A consumer’s guide to the best and...

A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

What: Fox Sports West

I have 60 channels on my television, pay-per-view, a microwave oven and electronic checking. I can pick up the phone and order lovely cubic zirconia pendants for my wife off the Home Shopping Network.

I can “Hang Ten” (fingers) on the World Wide Web, download a census report from Azerbaijan and get detailed sporting reports on curling.

Yet, on Feb. 19 I wanted to watch the UCLA-USC basketball game at home and found out that was impossible.

If this is progress, bring back the Hi-Fi.

Obviously, on stretches of the information super highway, they can’t see the forest for the fees.

I’m frankly not interested in petty battles between cable moguls, or what Ted Turner thinks of Rupert Murdoch or the intricacies of corporate cannibalism. I do know Channel 42 on my tube used to be Prime Ticket, but now it’s Fox Sports West, and that’s not good enough to get UCLA-USC in a Pacific 10 Conference showdown.

Down, but not broken, I turned to a trusty friend, radio, only to discover the station covering the game, XTRA 690, apparently powers its signal after 6 p.m. with two squirrels on a treadmill.

Later, I found out I could have heard the USC-UCLA game on Internet at www.audionet.com.

Gee, what kind of fool was I?