Opinion: He’s about ready to cut the cable

I am about ready to cut the television cable, as many of the wiser people I know have done. AT&T is getting too big for its britches. My latest cable-phone-Internet bill was more than $300, which is not worth the use I get out of it.

“The TV channels keep blacking out,” said Oat Smith, who has some of the same problems with cable that I do. “They always go out about the time ah’m watching a program I want to see, such as Martha Stewart Cooking reruns.

“And they have all these repeats. The Hitler channel, for instance. I know how that turns out. Old Hitler starts World War II, loses it, then shoots himself. C’mon, who doesn’t know that?”

He also mentioned the cutoff threats AT&T makes against our favorite channels, such as Channel 26 and Channel 24.

“Old Kopi Sotiropulis, my favorite weather man, would be out the door and down the road if they carried out that threat,” Oat said. “We can’t have that.”

Oat said he is going to get a rooftop antenna from Ventura TV Video and Appliance Center, and he won’t have to pay any more $300 monthly bills to AT&T.

Ventura TV is an unusual television channel. Besides being a home-based television station, it also sells televisions and appliances and has local interviews. It has transmitter towers all around the valley, so there’s no problem (or so they say) with getting a good signal.

One of my other friends gets Netflix, and can see all the movies he wants to see, and also sports shows.

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Those AT&T rates are going up faster than the rocket ships that allegedly will be going to the moon before long. Nine private companies plan to partner with NASA to send space ships to the moon to carry passengers and freight.

Some people think it would be fun to colonize the moon, but my friend, Oat Smith is not one of them.

“I’ve seen them pictures of the moon that the astronauts took,” Oat said the other day, “and I can tell you, they look a lot like photos of the Mojave Desert. No water, no grass, no nuthin.’ I didn’t see any ‘for sale’ signs up there from Realtors, either.”

Oat said it didn’t look from the pictures like anything would grow up there.

“Maybe a few dandelions, but that would be about it.”

The head of NASA said last February that this time, once we get to the moon, we will stay there. (Shuurre, now). Maybe open a 7-Eleven store or a branch of Amazon Prime. Maybe the president, a hotel man, would want to open a Trump Tower.

“What a view you will get from here,” the ads for the hotel might say.

A trip on the rocket ship would cost about a million dollars per person.

“You know,” said Oat, “It just could be that some people have too much money.”