Converter Box?

[cranefly]

What's this about a converter box?
No one warned me about needing one. So, all stations are going digital?
A little heads-up about it would have been nice. Jeez.
So much for channel 20, with others soon to follow.

grrrrrr.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Gee, you didn't see the million ads they had on television. That are on non-stop

[El Dingo]

My dad ordered one of them thar $40 voucher coupons. I bought him the box and helped him hook it up to the spare TV in the guest bedroom.

"Dad," I asked, "You have cable and a digital receiver. Why do you want a converter box?"

He said, "In case the cable goes out."

I went home and ordered a voucher card too.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Nothing beats Dad logic!

[cranefly]

So I bought one of those bloody boxes. You know, the ones that crouch atop your TV like a cubist owl and hoot zeros and ones. And I got a highly recommended one -- an Apex Blah Blah Blah. It seems to work pretty well. But here's the bloody thing.
When you scan, you scan. I mean. You get the stations a given scan finds. YOU CANNOT ADD STATIONS.
What this means is that you adjust your antenna one way, and when you scan, you'll get a set of stations favored by the antenna setting.
But then you realize you're missing PBS, or the Spanish soaps. So you change the antenna so those come in -- and you rescan.
Hot diggidy dog, now you got PBS and the Spanish soaps -- but you're missing other things!
I've seen complaints by others on the web about this. How can this even be a product? I mean, Duh-uh!!!

I'm so angry I could cuss in binary.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Break down. Go Directv. Support your overlords while it is still within your realm of decision making.

[Drunk Monk]

i had to do a rescan of stations to pick up 20.1 again. it was weird because it shuffled some stations around, like 32.1 became 60.1 or something like that. but i picked up a few new digi stations, like 2.2, which is spanish music vids mostly.

[cranefly]

The small indoor set-top antenna just isn't doing it. The stations keep freezing in Tetris patterns. I could buy an exterior antenna and put it up, but in this economy I'm not buying anything. Still, what's to stop me from mounting the indoor antenna outdoors?

A short coax cable, that's what. It runs from the antenna to the converter box, with another short one to the TV. Like I said, I'm not buying anything in this economy. Still, I have a long extension cord. So it'll all work out if I put the TV on the roof.

Getting it up there is the problem. All I've got is a stepladder. I've gotten onto the roof using the stepladder before, to clean the gutters, but it's a dicey enterprise. I always end up doing the splits, with everything teetering. But to carry my big TV up the stepladder and somehow leverage it onto the rooftop-- I'm not an idiot, okay?

So I build a catapult.

Catapults certainly are popular. The Web is filled with plans. I suppose it's that SCA thing. So I build a catapult and it doesn't take long. I put it in the backyard near the snow peas, under a tarp. I do most of the work at night. The fewer people who know about it, the better. It probably requires a permit. I spend an hour going up and down the stepladder, carrying up blankets, pillows, sofa pads, coats, jackets -- building a big "mattress" up there. Then comes the tricky part. I need to get the range just right. I'll only get one crack at this. So I decide on a practice run. I fill a big burlap bag with dirt until it matches the TV's weight. At three in the morning I put it in the cradle, do a Cape Canaveral countdown, and launch. Silence. Then an awful crashing sound. Fortunately it doesn't come from my house. I quickly cover the catapult and go to bed, though I have trouble sleeping with all the sirens.

The next day the news is all about airlines dumping trash. I find out I hit a house three doors down. That gives me a data point. I get out my ruler and carefully measure along the sidewalk from their house to mine. 108.5 feet. I only needed 18.35 feet. I do the math and relax the twisted skein of cord accordingly.

That night, at 3 am, I'm ready again. This time I've got live ammo. The TV sits in the cradle. I do another countdown -- interrupted twice when cars drive by -- then launch. There's a muffled thud, and by the light of the moon I see the TV flop off the pile of padding and skid down the roof. I cringe, but it stops at the last second, overhanging the gutter.

I've got a TV on the roof. It's up there. The rest will be easy.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Now, I vote for the intervention. What kind of madman pulls that kind of stunt and doesn't video tape it? That's just crazy.

