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Show BY TOM CLYflWB $1 !7 . ' i IP5 15 r Km mi mm mm Ik AUtf rite IH R tfuioy a i N D l Collectible tins and great gifts under $10 333 Main St. 801-649-2462 I 15 gjyu g 15 j I Any Candy Purchase Void in conjuction with any other promo Expires 122594 15 irr j Would like to invite you in to see the NEW 199 CADHXACS Now on Display at 1070 SO. MAIN STREET C A DILL AC Creating A Higher Standard 1070 So. Main Street, Salt Lake City 521-4444 1-800-388-5269 High tech TV After more than a decade of Spartan existence, living sort of in communicado without television, I succumbed and rejoined American popular culture. It's not that I was trying to hide out, there just weren't any options where I live. Broadcast TV came in on two and sometimes three channels with a snowy picture that wiggled enough to make me seasick, and sound that crackled and popped. The cable system was miles away, and the cable company had assured me that I would never live long enough to see cable television at my house. The other option was the Montana state flower the great big satellite dish in the yard. Some of my neighbors have those, but they also have graduate degrees in electrical engineering and still have trouble changing stations. To install one in my yard would have involved clear cutting the lot. So that really wasn't an option, either. Then I got a letter from a guy in Texas who had read this column once when I mentioned that the TV reception was best if I could bounce the signal off the Peterson's Red Angus bull. He was promoting a product that sounded too good to be true. It was a satellite dish about the size of a dinner plate with ISO channels of programming available. A month or so later, everybody in the state was selling these things, from the hard core electronics stores to the furniture stores, who have special packages on Lazy-Boy recliners and RCADirect TV satellites. The recliners were pretty amazing. They had these sectional couches that could be configured to wrap around any shape of living room. The upholstery was all the kind of velour you see in the finest motor homes in a color that is hard to describe, but goes ' with absolutely any variety of ethnic food you might spill on it And, if that isn't enough, there are places in the couches where the backs fold forward, making a handy little table right there in the living room. A built in TV tray. What will they think of next? Well, on the deluxe versions, the table had built-in accessories like ash trays and cup holders, just like at the bowling alley. I'm not sure what happens when you fold the table back into the couch with some hot butts in the ash tray, but it was still a technological marvel. Though it was hard to pass up the sectional "action furniture" (I love that name, since the people on the action furniture are usually catatonic, but the couch itself has all kinds of hinges and fold-out parts), I went for the satellite instead. It really is a technological marvel. I'm an accomplished idiot at installing electronic stuff. My . stereo only works if the electric toothbrush is running ! at the same time. But this thing had cl instructions that did not require Asian translation. Screw it down, point it south, plug it in, and before you know it, Beavis and Butt Head are there in your living room, settled into action furniture of their own, watching you watch TV. Heh-heh-heh. The programming is like cable, and you have to buy specific packages. This is all done over an 800 number, but it happens immediately. I called and had them start the service. The lady on the phone told me to turn to channel 287, and that should be Saturday Night Live. It was blank at first, but she flipped; a switch in Dallas, and Saturday Night Live was on the screen at my house. How do you do that, I asked her, I have no idea, she said. Now try channel 284. The Direct TV system provides cable-type service, but I think they plan on making the big money on "pay-per-view" programming. There is a whole list of movies available, with start times every half hour or so. You get a listing with an on-screen menu, select what you want to watch, and punch a button to buy it. It's not just movies. The Rolling Stones concert is available; the Christmas Pageant from the Crystal Cathedral in L.A.; there is an NFL playoff package that costs less than one seat in the upper balcony at the stadium. The NBA season is available under" couple of separate packages so I can follow the Jazz or the Charlotte Hornets if I want to. I haven't got it all figured out yet. The remote control has more buttons than I'm used to. This is the kind of thing that a 10 year old will master quickly, and run up huge bills, but her parents will never completely master. It's easier than programming the VCR. But here is where things get interesting. The TV js connected to the telephone. There is a phone wire plugged right into the back of the tuner. Some time, deep in the night, the TV set dials out and tells the people in Dallas what I've been watching so they can send me a bill. This part is pretty confusing to me, but it won't work unless the phone is plugged into the back of the cable box. But I've never picked up the phone and heard the TV talking to anybody. I'm a little concerned about my television making phone calls. It's one thing if it behaves and only calls the TV people to report that I watched "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" two nights in a row for $2.99 apiece. But what if the TV starts calling those 900 numbers? What if it starts calling that Magnavox down the road and ties up the line for hours at a time. Can my TV call Oprah and reveal my deepest secrets (Oprah ' would hang Up on that one. Yawn.)