Life of Wry

Ya know, this is why I don’t watch much TV.  We’ve never been a big TV household, but, I have to say, a lot of that is because the TV watching experience is fraught with challenge, frustration and, as you can see, poor line of sight.

Here’s what’s going on in this picture:

This is my office.  The only TV we own (20-something inch, old fashioned) is here in my office, recently relocated to the top of the file cabinet (there are actually three 4-drawer file cabinets, and a 2-drawer, in this corner).

When I decided to move the TV to this corner, it freed up a lot of space on the other side of the room, especially since we eliminated the large 1970s-vintage cabinet on which the TV previously sat.  Now my office is a lot more spacious and attractive.  Really, it is; above, poorly-lit picture notwithstanding.

But the problem with the move is that now the broadcast antenna doesn’t pick up a clean signal. Turns out, the only place the antenna works–and we’ve tried every possible configuration–is in that very spot right in front of the TV and about five feet in the air.  Not an inch away from this spot in any direction.  The antenna works right exactly there and nowhere else. Thus, the ladder.

Which is mighty inconvenient and makes seeing the screen somewhat difficult.

Also… antenna, you wonder.  Yeah, we’re receiving local channels over-the-air, since we discontinued 1) cable about five years ago (with great satisfaction) and 2) Dish satellite service about six months ago (with frustration).  Now, we’re using a combination of over-the-air and ROKU.  And we still have a DVD player for Netflix.

And at the present time, none of this works for shit.

The corner is a tangle of cables and power supplies, extension cords, receivers, a switcher, a basket full of remotes and some other stuff I’m a little unclear about. Everything’s inaccessible and unlabeled, and just a big, dysfunctional mess.

I’ve made a spread sheet that, once we finish figuring out how it’s all supposed to work, I’ll laminate and place in a convenient place for easy access.  The spreadsheet will detail which power unit to turn on, which remote to use, where to dial the switcher unit, what input to select, and so forth for each of the three TV-watching options. Because each option has a whole different thing going on, and none of it is intuitive. And we’ll label stuff and tidy everything up, and maybe then I won’t break into a sweat at the mere thought of watching something on TV.

Gone–long gone–are the days when I could just say, think I’m gonna chill and watch a little TV. It’s just way too hard.  TV is such a flippin hassle.  Like talking on the phone or listening to music.  It’s all just so, so complicated these days, unstandardized, ever changing, unstable, un-straightforward.  I mean, it’s great, there are so many more things we can do, but it’s all just so goddamn inelegant.

[Where’s Steve Jobs when you really need him?  This is what he was so masterful at.. creating simple and elegant user interfaces for the most clunky of technical operations. In other words, exactly this mess. And in an interview just prior to his death, he indicated TV was on his short list of upcoming projects.  RIP, Mr. Jobs; wish you were still with us.]

But we did manage to get a clear picture for tonight’s World Series, which was nice, despite my now tweaked neck.