Tomorrow’s TV — today! Or in 6-8 weeks!

Read a really useful article in the Sun today: Mike Himowitz: Act soon to try out your TV’s converter.

Apparently the government is offering up to two $40 coupons toward a digital signal converter box for our perfectly adequate television, with which we use a set of rabbit ears to catch PBS Kids, Martha Stewart’s TV show, and the local news. I did not know that.

Also news to me: that the digital-signal switch, which happens less than a year from now (February 2009), does not force us non-cable-havin’ people to buy a whole new compatible television set (darn!) — just a converter box. Still, Himowitz makes a good point:

Never before has the government, by fiat, declared obsolete a perfectly good, working technology that’s almost universally available and so critical to public safety. And with so little real-world testing of its replacement.

Damn government.

Anyway. I am applying for the coupon today, intent on taking his advice and seeing whether I can get, say, NOVA to come in in high-def. If so: Sweet! If not — well, I’ll take the other part of his advice and let my congressmen know that this idea of theirs was crap. Only time will tell!