Cutting The Cord

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine, Becky, and her husband Charlie finally cut the cable tv cord.  I followed her FB posts from their research all the way to their trip to the UPS store to ship all their Uverse bear back to the  mother ship.

Along the way, I started doing my own research.  We have 5 cable boxes.  We have a bunch of house phones we never answer.  The voice mail box is full of robocall messages.  Phone, cable, and Internet are costing us right at $300!  From Becky's research, ditch all of that, buy some streaming devices on the cheap, and your Internet and entertainment costs drop to around $80.  DANG!

Becky and Charlie had specific needs, so they ended up with the Roku streaming box, and two service provides. The Hallmark Channel was at the top of her list of things she could not do without, along with every mutation of ESPN, including the SEC network!  They tried the Amazon Fire stick for a bit, but there was too much buffering to suit their tastes.

We have several older generations of the Apple TV box, so I set my course to move to streaming services available on them.  After several hours of scratching my head, I discovered that you cannot add additional services to the older Apple TV boxes.  You have to upgrade to the 4th power of Apple!  I picked up the older boxes off of Ebay.  The 4th generation box is $149!  Damn! That's per unit!  Since the spousal unit has I-phones and I-pads, it made sense to bite the bullet and order it.  The box arrived on Friday morning.  Hot digity!  Plug and play, right?????

After a thorough review of the streaming services, I picked HULU live.  Hulu has everything, including all the ESPN's, but doesn't have the Hallmark Channel.  The Philo service has Hallmark, but none of the ESPN's and mutations.  The ESPN's can be gotten on the UTUBE tv service.  The only thing not on HULU, for us, was PBS and the Weather Channel.  The Weather Channel is only available through established cable networks.  PBS is accessible through the Apple TV box.

I got the Apple TV box, to the 4th power, all hooked up.  I turn it on.  I now need an Apple ID.  What the heck???  Off to my Chromebook I go!  Apple ID in hand, now lets get to streaming!  I went to add additional services to the Apple TV box, but now, I need an I-tunes account!  What the hell????  Are you seeing the pattern?  Apple sells you a box, you have to get the new box for added features.  To get to an I-tunes account, you have to have an Apple device! (but not the Apple TV box!) .  Yep another Apple brick wall to climb over or go around!

Fortunately, the spousal unit has an I-tunes account.  Unfortunately, you cannot access I-tunes from a Chromebook.  The spousal unit's ride home that day was the longest ever!  Once she was home, and once she figured out her password, we were off and running!  Now we just have to figure out all this new technology we have brought into our household!

With the Apple TV box costing $149, I decided to add additional devices, but cheaper.  The Roku express was advertised online for $29.  I decided to buy them online, and pick them up same day once I got my email from Walleyworld saying come and get them.  All afternoon I wait.  At 6:30, bingo!  Email from Walleywold:  order has been cancelled, none of the items in stock at my store.  Walley, you are killing me....... Needless to say, I headed over to Amazon.  Same item, same price.  To be delivered this Wednesday!  The Roku express will be added to the bedroom tv.  If we like it, we will buy another to take with us on our travels.  Margarita Machine and Roku stick road ready!

I posted some of this to my FB account during the day.  My young buck friend Kevin, yells "you old people!  I haven't used cable in over 10 years!"  Then he has the audacity to further add that he just ordered two new tv's with Roku built in, AND he only will have ONE remote control to deal with.  I have young people!

Bluff City Bloggers

Social Media is an entertainment all into itself.  I'm not much into Twitter, but I do spend a bit of time on Facebook and Instagram.  My blog posts are shared on Facebook, and that is how most of you get to this page.

Instagram was acquired by Facebook a good time back.  You may have seen where you can set your Instagram posts to go to Facebook automatically.  I utilize this feature quite a bit.  For me, Instagram is great for posting pictures.  You can communicate thru it, but I mostly use FB Messenger. 

My Instagram following has picked up a bit, but I have no clue how these folks find me, since I only post a few pictures here and there.  One of the interesting things about Instagram, is the number of people posting to their "story".

 Several gals from Memphis that are bloggers also utilize Instagram for reaching out to their followers.''  These girls have huge Instagram followings.  They post pictures, with commentary, links to their blog posts, and also daily updates to their "stories".  Some of these girl's followings are so big, that retailers send them free merchandise for the girls to use and hopefully make a blog post about the items, or include the items in their story line.  One girl has weekly give aways from vendors in the Memphis area.

