Ed Icionsub

On the off season, the cast and crew of SOA went overseas to support the troops. I think that was awesome. The show is a big hit among anyone who has ridden a motorcycle. I’m sure they have a lot of fans over there serving our country. I’m glad they all went over there together.

What a difference 40 years can make when it comes to our entertainment. When I was a kid, we had a black and white TV in the living room and we were allowed to watch just a few shows, most of them on Saturday mornings so my parents could sleep late and recover from their Friday nights. My dad would watch the local football team play – unless the game was not sold out and then we were blacked out from the local market.

Now we have cable with hundreds of channels and shows, and kids can watch any time, day or night and see an age appropriate show. And I can order sunday ticket and watch any professional football game that I want.

The cable sports shows have pre game entertainment, color and commentary during the games and then post game analysis and highlights. Some of the pre game panels are especially entertaining, with retired pro players and coaches sharing their insights with the audience.

My neighbors in the Pegram and Ashland City areas enjoy subscribing to Cox cable sports for their cable service provider. The available channels and packages are reasonably priced and installation can be ordered over the internet or by phone.

One of my Facebook friends was talking about the new season of the big hit, Jersey Shore. This reality show on MTV show skyrocketed to success last year with a cast of unknown – but typical – New Jersey and New York students at the beach for the summer and who are back again this year.

They have brought a handful of new slogans and sayings into popular culture, including GTL. I had a hard time figuring out what those three letters mean, but finally linked the letters to Jersey Shore and figured out that they mean “Gym – Tan – Laundry.” That’s their To-Do list every day, followed by walks down the boardwalk and lots of drinking and dancing in the clubs every night.

I decided to get a couple of Jersey Shore t-shirts for my nephew and for an intern in our office, as a joke. But it turns out that they both liked the shirts a lot, and  proudly wear them around town on the weekends. Who knew that a couple of funny t-shirts would make this old man a cool dude?

It tickles me to hear the baseball announcer on the Playstation video baseball games call out, “A swing and a miss.” It repeats the same couple of phrases about a hundred times each game. It gets to the point that “a swing and a miss” becomes a taunt that dogs you for days after you’ve played the game.

It’s so bad that now I hear it in my head when I’m watching ESPN or even the sport clips and highlights during the sports segment of the nightly news. LOL

The news has been covering the World Cup underway in South Africa. There have been some unusual stories this year, increased violence and bad sportsmanship on the field and problems with some fans. The biggest issues so far has been the noise from people in the stand who brought a particular kind of horn to make noise during the game. It is causing problems for fans, players and officials. I look for the international council to pass some new rules about crowd noise after all of this is over.

The finals will end the uproar and I predict a lot of craziness and partying in the major cities of whichever country ends up winning tonight.

As most everyone knows, all American full-power analog TV broadcasts were stopped on June 12, 2009 and if you want to watch TV you must have either a cable or satellite subscription, or you must have bought a digital converter for your analog TV sets. To learn more about the transition to digital television, you can read the linked Wiki article that helped me.

Wilmington, North Carolina became the first city in the U. S. to completely switch over from analog to digital broadcasts, on September 8, 2008. (One reason for me to love North Carolina!)

Now the FCC is planning to release additional channels for use by satellite TV services. This is great news for Direct TV. You can read more in this FCC article about switch to over the air. Because so many channels are completely focused on one subject, adding more channels will mean that we can watch a bigger variety of subjects. Some of my favorite channels are the History Channel and the Animal Planet. I also like the RFD channel, which is not available through the local cable service.

Also, the transition creates more HD channels for direct tv, which is great for purists who want more HD channels. I saw an HD TV at the store the other day which was showing the new Alice in Wonderland movie. The effects were astounding. The clarity is obviously the biggest advantage, but the intensity made the movie have more dimension and the colors just popped on the screen. There really is a difference in the viewing quality of a good HD TV.

This is a guest post by Steven Freitag

After dinner, my son and I like to watch one TV show together: Spongebob Squarepants. The first time my son asked me to watch the show, I was confused. He told me it was about a sponge and that the character reminded him of his older brother. I didn’t know what to expect. It turned out that SpongeBob was the name of the main character. He is a sponge who lives in the ocean and works as a fry cook and loves his job. He is a hapless, yet cheerful character who always sees the bright side of life. My son was right; he did remind me of his brother too! SpongeBob is carefree and really enjoys life even if life isn’t going his way. This tenacity is great for kids to see. Today, there is so much pressure on kids and sometimes life isn’t perfect. SpongeBob allows kids to see that a good attitude will make a difference. So, when I turned on TV By Direct after dinner, I find SpongeBob. My son and I sit down for thirty minutes and laugh together. It is my favorite part of the day.

This has been “aliens week” for my house. My grandson has discovered aliens and is fascinated with the thought of beings from outer space coming to Earth.

We have watched all sorts of alien movies, watched alien based TV shows and are even eating alien food.My favorite alien movie is now “Aliens in the Attic.” It has hilarious alien characters, the heroes are kids, and the whole movie is a giggle.

When we mixed up a batch of guacamole, he announced that it looked like alien poop. So we dipped a big clump of it and put it in our mouths with a big flourish. Then we proclaimed it to be delicious! We LOVE alien poop! And he ran screaming from the kitchen – in delight.