Please Press the Button, Mr. Obama!

I just heard talk today that President Elect Obama may delay the switch to digital only television broadcast. No. Please no.

You know why I want the switch to happen? To get rid of that infernal cursed banner that keeps screwing up my shows! Sheesh! Some of us are trying to inverse telecine! And it really doesn't help when there's a crawler that moves at 30 frames per second imposed over telecined footage that's supposed to run at 24 frames per second! Is it so wrong to want a decent recording that has 24 progressive non-jerky frames per second, without some stupid banner that people already watching in HD do not need to see? Hello? I'm already watching digitally! Showing the banner to me over and over is like sending one hundred AOL CD's to an amish person!

And do you know anyone that still watches TV without cable or anything - just with a plain old antenna? I know two people, and one of them already has a converter box. The other one wouldn't miss TV if it was taken out forever by an EMP.

And is it really that much of a tragedy? It's not a banner saying "a nuclear plant just exploded in your area." It doesn't say "there's a lethal dosage of arsenic in your drinking water." It says "starting on some date that seems never to arrive, you're going to need equipment even more advanced than a set of rabbit ears - or - even have to pay $6 a month for the luxury of watching Jerry Springer and Rachael Ray."

Gasp! You mean two people per city may have to live without TV? How can this happen? Seriously, if staying connected is that important, get a computer or something. Or even one of those new fangled radios. I hear they're up to a whopping five dollars at the local drug store. Then you can stay up to the minute on whether bingo night is cancelled.

But come on. I thought you were going to bring us change. Please press the button. You won't be wiping out any cities by doing it. You'll just be cutting off network television to an audience that doesn't know the NBC logo is in color. Besides, they've probably got lots of Beta videos to keep them busy.