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Jan
3
My Man Mitch
Filed Under Mitch Daniels, television
After years of watching satellite television, we’ve switched back to cable.
I’ve noticed something since switching back — I see Gov. Mitch Daniels on television a lot more than I did with the Chicago-centric satellite local television station package we had before.
Mitch is running up the Statehouse stairs telling people to stop smoking and shape up before they are rounded up and shipped to Wisconsin.
Flip to another channel and Mitch is talking to a WSBT television reporter about how Indiana’s time is now coordinated with the rest of the civilized world that has adopted daylight savings time.
Mitch is doing something here and something there and there are cameras following him around.
For years, I thought my man was Gov. Rod Blagojevich a/k/a “I’m not Public Official A.”
Maybe it is because Blago lives 1/2 hour away in Illinois’ capital city Chicago. So I don’t mess up people’s already weak geography skills, Illinois’ capital is really Springfield, but we all know all the real governing work in Illinois gets done in Chicago.
Mitch lives at least 150 miles away — a good 2 hour or so drive away. They always say we think of those who are closest.
While I still love watching the Chicago television news — especially since CBS 2 Chicago does a good job of covering Northwest Indiana — it’s nice to be able to flip over to WNDU and WSBT and get a feel for what is happening in the rest of Indiana.
I feel like a Hoosier again thanks to the miracle of television programming.
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8 Responses to “My Man Mitch”
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Dude, I have Comcast and I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
Of course, I have a high def TV, and only watch the “locals” on high def. So if those channels you mentioned were below channel 23, I don’t watch them.
Hi Buzz,
They are the South Bend channels — I think their channel numbers correspond to their over the air numbers (16 & 22) but I could be mistaken. We didn’t get the HD package, despite having a HD flat panel. (The “finance minster” aka my wife didn’t approve of that expenditure).
You should check out the South Bend channels during their evening news broadcasts — it’s insane the number of times Mitch Daniels has a commercial or is on the news. (Maybe I’m just noticing it more because I haven’t watched Indiana television news for a while).
Today is your lucky day, my friend.
Here’s the deal. You don’t need Comcast’s HD package to get the high def channels. All you need to do is plug the cable into the back of your high def TV, do a channel scan, and see what you get.
The high def channels are real high up there. Channels 107, 115, 116, with a bunch of sub channels (107-1, 107-2)
The over-the-air high def channels are part of the basic package. Everybody gets them. There are also some unscrambled digital cable channels in there, too.
I deleted all the channels below 23 when I set up the TV. No need for that analog OTA crap when you have high def.
I’ve been running the cable through the box and using channel 3, so I’ve had the television just acting like a monitor.
I’m going to have to do a channel scan to see what’s out there.
I hate cable boxes. I haven’t had one since like 1985 or so. Can’t see why I’d want one now.
Right now, I get “standard” analog cable, which includes a number of unscrambled digital cable channels as well as the high defs I mentioned.
I got 180 channels when I did the channel scan!
In the future, I think the plan at Comcast it to get rid of all the analogs and do digital cable for everybody. I might get screwed at that point if the scramble a lot of the formerly analog channels when they go digital. Until then, I’m VERY happy with my setup (a huge, 150 lb. 32″ 4:3 CRT based HDTV circa 2003).
Also, I went online yesterdy and requested 2 of the $40 vouchers for the digital TV over-the-air convertors. Okay, I only have one analog TV that doesn’t get cable. So what! I want my two boxes. You never know what you can do with this stuff.
I should order the $40 vouchers — just in case I need to put an antenna in the attic to pick up over the air signals for whatever reason.
We didn’t request the box, but the guy who was doing the install said it came with the package. It allows us to get the OnDemand videos — there are some free ones — so it’s not a bad thing to have.
I’m going to have to do some playing around with the television to see if I can get all of those channels.
Yeah, I’ve got a “freevo”. My dad got the Series 2 Tivo, bought the lifetime subscription, didn’t like it compared to his old Series 1, and gave it to me. I think one of those convertors will be for the TiVo.
Getting a freevo is an excellent deal! We’ve gotten a taste of what a DVR is like with some of the features on OnDemand. It’s nice to be able to stop a program and grab the telephone. But, it only works on the OnDemand items and not the regular programming.
The cable box isn’t necessary — except for the free and pay-per-view OnDemand programming.