Al Gritzmacher's Blogosphere

It’s been a while since I complained about TV commercials. Does that mean all is good in couch-potato-land? No, it just means things haven’t changed.

But I’ve noticed a new form of commercial lately and it’s – for some reason – particularly annoying to me. Let’s call it the Commercial Introduction. It goes like this:

This episode of Burn Notice is being brought to you by Hyundai.

or…

This weeks CSI Miami is presented by T-Mobile.

Almost every sponsor and show is using this in some combination, followed by, you guessed it, the commercial. Continue Reading…

Unless you’ve been in a monastery, you’ve got to have heard about the US Government’s C.A.R.S. or Cash for Clunkers program. It seems like every commercial break on TV has three commercials for car dealers desperate to make the most of it while it lasts. But, now that it’s almost over, we’re hearing about problems the dealers have getting their money and customers having to wait for their cars.

We all saw how they have to destroy the trade-in’s engine by running it with the oil drained and replaced by a mixture that quickly destroys the engine. We also know that the program is only for new cars that get at least a certain number of miles per gallon more than the trade-in.

So, I’m surprised at how little fuss this has received from Joe Public. Let’s look at who this multi-billion dollar program benefits… Continue Reading…

That used to be the motto of many police departments. Today it’s more like To prosecute and serve warrants.

Suppose you were talking on the phone to your Little Old Granny who lives across the country from you. Then she stops talking. You become worried about her and call the police. It happens all the time. It’s called a welfare check.

Now suppose that the police arrive and find Granny snoozing. She fell asleep while on the phone. Hey, that happens too. The police arrest Granny and charge her for “second-degree aggravated harassment and third-degree falsely reporting an incident.” Continue Reading…

Last night, I was looking at the web site for Heil Sound. I was sort of window shopping for a microphone, but ended up getting distracted – like I often do on the internet – and was browsing through the photos on Bob’s site.

I came across this photo, of Bob Heil with Les Paul and a shudder went down my spine. Here was an image of two men, possibly THE two men, responsible for modern sound recording technology. Each of them came up with equipment and techniques that, while not wiz-bang super-new technology, the way they applied their knowledge to a problem they saw changed the way that music recording and live sound amplification was done almost universally.

Little did I know, the next day, I’d be reading that Les Paul had died. Continue Reading…

This is another Ham Radio post, so if that bores you, tune out now.

I’ve been spending a lot of time cleaning out my “Shack” as we Hams call the room we keep our radio station in. It has been long overdue for me and I’ve accumulated 20 years and more of junk here alone. When I first moved into this house, I had a lot of Ham equipment. I’ll try to find one particular photo I have of a double layer of old Heathkit gear I had. I have less now, and more modern, but you wouldn’t know it.

My room has accumulated layer after layer of “stuff” – both radio and computer – to the point where I’m afraid someone will turn me into one of those reality TV shows where they do an intervention and force you to clean out your clutter.

My main HF (Shortwave) radio had become inoperative and the symptoms it was exhibiting called for some fairly serious surgery to it. Rather than try to fix it half-a$$ed myself, I looked for an expert and found a guy in Texas, who is supposed to be the best and most affordable Kenwood repairman there is. Better than the factory, in fact. So, I shipped the radio off. Just UPS to send it was $40. But it cost $1800 in 1994 and would cost at least $2000+ to replace it with something comparable today.

Anyway, while it is gone, and a big gaping hole in the middle of the clutter where it used to sit, I decided to clean up and make it feel wanted when it returns. It’s been a four-day job, so far, and I’m far from done. But that’s just background to the story of one piece of radiogram traffic I once received. Continue Reading…