We managed, with a combo of Hulu and NBC, to get a feed of the Olympic opening ceremonies—without commentators. Delightful. For once, we could watch something spectacular and TALK to each other in our own living room, without two blathering voices overlaying a point we might want to hear, or having the camera jolt away from something pretty to focus on some specific athlete, following by happytalk inanity for a full minute, discussing the cutaway, and the weather.
Joy, oh, joy! We also got to see an NBC skating feed that showed the technical scores at the bottom, element by element, so we could see where the deducts were—wonderful!
TV as it ought to be. Now, if we could only get our Mariners baseball! [blackout rules.] But major victory for civilized living room conversation!
I also got the results of the first doc visit—tests are clean and levels are good and we are happy.
Winter is back—headed for 14 degree night-time temps and more snow. I think I am going to do some major grocery shopping today, while we have the major streets clear!
So, tell us how you did it.
Driving downhill to work on our unplowed winding road expecting to meet the snow plow or school bus was interesting yesterday…and I agree that the Olympic commentators are over zealous. I am so disgusted with the advertising on television that I have taken to actually watching ad-free the Virginian while I do my elliptical workout. I’m not a real westerns fan but I have to admit that I love to see the horses and how amazing they are.
( general textual representation of inarticulate noise of apoplexy )
Cat! Aarrgh! I had to rush to disconnect all the computer equipment, because Mr. Assertive chose to spit up in the middle of the cords and USB hub on the desk (triple dresser, still have to assemble a prefab desk).
While the cat’s name is mud for a while, a wipe-down of the entire surface and equipment, which I admit was overdue, occurred, and all seems to be in order. But I’m going to order a new USB hub in case. And I don’t know if I hooked up the USB devices to the same ports as they were before. But possibly.
The little blighter knows I’m not happy with him, and proceeded to try to cozy up to my arm (as usual) for soaking up every last drop of affection possible. Sigh, and OK, kitty, I don’t really know if it was accidental or purposeful, but I’m guessing he now has some idea I was very unhappy about it.
Dang cat. You’re a menace, buddy-boy. Good thing I love you.
Yay! As soon as the file gets from there to here and back, my apartment lease will be renewed for another full year. And I submitted a small list of easy repair fixes. (If I had good eyesight and had the tools and knew how, I could do those myself, likely.) All but one are easy to fix, and that one won’t be too bad.
I’ve paid to get a refurbished washer and dryer, as the current used washer has a bad design and therefore always tries to eat drawstrings, sleeves, shirttails. The thing has a small gap at the bottom of the rotating cylinder / beater hub, which is remarkably convenient for catching and winding around drawstrings and anything else. I will be thrilled to see it go. Not so thrilled with the price, but it’s way, way better than the cost of a brand-new washer or washer and dryer.
A couple of other good things in the offing, so I’m pleased.
Now if only I could get other things going so well and staying that way.
The cats now have stylish yet cheap, er, I mean inexpensive, collars to replace the bulky, smelly, unyielding flea collars. they and I are very glad to see those gone. The flea control liquid arrived finally, to apply to their necks. o this is good. They like the new collars so far .heir ID tags arrived, also good. I ordered a spare for each of them.
so…good and terribly mundane.
Between the apt. offices and my email provider, it was nearly the close of business today before I got the renewal contract. Yes, note now many apt. complexes want you to sign via signed PDF service. Never mind I was right there in the office, if they could’ve typed up my contract.
I also want to ask, in the event I need to get a seeing eye dog, whether that counts toward the pet limit. Seeing Eye / accessibility / service dogs are not counted towards a pet deposit or monthly fee, however. But IIRC the limit is two pets. I’d hate to have to give up one of my cats if that were to happen, so I’m hoping not to have to, or to have a way around it. Wish I’d thought of it while there today.
It looks like they may’ve reduced the pet charge per month, yet they do show two cats, with no way to fill in info. So I’m going to ask about it to be sure. That, and to make sure when the prorated fee shows up due, to pay it, since the contract renews mid-month instead of a full month. Wish I’d thought to have the ending date go to the end of the month.
So, as of tomorrow, likely, I should be all set again, monthly for 15 months.
