Browsing the archives for the TV category

It pays to check your bills.

Apr 4, 2008
Tim
Finance, TV, Tech

Even if you are constantly getting charged the same ammount, it pays to double check what you’re getting charged for. I’ve always been told this is a good practice and monthly, will check the charges for my credit cards, our utilities and whatever else. Usually for bills that remain the same like Cable/Internet, if the cost doesn’t change a cent, I don’t dig into the break down of the total bill. Now I know better.

Here at the Northcrest household, we’ve been running a monthly charge of about $95 for cable and internet since we’ve lived here. Split between four people it’s not a bad deal at all (something I’ll greatly miss moving into a 2 person living situation). We pay to get a 7 MB/sec internet connection, digital cable, HD box, and additional HD channels. When we signed up we were offered HBO and Starz for no additional cost so we’ve had those as well. This month, Time Warner upped their rates to where we’re paying about $101 a month. When I saw the change in billing, I took a look at the breakdown of the bill to see what was increased. Pretty much every charge had a $1 or $2 increase. I then saw that we were being charged about 7 bucks each for HBO and Starz. This was different than our first bills where HBO and Starz did not show up except as a $0 charge. I was glad to have those extra channels, but not for that much of an increase.

I called Time Warner up this afternoon at lunch to get those costs removed. Shockingly I was on and off the phone with my whole request fulfilled in just a few minutes. Our new bill is down to just around $83 now, and they gave us a few months of Showtime free. If I had known that we were getting itemized for HBO and Starz I would have canceled those a while ago. I guess it pays to check. Meanwhile, I guess I’ll have to procure John Adams and other HBO series elsewhere for now.

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Cool Nike & Air Jordan commercials

Mar 25, 2008
Tim
Sports, TV

So watching the first round of tournament playoffs has shown some decent commercials. Two I really liked are from Nike and Air Jordan (same advertising agency?) The first has a Saul Williams track, so I might just be digging that. For those of you wondering, the song is List of Demands (Reparations).

 

 

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New Puppy, and general updates

May 3, 2007
Tim
Flickr/Pics, General, Movies, TV

So I realize its been over a month since I’ve made a post of any substantial content. Last week’s was some very good info, but doesn’t really count as a post of substance on a personal blog. I’ve always “got onto” other bloggers for letting a month go by without any updates, so to make an attempt and not being hypocritical, here is your update.

About 2 weeks ago, I went with my brother and parents to pick up a new puppy for them. They drove down all the way to Washington Courthouse to get a 1 month old Golden Retriever pup. You can find some pictures of him by clicking on the picture below.

New Puppy thumb

We debated for a while on what his name should be and decided on Cody. My parents wanted something that reminded them of the West (Cody, Wyoming) and also might be related to a soda beverage (our dog before Zac was Fresca – like the drink). So Cody can also be considered Code Red (Mt. Dew). All very vaugue and weakly linked in my opinion, but Cody works. We thought of one name that all of us except my Mom loved. Bauer (or Bower in dog language). I’m considering getting my own dog this fall (if our housing arrangement allows it) and am pretty sure that I will name him Bauer. I’d really like to have my own dog, the only problem being if I got a puppy then I’d have to train him, and that could be difficult since I work all day. If I didn’t get a puppy, I’d be somewhat limited on his/her name. But we’ll see. My Mom is currently remembering how much work raising a puppy (do you raise a puppy?) is, especially when you’re home by yourself all day.

You may have noticed if you clicked on the picture, that it didn’t go to the normal spot. In fact it went to a entirely new area and layout. You may have also noticed, if you’d looked in the past 24 hours, that all my pictures in the photo section are someone limited. This is because my “pro” Flickr account has expired after 1 year and I’m debating still if I want to renew it. The puppy gallery is currently being hosted by google’s picture service. Its a great service especially since it integrates well with Picasa, my windows picture organizer of choice. The only hold back is integration with my site ( I really liked hosting a plugin on my site that connected with Flickr) and the amount of storage. With Flickr, I paid $25 for a years worth of infinite storage and bandwidth. So I’ll be debating over the next few days/week if I want to move or just renew with Flickr. I’ll be sure to post, once I’ve made a decision.

Going to see Spiderman 3 tonight at midnight. I think I’m going more just to keep the inner geek inside me fed more than I am excited for it. Its not that I don’t expect to enjoy it. Thats not it at all. How can I not enjoy the most expensive movie ever made that’s based on comics and guaranteed to feature some badass fight scenes. I just feel like I know what to expect. Plus I hear there is a lot of Peter crying and Kirstin Dunst singing. Not sure what to think about that. It should still be good, but I’m not nearly as excited for this as I am say The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2).

And while we’re on a superhero kick, Heroes is by far the best show on TV right now. Yes, better than Lost, 24, and Entourage. Every episode for this opening season has been amazing, and there are only 3 left! Even though I’ve been dealing with Heroes and 24 being on at the same time (watching 24 live and DVRing Heroes to watch immediately after), both shows have their season finale on the same day at the same time. UGGG!

