Even in HD it is still mostly crap

Mrs. Bald Man and I finally joined the HDTV crowd. About a month ago we purchased a LCD Flat screen, lugged it home, screwed it to the wall and let it fry our minds with mindless entertainment (sic) options at 1080 lines of resolution. I was more than pleasantly surprised to learn our cable provider (Comcast) sends out a high definition signal for our local broadcast channels without our having to sign up for their HD service.

As a cable subscriber, I've paid little attention to the public service ads announcing the broadcaster's switch to HD. These ads appeared only slightly less frequently than the calls I get trying to sell me an extended auto warranty. It is good to see those guys getting their just come uppance. I guess I am only slightly surprised to learn eight hundred thousand of our brightest citizens failed to heed the static filled warnings of the publicly funded notices and had to call the FCC's hotline for help. I wonder how many of these geniuses know the QVC order number from memory.

The switch to digital had been delayed from it's original date because Democrats didn't feel the public was well enough informed. Even with the delay nearly a million people still weren't informed. Some people, it seems, are beyond help.

In their continuing effort to control everything in our daily lives, Congress will soon debate a bill to limit the volume of commercials. The same group responsible for the fast talking litany of potential side effects and too small to read paragraphs of fine print in ads now, thinks they can outsmart those whose job it is to outsmart us consumers out of our money. Billy Mays and Vince the Sham Wow guy will need verbal governors to keep from violating the law. Somehow I think they will still be annoying even at half the volume. I've a suggestion, how about our government buts out of this and every other area of my daily life. I am thinking perhaps the volume on the commercials about the coming switch to digital should have been even louder. If they were, there might have been a few less panicked callers screaming "I want my MTV"!!

S2