Back Online

Thank god, I'm back online! Same ol Comcast, same ol crap, but some nice fast internet :-)

Internet Down!

Alright so get this. A month and a half ago I paid a huge Comcast bill. It was 2 months worth -- one late bill and one regular bill. But I paid it online through my PNC bank account. The problem is that my bank account was connected to my old Comcast account before I moved 7 months ago. So the payment went to the wrong account.

Saturday morning I woke up and had no internet. I figured I had forgotten to pay the bill and I just needed to call and get it turned back on. But when I looked at the two bills sitting on the table, everything added up. One bill said I owed X amount, and the other bill said thanks for the payment of X amount. Upon closer review, howevah, I noticed that the payment went to a different account! Shiznit.

So I called and this lady said she had set up the payment to transfer and it was all good. But still no internet. So I called back and spoke to some other lady and she was like, yeah yeah it might take a few days for that payment to transfer, but let me see if we can't just get you turned back on... But still nothing!

So then a couple hours later I call back and this guy gives it to me straight. He's like, yeah, they sent a guy to disconnect your account from the pole outside your house. I was like, WHAT?! Why the fuck would they do that?!? I was like you can't just call me and ask?! Or send me an email?? You gotta send this man to my house -- what, does he have a pair of wire cutters climbing up that pole snipping shit???  I was so pissed.

So here I am now leaning over to one side of my house where I got the free wi-fi! Take that, Comcast, you can totally suck it now! If I am in the left side of my bed, or anywhere further towards the front of the house (my bedroom is in the front) I can pick up this unsecure Netgear signal -- probably from across the street. If I want to use my iPod, though, I have to go stand at the window or sit out on the porch. But this morning I set up a little desk by the front window with my laptop and coffee -- had the internet just like a normal morning. Now it's midnight and I'm writing this blog post in bed with the laptop and free internet hijacked from somebody's shit!

And when I go to sleep I'm going to stream some Netflix.... Don't tell anybody....

Netflix

Ok, so this one is obvious. Whether you're living off the cable TV grid or just want to supplement your cable TV package, Netflix is one of the most popular sites for streaming media. It's one of those words like  Kleenex or Xerox -- not just because it has an 'x' at the end -- where the brand name equals the product. No one says, I'm going to watch streaming internet programming. People say things like, Oh I don't know I'll probably just stay in and watch Netflix. They don't say they're watching TV or watching a movie; they're watching Netflix.

Netflix offers a variety of movies and traditional television, including full seasons and series of popular network and cable TV shows.  They have an extensive collection of documentary movies in addition to more traditional choices, which is often what people are referring to when they say they're going to stay in on a Friday night and watch Netflix.  

They have two separate services.  Netflix offers DVD borrowing in addition to streaming (or vice versa if you want to look at it chronologically -- the DVD service came first).  But I only subscribe to the streaming service.  It's $7.99 a month and very easy to use. You can get Netflix on every possible device imaginable: smartphone, roku, tablet, standard desktop computer, etc. It won't be long before they can stream it right into your brain! (Sweet.)

Now, some people complain about the lack of content. They don't have new stuff, people complain. They hardly ever add anything. To some extent this is true.  But shows have to get produced and run for a season or two before Netflix gets them.  And it's only $7.99, so they're not going to have last night's episode of Boardwalk Empire.  Or any episode of Boardwalk Empire for that matter.  It's only 7.99 a month! It's all on demand, full DVR controls, and some of it is decent HD quality.

And there are no commercials.  That's absolutely huge. There is literally no advertising in Netflix.  It almost makes you want a commercial every now and then to tell you what else to watch ;-)

Now, look, I agree. Sometimes I sit there and look at Netflix and I'm like Jesus Christ there isn't a single goddamn show worth watching right now.  But that just means I'm watching too much TV anyway! So let's look at the upside.

Pros

The Price.  7.99 a month is practically free. Just eat peanut butter and jelly for lunch one day instead of going to Panera and you're set.

Recently Watched, etc. The Interface. Recently viewed row at top of home page lets you see what you've been watching.  You can pick up exactly where you left off -- for any show you've watched, not just the most recent.

