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Going way, way back, I used to write up a review of the Oscars ceremony on a movie discussion group. My friend Royce from that group started a movie discussion group on Facebook and he remembers me writing those and asks if I will post about it. Since I watch the broadcast every year, it isn’t that hard to write something up, so I am putting the one I wrote this year here. I thought I had posted more of these on the blog, but the only one I found was from 2005 when Chris Rock hosted.

This year’s Oscar was not one full of surprises. FiveThirtyEight made 8 predictions and got 7 correct, barely missing on Best Documentary, which even today after seeing who won, I could not name. They do not try to predict Best Screenplay, but if they did I am sure they would weigh the Writers Guild awards as a heavy predictor, and this year, in fact, Oscar awarded the same two movies as the Writers Guild. So as far as the competition goes, yawn. And they brought back Jimmy Kimmel to guarantee the maximum possible predictability.

What was different this year, was getting lectured by almost every woman on stage. I know they are mad, but I did nothing wrong. I even believe in diversity and inclusion and all of that, so why do I need to be continually hit over the head with it? They also had a couple of short tribute pieces dedicated to basically the same thing. Three women took stage and introduced a segment like that, but what I did not realize was that they were three of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers. So maybe a little bit of hidden poignancy there.
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After thinking about it for a long time, then buying an indoor TV antenna that worked fairly well, I decided to cut the cord and abandon cable TV, replacing it with a system for receiving over the air (OTA) broadcasts and recording them on a digital video recorder (DVR). I picked Tablo over some of the other options because it seemed to offer a little more versatility than Tivo and was still pretty advanced and reliable. I ordered it from Best Buy and got it this week. At $200 it isn’t a horrible price up front, but there are other costs associated with it. One is they charge $5 per month for the programming guide which not only tells you what programs are coming up, but also helps you record them, record a series of shows, customize the start and stop times, etc. It seems essential to have the guide. You can also pay $50 per year for the guide or a one-time fee of $150 for lifetime guide support. I’m leaning towards doing the 1-year guide and if it works out and I keep using it, getting the lifetime. I don’t have to decide right away because it comes with the first month guide for free.

Also the Tablo does not connect to your TV’s HDMI port like a Tivo. Instead it connects to your home computer network via ethernet or wifi and you can watch shows on your phones or tablets via apps, cast shows to your TV via those devices, or gets apps for your TV. Unfortunately, Tablo seems mostly locked out of the TV app market so you have to buy a Roku, Apple TV, or Amazon Fire TV stick or box to have the apps and then play the shows on the TV.

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As cable television has gotten more expensive, I have seriously thought about cutting the cord and doing without. Maybe the thing that bothers me the most is that cable companies charge you for broadcast channels that you can receive for free with an antenna. But I have suffered through cable because I love having a DVR and being able to record my favorite shows and watch them when I want, skipping over the commercials. The other really difficult part is that there are really only two internet companies (Comcast and AT&T) and both of them usually require you to bundle television with your internet in order to give you any kind of decent deal. For a while I had $20 internet from Comcast and TV through Dish for $60, then I got TV and internet from Comcast for $75, but lost almost all of my cable channels. Right now I am at the end of my contract with Comcast Xfinity. They want $80 for internet only, or they are willing to give me discounts that will come to $80 for a very basic cable and internet plan. So they were kind of throwing in cable for free. In fact, they threw in HBO, Showtime, and Starz for the last year. While I enjoy some of the movies, the only HBO show I watch regularly is Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. I never got into Game of Thrones or watched Westworld. Now in my second year, I can’t get HBO free for another year, though they were willing to offer Cinemax.
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Recently a couple of things happened. First, I bought some Marvel movies from Redbox. They were pretty cheap at $4 each but they come in a small Redbox case, nothing like a regular Blu-ray. I thought maybe if I wanted I could put together a case for the movies, but I knew I had to watch the cost because I could get these same movies brand new from Disney Movie Club for about $9 and they would include the case, a digital copy and Disney Movie Rewards points worth about $1.50.

Continue reading “Building a Blu-ray”

It was really cold last weekend and then Wednesday and Thursday were snow days, so I was glad temperatures were up in the 60’s this weekend and I could take Bella on another hike. We had been to Arabia Mountain a few times, so this time I found a good walk to take at Panola Mountain. The main attraction is the granite outcropping, but you can only go there on a guided tour. However, PATH has a paved trail that goes through the park and eventually ties into one of their main lines. I couldn’t figure out a good 3-mile loop so instead we just left from the state park’s parking area and walked towards Alexander Lake, a little over a mile away. There is a short boardwalk off of the trail that goes to a viewing area of the exposed granite of Panola, so we walked down that. There was still some ice on the ground, but a lot of pretty moss and lichen on the rock and a pretty blue sky. We continued on the path towards the lake, passing right through an old barn (the paved trail goes right through) and then towards the lake, but the trail was cut off for construction or something. We could have approached from another branch, but it was getting kind of late, so we headed back. My phone says we walked 3.6 miles. I’ll have to see when they plan on completing the work near the lake so we can see that whole thing.