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An HD Life

Mar 26, 2007
Tim
General, TV, Tech

As I mentioned in my last post, I went and saw 300 2 weeks ago. As expected, it totally rocked. It was everything I was expecting and more. If you’re into that type of movie, you need to go see it.

Also 2 weeks ago I made a rather big decision that I somewhat referred to in a previous post. I decided to return my Vizio Plasma TV to Costco. Over the course of its life, the fan noise coming from the back of the television had grown to annoy me quite a bit. Vizio would have sent out a tech to fix it, if I was still within their 1 year warranty (which at this point I was not). I decided it wasn’t worth the agony and I should just return it. Costco’s policy is that if you are not 100% happy with your purchase, they’ll take back the product at any time. No questions asked. They are currently in the process of adjusting that policy so it cannot be abused, but I was able to return mine for a full refund of the price I paid. After I had gotten around the hurdle of finding a method of transportation for the TV (Thanks Matt’s parents) I took it to Costco and had a check made out to me in just 15 minutes. I was amazed how easy it was. Props to Costco.

So next came the task of figuring out a replacement. I could have bought the same thing for significantly less, but Costco did not carry it anymore. Actually Costco carried very few options that I was interested in. So after doing much research earlier in the week, I made my way to BestBuy to purchase a much nicer than my Vizio, Pioneer 5070HD. In the end, I didn’t pay any more than I did for the Vizio that I had bought 18 months prior, and I ended up with a top o the line Plasma with a ton of new features. Unfortunately I don’t have the great guarantee that Costco offers, but since I could now make the purchase on my credit card, Visa will extend the manufactures warranty up to 2 years which suits me fine. The last nice thing that fell into place was that a week after I purchased my TV from BestBuy, the price dropped by a few hundred dollars and I was able to take my receipt in and get a price match. Sweet!

For those of you who have never been to our sweet guy pad and seen my setup, I’ve been using a modded Xbox for over 2 years to serve as a media center in my living room. It has been an awesome little device and I love it. The one downside that is becoming more and more apparent is that it is limited by the weak 733MHz processor that resides within the Xbox itself. With such little power, HD content does not play nice. So, I’ve been seeking an alternative. Up until recently I only had a few options. I could install/build a HomeTheaterPC that would sit in my living room. That was too expensive and time consuming. I could extend my current personal PC setup to the living room using very long cables, which I’m still looking into, but the architecture for such a project leaves me a little baffled still. Or the simplest solution (which I’m currently using) is to sync my Xbox360 with my Media Center PC. This is working OK for now, but I’m limited on the types of content I can play (wmv, dvrms or mpeg). I can’t play x264, xvid, avi or mkv like the XBMC can. So I’ve always wanted more. After reading some recent news, I’m hoping my thirst for complete HD content may soon be quenched. Rumors are floating around that the AppleTV is easily hackable and can play HD content with no problem. This would totally rock. A lot of people are wondering if Apple did this intentionally, basically create a geek box that easily hackable (you can’t do it outright or else risk pissing off the RIAA and MPAA). I don’t know if this is the case or not, but if the community is able to do what some people are hoping, this could be very cool news. The other idea is that the PS3 might be able to run some flavor of Linux that could allow for a decent media center frontend. We’ll see where all this goes. But I am very excited that something new will be taking the place of streaming my HD content to the living room in the next few months.

Tonight, Nick, Newbs and I are driving up to Detroit to see one of my favorite band Explosions in the Sky. I think I’ve mentioned them a few times on here, but if you still haven’t given them a listen, you NEED to.

Oh yea,  Go BUCKS!  Final Four baby!!

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American Idol Cruelty

Jan 22, 2007
Tim
General, Movies, TV

So last week I watched what is probably my first extended dose of American Idol when I was over at Kate’s.  Shocking, yes I know.  One thing I was quite surprised at was how cruel the show was. Not really how harsh the criticisms of the contestants was. That I had expected. What I was really surprised at was that how many of the contestants had real life mental, physical or emotional issues and were being abused on television. Now I’m not one to make a comment on an issue like this, but I was truly shocked that the mocking and insulting of people who might be truly disabled or handicapped, is what 37 million people enjoy watching. I guess I’m just most surprised that this is accepted as entertainment by so many people who otherwise would teach acceptance and not to insult someone because they are “different” in day to day life situations.

Apparently though, this isn’t the norm and quite a few people were upset at the cruelty towards “challenged” contestants. I just happened to watch at a bad time. I’m fine with people who can’t sing or dance being made fun of, but if they are obviously hindered due to a learning disability or deformity, I don’t see how America accepts it. Then again, it is Fox.

On a happier note, Matt is 100% correct.  Pan’s Labyrinth is complete awesomeness and you should go see it.  Best way I’ve heard to describe it is a Fairy Tale for adults.

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