Variety.  They have a ton of different kinds of programming, from sitcoms to history documentaries.  There may not be a million choices within a genre, and you might get sick of seeing the same things over and over, but the overall depth of the Netflix library is great.

Now a few of those problems... 

Cons

Variety. If you rely solely on Netflix and you're someone who watches a lot of TV, this just isn't going to be enough for you.  Some categories can be remarkably thin.  There's something there, but not much. If you stick to just one category or genre, you're going to run out of options in a hurry.

Cue.  You can't cue individual episodes of a show, just the the whole show. Your cue is just one long list. It's a relic of the movie/DVD cue mindset, but it just doesn't work for TV -- especially serial television.   When you browse or see something you like, you can add it to your cue. But it has no organization and no playlist-style cueing. Sometimes, let's say Sunday night, I know I'm about to watch a few hours of TV, and I know what I'm going to watch. I'd like to create a playlist with an episode of Family Guy, then Parks and Recreation, followed by How the Universe Began, and then finish it up with an episode of Animal Hoarders.  Why can't they give me an interface to create a little playlist by dragging in these episodes? That should be easy, right?!

Anyway, in summary, Netflix is a bang up service, very affordable, with adequate depth and variety, and absolutely no commercials! If you've never seen Netflix you're probably living deep in the third world far from electricity, so it's not like this is a particularly provocative post, but hey, I just like documenting what I do.

FirstRowSports Great Streaming Site

weak logo haha

My anti-commercial Boooo-Comcast blog is due for an update! I am still living the dream with no cable TV about a year after fully cutting the cord. I've been able to download all the shows I watch regularly, and when the pirate torrent sites go down I'm fine using Hulu.

Today I want to talk about a fantastic site for streaming live sports called First Row. The hardest thing about giving up cable is figuring out how to get sporting events. I've posted about NBA League Pass Broadband, which is a great subscription service. But what free options are out there? Plenty! 

Streaming BOTH the Pitt game and the Pens game!

The site I've been using almost exclusively -- on my mac mini and windows machines -- is called FirstRowSports. They have everything. I would say almost everything, but I have never been unable to find a single event I wanted to watch. It's a perfect solution for the hockey or basketball fan who wants to cut ties with cable TV. Today is a perfect example.

Pitt basketball played today against #6 in the nation Syracuse. They've been close a few times recently against top tier opponents, but haven't been able to close out a big signature win. So this game at home looked like a good one. Then the Penguins are hosting the Devils in a game that started about an hour later.

Pitt on 42" Plasma streaming from the MacMini

It's a lazy Saturday and I was lounging in bed all morning. I vaguely knew both teams played today, but wasn't aware of the actual start times. My iPod chimed in, however, at noon, to let me know Pitt was tipping off down at Peterson Event Center. I was laying there browsing on my laptop anyway, so I just clicked over to FirstRow, found the Panthers game listed, and started it up. It's incredible, they have sports from all over the world, too.

As I continued lounging and playing on my iPod with the Pitt game streaming on my laptop the game started getting interesting. Then my iPod spoke up again to alert me that the Pens and Devils were about to start! Awesome! Time to get the day started, hah. Early in the second half Pitt led by a few, and it was shaping up to be a great finish. The Panthers bench rolls 5 deep and they were dominating the Orange's second unit all day.

Crosby and the Pens streaming on Thinkpad

So I decided to pull myself out of bed, percolate some coffee, put the basketball game on the Plasma and hockey on the laptop. Am I dreaming? Nope, I'm streaming, baby! Living the streaming dream. Once Pitt had sealed the deal and emerged victorious, I switched the hockey game over to the TV, and now I'm writing this blog post on the laptop. The Pens are leading 2-1, Pitt goes to 6-4 in the Big East, and watching all of this cost me nothing more than my standard monthly internet rate. Sweet.

Now, with FirstRowSports, when you start a game playing, it's plastered with pop-up ads. Once you know how to patiently get rid of them, though, it's a breeze, and you'll be watching uninterrupted, live sports with confidence.

