The Doctor says: Don't Blink

I haven’t enjoyed a single episode of TV quite so much in a while. I’m a couple weeks behind on Dr. Who, but finally watched the episode called “Blink” tonight. A very, very good episode. [Spoilers ahead, so if you’re going to watch it and want to be surprised, don’t read on.]

First of all, the idea of weeping stone angels as quantum-locked beings who are only alive when no one is looking at them? Awesome. Now, the whole time-travel plot device of having someone send messages to themself in the past is far from new - Phillip K. Dick wrote a short story with that premise, which got adapted into a so-so movie called Paycheck a few years back. But it was really well done here. And the whole final scene where the human has one-up on the Doctor, because she knows what’s gonna happen, and he doesn’t yet? Brilliant. And so well done.

Dr. Who can be really cheesy at times, but this season has done well. And Blink is definitely the best episode to date.

Taking the Plunge to Dish

It’s been a couple of months since I did the math and realized that Mediacom was no longer a good deal for our household. Let’s review. Mediacom provides us digital cable and high-speed internet. They have repeatedly raised prices over the last two years (including a $10/month upper over the past 3 months). They had a real pain-in-the-backside dispute with Sinclair that caused us to lose one of our local channels for a month. We chose to go to Mediacom two years ago now when we dropped our home landline and went to cell phones-only; at that point, Qwest didn’t have the option of getting DSL without having a land line, which priced their service out of our range.

Fast forward to today. Qwest now has the option of getting DSL even if you don’t have regular phone service. Dish Network has an option that will give me pretty much all the same channels I have now. I’ll get a few added benefits from Dish like a dual-DVR system. (The one downer about Dish? I don’t get Versus in the top-200 channel pack, which means I won’t get to see much NHL next year. But heck, for what I’m saving per month, I could order NHL Center Ice next season and still save money.) When all is said and done, we’ll save $35/month for the first year, then when the Dish discount expires, we’ll be saving $25/month. That is, as Bullwinkle J. Moose says, antihistimine money. (“Antihistimine money?” “Not to be sneezed at.”)

So for Qwest DSL, you can either buy the DSL modem for $50, or you can lease it for $5/month ad infinitum, or you can get one from Best Buy. Normally I’d assume Best Buy would be the worst deal of them all. But Best Buy has this deal where if you sign up for Qwest DSL while you’re at the store, you get the DSL modem for free. That’s right, free. No mail-in rebate; they just walk you through the online signup, then they take the modem, throw it in a bag, and hand it to you. I was amazed. The signup went smoothly, appears to have made it to Qwest OK (I got a confirmation email last night), and it’s definitely the same DSL package I would’ve signed up for if I signed up directly from Qwest. So good on you, Best Buy. Now if I get my refurbished iPod yet this week and it’s satisfactory, Best Buy will be on my “very good” list for the week.

Tonight I’ll stop by the satellite TV place on the way home and put in my order for Dish. When I checked with them a few weeks back, the lead time on installs was only a couple of days. I’m guessing I’ll get an install Friday afternoon or Saturday. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it all goes smoothly.

ain't it just like Mediacom...

It’s not unusual, in my experience, to receive calendars as gifts around Christmas-time from companies you do business with. We always get a desk calendar from our insurance agent which fits nicely on the desk downstairs. We receive a pretty one with Bible verses and inspirational sayings from a missions agency that we support. We got one from the Christian radio station this year that had pictures taken by listeners. Kinda cool. I’m sure we got a couple of others as well, I know we gave a Norman Rockwell one away to my Dad.

This year we also got one from our cable provider, Mediacom. It was rather audaciously titled “12 months of You”, but it appeared to be more like 12 months of them. There were a few coupons inside for free pay-per-view movies (which we never watch), and then the artwork for each month featured one of their cable channels. Color me less than excited.

But that wasn’t the best part. You see, most gift calendars come in late November or early December. Mediacom’s came on January 27th. January 27th! Apparently their 12 months of me is really only about 11 months… Unbelievable.

The Mediacom calendar is sitting in the recycle bin on my curb this morning, waiting to be picked up by the garbage man. Good riddance.

being productive

Last night Becky was gone to a baby shower at the church, and so after I put Laura to bed around 7 I had a couple of hours to myself. As tempting as it was to sit down and watch Month Python & the Holy Grail (which Becky hates and I haven’t watched in a long time), I decided to get some useful stuff done.

Who’d believe how much you can get done in 90 minutes? I got the dishes done, got most of our income tax stuff figured out (thanks to TurboTax… now we’re just waiting for my W2 and we can file), and got stuff coordinated for worship team this weekend. And I still had time to turn on a movie that was on the Tivo that I thought I might like. It ended up being kinda boring, so I ignored it.

Tonight I have free again. I think I’ll do some playing with Photoshop and maybe we’ll watch some movie we can agree upon. Either that or we’ll start watching the American Idol auditions… that should be good for a laugh or two.

Oh, I should also add a comment about a new TV show we watched last night - it’s called Hustle and it airs on AMC. It’s produced by the BBC, and the best way to describe it is as Ocean’s 11 in a one-hour show. I’m looking forward to seeing a few more episodes… the first one was pretty good.

OLN Hockey Blackout

Yesterday night I sat down in front of the TV, looking forward to watching a hockey game. The Dallas Stars were playing the Phoenix Coyotes, and according to the TV schedule, it was slated to be broadcast on OLN (cable channel 69 in our area) at 7:30 PM central time. I was bewildered to find that rather than the NHL, OLN was showing some cheesy show about the “25 scariest animals” or the “10 worst jobs” or something like that. Where was my hockey?

A quick check of the OLN website confirmed that they were showing the NHL. They even have a cool graphic that says “NHL on OLN: We believe in hockey.” I double-checked the TV listings at Excite. Yep, it was supposed to be on. I checked nhl.com. Yep, they agreed that the game was supposed to be on OLN, and even gave an in-progress score. So what the heck was going on?

Next I did a Google search, and I found this article from Newsday. It ends up that OLN is in a wrestling match with several major cable companies, apparently including my local provider, Mediacom. They want OLN to be a first-tier channel, i.e. have it included in the “standard” cable package that the company offers, rather than have it as part of a second-tier, pay-extra package. And so they are using blackouts of NHL games to try to blackmail the cable companies into switching around their cable packages.

The end result of all this: a whole bunch of really mad fans. Check out the OLN forum, for one. The funny part (OK, it’s not so funny, maybe ironic?) is that the people that paid extra to get that second-tier so they could watch hockey are the exact ones that are getting screwed. No hockey for you! If I were Gary Bettman, I’d be getting pretty upset with OLN - why, after already almost killing your league with a cancelled season, would you want to further alienate your fan base by blacking out TV coverage and not explaining why?

I will be contacting all three parties to express my frustration. I doubt it’ll accomplish anything, though. I should check… does some other network have TV rights for the Stanley Cup playoffs? If not, I may miss another whole season. Arrrrgh.