First, we fired Comcast—almost. And may yet. We were taking the whole ‘bundle,’ and were still paying high. So—we got Amazon Fire, and already had Amazon Prime. This lets us stream. Prime itself has a lineup of programs; we also had Netflix and Hulu, which gave us other lineups. Added to that, I have Curiosity Stream (documentaries), Britbox, and Masterpiece, for our British mystery addiction. There is an NBC ap you can now get on Prime; and we got Hulu’s more expensive service that lets you also access NBC….and the latter is the link we used to get the Olympics. It’s spotty—it has some commercials; (our other stuff doesn’t, as a rule) and it will drive you mad by diving away on some other coverage and making you search for the other half of what you were watching, but we’ve been able to get there. But we are happy. When the Olympics are done we will see what else this most expensive version of Hulu offers, and if not satisfied, we’ll dump it and go back to our old medium-level-access. That’s the bennie of doing this through Prime—you can add and subtract services at will, no letters, forms, or fuss. Go up on Amazon and end the service. May take a month for your sub to run out, if you just paid (no refunds) but most of these services are like 5 dollars a month, so it’s not huge. The hookup is not rocket science: they give you a remote control and a little dongle like a thumb drive that goes into your telly’s slot and has a little connection wire you reach and unplug and replug if (rarely) some glitch makes you have to reset the system. Like maybe once every other month. We do not use cable for anything but internet and are thinking about going over to a dedicated internet company; we put our phone on VOIP, via a little indie company in Oklahoma, and we don’t watch network television except on Hulu. The binge-watching opportunities are huge. Lots of shows are all there with no commercials. The cost? We’re saving monthly about 2/3rds of what we were spending.
OPB is rerunning Joan Hikson’s (’86-’89!) “Miss Marple”. IMO, she was always the best, even though there have been two remakes with different actresses that made it to PBS.
ok, thanks.
We’re with you on the benefits and simplicity of the FireTV and Amazon Prime. Fed up with Hulu? Cancel them. Love all British mysteries? Get Acorn or BritBox. Or, in our case, both. Some overlap, but there’s some great Australian and NZ content on Acorn, so worth it. I’d fire the cable except for the CBC and TSN/SportsNet. We MUST have our curling! 🙂 But the rest of it is getting a serious re-evaluation at the end of the curling season. Might go to _basic_ service, which would include the CBC, and then only up it next fall.
If you do go with an internet-only provider, I’m sure many of us would be interested in what you think of them versus Comcast or AT&T U-verse.
I hardly ever watch TV on TV anymore. Most of my viewing is online, such as iTunes or Amazon or YouTube. I’m thinking of rejoining Netflix. (A fellow fan here recommended Altered Carbon, and I’d like to try Stranger Things, possibly others.) I have been really intrigued by the early hominid commercial CuriosityStream has, but so far, I haven’t decided to plunk down the monthly fee.
Dang auto-incorrect keeps wanting to change that to “the monthly feel.” Which really would be another kind of curiosity altogether, though perhaps, ah, strangely soothing? LOL.
We had a mid 70’s day here in VA, so we went for a nice drive in the mountains. Expecting snow on Saturday. Spring is out there somewhere.
not only no television but no interest in the olympics. I do have internet but I read a lot, although not Ms. Cherry’s latest as it is too expensive for me. I prefer to listen to baseball games rather then look at them. A good set of announcers is a treat.
Weather is slowly warming up here in New Hampshire.
We cut our Verizon service back to just FIOS internet last May, dropping our landline phone and cable TV. Installed a rooftop antenna for local TV and found we get a better picture over the air on local stations than we did from cable. We subscribed to Acorn for Midsomer Murders, and we’ve found some other series that are good as well, such as a New Zealand offering called “Brokenwood”. I was already on Amazon Prime, and a stepson gave us a Roku stick, so we’re good to go. DH also watches a lot of You Tube videos. The main reason I didn’t do it sooner was because I really enjoyed the Smithsonian Channel, but I’ve just bought the latest season of “Air Disasters” through Amazon and that problem has been solved.
Apropos of nothing other than this is CJ’S blog, I dropped by the vendor room of the BosCon Sci-Fi book convention tonight (in Boston, obviously) and enjoyed looking at the booksellers’ offerings. I picked up two used books by/with CJ: The Goblin Mirror and also the short story formatted, Prophets In Hell.
The latter is from a “shared world” series — one Hell of a World… Or perhaps better, one world of Hell. I hadn’t run across this one in the series before and am looking forward to seeing where it takes things. CJ’s full book spinoff from the co-authored series, Legions in Hell, is a great read and read-aloud too if you can locate it.
Goblin Mirror I read once, years ago and more remember the feel and ambience of the book than the actual plot — that and I really liked (and still like, as I look at it now) the cover art. Our goblin has great hair!
Looking forward to reading both!
I’m in the middle of my Olympics sleep deprivation (darn time zones) so any clarification like the green/yellow/red dots is a plus. Tho I also know how good things are going by how hushed Weir/Lipinski get for certain programs. Really enjoying the US team this cycle.