CLICK HERE TO READ MY POST ABOUT DEALING WITH THE POP-UP ADS ON FIRSTROWSPORTS! (coming soon)

Pitt extends their lead

Hulu Follow-Up

A few days ago I decided to really give Hulu a chance.  I haven't really used it at all for a couple of reasons.  First of all, it has commercials, and that's the whole thing for me -- I'm trying to avoid commercials!  And secondly, I haven't struggled for things to watch so I haven't had to use it as new avenue of content.

I browsed a little bit the other day -- I pretty much just approached it the same way I would approach Netflix.  I kind of thought to myself if I was in the mood for something new or something familiar, and then browsed the categories to find what I wanted.  It operates pretty much the same as Netflix.  I'm curious to try the cue -- can I cue individual episodes, or just whole shows (which is a drawback for Netflix)?

I felt like I could handle 15-30 second commercials.  My only other thought going into it was that I can handle commercials when I'm watching something that I'm not really watching -- something that's on in the background.

So I thought I would give Master Chef a shot -- I had enjoyed a couple of seasons of Project Runway -- and started with the first episode of Season 3.  Of course it started with a commercial.  Then after about 20 minutes another commercial.  They were only 15-30 seconds long, so they were tolerable.  Then they started coming every 7 or 8 minutes.  And one of the commercial breaks was like a minute and a half.  Ugh!  Now here's the thing.  They show you how many seconds are left in the commercial.  Research shows that this approach makes it more tolerable for the viewer, and I have to agree.  But it seems like each episode has a 90 second ad in the middle, with the second half of the show peppered with commercials every 7 minutes.

I gave it a shot, and it wasn't a show I was going to sit up and stare at for 45 minutes, so I could handle the commercials.  And the commercials weren't 25% louder than the show, like they often are on Comcast.  Cable TV commercials all have music and yelling and explosions, my God, and sometimes you're watching a soft program, and the commercials just blast in so loudly and make it entirely unwatchable.  So anyway, I was handling the commercials ok.  I watched the whole season over a few days -- I really enjoyed the show -- which is how I like to watch a show like that.  Start it, roll through it, and knock it out quickly.

I haven't used it since then, but I will definitely go back and give Hulu another shot. I still need to try to cue and see if it works like a playlist.

Finally Investigating Hulu

So, my anti-cable stance is mostly predicated on my anti-commercial lifestyle.  It's pretty much all about the commercials.  I wouldn't mind paying 100$ a month for all the programming on cable TV, but then I have to "pay" again by having commercials.  About 20-25% of the time is commercials.  What other activity do you participate in that you concede 25% of the time to not doing that activity?  It's like if you went to the grocery store and at the end of every aisle you had to read an advertisement before continuing. What I am "doing" supposedly is spending 30 minutes watching this show, but in actuality I am spending 22 minutes watching the show and 8 minutes doing something I despise.  So anyway, as you know from the introduction, the point of this weblog is to follow my move away from cable TV and away from commercials.  

I've never really used Hulu because they have commercials.  But really I don't know what the Hulu experience is like, so I'm going to find out.  I can deal with about 30 seconds of commercials every 15 minutes or so.  Or I can handle a longer commercial break before/after an entire episode of a show. 

So I'm going to hop on my exercise bike and watch something on Hulu.  And I'll continue using it for a while just to get a sense of how it ... feels.  I should try Hulu plus for a free trial just to get the experience.  

Here goes...

NBA League Pass Broadband

NBA League Pass is a great product, whether you're going the anti-cable route, or subscribing through your cable provider.  That's actually how I first experienced it.  When I had Dish Network, and Pitt basketball was good, and Lebron James played in Cleveland, and the NHL was between lock-outs, and I was engaged to be married, I had a variety of sports options to watch in the Winter on regular cable.  