[cranefly]

I'm watching Ichi the Killer on the rooftop. I wouldn't have to watch it up here, because DVDs don't use the antenna; but my setup isn't exactly portable, so I watch everything up here, including Ichi the Killer. It's a wonderful evening, and lots of neighbors are out, standing here and there, chatting. I've never seen them out in droves like this before, but it is a nice evening. Occasionally one waves to me. I wave back. I'm tempted to invite some of them up. But no, I've tried watching Ichi the Killer with others before, and it just never works out.

There's some police cars in the area too. Officers stand here and there, talking. That's what they do best. Talk. Not listen. Now and then they call in on their radios. I suspect there's been a robbery in the area, and they're looking for the suspect. Eventually they get back in their patrol cars and drive slowly past my house and away.

"You okay up there?" Dave shouts to me.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Dave is our neighbor. He lives just across Burgoyne Street. He's a really nice guy, lived here his whole life. He offered to mow my lawn last week. The grass was getting knee deep. But I didn't want to bother him with it. So I just doused the yard with Roundup and now it's under control.

"You sure everything's okay."

"A-okay," I say.

He bought a German Shepherd pup sometime back. Every time I'd look out the window, it'd be twice as big as before. They grow so fast. When it got to be ten feet at the shoulders, they had to move it into the backyard behind a tall wooden fence. Now I don't see it anymore, except when it rears up to nibble at tree leaves like a giraffe.

"Well, you let me know if you need anything."

"Okay, thanks."

It's dark now. I'm getting deep into Ichi. Every time I watch it, I sink deeper. But then there's a flash. A shooting star. I hate shooting stars. They're a distraction, especially when I'm watching Ichi the Killer. I don't much care for the stars either. They keep my eyes from fully adjusting to the darkness. Ichi is a movie you need to watch in inky darkness.

[cranefly]

There's a scene in Ichi the Killer where someone gets hit over the head with a beer bottle. It's almost unnoticeable, occurring in the background of a chaotic fight scene. In fact, it's the mildest thing in the movie. I suppose that's why I suddenly notice it. It stands out.

When I see it, I pick up my beer bottle and hit myself over the head.

I wake up to a scrolling sky. Only it's not the sky. The credits are rolling. I'm drenched with beer, and my head is one big ache. And I'm pissed. Because I don't know how far into Ichi I was, and repositioning to resume from that spot is going to be a pain. Like I said, the beer bottle scene is in the background, barely noticeable.

My head fills the vault of the sky, shrinks to the size of a snow pea -- an agonizing throb. It occurs to me I might have a concussion, so I tumble down the roof slope and fall onto the mattress in the backyard (put there to simplify getting down). That just makes my head hurt worse. But I need to get inside, check my pupils. With an effort I make it inside and into the bathroom, where I look in the mirror. I've heard that one sign of a concussion is that your pupils are different sizes. But what I see surprises me. I'm wearing a hat. It's the type Napoleon might wear. I whip it off and toss it in the tub, stirring up the Madagascar hissers. Then I concentrate on my image in the mirror, studying the pupils. To my relief, all three look the same.

Back up on the rooftop, I spend three hours of fast-forwards and rewinds to locate the beer bottle scene. Then I watch Ichi from that point onward to the end. Only then can I relax. It's sacrilege to bail in the middle of Ichi.

[cranefly]

Ichi the Killer is a movie full of nuances. Every time I watch it, something new jumps out at me. The film is brilliantly multi-layered. The plot, characters, themes. The suspense. The little twists and turns, the ironies. One could build a religion on it. Not that I intend to. That would denigrate it. I just want to understand it -- better than anyone else, better than Miike himself. I've lost count of how many times I've watched Ichi. Over two hundred, certainly, but probably less than three hundred. And each time I catch something new.

Tonight is no exception.

This time it has to do with the protagonist. Not Ichi, the mysterious killer, but Kakihara who's hot on his heels. He's the blond dude on the DVD cover. You'd think I'd know everything about him by now. But I don't. I'm always catching something new. Like what I finally notice tonight.

He has a really wide mouth.