My 30th Birthday Celebration! (Antenna TV in a downtown hotel, plus the “Eau Claire Bear”!)

A few weeks ago (November 21) I celebrated my 30th birthday with a party held at the Town Inn Suites in downtown Toronto. It featured friends, fun and, of course, some TV watching via antenna! This entry will cover the TV related glee at the party!

Not long ago, my friend Mr. A and I had a conversation about an unusual showing on the William Hepburn tropo maps. (For those who don’t know, Hepburn is a master at forecasting when TV reception will be enhanced.) After looking at the direction of the pattern, Mr. A remarked “That might be Wisconsin. Do you think you’ll get Eau Claire?” I replied that I didn’t think I’d get anything from Eau Claire. To prove me wrong, Mr. A did some digging and found that Eau Claire’s NBC affiliate WEAU had a web store and they had teddy bears for sale dressed in shirts with the station’s logo. After confirming they could ship to Canada, he ordered it for my birthday to show that I could get something from Eau Claire after all!

Of course, when my party was in full swing and everyone was sufficiently snockered, my idea of a fun party game was to break out my antenna and digital box. (A CM4040 and Zenith DTT901 respectively.) I look pretty voracious here, as if I don’t want anyone to get in between me and my signals!

Once connected to the hotel’s CRT TV, I found that I was able to pick up almost everything from Toronto and Buffalo. (I was on the 7th floor, but thought reception would be trickier, given all the other large buildings around.) The only channel from Buffalo that wouldn’t come in was WUTV (RF14). I also had a hard time with Hamilton’s CHCH (RF18)….which briefly locked, but wasn’t stable. Below is a pic from Saturday Night Live seen on WGRZ, with Joseph Gordon Levitt recreating the iconic Say Anything boombox scene.

As the night continued, my next present from Mr. A was an awesome personalized scrapbook featuring moments and memories we’ve shared.

Check out the first page below! Mr. A makes references to some of my favourite TV personalities at the bottom of the page, including WKTV meteorologist Jill Reale and Half and Half’s Rachel True. (Photos of both women appear after the image below.)

Jill Reale pictured below, with Toronto on the map (seen mid-August on Utica’s WKTV!)

Half and Half’s Rachel True seen on Rochester’s WUHF last October!

Later on, after the party had wrapped up, I was completely smashed, but determined to watch more antenna TV. Imagine me laying in a chair tuning channels on my Zenith box and being baffled by what was on. Certain programs and shows just completely weirded me out in my drunken haze.

On WNED’s GED Connection there was nature scenery and a woman who was speaking in short, guttural sounds, with captions on screen to explain what she was saying. (It was a show about poetry.) When sober, I’d be able to deduce that she was either speaking in a different language or using some kind of electronic device to speak for her. (Or even the sounds may have been part of the artistic presentation of the poetry.) But being as sloshed as I was, my eyes widened and all it sounded like was “AH – AH – AH – AH – AH [pause] AH – AH – AH – AH – UH!” I’ve searched online and can’t find out much about what was going on in this episode.

Soon I clicked over to WIVB, which was running The Universe Of Yahweh, which describes itself as being about Hebrew language, history, culture, and God.

Yet the screen was telling me to shut up! There was an American flag superimposed over a US map, a man in the corner, verses changing in the top right corner, books being promoted, and later, on screen drawings of slaves in bondage. It was all sensory overload given the state I was in!

Soon things seemed to calm down when I saw By The People, also on WIVB, which is one of their own locally produced programs.

However, they should have hired a speacialist to proof read the captions they give to folks like Vanita Evans from the F.B.I. (And sidenote, she totally needs to star in a frolickin’ crime drama named Evans to Betsy. Imagine it….Vanita Evans gets paired with an inept field agent named Betsy Walkerton (or something like that.) Since Vanita is the experienced one, she gets referred to by her last name. So, when she e-mails or addresses the new field agent, she would say “Evans To Betsy,” which becomes the show’s catchphrase and wink at the audience simultaneously! (I should send that proposal to USA Network. They like wacky characters!)

Lastly, we have a shot of where the antenna worked best in the hotel room. It actually picked up most channels while aimed this way on the floor right near the balcony.

Stay tuned to TV Garth for more Reception Reports and other television goodness!