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Ah, jeez, no.

Tony's in a coma, and that's the cue for hack TV, mostly involving the weirdness in Tony's mind while he's on life support and his family worries. There were hints of the upcoming power struggle, but more ominous hints that Tony will lay in a coma for a while and we'll be subjected to more of the same. Next week's preview pretty much guaranteed it- Tony's tubed up, Carm's yelling at A.J. again, Paulie Walnuts is looking like he ran out of Pepto, everyone's stomping around... not good, not good at all. Main character in coma, dreaming- I expect better from this show.

What did we learn tonight? Purgatory is a chain hotel in Costa Mesa. We knew that already.

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It is apparently too much to ask Windows XP Media Center Edition to work properly. I know, I'm being pushy and whiny, because I shouldn['t EXPECT a clean install on a fresh hard drive with all updates installed to work properly. I need to lower my expectations.

The latest problem's a weird mystery, so weird that I don't even know how to put it in a coherent Google search. The problem is this: without warning, with nothing obvious having happened, my ability to use the Web stops. There's still connectivity- e-mail still works, and my other networked computers don't lose Web access. It's only on THIS box. A reboot gets it working fine again, until the next time it craps out. I've scanned for spyware and viruses and malware frequently. Again, I don't even know how to phrase this problem.

I do know one pertinent phrase, though. "Next time, buy a Mac." Rolls off the tongue, don't it?

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OK, here's the deal- posting is going to be uneven for the next few weeks- there'll still be stuff and it'll roughly be daily as usual, but what I'm going to be able to do is uncertain. I can't really go into the details other than to note that the circumstances are such that you'd understand why if I told you; there's much to be done, a lot of stuff with which to deal, and it won't be conducive to doing a lot of writing outside of the columns that pay the bills. And if you've ever tried to be funny and coherent when funny and coherent are the last things in your life at that moment, you know how hard that is.

But I'll try to keep posting on a daily basis, maybe some more scans from pop culture's semi-recent past, maybe some TV and sports commentary (hey, I just saw a "Happy Days" post-shark rerun featuring Tom Hanks as "Dwayne," a karate-kicking geek with a grudge against Fonzie!), maybe some incomprehensible diatribes about the state of radio.

And exactly how does that differ from what's normally on this page?

Okay, it doesn't. But I guess I'm disclaiming the volume and the quality of material that's coming up, and it's unfair to do that, so forget I said anything. But bear with me. We'll get through this together....

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Someone else seems to have picked up on something I've been complaining about in various venues for years: if they want to sell HDTVs, why the hell don't retailers show you real HDTV on the sets they're displaying?

Broadcasting and Cable's John Eggerton is complaining, too:

I drove over to Best Buy to see whether they were making good use of the CBS HDTV coverage of March Madness to sell DTVs. They weren't One bank of TV's was airing the game, but the picture looked like something from a cheap motel TV set with a coathanger for an antenna.

The Best Buy and Circuit City stores near me use tape loops that do not appear to be true HD. They look muddy, soft, nothing special. Some sets will show DVDs, from standard def players, no upconverting- they look good, but not $2,000. worth of good.

Live sports in true HD- CBS is reliable for this, NBC not (too much bandwidth reserved on their O&Os for that useless "Weather Plus" channel), ABC inconsistent, Fox OK- sells HDTVs. The NCAAs in 1080i are awesome- that wide aspect radio and the sharpness of the detail gives you the kind of view you'd have from a good seat in the arena. You see that, you want it. But when I walk into the major chain electronics retailers, they have the sets displaying soft, crappy video.

Then again, I know what to buy and I don't own stock in any electronics retailers, so it's not my problem. But I always get frustrated when I see a job poorly done, no matter what the job is. At least I'm not alone.

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Saturday morning TV was great in the 60's- Bullwinkle, Bugs, the Beatles. In the 70's, not so good. Here's proof from the 1977 TV Guide Fall Preview issue:

Look at this crap. The Pink Panther kinda sucked all the way through, but this is later, cheaper, uglier, worse. "CB Bears"? Way to jump on a lame fad and make it even lamer. "The Young Sentinels" looks like a Tom of Finland production. "The New Archie Sabrina Hour" is the kind of thing you get when a franchise is dying and you start to stick cartoons togther to try and keep it going for a little while longer. A Muhammad Ali cartoon, well, no. I don't remember "Thunder" or "Search and Rescue: The Alpha Team," and I doubt anyone else does. "Baggy Pants and the Nitwits," on the other hand, I do remember, and it holds a special place in my heart as a phrase that made my sister laugh a little too hard one morning. "The Red Hand Gang" sounds like a masturbation club with kung-fu grip; can't get away with that these days.

ABC was pretty pathetic that year- three shows lumping lots of characters together in uncomfortable piles. Notable: the Scooby Doo show included the debut of "Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels," which always struck me as two show pitches that somehow accidentally got grafted together. "Let's do a cartoon 'Charlie's Angels' for kids... oh, and we have this other pitch for a wacky Cousin Itt-like caveman transported to 1977... hey, let's do them both." And they mistook that to mean "at the same time." I never liked the Krofft shows, but, then again, I never dropped acid.

Good start with Bugs et al., but then, dreck: "What's New, Mister Magoo?" was an affront to the memory of the 1950s theatrical UPA cartoons and even made the crappy TV ones look good. The mess at 9:30, well, two words: "Robonic Stooges." Who thought THAT was a good idea? Only other redeeming value: "In the News" all morning. Christopher Glenn ruled.

