Life has always been complicated. I mean even the ancient Sumerians who lived 3500-5500 years ago had problems. If you read their myths, you wonder how they kept everything straight. This applied particularly to their gods since they must have had a terrible time just remembering their names. True things started out simply with An & Ki, but before you knew it they had to contend with the likes of Ereshkigal and Ninshelargunu. They probably had to name their kids after them too.
Today, we do not have to worry about the names of all sorts of gods, but there are other weighty matters or at least they have become weighty. For example, it has only been in the last 50-60 years that people have had to worry about television. In the beginning it related to how you got a picture that wasn’t grainy and hard to see. TV antennas were invented by Adam Antenna (I think) and that helped, but people got killed putting them on roofs. Then, someone figured out a way to be able to adjust the roof antenna from inside the house.
That helped reduce the roof carnage, but people still had to get up from their chairs in order to change the channel. Can you imagine such a hardship? It is much easier to change a channel now with a flick of your finger even if someone else watching does not want it changed. When you had to get up to change the channel, one had to be careful that you were not blindsided by someone who adamantly did not want the channel changed. It could get pretty brutal when someone wanted to watch “Liberace” and someone else wanted to see “Have Gun, Will Travel”.
It is to be admitted that this was compounded by the fact that in the old days, there was usually only one TV. Now they seem to sprout up mysteriously in every room. Each one of these TVs has its own channel changer – assuming you can find where someone has put it, and that the one you do find works with the TV you want to watch. Then, you have to decide which station among countless channels you want to watch. Consequently, you pick up a TV guide, and by the time you scan all the channels and their programming, it may well be time to go to bed.
Back in the good old days there were only four or five stations so it was easier to decide whether to watch Arthur Godfrey fire Julius LaRosa rather than worry about Marshall Dillion getting ambushed by the latest bad guy. They had some real bad guys back then. Half of them could have shot the gun out of James Bond’s hand before he got it out of his impeccable jacket. They did not waste time stirring their drinks either. No sir, it was bottoms up with the rotgut and right down the gullet – except for Gabby Hayes who always had a sarsaparilla. True, Gabby was not a bad guy, but the point is still there (whatever it may be at present).
Today things are even more complex. Not only are there all the many channels, but there is also streaming. There are all sorts of firms like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube etc. who would be most happy (for a small price) to put movies on your home screen so you do not have to venture out to a movie theater, unless you just must get out of the house. However, to partake of these fine services it is best if you have a smart TV. As an aside, I worry about just how smart these TVs will get. On the bright side though perhaps they will get smart enough to replace Congress. Now that would be great!
While we wait on that there is still the matter of how a TV should be placed in your house. I am referring to the main TV which now requires a very wide room so that it fits. The Blonde in the house and I were faced with this very weighty question the other day. We now have a bigger TV, but not so wide that we had to knock out a wall. The main question was whether we placed it on the top of a nice piece of furniture that the last one sat on, or do we gouge out several holes in the wall. It appears that most people (at least the competent people we know) do the latter.
The TV then can nestle against the wall until time runs out or at least until it is replaced by something better like just making the entire wall a TV. However, I understand that the very latest in-thing to do is to hang it from the ceiling. Then you just have to gouge out a couple of holes in the ceiling which no one ever looks at anyhow, and the wall is safe.
I voted to keep the wall safe. I have determined to wait until you press a button and the TV pops out of the floor.
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages.
