Atomictumor

I could swear I’ve done at least 4 posts with the lame pirate joke, but damn, its fitting.

I found out recently that I’ve gotten nabbed by Whitey McNoDownloady, for grabbing 4 exceptionally good episodes of Heroes off the fruited and abundant plains of the internet.

Yes, a network TV show. They can run it through your body free of charge on Thursday nights in the form of longwave beams, but you’d damn well better not get it on your hard drive, because they’ll bitch and moan. And, its their right. Its their right because we have a busted system, a system with no sense of fair use, a system with no perspective on copyright beyond the narrow minded and short sighted view of the lawyers and corporate executives.

Luckily, it was TV, where they really don’t do much other than have your ISP send a nastygram telling you what you did and how you’d better not do it again.

Ironically, well, I did it again. Even ironicallyer, the letter says the infraction was a year ago TO THE DAY (May Day, in fact) that I was busted for downloading Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (at least when I get busted, its for decent stuff. How bad would it be to get nabbed downloading something awful and culturally vacant like NASCAR Bandits or American Idol?).

I’m not going to bother bringing up my opinion of their stupid laws and corporate-leaning legal system, other than to say that I’m proud to have dropped a buck or two to the EFF, not just for the defense of fair use rights, but for the defense of normal people like you and I against a nation that wiretaps you, Real ID’s you, Guantanamo’s you, lies to you, and screws you over.

Hell, if I were bold enough, I’d damn near say in this day and age that peer to peer downloading is the geeky man’s civil disobedience.

But, in this case, its just a way for me to get a copy of a TV show on my TV at a time that my kid isn’t in bed. Timeshifting, the original fair use defense, which is as by-damned valid today as it was in the 80’s, when the MPAA tried to sue the VCR out of existence.

And for those concerned, my legal defense is outlined below:

Now that the day has come and passed, I’m fairly confident we can talk about it without fear of retaliation.

Apparently, now, I did something to piss yesterday off.  Maybe I ding its car, and didn’t realize it, but it was out to get me with a myriad of little things.

I decided, around 4 PM, to fight back, by going TV shopping.  Ah yes, that’ll straighten it out.  My plan was to go out and get something to pretty much directly replace the cherished GE 27 incher that has adorned some section of our house since BJ and I got married many moons ago.

As happens when one goes shopping (or, when I go shopping), I quickly decided that a direct replacement is not the wisest choice.  I started thinking ‘What would Ghandi do?  What would Franklin do?  What would Camus do?”

They’d get an LCD.  Or at least, thats what they told me.

So I drove, and drove.  I went to HH Gregg, where I found an open box “Spectroniq” 32 inch LCD TV for $488, but was a bit leery.  I drove on, to Target, where I found a 37 inch one for $688, but kept driving.  I went to Walmart, where I found, well, nothing.  Then I went to Best Buy and Circuit City, which were a total waste of time.

In between that time, now, I had a lovely dinner with the Cemesto’s gang, and had a moment of clarity, during which I wrote this text message:

“In the bthrm at mello mushrm waitn on
pigpen, Freebird on. Pull my hair back w my
hands, look in the mirror, my mulleted self
lookin back.
Bird u cant change.”

I sent that to the sidebar, in keeping with the mulleted conversations of late, but, it was the grim Wednesday, and it never got posted.  Twittr is apparently not working very well for me, several of my texts disappear like that.  Need to find a solution to that before Bonnaroo.’

So, anyway, after dinner we drove back to HH Gregg to get the open box TV, after finding some decent reviews of it, but damned if there isn’t somebody sitting in the “buyer’s chair” with that thing in a box behind him.

So, I bought the one at Target.  I signed up for their dumb little credit card to get 10 percent off my order, and got the 3 year warranty.

I was feeling pretty good about myself.  This TV is way better than I need, and I haven’t completely wasted money in quite a while.  While the ghost of GAC wasn’t exactly patting my back, neither did I feel her ghostly fingers trying to choke the life out of me for wasting money. MastaG was confident, however, that she’d approve, while strangling me.  He’s one for contradictions, that boy.

So, I get the TV on the buggy, the dude’s bringing it out front, I swing my car around, and…

Damn thing doesn’t fit.

Grim Wednesday has struck again.

So, I drove home, defeated,  but it occurred to me coming home that I’ve been getting so angry lately at little things, as I’m sure comes through in my posts.  I mean, I’ve always been snarky, and somewhat aggressive, but rarely angry.  Thats changed, and I want to get myself back to the way I used to be.

Pigpen had another solution:

“We need to get a smaller TV, Dad.”