaphor.
Now, however, the meaning of the phrase has changed. What once meant "It is possible to achieve more than one thought possible" now means "There is no limit."
Because the sky ISN'T the limit. We've reached outer space; we've proved the old adage wrong, and broken through all the barriers that limited us. Mathematically speaking, it's a proof by contradiction.
I think that this is something that everybody has to consciously think about. This, I believe, is a wonderful idiom that stands apart from some of the more popular metaphorical idioms. I would love to see this idiom survive the decade of doubt and restructuring and make it through to inspire future generations. Isn't that so poetic of me?
I used to hate the phrase, "The sky's the limit." When I was young, it didn't make any sense to me.
It sounded like it was trying to say that the only limit on mankind was a distant, unreachable one, and that there were endless possibilities even with this limit on us. That didn't make any sense to me, because the metaphor was the sky, and with the advances in technology this past century, we've gone up and above the sky, into Outer Space (Quick question: is there a better term for that? 'Space' doesn't work, because everything is space. Hmm...)
As I got older, I talked to others who had the same opinion as I. Originally, I though I was alone in this line of thought, but I realized this was the general agreement on the matter. And of course, whenever something becomes the general agreement, I have to find a way to question it.
So I thought. I did research. And I formulated a new opinion.
"The sky's the limit" is thought to have originate just before WWI, after the invention of the flying machine by Wilbur and Orville Wright. The idea, at the time, was that there were endless possibilities, and no one could know what could be done, since before the flying machine was made no one seriously believed it could be done. It was, at the time of it coinage, a literal and figurative mixed metaphor.
Now, however, the meaning of the phrase has changed. What once meant "It is possible to achieve more than one thought possible" now means "There is no limit."
Because the sky ISN'T the limit. We've reached outer space; we've proved the old adage wrong, and broken through all the barriers that limited us. Mathematically speaking, it's a proof by contradiction.
I think that this is something that everybody has to consciously think about. This, I believe, is a wonderful idiom that stands apart from some of the more popular metaphorical idioms. I would love to see this idiom survive the decade of doubt and restructuring and make it through to inspire future generations. Isn't that so poetic of me?
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