Pen-pricks

• The Weather Channel reported unseasonably warm weather in Southern California this week to the delight of vacationers from all over the world. Nice weather in February makes you giddy. It was so warm off Catalina Island that Robert Wagner got drunk and threw his sunscreen overboard.

• The Philadelphia Eagles backup quarterback Nick Foles filled in Sunday and led his team to a Super Bowl win and was named MVP. Other teams are now clamoring to sign him. The Wall Street Journal just saluted Nick Foles as the only person in America whose stock went up on Monday.

• Wall Street suffered a record-sized crash on Monday when the Dow Jones average fell 1,100 points. What a total bloodbath. You know things are bad by the end of the trading day when Warren Buffett sets up a Go Fund Me Page, and you can’t even sell Apple on the street corner.

• Philadelphia Eagles fans rioted Sunday night, smashing windows, overturning cars, pulling down light poles, and jumping on top of a hotel entrance awning until it crashed. Police had only one question for each other over the squad car radios. Do these idiots know we won?

Argus Hamilton is the host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood and a speaker. His email address is argus@argushamilton.com.

Here I sit at 5 a.m. wide awake again because of noisy garbage trucks. Some mornings it is even earlier. Why do they need to be in a residential neighborhood so early? Why do they drive like there is no tomorrow? Do the owners of these trucks know they race between cans just to see how fast they can get there?

Six days a week it is howling engines then screaming brakes then banging mechanisms all before most people get up. I feel it was very inconsiderate and disrespectful to the people of Yuma and the area to lose these stations at one of the most watchful times, Super Bowl and Olympics. This shows me the general public gets no respect and customer first is a farce. Let these people hammer out a deal without depriving the customers and holding everyone hostage... Very unprofessional and disrespectful.

There is a fight going on between the local cable company and local TV stations concerning rates cable will charge the stations to be on the cable channel offerings.

I have an opinion as a consumer. While now living in a travel trailer as a winter visitor, I am not affected by this battle. In the past, however, I have been a cable subscriber affected by this way of doing business.

Professionally, I have worked in broadcasting (radio and TV) and cable, as well as newspaper and magazine advertising and advertising agencies. Being of ‘a certain age’ I’ve seen media go from three on-air channels in black and white and AM radio only, to multiple cable and direct TV (and now a bazillion internet options), and seen the advent and then domination of FM radio. I’ve also seen the change from regulated TV and radio to pretty much ‘anything goes,’ and the effect on newspapers and magazines of alternate internet options. Consumers were continually guaranteed that there would always be FREE TV.

We (my husband and I) are taking advantage of FREE TV at the moment. Thankfully, we get the three major networks, as well as PBS. And the other available stations are acceptable to good. We have been in places where the programming available from the on-air stations was totally unacceptable.

I also have an opinion as a business professional (albeit retired.) My work responsibilities have been in advertising and business planning. If either the cable company or the TV stations were my clients, my message would be this: “Put on your big-boy panties and settle this in private.” Using the viewers as pawns against each other is not necessary. Possibly but not definitely helpful, and it does not play well for the image of any of the businesses involved — especially the cable company. And I’ve worked for a cable company. Trust me on this — people DO NOT LIKE their cable provider.

And, just for good measure, taking the Super Bowl away from paid customers is REALLY bad business.