2 out of 3 ain't bad.

.... Let's start off with the vent.  HDTV.  How many people out there use an antenna?  Me too.  I don't have cable.  HDTV may be great if you have a cable connection, but if you are relying on an antenna it can be frustrating.  With analog TV, when the signal fades a little bit you get snow.  The more it fades the more snow you get, but at least through the haze you continue to get sound and moving pictures, unless it is incredibly bad.  Not so HDTV.  I tried watching regular TV the last couple of days, my front room DVD player decided to go on vacation.  Either that or it died, all I know is I haven't even got a post card from it yet.  Anyhoo, you know what happens when the signal fades with HDTV?  It starts to sound very much like a music CD that's gone bad, cutting in and out, making that annoying "I'm stuck here" sound CD players make.  And the picture?  The picture freezes up and gets those miscolored squares much like a corrupted digital picture.  It can freeze up anywhere from half a second to three or four seconds.  That may not sound like a lot of time, but considering the average video is around 60 frames per second, that's annoying.  Add to it the intermittent sound and the "duh, duh, duh" sound, it's downright frustrating.  Gonna go get a new DVD player and give up on regular TV forever. (Except for Channel 2 News, I can actually get Channel 2 without any problem.)

.... Now for the good.  Spot free car cleaning.  Yup, five, six, ten, whatever years after my brother and I installed my water softener, I finally hooked up the new outdoor water faucet we planned for.  Which means I no longer have to go to the car wash to get the spots off the cars right after cleaning them.  Niiiiiice.  I already washed the wagon, because it's dark green and spots show well on it, and it's lookin' good.  There's still going to be spots, here and there, but at least they're not those highly visible, honking rings of minerals drying onto the car. 

.... And final - another good.  I've been waking up every morning for a while now thinking "damn, I haven't slept this good this many nights in a row in a long time."  Yup, said it before, probably will say it again:  Love my new mattress.