Weather Imagery

Wow … rather, I mean … WOW. Comcast’s High Definition programming looks horrible! So bad, I had to write about it. If you are thinking about getting an HDTV, I would strongly recommend you get anything besides Comcast. I mean, I really can’t stress how bad it looked in comparison to DirecTV. If you’re going to pay all that money for an HD DVR, HDTV and the service,why get the worst out there?

Here’s what I noticed …

My friend recently purchased an HDTV from Costco and subscribed to the HD package from Comcast. He was quite excited about it because he had seen my HDTV with DirecTV’s HD service, really liked what he saw and couldn’t wait to watch hockey at his house in HD. But once we got everything set up, we both thought the TV picture quality looked … bad. We flipped through all the Comcast HD channels and they all looked less than HD. It didn’t matter whether it was 720p or 1080i, they all looked blocky, pixelated, and rough … if that makes sense. The Comcast Sports Network (CSN) channels were by far the worse. Fast action scenes seemed to exaggerate the imperfections. At first we thought it might be the TV since it was brand new. We though maybe we had it configured wrong or that it might be defective, but after about an hour of tweaking and Googling on the internet, I had convinced myself it had nothing to do with his TV. Seeing the quality firsthand and after reading this website http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1008271 I was pretty certain it was Comcast.

My friend wasn’t so sure, yet. We were watching the Washington Capitals play the Pittsburgh Penguins on NBC and after the first intermission, we drove over to my house and watched the same game on the same channel, just this time on DirecTV. Sure enough, my DirecTV picture looked a hell of a lot better; literally a night and day difference. After the game, we went back to his house, brought my BluRay player, and again messed around with the settings. The TV looked fabulous with my BluRay player, so we were able to rule out a misconfiguration. But we just couldn’t get it to look right with Comcast. When we paused a show, you could really see how chunky the picture looked. It looked very similar to when you keep zooming in on a digital photograph … it starts to look blocky, or chunky.

Later that week, my friend called Comcast and had a technician come out to his house just to make sure there was nothing wrong with the signal coming into his house and to make sure the HD-DVR was working correctly. The tech said the signal looked great, the DVR was working fine and commented how nice his TV was. I guess they talked a bit and my friend realized he wasn’t going to get better picture no matter what. It was never going to match my DirecTV signal. After the tech left, he called DirecTV and ordered the HD package.

Comcast’s HD quality has got to be the worst I have ever seen. I mean, it’s so bad, I’d say it’s marginally better than standard definition. How they call it High-Definition (HDTV) boggles the mind.

The government has decided they will privatize profits, and socialize losses - but only for big corporations that are poorly run. You as a common citizen will not receive such treatment, and unlike the large corporations you will be held responsible for your poor decisions.

The government isn’t interested in punishing the crooks who drove these companies into the ground, cost thousands of people their jobs, and who generated billions in investor losses. They want to bail these companies out with OUR tax payer money and without our approval. Doesn’t this just sound wrong?! We the people are going to bail these corporations out against our will.

Your elected officials are feeding you misrepresentations. They are feeding you exaggerations. They are feeding you myths. They are feeding you assumptions that cannot be proven. Not a single elected official has taken the time to carefully explain why it is we need to spend $700,000,000,000 of tax payers money. NOT ONE. They only tell you that we need to otherwise we will have another Great Depression.

So let’s take a step back and think about this for a minute.

• Do you really think banks will stop lending money? That’s how they make money! If banks stop lending you money, then they go out of business. This isn’t going to happen!!!! There are over 7,100 commercial banks in the United States and only a handful have failed. These 7000+ banks are still more than happy, and capable, of lending you money for a car, house, RV, boat or whatever it is you want. The credit is not drying up. Don’t believe me? Go down to your local bank and take out a loan.
• The government has NO CLUE as to whether this $700 billion bail out will work. No idea whatsoever. It’s a guess. It’s an assumption.
  

  “We have been given no credible assurances that this plan will work. We could very well spend $700 billion, or a trillion, and not resolve the crisis.”

  It could be that this bail out requires another $500,000,000,000 more. It’s our money, the tax payers money, they are gambling. The government isn’t simply printing more money. They are taking out a loan that we the tax payers are paying back.

