Digital Conversions, Barack Obama and the Coupons

Tonight at midnight marks the switch from analog to digital television. This switch should not affect people with cable or satellite television, but if you rely on over-the-air transmission signals to get your television channels you will no longer receive a signal to your televisions. I know most of you are thinking, "How can the Fords, who love music and sports, not have cable or a satellite? That would mean they can not watch ESPN, MTV, VH1, MTV2, VH1 Classic, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Classic, BET or any other of the sports channels." Well my friends that is not the problem. The problem lies with our dog, Fenway. You see Fenny is spoiled. Since we can not trust her to roam the house freely while we are away she is sequestered into a 6x8 foot chateau in our basement. We feel sorry for her so she is provided a television to watch. And since we can not trust her with a remote control she has no way to change the channel. Thus, we decided that she did not need to have access to cable. So when we put Fenny in her chateau she is afforded the luxury of channel 8 (our local CBS affiliate). To tell you the truth that is the only station that we can get in our basement without plugging into cable. Last year when we heard about the conversion to digital television it suddenly donned on us that Fenny would lose access to her entertainment. I applied for one of the coupons that would enable us to buy the conversion box at a much discounted price. I received the coupon and put it away until the time came closer for the conversion. As the February conversion date approached I fished out the coupon and went to Best Buy to purchase the box. As I was checking out the teller told me that they could not honor the coupon because it was expired. I had never looked at the coupon very closely and never would have thought it would have an expiration date. Frustrated I left the store and broke the terrible news to Fenny. I tried to re-apply for the coupon, but was told only one order per household. No problem, I ordered some for my parents household. Problem was the government only earmarked a certain amount of funds to go towards these coupons and that amount had already been met so they were no longer issuing the coupons. Then Barry Obama, Fenny's new hero, stepped in and ordered a delay on the television conversion until the public had more time to prepare.
Well, as I type this blog entry it is the eve of the conversion and there is no emergency delay in sight. Seeing this would be the case I once again had to break the bad news to Fenny. Only this time I was not going to be the "fallguy" so I blamed it on Mommy. Just for posterity I videotaped part of it and have posted it here for any that care to watch. Just remember to first pause/mute the music on the right side bar before playing the video in order to get sound.