When I was growing up, there'd always be some guy you knew who was tech savvy. So when you bought a new stereo, you'd call the Tech Guy over and he'd hook everything up for you. Problem is, I never got to meet that dude, because my family never bought home electronics. We were what are called "late technology adopters."

Fact is, we didn't even have a color TV until 1981, and that was a hand-me-down Sony Trinatron from my grandmother. See, my father has always been suspicious about new technologies, and he taught me to let the unwary and unfortunate take the plunge first. See who gets burned, and learn from their mistakes.

This mindset has served me well over the years. Otherwise I'd have bought into dead-ends like the Apple Newton, the Laserdisc, or the NexT Cube. So I sit back, watch the cannon fodder take the hit, and buy last year's model on clearance. Well, there was one exception, when my dad came home with a brand-new, top-of-the-line Betamax. "All right, Dad!" I was ecstatic. We were finally getting with the program.

You know how that story turned out: As the months went by, the Beta half of the rental shop became the Beta wall, became the Beta shelf, became the discount box of remnant Beta tapes in front of the store. I wasn't surprised then, when we didn't get a CD player, in fact, we never even migrated up to cassette tape.

So I've brought that mindset into my adult years, and I've been snickering at the fools who've wasted perfectly good money on so-called "DVD" players. Chances are, they're gonna get burned bad on that deal, I figured. Except that something's been going on at my video rental shop: The DVD shelf became the DVD aisle, became the DVD half of the store, and on Saturday, the movie I wanted to see was only available on DVD, and I noted that another three banks of VHS shelving were being replaced with DVD boxes. The time had come to migrate upward.

So I did my research and selected the Sony DVP-NC615B 5-Disc DVD/CD/MP3 Player, a robust machine with precision drive, dynamic tilt compensation, block noise reduction, 10 bit/27Mhz video DAC, digital video enhancer, and 12-bit/108mHz noise shaped DAC, which I figure are probably Good Things, although I haven't slightest idea what they are. And yesterday I picked it up, brought it home, and unpacked it.

The trouble began with the set-up instructions. I had three cables, of yellow, white, and red denominations that were allegedly to be plugged into the back of our TV monitor. Being a late technology adopter, however, my TV is a museum piece that only has what I was later to learn is a single coaxial cable input jack. The cable TV cable goes into the VHS, and the VHS was plugged into the TV. The instructions for the DVD player specifically stated that I was under no circumstances to try routing this deal through the VHS player, whose audio leads nestled into the amplifier along with those of the CD player. So I had a beer and stared at this stuff for awhile.

Feeling optimistic, the Ravenatrix dashed off to the video store, saying something on the way out to the effect that, "I'm sure you'll get it all worked out." Another brewskie failed to brighten the picture, but I had boxes, cables, plugs, all this stuff strewn across the living room floor, and like Tudor Turtle I elected to visit Mr. Wizard. This would be the gal at Radio Shack. I brought my various manuals with me so she could look at what I was dealing with.

"Aw honey," she said from her side of the counter, "You've got some problems here." Seems that she'd never seen a TV without RCA input jacks, and at one point she just laughed in my face. "You po' bline fool," she giggled, "There's just no way that you're..." Then she paused, and went into the back, returning with an RF signal splitter box and an assortment of cables and plugs. Apparently, I was supposed to jury rig this deal by running everything into an intermediary device, which was actually designed to meet the needs of the TV videogamer set.

"In theory," she explained, "You should be able to get running with this, but otherwise you'll need a new TV." The ghosts of a hundred thousand technophiles were haunting me on the drive back to cable city. Armed with another Hefeweizen, I laid everything out on the floor, trying to visualize the completed configuration: coaxial cable into box, cable TV cable into VHS, VHS video into box, VHS audio into tuner, DVD video into box, DVD audio into tuner, and finally box coaxial cable into TV.

"OK..." I'm calling from behind the TV, "Do you see anything yet?"

