Several months ago my wife and I made the decision that we were fed up with Cable TV. The price of the service seemed to be increasing faster than inflation in Mongolia, which was calculated at 28% in 2008. Of course Mongolia could curb their problem if they permitted the export of canned mutton, but that is a story for another day.

After careful consideration (another damn cable bill) we decided that enough was enough!  I was happy to change TV provider, of course my requirements of a service that only included CNN, Discovery, and the Food Chanel did not sit well with Jan, she pointed out that these three channels did not include Young And The Restless, Jerry Springer, Ellen DeGeneres, etc, etc.

Out gunned by female logic, we settled on satellite TV. There are hundreds of channels, although what is actually on them remains a bit of a mystery. There seems to be one that exists solely to sell something called a ‘Magic Bullet’. I assumed that it was a channel about the JFK assassination, but I was wrong, apparently it is some funky chopping and dicing gizmo for the kitchen.

There is no doubt that by switching to DirecTV our monthly bill has gone down. However it is also clear that having a wide selection of DVD’s is a good idea. It would seem that the rain has a very dramatic effect on reception. Of course this may not be a problem, but rather an undocumented feature. I no longer need to venture outside to check the weather, when the TV goes blank I know that it is raining. Kudos to the guy that invented this feature! Who needs the Weather Channel when you have this?

Of course not everyone might agree with me on these benefits. So in reverence of all of the great gizmos ‘that operators are standing by’ adverts I have what might be the next big thing!

For years I have been trying to come up with the next $19.99 plus shipping and handling product. I rather liked The Crapper. This simple gadget could be installed in your bathroom and at the sound of bowel movements turn on the extractor fan, a more advanced unit would permit a Glade Plugin for more immediate relief. As many homes have two bathrooms we would have doubled the offer, two Crappers for $19.99 just pay the extra shipping. I even had a catchy line “Crap On, Crap Off, The Crapper!!

I do believe that I have found the perfect product, and solution to my DirecTV dish problem.

The Dish Brolly!

This handy device has a g-clamp

that you can attach to the dish and keep the rain off. There are still a few minor issues that need to be hammered out, Umbrellas do tend to be somewhat unstable in high winds and may rip the dish off the roof. But we are continuing to test our prototype (as long as the next door neighbor doesn’t spot it). Jan is becoming quite agile and stealthy on the ladder to their roof.

This could very well be the next big thing!

Simon Barrett