Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

The photo below was taken 25 years ago today (Sept. 21, 1979).

If you don”t know what this photo is, you may be culturally deficient.

And if you don”t know what the above photo is, but do know who the guys below are … you have real problems.

The existence of Jessica Pivik in this world really presents The Cap”n with a dilemma.

On the one hand, Jessica??s “sex column” is just so pointless and boring that I find it hard to justify writing about her every week.

But on the other hand, The Wisdom continues to own the market for Jessica Pivik Google searches (and it brings in steady traffic), so it??s hard to turn down the blogpimping opportunity.

I guess it??s kind of like a convenience store owner who hates having bums traffic the store, but continues to stock Thunderbird because he can sell a case a week.

Today, Jessica writes about technology and sex. I know what you??re thinking ?? the whole “cybersex” thing is sooooooo 1998. And you??re right.

The best part of this week??s piece is that she actually cites a TV commercial as a ??source?? for her fascinating insight.

Jessica also explains the “two forms of cybersex” ?? quick, can you name them? ?? and drops what may be the two lamest technology-meets-sex jokes ever printed.

• Highly not recommended ?? On Top with Jessica Pivik

There was so much happening at Casa Cap”n Ken this weekend, I think bullet points are in order:

• Damn kickers. Actually, in watching LSU / Auburn, I think I know what the big difference is between the 2004 Tigers and the 2003 National Champion Tigers. With Chad Lavalais and Marquise Hill gone from the D-Line, we”ve lost about a half-second on our blitz pressure, which is how Auburn was able to get off that 4th-down pass. And the secondary is weaker without Jack Hunt. In 2003, the Ole Miss game, the SEC Championship Game and the Sugar Bowl were all wrapped up on 4th-down sacks. We”re just slightly slower to the QB now.

• Georgia has to be the worst team to ever be ranked 3rd in the country. 13-3 over Marshall? That”s pathetic, dude. I like our chances against them on Oct. 2 better each week. And UGA should be absolutely terrified after watching LSU / Auburn and Florida / Tennessee game - and knowing they have to play all four of us.

• I don”t know that there”s any point in playing the rest of the season, given that USC (No. 1) and West Virginia (6) will coast to undefeated seasons. Georgia (No. 3) will lose a game for sure. Oklahoma (2) and Texas (5) play each other, so scratch one of them automatically and Miami (4) has a tough road left. Unless the Texas / Oklahoma winner and/or Miami goes undefeated, go ahead and pencil in a USC rout of West Virginia in the Orange Bowl.

• On the Ivan front, I gotta give big props to Georgia Power, BellSouth and even the City of Atlanta. The tree went down at 7:45 PM Thursday. We had power back at 4:30 PM Friday; phone service back at 10 AM Saturday and the entire tree was gone by 2 PM Saturday. Except for the city”s failure to do anything to stop people from running into the tree at night, it all went pretty well.

• I discovered Friday (when we learned that the phone was NOT back on yet), that we”ve been poaching on a neighbor”s wireless network for God knows how long. Seems my router hasn”t been broadcasting its wireless signal for some time. I got a new one yesterday, but I”ve yet to get the configuration right to connect through to MindSpring.

The wife and I are in the dark - again. Ivan smacked us hard. But at least this time we know what made our power go out - the 40-foot tree lying across our driveway.

When we got home yesterday afternoon, the tree (which belongs to our neighbors across the street) was leaning, and we knew it was coming down (I believe the wife blogged about fear of the tree before it fell yesterday).

I took some “before” pictures and did some quick eyeball calculations to tell if it was going to hit the house (it wasn”t). The big rain came and all was fine … But around 8pm the big bastard fell. Down came the power lines and transformer, and one of my little maples got smashed.

I”ll leave the color commentary to the wife when the power comes back on (she has no Blackberry blog access).

Have I mentioned how much this tree / power line thing sucks? The good news is that Ga Power is here, and we should be powered again sometime this afternoon.

The bad news is that in order to get to the power lines, they had to chop the tree all to hell, and now I have most of somebody else”s big-ass tree sitting in my driveway and yard.

The power guys only cut down enough of the tree to allow them to work, so there”s still a big trunk blocking half the street. But that”s a good thing, because it means the city will have to get out here ASAP to remove it. By that time, I plan to have moved most of the crap in my yard onto the blocked side of the street for the city to deal with.

Remember the good old days when hooking up a television was a one-step process? Screw a coax cable into the TV and you were done.

Of course, that simplicity came at the expense of video quality and programming choices. But after spending the last couple of nights mucking around with the new TV, I”m kind of longing for that innocent time before set-top boxes, DVRs, Progressive Scan, Dolby Digital and all the rest.

Here”s the current state of my new TV”s setup:

• The DishPVR 721 is outputting S-Video and standard RCA-Jack audio into the Video2 input of the TV.

• The Progressive Scan DVD player has been reconfigured to output in 16:9 mode. It”s outputting Component Video and RCA-Jack audio to the Component Video1 input of the TV. Separately, it”s outputting Toslink Optical Audio to the A/V receiver for Dolby Digital output.

• The PlayStation 2 has also been configured for 16:9 output and is outputting RCA-Jack video and audio to the Front Video input of the TV.

• The DVD Recorder / Player is receiving an RCA-Jack video and audio signal from the DishPVR but is currently not outputting anything to the TV.

• The TV is outputting an RCA-Jack audio signal to the A/V receiver to pass through audio from all video sources without having to change audio sources on the receiver. But this doesn”t carry Dolby Digital.

And here are the next tweaks on tap:

• The DishPVR will get the Toslink Optical output to the A/V receiver. It”ll still have its RCA-Jack audio connection to the TV.

• The Progressive Scan DVD player output to the A/V receiver will switch from the Toslink output to Digital Coaxial Audio (the DishPVR only has a Toslink output, but the DVD has both).

• The PlayStation 2 will switch to Component Video output to take advantage of its Progressive Scan capability.

• The DVD Recorder / Player will get an RCA-Jack video/audio connection to the TV”s Video1 input.

And, lastly, I”ll screw a coax cable from the $8 VHF/UHF antenna I bought today into the back of the TV.

Ah, simplicity.