The Bear Minimum

I feel the need today to espouse on something that has made me feel ‘those years’. Bear with me, if you will, whilst I take you on a journey through my eyes, where you come face to face with the grim spectre of… technology.

You see, I have had the same television for longer than I care to remember. It has gotten very old, and very shabby. It actually had a wooden case, not a faux wood façade, no, this TV was actually a huge wooden box. A couple of days ago, one of the internal components must have stopped working, for everything on the screen turned green. I promptly called a repairman, who was very un-prompt in arriving at the time he gave me, and then took one look at my television and guffawed in quite an undignified manner.

The rude repairman informed me that my television was so old, that neither would he be able to repair it, as the parts were no longer manufactured, and neither would it be worth repairing should I happen to find the necessary parts. He told me I had best go and buy a new television, or at the very least, one made in the past two decades. He then threw all these words at me, of which I understood perhaps a quarter. LCD television, I got that one, then he said something about Eurovox which I know nothing about. I am not even sure what it is… I do know Google, though, so let me check that… Ah hah! Eurovox is a set top box for digital television. He also mentioned Dreambox, which I am guessing is the same thing… let me check that… Yes, Dreambox is much the same.

When looking around for all that information I saw the word ’satellite’ mentioned, and that is rather intimidating. I don’t know how I would go with one of those, I think I would need help with a satellite dish and all its accoutrements, but I am sure there are plenty of professionals out there who could set the whole thing up for me. I miss my old television. After a little more digging around, I have found that there are free to air digital channels, and ones that I need to pay for. Some of those pay television channels are rather enticing, I must say. I have always enjoyed programmes from the Discovery Channel, as well as travel shows. That one with Michael Palin is always good, too. I like his sense of humour, as well as how up close and personal the shows seem. Where I am located, and were I to get a new television that actually worked, I could get some of these pay-tv digital channels, apparently from either Sky - which seems to be a fairly well known pay-tv company, in spite of my complete lack of knowledge regarding it, and Virgin Media - which is one that I have actually hear of.

Goodness me, this all seems a bit much. I need to rest now, dear reader, and ponder my options.