So Easy A Fat Panda BasketCase Can Do It!

Are you and your family tired of watching your favorite team's road games huddled around a 14" laptop? If you answered "yes" then have you ever come to the right blog! Would you rather watch tomorrow's (Friday) WNBA.com Live Access webcast of the Mystics game on your very own -- real -- TV? "Yes" again? Then the BasketCases have a deal for you! Simply follow these easy steps . . .

Step 1. Check the video and audio outputs on your computer.

Step 2. Check your TV for available inputs.

Step 3. Figure out what type of inputs you have.

Step 4. Grab your laptop and head over to the nearest Radio Shack!**

Step 5. With the help of one of the in-store techies, select the proper cables for connecting your computer to your TV.

And when making your selection, here's a word of advice: Think gay! Male-Male is the only way to hook-up! Don't accidentally make the mistake the BasketCases did of bringing home a Male-Female cable. No! It won't work. (A Male-Female cable can be useful as an extension if your Male-Male cable is too short, but without the Male-Male, you're out of luck.)

Also remember that you need one cable to connect your video and a second (separate) cable for your audio connection. (If you're using a laptop, the audio cable is typically inserted into the headphone jack on the laptop.)

Step 6. Back at home, turn off your TV and shut down your computer. Then connect the video cable. When connecting it to your TV, see if there's a number ("7" for example) or a name ("HDMI") associated with the input on your TV where you're connecting the cable. (Not essential, but helpful so you can later tune your TV to the correct input.) Then connect your audio cable.

Step 7. Turn on your TV but not your computer. Be sure that on your TV you've selected the proper video input (see Step 6 above and the image below). There will be nothing on your screen at that point (because, if you have been paying attention, your computer should still be shut down!). Now, boot up your computer.

Once your computer has booted up and it's displaying your desktop screen, the computer should send the video and audio signals to your TV. If your TV is not displaying these signals, you may not have selected the right video input on your TV; scroll through your input settings. You'll know it's right when your TV screen looks like your desktop!

Step 7. At 7:30 PM tomorrow (Friday), go to WNBA.com Live Access on your computer. Select the Mystics at Atlanta game. (Don't forget: Right click, Zoom, Full Screen.) Then sit back and enjoy the show! (The quality of the video will depend on the feed from the arena. It won't be like watching a Blu-Ray disc, but it will beat squinting at the little screen on your laptop.)

Go Mystics! Beat the Dream!

**A small note regarding the audio and video connecting cables. Buying them on-line is far cheaper. But if you aren't exactly certain which cables you need, you won't get the help that you'll get at a bricks and mortar store like Radio Shack. Nor the immediate gratification of taking the cables home then and there and hooking them right up to watch the Mystics this weekend.

The DC BasketCases blog is not associated in any way with Radio Shack nor any other vendor of audio or video equipment. However, if Radio Shack would like like to enter into a Marquee partnership with the BasketCases, for the right price, we would promise to wear Radio Shack logo T-shirts whenever we blog.

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Friday morning update . . . Mike Fratto writes about the Mystics in today's Washington Times here.