I Just Want to Watch Sports, But Technology Is Sacking Me Behind the Line of Scrimmage

Note: The following tale has evolved, just a day after I wrote it. The update is included at the end, so as not to spoil the sterling narrative…..

This weekend marks the start of two things of Supreme Importance in my life: college football season, and the U.S. Open tennis tournament.

Those might be my two favorite sports to watch these days – college football and pro tennis. Baseball, my first love, has become nearly unwatchable unless my St. Louis Cardinals are playing, because the games take forever, and everybody strikes out all the time, and anyway the Cardinals suck this year, so…..

For the first time since I can remember, the start of college football season and the U.S. Open tennis will take place without my having access to a personal TV.

We have a TV in our new house in New Jersey – a couple of them. One was left behind by the previous owners. The other is a new Smart TV I bought a couple weeks ago.

The TV left behind by the previous owners is not a Smart TV – it’s a dumbass TV, and therefore needs to be fed cable, satellite, or one of those Fubo/Ruko gizmos to get any programming.

The Smart TV I purchased is still in its box as I type this.

I tried to go the traditional route at our new house by having a cable or satellite service installed. But the cable guy, who installed our internet Wi-Fi, saw a bunch of satellite TV wires and equipment and suggested I call the satellite service.

So, I called the satellite TV service. But the technician could not get the system installed during his nearly five-hour initial visit. He told me the satellite that was already on the roof was worthless anymore, so he had to install a new one. Then he took me for a little tour around the house and told me all the new holes he needed to drill and all the new wires and gear he needed to install.

Then he took a one-hour break to go grab some pizza.

When he got back, it was raining.

Sorry, he said, but he couldn’t finish the job this visit. How about another visit?

So we scheduled a second visit, with the usual annoying-as-all-f**k four-hour window of when he might decide to show up. These cable/satellite windows are irritating enough when you live in the house. But we’ve been living in a hotel while the new house gets furnished and fixed up, which means I have to Uber over to the house during the four-hour window.

Long story short: The satellite guy did not show up when he said he would during the second appointment, never called, left me sitting in our empty house with my thumb up my ass, then showed up late looking both disheveled and cheery, as if he’d just run a marathon through a vast field of cow shit and couldn’t be happier.

I stopped him in his tracks as he was striding up our driveway.

“So when do you think you’ll get this job finished today?” I asked him.

“Hmmm, that depends,” he answered.

“That’s not an answer,” I said. “You said you’d be here an hour ago. So tell me: How long will this job take?”

“There are some different factors involved….”

“What do those factors tell you about WHEN YOU WILL FINISH THE GD JOB TODAY?”

“Maybe three hours.”

He did not just say that. I did not just hear that.

Keep in mind: I’d already been there a few hours, and now this dude was telling me three more hours.

“Forget it,” I told him. “You seem like a nice guy and I’m sure you’re busy but for bleep sake you bleeping bleeped me you’d bleeping bleep by bleep bleep and now you’re bleeping bleep bleepity bleepa bleepa bleeponation bleepity bleep bleep bleep? Are you bleeping bleep bleep?”

Long story short: I nixed the satellite service, called Uber, and went back to the bleepity bleep hotel in a state of bleeping bleep.

*****

My plan now is to go the Smart TV route – no cable, no satellite, just a Smart TV and the various apps, subscriptions, high-tech devices, and streaming services you need to watch what you want to watch. I have no idea about how to do any of this, so I wrote a Facebook post asking people for advice. I got about 2.3 million replies from folks who crossed this particular bridge a long, long time ago.

As usual, my personal technological evolution is at least a decade behind the times.

I got some great advice on Facebook, and I plan to take it when I get off my lazy ass and deal with my fear of technology. I need to call some folks so they can walk me through it. I need to go through the painstaking process of Learning About Technology, and how to use it.

This is one of my least favorite things in the world, and something I have very little discernable talent for. Check that: I suck at it. I am terrible at it.

*****

I don’t know how my mind works sometimes. It can’t seem to process technology or assembly or fix-it instructions. I read the words and they dance around in my head for a few minutes before collapsing on the floor in a drunken heap.

I’m better with verbal instructions, but only by a little. I just lack the gene for this kind of thing.

Our oldest daughter can read instructions, or watch a YouTube video, and have things sorted out almost instantly. She literally just assembled two bed frames and two desks in a matter of a couple days just by reading the instructions – four large and heavy pieces of furniture, with dozens of little parts and screws and nails and tools.

I have no idea how she does this. She doesn’t get it from me, that’s for sure. My wife can do these things. So could one of my uncles and one of my nephews.  I have never seen anyone so young do it the way our 14-year-old daughter does, with no help from anyone.

I really need to put her on the Smart TV project. She cares not a single whit about TV, being a teenager in the year 2023, which means TV is about as useful to her as telegraphs. Everything she wants to watch is right there on her smartphone.

But her Daddy is from the old school, meaning he wants a big, dumbass TV he can watch, even if it’s a Smart Dumbass TV he has no clue how to operate.

Well, I’ll just have to have a talk with her, won’t I? Have her do Dad a solid. Figure this thing out.

It’s college football season. And the U.S. Open starts soon…..

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!!: As of Saturday, Aug. 25, I am now fully Fubo’ed on my Vizio Smart TV, with baseball, football, futbol, tennis, golf, NFL, all the hits. Took all of 20 minutes to figure it out, so yes, anyone can do it. Truly an uplifting story of conquering technology and laziness!

Note: I borrowed the images off the internet, but I am innocent of copyright infringement because I am tech-challenged.