Saturday night, while Antonio Tarver fought Roy Jones Jr. on pay-per-view, I watched Chris Byrd and DaVarryl Williamson in just about the WORST fight I have ever seen in my life. The crowd was split right down the middle. Half of them were booing, and the other half was asleep.
All they did was stand there for twelve excruciating rounds. I could count the total punches per round on one hand. ESPN’s Dan Rafael called it “simply one of the worst, most horrific heavyweight title fights ever”. It got so bad, that the referee goaded them to get moving, and in the middle rounds, the commissioner of boxing for Nevada threatened to take away the prize purses if the action didn’t pick up. The best part of all of it was that Byrd and his wife/manager were bitching earlier about the fact that they don’t get the big dollars for his fights. Morons.
Toney v. Guinn was much better, but I watched it Sunday morning. After Byrd v. Williamson, I was far too tired to watch another fight.
The only plus side was that it was the first fight I had seen on my freshly installed HD setup. Hell, it’s the only thing that kept me watching that crapfest at all. HD is a strange animal. It can make even the worst programming palatable. I was almost tempted to watch some HD NASCAR for crying out loud.
Problem I’m having is that the over the air antenna that’s supposed to pick up local digital/HD broadcasts isn’t doing anything at all. The local FOX, ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates all broadcast from a tower in Raynham (correction: Rehoboth), which (according to Antenna Web) is only eleven miles from my house. Doesn’t seem like that great a distance, so it’s surprising that I get absolutely nothing for signal strength.
I inspected the wiring job that the installers did, and they used a pair of diplexers to first combine and then split the satellite and antenna feeds into one cable. I get why they did it, it saved them from running another line. Initially, they put the split on the wrong feed, but I was able to walk through it and figure that out. Still, I don’t get jack for programming.
Thinking about digging around to find my old indoor antenna and testing it out with that. Might still be a problem with the installer’s wiring job, so this would help narrow it down. Pretty sure I gave the good powered antenna to my mother-in-law though, so this experiment might not last long with crappy old rabbit ears. If all else fails, I have them scheduled to come back and reconfigure things on Saturday.
So what does that all mean for the post-season Sox schedule? Until I get it fixed, there will be no HD-luvin’ from FOX. As long as they stay on ESPN, I’ll be happy, although 4pm start times are rather lame. One third at my desk, one third in the car, final third on the couch.
Baseless prediction: (Red) Sox in 4.
todd October 4th, 2005 at 4:30 pm
Um, if you want, I can bring over a couple of my bike race DVDs. I think those are HD.
Heh.
m13b October 4th, 2005 at 4:46 pm
Who are you kidding? We both know you’re never going to get around to watching them yourself, let alone getting me to sit through ‘em.
Then again, I heard a nasty rumor that winter is coming, so there will be time… eventually.