Monday, July 16, 2001 | 9:14 a.m.
My wife and I were watching a good movie on HBO two Friday nights ago. Seventy-six, she is deaf. (Not hearing impaired. She hates that word. She's not politically correct.) All of a sudden this horrible buzzing noise starts emanating from our TV, alerting us to a rain and flash-flood warning in plain letters across the screen. Right in the middle of a great movie we're watching, we have no sound, just a buzzing sound and a written weather warning. This happened about every 10 to 15 seconds for the next 10 minutes.
I go nuts because I can't hear what they're saying. Then my wife asks me why they have to have that stupid noise when she can't hear it anyway, but can plainly see the warning. Remember, she's deaf, not blind.
We paid for the movie -- we didn't expect it to be interrupted by a loud and very annoying weather warning.
We checked local channels. Same thing. If this is mandated by the government it's very stupid. Just flash a written weather alert on the screen. If we couldn't see that, we wouldn't be watching TV anyway.
MIKE KAY
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