• Has the free market or capitalist system failed us? NO, NO, and NO. What has failed us is that government has tried to socialize housing; everyone deserves a house no matter their credit or income. Government has injected all sorts of incentives for people who don’t make enough or have bad credit so that pretty much anyone can get a loan for a house; Thus the housing boom. Housing sales and construction went through the roof the last few years because anyone qualified for one of these extremely high risk loans. Problem is, these government incentives are NOT a free market and they artificially prop up the housing market. In comes supply and demand … as more people are able to afford houses, and supply starts to run low, more houses are created to match demand OR house prices rise. As house prices rise, one needs more money to buy one. The bad banks started making up weird loans like the 125% interest only 3-year ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) which means the day you close on your house you owe 25% more than what it is worth. But over time, the market corrects itself naturally, interest rates rise, and you now have a lot of people who simply can’t afford their homes anymore. As house prices drop, and mortgage payments go up, people are no longer able to make their mortgage payment and they default or foreclose. Houses are no longer valued at their original price and HERE IS THE PROBLEM …. a $500,000 house is now worth $300,000, and the bad bank is stuck with a $200,000 loss because they can only sell the home for $300,000. Multiply this by millions of people who bought homes they should have never qualified for and you see the problem.
• The banks are NOT failing. Look at Citigroup. They just bought Wachovia. Don’t be sucked into the doom and gloom politicians are preaching you. I’d like to see one politician show me the facts that ALL credit will dry up like they say. Right now, I can go to any bank and get a car, motorcycle, house or RV loan. Yeah, it’s harder to get a loan BUT NOT EVERYONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO GET A LOAN. If you’re a high risk money borrower that may nt be able to pay the money back, why should you qualify for a loan?!?!
• The government says we will make a profit on this $700 billion dollar loan that’s being forced down our throats. Really? Why will the government succeed where all these other companies have failed? It’s a lie. You will not be getting a check back from the government. Trust me. You will be paying back this loan with your own money for years to come. They will find someway to get the money from us. We the taxpayers foot the governments bill.
• Some people are losing their lines of credit and houses! That is most unfortunate. But you know what? THIS BILL WILL DO NOTHING TO HELP THESE PEOPLE. This bill will ONLY help the banks and make more unqualified people able to afford more bad loans. THIS BAIL OUT BILL IS NOT A SOLUTION.

The guys voting this bill were elected into office, but that doesn’t mean they know anything about economics. Where one company fails, another will prosper.

It’s time we bring control back into our own hands. Let’s vote these government crooks out of office that have forced us to spend $700 billion of our money on something for which we do not approve nor do we have any say in. How do we do this? I will provide a list of all government officials and which state they represent who voted to approve this $700 billion bail out plan. You will get this list before the elections take place. When you are at the polls in November, simply don’t vote for any of these elected officials. Pick someone else. Each state will have several Democrats and Republicans running so there will be plenty to to chose from. You can still vote within your party lines.

If being the star on YouTube wasn’t enough, I just had to post this clip on my website so I don’t lose it. It’s much too funny.

While doing a story live for Fox News on the arrival of Hurricane Ike, Geraldo was standing atop the break wall showing the damage that had already occurred. Just seconds into the live broadcast, he was taken down by a piece of debris that washed ashore by a rather large wave. Geraldo was washed 10 feet before getting back on his feet. I must say, he handled the situation perfectly and resumed the broadcast. Towards the end of the broadcast, I guess either 1) his phone was malfunctioning or 2) people were trying to call him after seeing him take a spill, because his phone wouldn’t stop buzzing.

Skippers and captains from the earliest of times have reported freak waves of monstrous proportions, slamming into their ships sometimes causing massive amounts of damage and perhaps sometimes sinking them with little or no warning. For many years, these waves were thought to be mythical in nature and that there must have been some other logical explanation for the damage inflicted upon these ships or their sudden disappearance. It wasn’t until the last few decades that the answer was finally discovered, and to answer the question of whether they are real or fiction … they are most certainly real.

Read the rest of this entry »

When I purchased my Mustang from the local Ford dealership earlier this year, one of the incentives they offered me (and I accepted before knowing the details) was a $500 gas credit good at any gas station. This sounds great until you really understand how this $500 gas credit works and how inconvenient it is.

I’ll give you the details …

Read the rest of this entry »

The internet can be a great place to buy electronic products. Sometimes, good deals can be found saving the consumer quite a bit of money had they instead gone to their local electronics retail store and paid full price. But cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean a better deal.

More often than not, people who shop online don’t know who they are buying from or where this retailer store is located. They simply look for the cheapest price and go with it. Places such as EBay, PriceGrabber, Nextag and even Amazon list retailers who sell products at what appear to be very discounted rates. And because these are big name online stores, they think it’s probably a good deal.

Read the rest of this entry »