A week ago I asked Mayor Mike, local Super, in lieu of a percentage of the proceeds of the sale of his vinyl records, which continues, to be on the lookout for a digital TV a tenant might leave behind after a move. He returned ten minutes later with a 24 inch Samsung Smart TV. Although the box had been opened, the contents were sealed. My hope was to shed the yoke of cable TV. Although I have the only a basic plan, I hate paying to watch commercials. I ordered an antenna from Amazon. The mailman delivered it last evening. The set up was fairly simple. The most difficult part was screwing the base into the TV. There wasn't much room to accomplish it. Once the set was turned on it began scanning for available channels. At first I was disappointed, as CBS, Fox, ABC, the WB and PBS were not picked up. This morning I moved the antenna to the middle of the furthest of my three joined windows. That brought in CBS and 13. Fox and MY9 look as if they will be iffy, subject to atmospheric conditions. That would eliminate
Gotham and
The X-Files from my viewing pleasure. To my surprise, the antenna picks up Cozi-TV and Movies!, although the latter is among the iffy. It picks up several other PBS stations and several in Spanish. Strangely, it doesn't pick up the round number - it's always point-something. There are three channels with which I am unfamiliar: Get, which was running old westerns, and Escape and Justice, both of which seem to run law enforcement-based reality programming. I'll visit their websites to see it they broadcast anything of interest to me. The picture is, of course, superb. If that lineup holds, there is enough there for me to cancel my cable subscription, although I will miss
Star Trek: Next Generation and
Seinfeld reruns. There are two quirks that surprise me. Although I'm able to save favorites, there is no corresponding tab on the remote, at least one that says Fav. I want to be able to eliminate a couple of radio stations, a government channel (ugh!), and Korean fare from my scanning. Also, the set will recognize only a Blue Ray DVD player, so I'm keeping my old TV, which is fine other than the fact that it isn't digital. I had to take it down from the stand. At this stage of my life, that is not an easy task. I did it carefully, leery of injuring my back. It's now sitting on the floor. I thought about placing it on a foot stool, but common sense won out. I might ask the help of one our building's porters the next time one is on the floor. Since I needed room for the 25 inch TV, I had to shift a large stereo speaker, a rack holding all my videotapes, and a book case. Another problem arose. With the set on the floor, the DVD wires weren't long enough to reach the plugs. I unhooked the first VCR I ever owned, which I'd come to use only to rewind tapes to save wear and tear on my other one. I hadn't turned it on in at least a year. It had become a dust collector. It's now in the trash room. I won't call Cablevision until I'm sure I'll be satisfied with what I have.
Park Slope is supposed to be the most literate neighborhood in Brooklyn. With that in mind, I'll bring the most cerebral book I have ready for sale whenever I venture there. Today it was
An Incomplete Education: From Plato's Cave to Planck's Constant to Einstein to Gert by Judy Jones and William Wilson, a large, illustrated tome. A middle age woman immediately snapped it up, along with Richard Wright's
Native Son. My thanks, madam, and to the lady who purchased a guide to investing. She promised to return and buy more books if she gets rich.
No comments:
Post a Comment