Here's a bonus:

The show was never all that good, but introducing a female Sweathog smelled of shark-jumping. Ice Cube, take note.

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Today, I saw what I miss because I rarely leave home, and I was reminded of what I can't stand about leaving home.

We had to be at UCLA today, and I found myself with some time to kill between appointments, so I took a walk on campus. UCLA's campus is a lot like Penn's- lots of tall buildings crowded together with trees and the occasional green space dropped in- but the day was warm and sunny, and it really felt like spring in a city where the seasons aren't supposed to change (they do). I walked between the buildings, dropped into the bookstore (oddly, no NCAA tournament souvenirs yet- they had Pac 10 t-shirts but nothing about the team's participation in the tournament, maybe because many students are on break and by the time they're back, we'll know if there will be more updated souvenirs to be had), and wandered into Pauley Pavilion. The arena was being prepped for the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, and while there was security at the main entrance, the back door was wide open; I stood with some production executives and gazed at the championship banners and the scoreboards and the very spot where John Wooden directed his troops and everyone from Hazzard to Alcindor to O'Bannon and Edney and Farmar roamed. It's no Palestra- it's a 1960's-bland, utilitarian arena, and I can imagine recruits turning their noses up at it when even San Diego State has a newer, nicer, state-of-the-art facility (and USC's will open hard by the 110 freeway in the Fall). But you walk in and you know some greatness lived there.

After the last appointment, we walked into Westwood Village to grab a bite, and for all the problems Westwood has experienced in recent years, there's something about a place where people actually walk and shop and eat and ride buses- almost a real city! I enjoyed the atmosphere, the buzz of students and hospital workers and businesspeople crowded into a restaurant, the hiss and gas fumes at the bus stop. The place just seemed alive, and, living and working here in the quiet, remote suburbs, I miss that.

And then came affirmation of the other side. The Sirius traffic report warned of severe traffic problems on the 405 south, and, sure enough, Wilshire seemed to be backing up all the way to Westwood Boulevard, so I decided we'd be better off sticking to surface streets. And that may indeed have been the wise choice, but it was the same idea everyone else had. Westwood Boulevard crawled. There was momentary gridlock at Santa Monica Boulevard- more 405 backup- and National had a long line at the Overland light that never seemed to move no matter how many (short) green lights we got. I bailed into the Cheviot Hills back streets, found the secret back entrance to the 10 East, and promptly hit another jam. Off to La Cienega, which moved well until the hill, where an accident had traffic jammed again. And more jamming at La Tijera, and so on all the way home.

How do people do that? I mean, I used to commute, and it never seemed this bad. They say that the jams are getting worse, have gotten much worse in the last five years, and, well, yeah. I kept telling myself not to get aggravated, not to worry- no rush, not a problem- but I couldn't help myself. I can't even imagine how it would feel if I had an actual schedule.

So it was nice to be out and about in civilization today. I'm promising myself it'll never happen again.

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The winning points scored on a shot that never actually went into the basket?

I can't recall too many games ending on an undisputed goaltending call.

Imagine how Nova would have done had everyone shown up like Randy Foye and played the whole game instead of either sleepwalking or shooting bricks (coughAllanRaycough).

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Today's excitement: replacing a door knob, putting in a handheld shower head, buying a new router (old Microsoft one's slow and flaky- got a cheap 802.11g Belkin, Pre-N can wait) and uniterruptible power supply (old one died just out of warranty- thanks, Belkin), watching the neighbors rip down an enormous tree- don't know why, maybe they're putting in a pool. The noise is ridiculous.

And the Internet still cuts out for no apparent reason on this PC (but not on others on the LAN). Reset the cable modem and router, will replace the router (it needed replacing anyway), will cast wary eyes towards the NIC on the motherboard (but using my backup USB adapter didn't make a difference). Not pleased, am I.

But the most interesting thing was when we were perusing the routers at Best Buy- a woman and her daughter were looking, confused, at the display while Fran and I discussed the relative merits of g vs. g+ vs. g-MIMO vs. pre-N. The woman came over and said "you sound like you know what you're talking about" and asked me what to get. Within 2 minutes, she had the right router for her needs and was thanking me profusely. She said that the salesman on the floor was rude, had pointed her to the most expensive one and sent her to the Geek Squad desk for installation advice (at a price). For free, i saved her a hundred bucks (small house, adjacent rooms, legacy notebook adapter- all she needed was the same Belkin with which I ended up, thirty-nine bucks out the door and relatively simple to set up).

Why don't consumer electronics stores have one or two "answer men" to handle these kind of things? Most people who walk into those stores don't know what they need- they're not stupid, but they just aren't paying rapt attention to the latest in networking technology or the difference between HD and ED and "true HD" and 1080p vs. 1080i vs. 720p. They don't know because they're too busy living life to know. But Best Buy and Circuit City (where ALL the salesmen were busy watching the LSU-Texas game) hire people who know less than the customers yet have the sales technique of the car sales sharks down the street. If they gave sound advice and steered people the right way, sure, they wouldn't sell someone who needs a forty buck router the $169. version this time, but I'll bet they sell a LOT more stuff to the same customers over time.

But what do I know?

Just more than the salesweasels. That shouldn't be.

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