The Old Coot got a new TV,
by Merlin Lessler
We acquired a new TV to replace our old one; it got a
little cranky, limiting what we were allowed to view. First, with a light gray
shadow down the center of the screen. Slowly it darkened and was joined by a
mate on the left side of the screen. A golfer on the PGA tour would strike a
putt toward the hole and it disappeared behind the censored center of the
screen. A baseball player would send one flying toward the fence and it was
blocked from our view. The final straw came in the Nick’s basketball game 4 in
the finals. The tip-in that won the game with just over a second on the clock didn’t
make it to our screen. It had to go!
Sounds simple doesn’t it? Unplug and unhook the old; plug
in and hook up the new. Off you go. NOT ANYMORE! Not like the old days when our
TVs were dumb. Step one, close out all the streaming Apps on the old TV. They
don’t like to be disabled; they hide the exit button deep in the setting’s menu.
That wasn’t too bad, except that the spot to click on the exit button was
behind the fog on the left side of the screen. I had to get up repeatedly and
go up to the screen to see it. All in all, it took 20 minutes to “unhook” it.
It was an even longer process to find and/or add streaming
Apps on our new “Mr. Smarty-pants TV,” It required entering our user-names and
passwords for each App, using an alphabet screen where you find and click on each
letter and number.
All in all, it took the better part of an hour to change
TVs. And, mucho bucks to pay the monthly cost of the Apps, which we are forced
to sign up for if we want to watch certain shows or sports events. The General
Electric Company once had a slogan, “Progress is our most important product.”
Oh, how I long for that kind of thinking. It is so lacking in today’s appliances
and vehicles. If they keep progressing, or I get any dumber, I don’t know if I
can survive.
Comments? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com
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