I'm an out-of-towner who gets to see very few Blazer games on TV but follows the team intensely (and mostly through this site.). I watched Game 5 at a friend's house, on TNT, in HD (in all my geekish Blazer gear), and noticed the most annoying trend since FOX had NHL broadcasts and used a glowing cursor with a tail like Halley's Comet digitally superimposed over the puck.

What I'm referring to are The Beeps. Every time the score changed, and every time the shot-clock got to 5 seconds or lower, TNT included these hideous little "beep" sounds that made me think my microwave was developing a will of its own, like "Christine.". Since almost every Blazer possession, by default, extends into the end of the shot clock, by the third quarter I thought I was going to have an aneurism.

Are these new? Are they only discernible on HD broadcasts, or in stereo? Are fans too mentally delinquent to occasionally glance at the shot clock? (My girlfriend will only watch Blazer games with me because she likes keeping an eye on how the shot clock speeds up games -- she thinks it's the NBA's best, most exciting feature.)

For a network with the good sense to stick by Marv Albert and Ernie Johnson during private scandal and cancer treatment, respectively, TNT sure seems like their presentation decisions are deranged at times. Don't even mention how they used to put playoff games on TBS when two coincided, so you didn't have to have NBA TV, or how I have to regularly sit through the end of a 40-point blowout while the Blazer game starts.

Just educate me on the history and logic behind The Beeps. There must be some, mustn't there?