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Blogs by Robert A. Mills
MORNING JOE
8/28/2009 4:43:06 AM
I received an email the other day asking if I’d ever watched a show on MSNBC called “Morning Joe.”
Not only had I never seen it, I’d never heard of it. And besides, judging from its title, it is probably aired in the early AM, and I rarely, if ever, turn on the TV before 6 PM, except on Sundays for “Meet the Press” (depending on who the guest is,) Atlanta Falcon football, major golf or tennis coverage—or Saturdays for UGA football
And there’s something else. MSNBC, like the Fux News Network, is purported to be as biased one way as Fux is the other. Commentators on both, I am told, Keith Olbermann and Chris Wallace in particular, slant the news to put their own political agendas in the best light. While Mr. Olbermann may be the essence of a true conscientious liberal (he can’t be all bad,) Mr. Wallace comes across as big a buffoon as Hannity, O'Reilly, and
their cohorts over on Fux (which I never watch, anyway, except for laughs.)
Very few Ed Murrow-wanna-bees are qualified to carry Mr. Murrow's cigarette case, even if that Newsman’s Newsman were still among us—he and Peter Jennings are, as you know, up in the Great Green Room in the Sky laughing their Zippos off over the GOP's current efforts to shout down the inevitable—and you should hear what they have to say about the Palincudda, as Maureen Dowd calls her.
Anyway, when I relayed all this to my initial email correspondent, he suggested I set my TiVo for the appropriate time and record "Morning Joe" to watch at my leisure. Not a bad idea, except MSNBC comes into my house on Channel 120—and the TiVo defaults to the cable side of the spectrum and will not record pre-set advance times above Channel 15.
I called my cable provider and said, in my most MIT techie tones, “What gives?”
After hours of research and speaking with three cable representatives (two of whom had thick accents and worked, I’m sure, in some unventilated cubicle in Catalunya,) it was determined my cable box was an old-fashioned device that pre-dated HDTV by at least five years.
“But,” I tried to explain, “my TV pre-dates HDTV by at least ten years!”
“Not to worry,” I was told. “The new box will give you recording capabilities on all channels for which you are paying.” (What I was really told was, “Nuz worsey. Nuz book giss wording cuppabillygoat oh chun oooh pie.” Or something like that.)
My wife, who had been away at a training seminar, came home and wanted to know what I’d been told by the cable people. I repeated their analysis, best I could. Her only question was, “How much does the new box cost?”
“Seven dollars a month extra,” I told her.
“No way,” she said, and it sounded suspiciously like “Nuz aaaay.” She reached for the TiVo remote and told me to time her on my cell phone stopwatch.
Minutes of adjustments went by until she declared, “There. All fixed.”
I was amazed. She had somehow removed the “cable” side for all high-numbered channels (16 on up,) and the TiVo now defaulted to the “box” side to record a perfect picture and sound for all shows prescribed! Ironically, the channels lower than 16 remained as normal as ever!
“How’d you do that?” I mumbled, dumbfounded.
“Simple arithmetic,” she explained. “Seven dollars times twelve is $84. Channel 16 times channel 120 is 1,920. Divide 1,920 by 84, and you get 22.857.”
“So?”
“So—look at the stopwatch on your cell phone. In exactly 22.857 minutes, I attached the IR cables to the box and re-programmed the TiVo to accept only cable ‘box’ settings for channels higher than 16. . . . Call the cable company and tell them to keep their new box.” (Kepple oooh nuz book!)
This morning I watched the recording of “Morning Joe.” I was, to say the least, disappointed. I thought it would be a science program, like “Nova,” all about some guy in Colombia named Joe Valdez who grew, harvested, cured and brewed coffee beans. All it turned out to be was more talking heads. At least “Starbucks” sponsored it.
I’m afraid “Morning Joe” will have to make it without me. Good man, though, he did save me $84 a year!
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