Redskins Playoff Bid

I grew up in the Washington D.C. area hence I grew up as a Washington Redskin football fan. It didn't hurt that my grandfather had a stint as team physician (before I was born) so he had season tickets and I was able to go to many games as a youth. I have spent all but 4 years of my adult life well away from D.C. and most television broadcasts of football are regional unless the game has high national interest, so I don't get to see them that much. Today's last regular season game against the Dallas Cowboys is for the last "wildcard" playoff slot. If the Redskins win, they're in, otherwise the Minnesota Vikings get the slot. Dallas has already earned the division title so they clinched a playoff slot a few weeks ago. If the Redskins make the playoffs, I get to watch them as long as they survive as all playoff games are broadcast nationally.

On the down side, today's game and the NFC (the Redskins conference) are broadcast on the Fox network and Anchorage's Fox TV affiliate is the only station in Anchorage that hasn't started broadcasting a digital signal. We live 20-30 miles from the broadcast antennas of Anchorage and the traditional NTSC TV signals range from OK to shit. Most of our entertainment is in the form of DVDs as cable is unavailable in our neighborhood and I'm too cheap to buy and subscribe to satellite. When I bought a new 37" lcd HD TV last year I was pleasantly surprised to find out that all but the FOX affiliate had digital signals that my new TV picked up beautifully. My understanding is that all the stations in the country have to broadcast digital by the end of 2008, but the deadline has been pushed back several times. Believe it or not, the government is planning on subsidizing the sale of converter boxes so the "poor" people don't have to buy a new TV or their own converter once the old signal is shut off.

Ordinarily, I would invite myself to a friend's house who has cable or satellite to watch the game, but I'm getting over a vicious viral infection which I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I'll have to plan on mooching on someone next week.

So my blip today illustrates the glaring disparity between the NTSC legacy signal and the new high definition ATSC signal at the Scintilla house. The lower image is from highlights on one of the digital channels. The shit reception is not keeping me from enjoying the game, however. Even though I can't see the ball, I can get the general idea of the movement on the field and position of the players. I'm reminded of how much enjoyment my grandfather got from listening to baseball games on a crackly AM transistor radio.