The Instagram stories are hilarious!  Some are like mini soap operas, "a day in the life" of each blogger.  One girl doesn't wear makeup in her posts, while others have it caked on, because they go nowhere without it.

One blogger in particular, I call "the Queen of Hearts", from Alice in Wonderland.  She lives like a Queen, in her castle, with marble floors, a pool and basketball court out back, a closet full of shoes, and a bathroom bigger than most bedrooms.  She has her court of followers that she invites over for "Bachelorette" viewings.  They even have his and her t-shirts that they wear.  Some days its just posts about her two dogs and how they have the run of the house.  There are lots of posts including her Momma and Daddy, and the trips they take together in the family plane.  Thankfully, her husband comes from money.

These Bluff City Bloggers have significant influence in the Memphis area.  Some of their posts include following them to open houses for new restaurants and boutique hotels that are beginning to open in downtown Memphis.  For the retailers, this becomes relatively cheap advertising, as all of the bloggers that attend, share their experiences in their blog posts and their Instagram updates.

I can't wait to read and view today's posts!

The Poster!

A new season of my Spousal Unit's favorite baseball team is upon us once again.  We Rebels came up one game short of making it to Super Regionals last year, unlike my Dawgs that made it all the way to Omaha.

We were at a  basketball game a few weeks back, and the baseball team was there, signing autographs to a team poster.  After what seems forever in line, we finally got two posters with all the signatures of the players and the head coach.

Then a week before opening weekend a new poster was released that would be available on the opening season first game on Friday night.  Game time was set at 4:30.  Only problem, the spousal unit would not get to Oxford in time to get her "free poster".

She was just in love with this poster!  What to do, what to do......

I, being the supportive husband that I am, volunteered to go on Thursday, do some projects at the condo, and be there in time for the free poster!  Thursday was Valentine's day.  But, hey, I man has to do, what he has gotta do to keep his bride happy!

Otis and I made the trip.  I dropped him off, and decided to go by the Pavilion, to get the Rebel Reward points.  I stockpile the prizes and give them to my daughter-in-law who is a UMMC nursing graduate.  And since it was Valentine's Day, no single dude is stupid enough to go out to a restaurant in this town without a date on this day!  Steak & Shake it was.  Not ideal, since its all precooked and assembled while you wait.  

Next day, I make it to the stadium, called Swayze, a good bit before it started.  I walk through the main gate, and no POSTERS!  What?  Wait a minute!  That spousal unit of mine will be devastated!  Turns out they will be ready for Saturday's game.  Whew!  At least she will be here to get hers at the field.

Saturday, we arrive at the game a little late, because somebody decides to sleep in, game time 12:00.  I learned long ago to never wake her lioness if I want to keep all of my body parts intact!   We walk up to the table, and some dude got the last two posters on the table, with no others in sight, and a line of people behind us.  One of the diamond girls rushes off to retrieve more, if they had any.  That wait seemed like forever!  Finally, posters in hand!  Made it to our seats just in time for the first pitch.

We also had tickets for the men's basketball game, at 2:30.  We left the baseball game after the fourth inning, with her team way behind.  Naturally, there was only one shuttle line, for the parking lots only, none for the basketball game.  You would think after all these years, they would figure this out!  The line only had two shuttles working it, as the others were working the basketball game.  We ended up in the parking lot nearest the Pavilion and walked the rest of the way.  At the side entrance that we took, they would not allow the spousal unit to bring her baseball posters into the Pavilion, they were too BIG!  Oh shit!

After a few minutes of discussion, they agreed to hold them for her until the end of the game.  She guessed that would have to do.....  We stopped and got drinks and a large corndog, then found a spot to sit and eat.  The longer she ate that corndog, the more she stewed.  Then, she noticed that at the front entrance of the Pavilion, they were giving away basketball POSTERS, the same size as her baseball posters!  Honey, they done lit a fire under that woman!  I looked up, she was gone!

The basketball game was in progress, and no spousal unit!  I'm thinking restroom, souvenir shop, more food???  She finally walked up, with you guessed it, all four of her posters!  She had visited every level of security supervisor in the building, even grabbed a highway patrolman and a security guard friend as backup!  She was not letting those posters get away or leave her sight!  I had even FB messaged our friend that is in charge of the Pavilion to be on the lookout for one hot short blonde woman!

The posters made it to the condo, and one of them made it to a frame and is on the wall!

And all of this for a free poster!