You would get Pitt in conference play plus the Penguins' star studded lineup twice a week.  You had NBA on TNT every Thursday night, plus NBA on ESPN Wednesdays and/or Fridays.  Once football ends you get NBA on ABC every Sunday.  Locally, we had about a dozen Cavs games on FoxSportsNet Pittsburgh -- which was a huge bonus. They were like my local NBA team.  I even went up to the Quicken Loans Arena for Game 6 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Semi-finals against Boston -- which was awesome.  NBA playoff games are intense.  Between the Pens, Pitt, and the Cavs, I had one of my favorite local teams playing at least 3 or 4 nights a week.  Plus I had a couple nights of prime NBA action on TNT and ESPN.

Things change, though. My fiance dumped me. They stopped carrying Cavs games on FoxSportsNet Pittsburgh.  College basketball becomes less and less watchable on a yearly basis. And really, how many hockey games  can you watch?  I didn't even have HD at the time, and standard def hockey is just blurry ice skating.  College basketball is unwatchable until tournament time.  All the while, the NBA had like 12 to 15 really good teams, which is remarkable.  All 8 playoff teams in the Western Conference in 2008-09 had a winning percentage of at least .585.  The Association was -- and still is -- stocked with star players.

For the first week of the season (and I think they still do this every year) they offered NBA League Pass for a free trial.  You can get it through your cable TV or streaming online -- or both.  I tried both for a week that first year and fell in love with it.  Enjoying the access to every game on the NBA schedule, including the top match-ups on regular cable on TNT and ESPN -- combined with hockey being boring, college basketball sucking, and FSN Pittsburgh not carrying the Cavs anymore -- led to my initial decision to subscribe that first year, which may have been 2007-08, but I'm not sure.

Last year, after I officially cancelled my cable, I subscribed to NBA League Pass Broadband Choice.  For about a hundred bucks a season (mine was prorated for about half the price since I joined around midseason) I got every game for my choice of 5 teams.  You get full DVR control over the game and a full archive.  So you can watch a game live or go back later that night or the next day and watch any game.  I found that when I would wake up early and have trouble getting back to sleep, I would watch a game.  Or I would work on my computer with a game in the background. A lot of times I would put a game on and skip ahead to the 4th quarter (which is marked for you, so it's easy to get there with one click).  On any give night last year I would watch the 4th quarter of the Heat game, the Clipper game, and the Thunder game.  

I also wanted to make a sleeper pick with my 5 teams.  I had chosen four favorites, one of which was a bust. I had the Heat, Clippers, Thunder, and Bulls (bad choice). Then I went with the Timberwolves. Remember, it was halfway through the season.  Kevin Love was an MVP candidate, Rubio was a top 3 rookie of the year, and Nikola Pekovic had shown he was more than just a big body.  Rick Adelman had made them a legitimate team again... almost.  So they were a great choice.  It made sense to pick an up-and-coming team, a team that hadn't made the playoffs in years, a great story to follow.  

I didn't realize I would become such a huge fan.  They were such a fun team to watch.  And mind you, when I say "watch," a lot of times I just have the TV on in the background -- especially when we're talking about watching basketball games almost every night -- so a game is on in the background while I'm working on the computer, doing something around the house, playing on my iPod, or a million other things.  But seriously I am now a huge Minnesota Timberwolves fan.  I look forward to watching them -- because they have now become an actual rooting interest for me -- more than any of my other 4 teams.

This year I went with the Heat and Thunder again.  I chose the Lakers over the Clippers.  I kept Minnesota of course.  And that left 1 choice.  I considered the Knicks and the Nets the most.  Then I let the season start and held that final spot open.  I was leaning toward the Nets before the season, then towards the Knicks, but the other day I finally went in a different direction and took Memphis.  They are kind of like what the Timberwolves wish they could be -- what they aspire to become.  And Memphis really hasn't proven anything yet, but they will this year.  So I think they'll become a rooting interest as well.  

The Lakers have had so much drama this year that I've enjoyed their games.  Minnesota got Love back after injury, plus they added Kirilenko, making them a great watch and potentially formidable team once Rubio returns to full speed.  The Heat and Thunder are still probably the best teams in the league and I enjoy having the option to see their games whenever I want.  I get full DVR capability and I can even watch 4 games at once if I so choose.

I highly recommend the product!