THANK YOU !

Thank you Comcast cable and Sharon & Bob ! Thank you for making me even crazier than I was before.
The joys of a TV set are just not worth the hassle of cable wires and remote controls.  We had an OLD TV and it worked fine. We had ONE clicker that had an on/off button and that worked fine.  Then along came cable. It is like Satan dressed in a cute little bunny costume.  "BUY ME!" screams the cable company. I will give you endless hours of mind numbing TV stations all for the low cost of . . . FREE !  (We live in a community that provides cable service. What more could you want from life?) Well, for one thing you now don't just want to watch STUPID TV you want the smart stations too. DISCOVERY, NOVA, HISTORY, CNN, FOX NEWS . . .   You want them too, then you have to get THE BOX!  The box is Satan's cute little bunny friend. It lulls you into the sense of happiness and numbness because now you have TWO clickers and can access all sorts of stupid TV.
So . . . we have a NEW TV that needs cable. The cable needs a NEW box. The NEW box needs a NEW clicker and I need a degree in engineering to make all of these things come together and WORK!
Husband sits in his chair with 3 clickers in his lap and cannot figure out which one to use for what. I know that ONE clicker should work everything but that ain't happening. There are times when the cable is on and the TV is off. The TV is on and the cable is off. Throw in the freaking DVD player and all hell breaks loose.
Husband was at his wits end tonight. (Not a long trip if you know Husband) The TV wasn't working at all. It would go on but that was it! NO picture. Just a little box with the words "NO SIGNAL". Husband was on the verge of tears and that is something. The man did not cry at his mother's funeral.  I have NEVER seen him cry, but tonight was close. I got the pitiful plea to "PLEASE FIX THE TV".  My first thought was to throw the damn thing into the empty pool but I know Sharon & Bob meant well when they bought this evil thing for us. After 20 minutes of wiggling wires and cursing I finally ripped the cable wire out of the box, attached it directly to the TV, hid two of the 3 clickers and will call the cable company tomorrow.
When did a quiet evening in front of the TV turn into a 2 Valium and a half gallon of ice cream night?

Is This Really News ?

Before I get to boring you with where I have been for the past - - - days I have a question. It all started when I got up this morning to the usual drone of the 24 hour news channel on the TV. Ger is addicted to FOX News as many of you well know and as soon as he climbs out of bed the TV goes on and he is ready for his day. (News TV has been banned from the bedroom)
So, I stepped into the TV room to say good morning to my hubby only to catch a glimpse of the HEADLINE NEWS ALERT "BOY THROWS UP ON NATIONAL TV" I kid you not . . . that is EXACTLY what was flashing across the TV screen as the reporter was going into the story of how the kid who was supposedly swept away in the weather balloon on 10/15 (which was the extent of the EXCITING news for yesterday and which husband was glued to the TV for hours following the story.) So now today there is apparently nothing more interesting than the fact that this kid threw up on TV while being interviewed.
H E L L OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO out there. Is this not seeming totally ridiculous to anyone but me? I mean, seriously, W.T.F. ??????????
People, people, people wake up and take a good look at what we are spending more than half our lives getting involved in. We used to joke when we traveled to small towns across the U.S. and would pick up a local paper to read. There were always the reports of "Mrs. X's cow gave birth last Thursday" or "An empty can was found on Silly Creek Road last Tuesday". We would chuckle at "small town living" and pat ourselves the back at how "worldly" we were. And yet here we are in the year 2009 glued to a TV set watching a ridiculous story that anyone with half a brain saw as being manufactured by the family. And yet we follow it up the next day watching the poor child get sick. I don't like watching people get sick in real life, why would I want to watch that on TV? And IS IT REALLY NEWS ?
I think we have all gone insane and if every TV blew up today it would be for the best. Even if it meant that I couldn't watch Nip/Tuck or Seinfeld reruns.