Throw away your television

As some of you might know, Congress passed a law pushing back the DTV Transition conversion date from Feb. 17 to June 12. What this means is television stations broadcasting in analog will be forced to switch to digital no later than that date. If you want to know more, visit www.dtv.gov.

I'm not going into the differences, or the benefits of either type of broadcasting. Strictly speaking from a societal perspective, postponing the inevitable is just a damn silly idea.

The government has already spent millions of dollars on marketing to notify Americans of the change. Commercial after amateur-quality commercial has littered local stations for the past 18 months. Broadcasters have been advising viewers that they need to make sure they have one of the following:

1. Cable/Dish. If you already have an auxiliary jack flowing precious sitcom after sitcom to your TV, you're fine.

2. A TV that accepts digital broadcasts. I know some retailers have taken advantage of this, but they were forced to put up signs advising customers about the switch, and which TVs support the switch, sometime back in late 2007.

3. A digital conversion box. These are available at retailers too. And, the government will provide you a voucher for reimbursement.

One of the issues pushing the law back was the fact that the government is having trouble reimbursing vouchers for the $40 conversion boxes eligible to every American household. Fine. Hand them out for free then.

The fact is, only your grandma doesn't have cable; and you've probably already gone over to her house to set up her digital conversion box, or brand-new 42" HDTV with a remote she'll think is a telephone.

If by God's grace and having your head stuck up your ass for the last year and a half, you haven't heard the news, you will when you don't get a signal on your TV.

You've already been watching that much TV, so you must have seen the commercials. You should be prepared. I don't want to hear it. Stop wasting time and spending my hard-earned money to cater to a couch-potato society.