Last night, I noticed the now-familiar message about the conversion to Digital Television on the local NBC affiliate had changed. Not in the way I expected, though.

The message used to read^[a]:

WSAZ – TV in Charleston-Huntington, West Virginia will cease analog service on February 17, 2009. WSAZ continues to provide digital television service and will do so up to and after February 17, 2009.

…

Emphasis mine.

When the scroll started yesterday, I expected that the date would be changed to the new June date. Instead, it read:

WSAZ – TV in Charleston-Huntington, West Virginia will cease analog service on February 17, 2009, a date prior to the nation’s new June 12, 2009 DTV transition date. WSAZ continues to provide digital television service and will do so up to and after February 17, 2009.

…

I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of television stations are following this model. They were forced to plan for the February 17th date, and less than a month before the date arrived, the date was changed. Given that this change would probably reduce their costs (they’re already broadcasting in analog and digital, turning off the digital transmitter saves electricity costs if nothing else), I absolutely understand why they’d make the switch as planned, rather than waiting.

Of course, if they didn’t wait, they’d probably have to recalculate projections for expenses over the next few months, which they could probably use to try to get the Obama administration to send them some cash — it’s not like they’re showing any qualms about throwing money around like it’s nothing.

1. This is a guess, but it’s likely pretty accurate. I have no way to get the original message now, but I can’t imagine it changed a lot. [↩]

“We can debate whether we should be spending money on energy policy, but don’t tell me it’s wasteful.”

Um… we can debate, as long as I don’t disagree with you? Wow, THANKS, President Obama!

8:28 update: “Overspending isn’t what got us into this mess…” “…spending $30 when they had $1 is what caused the problem.” I realize that he’s talking about leveraging vs. Overspending, but the principle’s kind of the same — we, as a society, have been overleveraging ourselves, and we have to stop. Getting back to spending more within our means is going to be painful, and putting trillions more “above our means” dollars into the economy now is just going to make the pain worse in the future.

Plus, if the banks were giving loans to people who were too big a risk, doesn’t that mean the recipients of the loans, were, I dunno, overspending?

8:32 Update: So, we should keep acting as dumb as we have been and save “later?” The time to get your financial house in order is now. Putting it off is never a good idea (I speak from experience).

8:34 Update: Why didn’t he just give a speech? He has a list of the people he’s going to call on (and, presumably, the questions they’re going to ask) — why the charade?

8:36 Update: Jake Tapper: “How will we know if your solution is working?” Obama: “If we have at least 4 million jobs left in the economy, then I’ve succeeded.” (That’s the only way I can interpret the promise to save 4 million jobs, anyway.)

8:37 Update: “The problem in Indiana was that RVs aren’t selling.” Um… isn’t Obama an environmentalist? Shouldn’t he be thrilled that RVs aren’t selling?

8:44 Update: “Credit must flow — how will you guarantee that the next bank bailout will ensure that?” Answer: “My Tax-cheat-in-chief will answer that tomorrow.”

8:45 Update: “If you’re going to be wrong 30% of the time (per VP Biden), how do we know this isn’t one of the things?” “Because there’s lots of stuff in this bill. Some of the spaghetti will stick! I hope!”

8:47 Update: “Here, sir, have a softball. How do you feel about Alex Rodiguez and steroids?” What the heck are we wasting time with this for? We only have 13 minutes to Heroes. Talk about important questions, or get off my TV!

8:49 Update: Helen Thomas: “So-called Terrorists…” “Does anyone have nuclear weapons in the Middle East?” Obama: “There are definitely some terrorists in Pakistan. We want Pakistan to realize that they are as in-danger as we are from those people, who will kill innocents.” “I don’t want to speculate about nuclear weapons, but, man, that would suck. We’ll work with Russia.” Helen attempts to ask a follow-up question, but, obviously, that wasn’t on the script.

8:52 Update: “Will you rule out a prosecution of the Bush Administration, right here and now?” “My administration is going to operate in a way that leaves no doubt that we do not torture…” Does that have anything to do with the question?

8:57 Update: Did he just compare what mainstream Democrats believe (“Throw money at it!”) to what the most far right “conservatives”^[a] think? He’s trying to make the “conservatives” sound crazier… even though the Democratic answer is the one that’s been tried over and over and has never worked.

