Television Ailments

OK, I married a TV addict. This is no surprise. I knew of his condition for years prior to marriage. As a matter of fact, I'm more surprised that he didn't install cable into the house for a couple of years after we moved in. (Proof that at some point, he was money conscious.) Cable TV (specifically Comcast) has been the source of many, many unhappy days in our house over the last few months -- longer than that, but not worth going into...

A few months ago, together, we decided enough was enough. We began looking into satellite TV. We have satellite radio in his truck, and while we won't continue it, it works. The radio programming just doesn't meet our preferences. The quality is quite amazing. On our road trips, we rarely loose signal, and if we do, it's just for a blink under a bridge or through a tunnel. This TV satellite thing, wow, hold on to your pocket books because it is incredibly surprising. First of all, I think it would be easier to re-enroll in college than to learn about the options between the providers.


The details you learn when comparing providers is overwhelming. Of course, they all tell you about how much you will save over cable. Which, is really true, we're saving a ton over cable, but only for the introductory period. Of course, to sign up with a provider, we had to commit to be with them for 24 months. I know people who don't stay married for 24 months, but we just agreed to stay with a satellite provider for that long!

Direct offered more channels -- and more "on-demand" things. HE liked the on-demand, he liked the more channels, I was hoping for a DVR. With Direct, we would need a receiver for each TV that would be used. That's 3 receivers in our house. There's a monthly fee for each receiver in addition to the bucks that go out the door in the beginning just to lease the receiver. I wanted a DVR. I felt as if we needed a DVR. In reality, I'm sure we don't even need all the channels, but if he can have lots of channels, shouldn't I be able to record something on TV??? We went with Dish...few channels, yes. Cheaper price, no upfront fees to lease the HD DVR (or so we thought), DVR included (at least in the beginning), and most importantly, we know two families who use Dish.

What I've learned...
--Even with Dish, you will need multiple receivers if you wish to have your HD TV receiving an HD signal.
--Even with Dish, you will have your bill double after 6 months.
--Even with Dish, I will be able to record shows, but must watch them on that TV or the TV connected to that box. (This made me very sad.)
-- Dish has on-demand, but with way fewer things to watch on-demand.
-- The Dish receiver is only good for 2 TV's. If you have 3, you'll need more than one box inside.

Moral of the story, momma's don't let your kids grow up to be TV addicts. It's incredibly expensive and rather confusing. (This has been a real waste of my limited brain function over the last few weeks.)

The House Next Door...

We've lived in our house for about 7 years now. We are the second house from the corner. The corner house became unoccupied this year. It was bought by a business in the neighborhood. The business owner owns many properties in the neighborhood.


Yesterday, they had several trees cut down. I understand his plan is to tear down the house, put up a fence, and then add some office space/storage space on the lot. This morning, I heard some banging coming from the area. (We have a wooden fence, so without going outside, I do not know what goes on over there.) Later in the morning, I looked out and could see a couple of workers hammering metal poles into the ground. We figured that they were putting up a temporary fence around the trees that were saved before demolition begins on the house and garage that are there.



The last few days the weather has been "Texas-typical". Hot, hot, hot...afternoon/evening rain with thunderstorms...hot, hot, hot. Today's thunderstorms were quite a show to watch! Now, I have mentioned these guys working next door. They would stand on a metal ladder, and swing a sledge hammer to beat the metal pole into the ground. (See photo above.) Due to the storm, we know those guys should not have been out there. But they were, and we were just hoping not to see them roast! We had just finished up lunch and we saw a bolt of lightening flash following a loud CRASH! The next thing I saw was a bit of black smoke puff from just behind our garage. Exciting, to say the least!

Let me add here that we are somewhat intelligent beings, AND not your typical rednecks...but the loud noise was too exciting to resist! We ran outside to see what had happened.

The tree next door must have been struck by lightening! The tree came down and made a lot of noise and a big mess! The tree shattered -- I've never seen a tree fall apart like that from a bolt of lightening. The tree of course threw off little pieces, you can see in the last picture how far back we had little pieces in our yard.



Hopefully, this is as close as lightening will strike to us---or our house!

SEX

I'm counting down the days for the release of the movie Sex in the City.

I did not watch the show when it was on HBO, we didn't have HBO then. I think I was probably still in college, maybe just out of college??? I can't remember. But, thanks to TBS and the WB Sex is on all the time now! I have seen just about every episode (less some of the raunchy stuff I wouldn't have liked, anyway). It's like the life I never led! I was never part of the a fashion-crazed, trendy, gal-pal group that is portrayed on the show. Sadly, I have never had the relationship with "the city" that there is on the show. But, hey, that's fine by me -- now I've been able to experience the life that could-have-been simply by being an observer of these fabulous ladies!

New York, NY -- it's a wonderful place. At least in my imagination it has always been terrific. It may as well have a pulse, because there is always so much life in the city. Growing up, I always wanted to visit NY. I was convinced that I would live there, even if just briefly. Well, I've never lived there. A couple of years ago, I was fortunate enough to get to visit. The visit was too short! There was so much to see, so many things I could have done, but I was only traveling through for work. I was working most the time I was there, so instead of sleeping, I went exploring! Recently, I heard the cast of the show/movie in an interview describing the city as a character for the story line. No doubt, NY plays a significant role in the success of the story.

The way the show is written, the main character is a writer, a columnist, for a local paper. We watch her experiences with friends, men, and perhaps most importantly shoes. At the end of each episode, we almost always would see her writing her column, summing up the episode and giving her view of the relationship angle we had just seen. It was almost as if we were introduced to blogging! I realize this was her job, she was writing for an actual publication. But looking back -- this show originally aired in the mid 90's -- perhaps this was many people's first exposure to what has become so popular for all of us bloggers???

Now the movie, and I simply cannot wait! It comes out this month. I truly wish I had a group of gal-pal to go watch this with, but hey, it's something I know I will enjoy, and who cares if I'm there solo, right??