Day: July 5, 2004

Last word on the flag flap

On Saturday morning, Bush signed an order raising flags back to full staff in advance of Independence Day. So we were only officially mourning Reagan for 27 or 28 days. Some of the flags around here are still at half-staff, so either they didn’t read the “brief” in Saturday’s paper, or there was a separate order from Governor Schwarzenegger that I’m unaware of. (The LAPD station near my apartment had their flag at half-staff this afternoon, but a Burbank fire station was flying theirs at full-staff, to name the two government facilities I noticed.)

I’m leaving for New York early Tuesday morning, and probably won’t have computer access until I get back late Sunday. I intend to go to the Yankees-Devil Rays game Thursday night, but may be going solo because certain people have to work, or so they claim.

Perhaps while I’m gone, everyone can complain about the All-Star Game selections. Where’s Victor Zambrano and his awesome June?! Where’s Maura’s favorite player?! Why can’t I do a write-in on this “final vote” thing?!

Also, Ditka doesn’t look any better in HD

This evening, I saw the last four innings of the White Sox-Cubs game in high-definition. I’m still not convinced that HD offers that much of an advantage over the standard-definition picture I get via DirecTV (which has that crisp “digital” look anyway), although I guess I could have counted the blades of grass on the field if I’d been really bored.

What was really ridiculous, aside from the fact that the game ended with the winning run being walked in: the commercials on ESPN HD are in standard-definition, and movie ads are letterboxed, so when one of them is on, there’s a lot of “blank” real estate on the screen. Oh, and the score box looks a little weird because it isn’t all the way over to the left. So, in conclusion, I’m not spending several thousand dollars for a new TV. Also, I’d have to move, since there’s a tree between my current apartment and the DirecTV satellite that delivers most of their HD programming.