As a society we have made amazing strides when it comes to everything that makes our daily lives that much easier. Sometimes we take the simple gadgets for granted and don’t really notice until one of these toys breaks down.

This happened for us on Kline last night and it caused some stress, tension and wasted movement. I am talking about our television remote control.

Yes the remote behind the man stopped working last night and not even endless battery changes could bring the little guy back to life. It was like a boxer after getting pounded with a left upper-cut, still spitting out a few breaths of air but then just went to sleep.

I scavenged the house looking for extra power sticks and even did the classic remote to remote resuscitation but no dice. Then I remembered I had some fairly new rechargable batteries from my old camera and I knew that would work. Sadly my excitement was quickly rejected like I was on a first date.

Katie and I were the sad couple sitting there trying over and over to make it work when the actual television was only six feet away. It was one of those times in the evening when there was nothing on and flipping was called for and it meant getting up and standing there while going through all the channels. Something I am not a big fan of but in this instance there was no choice.

Katie is a flipper by nature and hates watching commercials so I know this tragedy is going to hit her harder until there is a solution. Instantly instead of thinking small I of course thought the best way to take care of everything was to get a new television set. Just like a guy eh? Remote breaks so the only solution is to spend hundreds, maybe thousands on a new set up. Seems a lot more fun than getting a new remote or just dealing with the inconvenience of using the console on the set.

Then once the flood of flat screen, HD and wall hanging images left my head another idea came to mind. Well two actually. This may sound dumb but I have this gut feeling that the incredible dampness and shitty weather we have been having in Halifax is to blame for the remote not working. I know, nothing else stopped working but go with me here. A guy has a special bond with his T.V. and if my gut thinks that way then I am going to consider it.

Secondly and more realistic is finally revisiting the idea of digital cable. Now I know you are laughing at the fact that we still have boring analog cable but whatever.  I used to have it back in the T-Dot but to be honest I have not missed it and it really is not needed. The fancy on screeen programming is fun but that also fades other than changing up the colour scheme every now and then.

So I looked into it today and with the upcoming raise in cable rates it will only cost us a few bucks a month to upgrade to digital cable! I guess now that they want people to rent the HD or PVR boxes it does not cost anything to get the basic digi box. That is some pretty sweet news I would say. I will have to look into this most likely next week since it involves dealing with Eastlink customer service and a trip to the Halifax Shopping Center.

So there it is, a silver lining in what was a troubling night on Kline Street. I am glad we had this problem occur just before the tourist season as the hotel is lodging guests in the near future. How embarrassing would that of been, to have to get up and change the channel! Oh the horror.

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