8:59 Update: “‘This is a spending bill, not a stimulus bill.’ But, by definition, stimulus must include spending.” This is the same thing we heard earlier today, and it’s still a strawman. The issue isn’t that there’s spending period, but that the spending is on unnecessary (and useless) things, and/or won’t come for at least one or two years (so much for timely, eh?).

9:01 Update: Bull crap. I have to listen to talking heads analyze what the President just said? Isn’t there an NBC executive to override these people so I can watch Heroes?

1. I would’ve said Libertarians, but whatever [↩]

Rob (of Say Anything) on Justice Ginsburg’s surgery:

What may actually be nice, from a human decency standpoint, is that Ginsburg may actually feel like she can resign and take care of herself with Obama in office to put in her spot someone to her liking ideologically. Perhaps that’s a crass way of looking at it, but I always feel bad when I watch these people (some elected officials like Ted Kennedy as well) cling to their offices because of an inability to let go of power.

I have to agree with Rob here — I wish her well, and I hope that, with Obama in the White House, she feels confident enough in her replacement that she’s willing to retire and make the best of her retirement.

Over at Get Rich Slowly, guest writer Erica Douglass has a post describing “The Ten Minute Budget. In the post’s introduction, she explains why she used to have so much trouble creating a budget:

I realized that I had two beliefs I needed to get past before setting up a budget:

1. I felt like a budget would take a ton of time and effort for very little return.
2. I liked what I considered the “freedom” of being able to spend whatever I wanted, when I wanted to spend it.

I can relate to both of these. Before I started getting my finances in order, I felt that creating (and sticking to) a budget was a lot more work than it would be worth to me. I knew, after all, how much money my regular bills were. I knew those bills couldn’t be negotiated, and that simply writing down how much I was going to spend wouldn’t help me. The fact that the set plan would keep me from doing things I wanted to do was a secondary, but not at all trivial, obstacle to the creation of a budget.

When I finally created that budget and started sticking to it, I gradually came to the same conclusion that Ms. Douglass did:

Much to my surprise, creating a budget actually gave me more freedom! Instead of having a panic attack when I got my credit card statement, thinking, “How am I going to pay this off?”, I knew where I stood every few days. Instead of forcing myself to pay cash (which is easily stolen, or used and then forgotten), I had an at-a-glance look at exactly what I was spending, and where I was spending it, every month.

Emphasis in the original.

Of course, I don’t really ever go a “few days” without knowing exactly where I stand. My wife will tell you that I am somewhat obsessive now about knowing exactly what we’ve spent, and I “Quicken” at least once a day (usually at least twice). I don’t really care what we spend the money on, as long as I know that it’s been spent so I can record it accurately. Our budget is not strict; we pay the bills, put aside money for necessities (food and gasoline, mostly), some extra for saving, and the rest can be spent on pretty much whatever.

Still, it was shocking to me that controlling my spending seemed to give me more freedom. I’ve gradually come to realize that by controlling my spending habits meant that I had stopped them from controlling me. Before then, I’d spent what I wanted, and I thought I was free, but that thoughtless spending shackled me with worries about whether or not I had the money in the bank to cover the purchases I’d been making.

One last point that Ms. Douglass mentions really resonated with me:

Many financial authors support a cash-only system in order to help get yourself out of debt, since spending cash is more tangible than swiping plastic. However, a budget, updated every few days with data from your card provider’s website, gives you the same knowledge of where your money goes immediately. Plus, a credit card offers consumer protections, down-to-the-penny accuracy, and rewards points!

The emphasis above is mine.

I like Dave Ramsey a lot, but this is one of the things that annoys me about his program. He insists that, because studies have shown that most people spend more money when they use plastic than they would have spent if they’d used cash, it must be true for all people. The truth is, though, some of us are just plain weird.

I only really track the money that’s in the bank accounts, so once money is outside those accounts, it becomes immaterial to me. If I have $300 in my wallet, it’ll be gone in no time and I will have absolutely no idea where it went. On the other hand, if there’s $300 in our checking account, I keep track of every penny that disappears from it, and spend it much more slowly.

Anyway, the entire guest post (and, indeed, J.D.’s entire Get Rich Slowly blog) is well worth the read.

We moved last weekend, and the preparations for the move (not to mention the move itself) kind of interfered with my Read 100 challenge. In order to get my pace back up where it needs to be, I picked up a couple of Nero Wolfe novels (by Rex Stout). I finished one this morning, Please Pass the Guilt, and just started Before Midnight.

I’ve got a lot of blog reading to catch up on in addition to reading in general, so I’m off.