? The lady in Dallas assured me there is no chance that the TV and the telephone could lock on to the Home Shopping Network and buy a ton of cubic zirconia without me; knowing about it But just to be on the safe side, I never let the TV see my credit card numbers. When I call L. L. Bean, I do it from another phone. I've scoffed at interactive TV and the information, super highway. A friend who is a major league, computer jock spends hours in the Internet "posting": to some very strange sounding people. There is a." whole group that debates whether the Donner Part used condiments, and if so, what kinds. No thanks.' But I guess this thing hooked to my TV and telephone downstairs is part of all that. Interactivity-was achieved with about $5 worth of hardware picked up' at True Value, instead of stringing billions of dollars' worth of high tech fiber optic cable. And the most amazing thing about it, and what gives me hope for a better and brighter world tomorrow, is that "I Love Lucy" is available in three, languages almost any time of day or night There k hope for mankind after all. We tawnm (DM IPairlk Ottyi More self help Remember that story about Ole Snake from the Park Con Mine and his little bride? Well, there's another story that is equally as good, and someone called to say that we should tell this story too. This one did not, as a matter of fact, happen in Park City, but in a neighboring mining camp back about 1928. 1 guess we have almost identical opening scenarios. You know: The drinking, abusive old man; the frail, obedient wife; a big night on the town; and his return home to beat her up and pass out on the bed. The main difference in the two stories is that this lady called the local cops several times asking for protection from her husband. The boys in blue told her that they didn't like getting involved in family squabbles and that was the end of that! Needless to say, the abuse continued for many months, maybe even years. Then one night, enough was enough! He, the loving husband, came home all boozed up and followed his normal routine of pounding one her face with his fists. And he, like Ole Snake, finally 1 passed out on the bed. The similarity continues because she also rolled him in a heavy sheet and tied him from head to toe. But then, she dragged him through the house, out into the yard and dumped him on the frozen sidewalk. It is here that the stories really go their separate ways. It was about 2 a.m. when she threw him into the yard and I must tell you that in this mining camp, as in "play in the snow" Park City, it isn't uncommon to get down to, or below, -30 degrees. He too awoke, and like Ole Snake began to bet and plead and make quite a commotion. He was loud enough that he roused the neighbors, who looked out on the scene and ran for the cops. (In those days, mining camps didn't have a lot of telephones hanging around on their walls.) The neighbors hadn't tried interfering because that frail little lady had two loaded shotguns and a deer rifle sitting in the doorway beside her, and she told those gathering in the street that she would shoot anyone who tried to free her husband. They believed her! ,Well, a friendly cop came strutting up the street, threw open the gate and marched over to release the man lying there on the frozen ground. One 12-gauge Justin L. "Jack" Fiioll blast just over his head changed his mind about the rescue. He appealed to her good nature, her Christian spirit, her duty to the community and her country and reminded her of the seriousness of disobeying an officer in the performance of his duty. Her reply was, in effect, "You touch him and the next shot goes into your fat carcass!" (That last word altered by me for the sake of young readers.) The hours passed and various efforts were mounted trying to free the groaning, complaining, pleading and. suffering man lying there in that sub-zero air, anatl might add, on the equally sub-zero ground. The lad made two or three trips back through the front door-into door-into the house but always returned quickly. TEe gathered crowd waited and watched. X The sun came up, she arose, went into the house amt those collected in the street waited, expecting her ikrj come back out the door with her shotguns. Those." waiting and watching heard a car start and pull away from the back of the house and then they untied th miner, and rushed him to the hospital 20 miles awayl; The bottom line is, he lost three or four toes, a fesv : fingers, the tips of both ears, and had some ugly seals' from severe frostbite to the several areas that wefo? exposed through the night. 'Z Of course, since that was an election year, there war-a war-a big ruckus while opinions and counter opinions were: voiced. After they'd milked the event for all its' political worth, the city fathers reviewed the case,' found that she had, on more than one occasion askeC ' for police protection, and decided to let sleeping dog lie. She was gone, and to them, out of sight was out oC mind. They say that no one up there in that old milling.' camp has any idea of where she went. She just; disappeared from the face of the earth. He old ma ; hung around town for the rest of the winter, buI without his fingers, he was of Utile use in the mines;' The he, too, just up and vanished. No one bothered: looking for either of them. , l Again I say, "Way to go, lady!" ' (There are many who tell me that we should take tpC ad in a national magazine and print the two stories as;a ' "self help course for battered wives.") |