First, the question:

Have you ever wanted to Kill Technology?

I mean, not just killing it, but throttling it unconscious, then pulling out your sturdiest baseball bat and beating it until every last electron has been pummeled mightily, thoroughly, and in a way that all of the involved electrons, its forebears and any future like electrons will never forget, then taking the vestigial cracked skeletons of said Technology and bagging it, throwing it under the tracks of a nearby idling D-9 Caterpillar and compressing until beyond recognizability then — further — dousing liberally with Torco 112 racing fuel and setting aflame with a flare?

Like that?

I have.  Today.  Just now.

Okay, here’s the picture:

I’m a fan of Michael Connelly books, whose main character is Hieronymus Bosch, known as Harry Bosch.  He’s a detective who works homicides for LAPD.  In the books, he’s a Vietnam veteran who worked a number of years for the department, once retired, but has come back as something of a retired annuitant, working more homicide cases.  Connelly has 21 books currently published featuring Detective Harry Bosch, with a 22nd due in November of this year.

Then I heard that Connelly’s Bosch novels were being turned into a series featuring Titus Welliver, an underappreciated actor whom I happen to particularly enjoy.  When you see Mr Welliver, you’ll exclaim to yourself: “yes, I know that guy.  I’ve seen him before.”  You’ve also heard him in any number of voiceovers for various commercials.

A friend of mine at work had acquired the pilot episode for the series Bosch, which we watched on his tablet.  It should have been a clue but it wasn’t.  That said, however, I knew the series was going to be excellent and remarkably faithful to the work of Michael Connelly, since he was also helping to produce the series and co-wrote the pilot.

I thought: when the first season comes out, I’ve got to see it.  The pilot was vastly entertaining.

I failed to Grok, however, that the series was going to be released on Amazon Prime.

This past weekend I stated to my Wifely Wife: “we need to see the series Bosch,” as she is likewise a great fan of Connelly books.

In order to see the series, which we both committed to do this weekend, we had to figure out if the venues to which we already subscribed, Netflix, Apple’s iTV, Roku, blah blah blah, would enable us to pick up Bosch.

Of course it wouldn’t.  No fucking way.  Everything is going proprietary these days.  That would be way way way too simple.

We went to a Box Store.  “Sure,” the employees said, “you can get it on Amazon Prime.  That’s where it’s released.”  I already was a member of Amazon Prime.  Bingo.  I was In Like Flint.  So we can get that on Netflix, right?  “Of course not,” the employees responded.  “It’s on Amazon.”  We were both proffered the You’re Fucking Blockheads look.  As in: we clearly don’t deserve to draw further breath.

We asked: okay, maybe you can get it on Apple iTV?  The employee clandestinely spoke softy through her in-store comm system.  I’m fairly certain I heard the word “fucktard” used in a sentence.  While waiting, she assured us we could pick it up as an app in the Apple Store, no problem.  One minute later, frowning, she said “nope.  Apple won’t do it.”

About this point the Techno-Savvy amongst you are thinking: “you dolts.  Just hook up through your flatscreen at home.”  And yes, you would be right, my wife has a large, beautiful LG flatscreen I purchased for her a few years ago.  Read: a few years ago.  Unlike today’s flatscreens which hook up to everything but NORAD, hers did not. *** Hence our requiring a Roku box and Apple iTV.

Sufficiently confused yet?

Oboy, I’m just getting started.

“Look,” I whined, “all we want to do is watch the series ‘Bosch‘ this weekend.  That’s my only goal.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Why don’t you just buy ChromeCast?  That will do it.”

I asked, in my all-knowing best sly manner (because I wanted to sound like I actually had a semblance of a brain): “Isn’t that one of those devices that plug into the TV, like a USB?”

Again, more eye-rolling, a blatant You Fucking Blockhead look: “uh, no.  That’s an HDMI.”

One ChromeCast box purchase later, my tail between my legs, we went home.  And, after checking all sorts of thingies on YouTube, the Wifely Wife concluded: “we have to subscribe to a whole bunch of stuff.  That’s why it’s called a ChromeCAST.  It gets sent from your phone to the stick to the TV.”

Huh?

I let her figure it out.  I was beyond facile.  My brain was completely used up at this point.  I barely had locomotor functions.

Yes.  In order to watch one stupid TV series on Amazon Prime, I had to subscribe.  Then your subscription has to be recognized on your Smart Device, like a smart phone or a tablet.  And you have to have wi-fi wired up in your house.  You have to download the app.  You have to download the Amazon Prime app.  Then the ChromeCast app.  Then it gets “cast” from your device to the HDMI device on the back of your TV and then to the flatscreen.

You’re no better than your wi-fi system.  And trust me, it’ll look better on your smart device than it will on your big flatscreen.  On the flatscreen it staggered and pixelated and buffered.

All I wanted to do is watch the TV series Bosch on an actual TV, and have it look good.

Fuck me.

Rabbit ears.

BZ

*** NOTE:

Ol’ BZ does not have a flatscreen TV at home.  Instead, he has a 36″ Toshiba CRT HDTV-capable unit purchased in 2004, which is roughly 3′ deep, weighs about 45,000 pounds and required a Grove TMS9000E crane truck to install.  You can now see that this one fact alone dissuades BZ from upgrading.