"No."

"How about now?"

"No."

I try various rerouting schemes, but none of them work, and I eventually conclude that the DVP-NC615B is bad out of the box. I resign myself to returning it, feeling utterly defeated and helpless. Time to summon Scotchman. I put out the emergency alert, which consists of two glasses of single malt, and Scotchman showed up to reassess matters with a clarity born in a Gaelic Glen: "Try changing the channel selector," he suggested.

Ten minutes later we were enjoying our film—I mean, our Digital Video Disc—and laughing and eating popcorn. Next time we have a party, I'll just load up a handful of CDs into the carousel like Fat Boy Slim on a goof, and maybe I'll go MP3 if I'm feeling extra adventurous.

Now I'm the Tech Guy.

3:44:30 PM       

Whenever somebody starts talking about our "American way of life," I usually get nervous. That's probably because I don't have a minivan, a cooler, or children. I don't go anywhere people dance, pray, sing, or view projected images. Maybe I haven't found the stairway to Valhalla, but from what I've been able to ferret out, the right path won't be the crowded one.

In my local paper this morning, I see that Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, the 10 Commandments Guy, was speaking Saturday at the 6th Annual Sovereignity and Your Rights seminar in Alamogordo, New Mexico. He says that our nation's "way of life" is under attack, because "drugs, homosexuality, and abortion have become acceptable." This is, in his eyes, a misuse of our liberty.

"Liberty is not the freedom to act like a whatever out on the street. It's a freedom to do whatever you want within the laws of God," Moore said.

If you need a laugh this morning, check out Mark Morford's column this morning at the SF Chronicle, in which he brings us Sex Tips From Rick Santorum. Turns out the Senator is taking e-mail queries, like this one:

Dear Sen. Santorum, R-Pa.: My boyfriend really wants me to talk dirty to him during sex, but I feel so embarrassed. I want to please him, but I've always been such a good girl! What can I do? —Potty-Mouth Wannabe, San Diego

The political situation in Iraq is looking confused, which surprises no one. The London Times has a playbook to the major contenders for power in the new Democratic Republic of Iraq. Check it out if you want to know the difference between the emerging parties of the PUK, the KDP, the INC, and the ICP, all of whom are setting up shop in Baghdad's Acronym Alley. One thing's for sure: Each of these groups represents the Will of the People, and the others are infidels.

While you're at the Times, take a look at the story of Fahd al-Mairi, a Syrian kid who just couldn't stay at home while American tanks were rolling over the Tigris. We follow him from his home, through Iraqi boot camp, and finally to his stand on a bridge leading into Baghdad. The kid held his ground, too, unlike the fifty members of the Republican Guard with him who took off, leaving Fahd holding the empty bag.

It's easy to forget that a major metro paper can occasionally pull off a great piece of investigative journalism, since so few of 'em do it anymore. But the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is one of the exceptions. The AJC got curious when the Gwinnett school district began reporting discipline data on its student body in compliance with the federal "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001."

They noticed that Cobb County, for example, had 97,843 students last year and reported 42,040 disciplinary incidents, and DeKalb County, with almost the same number of students reported 53,057 incidents. Then here comes Gwinnett County, with 115,837 students, reporting only 4,258 disciplinary actions.

Either Gwinnett is a model district with exceptionally well-behaved students, or the administrators are a lying pack of weasels. Bet you can guess which.

Although I'm letting everyone else talk about SARS, because dammit, Jim, I'm a linguist, not an immunobiologist, I highly recommend this story at the UK Independent, titled, "Welcome to the Sars camp: 1,000 solitary, sterile, white rooms."

Hundreds of construction workers are assembling plastic and metal panels around the clock in the latest attempt to contain the virus that has killed 131 people in mainland China, including 56 in Beijing.

That's it for this morning. We're scrambling under some deadlines, so we had to keep it brief. But remember, you're free to do whatever you want, as long as you obey God's law.

9:18:30 AM