Rewired: Part Three - The Minuses of Hulu Plus

Item: Hulu Plus
Price: $7.99 per month
Days to pay for itself (compared to cost of cable): 1.6 per month

It's been well over a month since we cut cable, and we're surprisingly happy with our new set-up... With one exception: Hulu Plus.  First off, here's what it is: Hulu Plus is a streaming service available through the PS3, Roku, mobile Apple devices, and a few select TVs/Blu-ray players. Hulu Plus has over 400 shows and 800 movies available for streaming to your TV/game console/mobile device.
They have some good shows (Nova, X-Files, Firefly, Law & Order SVU, Spaced, Little Britain, Daily Show, etc.). They have a plethora of crap shows (Airwolf, Time Tunnel, Major Dad, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, etc.). They have a bunch of shows I never watch, but that people seem to like (Family Guy, Glee, Jersey Shore,30 Rock, etc.).
It sounds like a pretty good deal for 8 bucks a month until you realize that the standard version of Hulu has four times the number of shows FOR FREE. I can watch Simpsons, Venture Brothers, Fringe, Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy, etc for free on Hulu, but NOT on Hulu Plus. I realize that it's a licensing issue, but I really don't want to shell out $8 per month just to watch Nova with commercials (sometimes thrown in mid-sentence).
The selection isn't even the worst bit. I don't know if Hulu Plus won an online auction for a load of Soviet-era Bulgarian technology, but that seems to be what their running their service on. Damn near every show you watch will skip ahead, freeze, or (if you're lucky) completely lock-up so that you have to manually re-boot the PS3. It's ridiculous. I have never had that problem with Netflix's streaming service, but It happens constantly with Hulu Plus.
The one thing I can say that I really like about Hulu Plus is that they've started to make available a load of Criterion Collection films, and seem to be adding in more all of the time. That's good. When I was trying to watch Nobuhiko Obayashi's 'House' The film kept locking-up and it took me over 2 hours to watch an 88 minute film. That's not good.
Don't believe the hype - There's no "race" between Netflix and Hulu Plus, that'd be like a race between a Ferrari and a filing cabinet. Hulu Plus could be a great service if they work out the bugs in their system and focus on securing more licenses for current shows. That looks like it is a long way off, so until they work out their myriad flaws, I can't (in good conscience) recommend Hulu Plus to anyone. Then again, it's still better than Comcast.

Rewired: Part Two - Broadcast n00bs

Item:  RCA ANT1450B Multi-Directional Digital Flat Amplified Home Theater Antenna (Black)
Price: $22.09
Days to pay for itself (compared to cost of cable): 4.5

It's funny how you you forget that there's free television floating in the air all around you. We're lucky enough to have one of the few functioning outdoor antennas jutting majestically from the side of our apartment - We've had the second TV hooked up to that for years. Once we cut the cable I bought a cheap digital antenna for the main TV. It took no time to hook up, and after a 5 minute auto-program we had 55 free channels. Some of them are even in English (It must be impossible to sell cable to the Spanish speaking populous of Chicago, hence my new axiom: He's so good, he could sell cable subscriptions to Mexicans). Anyway, after some acclamation to not being able to pause, rewind, or skip through the commercials and having to move the antenna around occasionally when a signal drops, it isn't all that bad. Plus, it's kinda cool to rediscover ephemera you never thought you'd ever need again, such as TV listings.
With our current set-up, I'll get all of the Bears games and most Cubs/Blackhawks games. I'm gonna miss NFL Red Zone, but I can't justify paying $1800 annually for 16 afternoons of football coverage. We get 7 PBS stations, which is pretty sweet, and I discovered that they telecast the Roe & Roper show everyday on NBC 5.2 - SCORE! All in all, I'm not noticing too much of a difference. It seems that PBS always has something on worth watching, and there are several news programs scattered throughout the day (this morning I had my coffee to Al-Jazeera English, which probably landed me on a watch-list somewhere). I'm good-to-go with my cheap-ass antenna, just don't bother me between 8PM and 9PM (CST) on Fridays - I'm watching Fringe, motherfuckers.

Rewired: Part One - Enter the TVoid

Several weeks ago The Girl and I decided to ditch cable, and as of 11AM this morning we're cable free. This isn't anything new to me.  Over the last 20 years, I've only had cable for about half of that time.  I came to the realization that in the times that I didn't have cable, I got a hell of a lot more accomplished than the times that I did have cable. Obviously.  Okay, it wasn't really a realization, more of a recognition.
I looked at the Comcast bill and saw that we were shelling out nearly $150 a month for HD cable with a DVR and HBO/Showtime (including the city tax). Then I made a list of all of the shows that I'm watching on a weekly basis.  Here is that list in it's entirety: Fringe.  I then expanded my list to all of the shows I watched regularly over the last year: Fringe, Venture Brothers, Dexter, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Walking Dead, and  Sons of Anarchy.  Then I threw in Idiot Abroad, which we just started to watch (but not V, which I watch but can't figure out why I'm bothering to watch it). I totaled up all of all of those episodes per year and divided it by the cable bill per year and came out to... It's costing me $20 per fucking episode!  Are you fucking kidding me?!?!  I'm being robbed!
Now I'm taking the cable money and spending (a small part) on several different technologies/services and will be doing a series of posts on each item/service.  Look for new posts in the days and weeks to come as I try out the alternatives (HD Broadcast, Hulu Plus, Netflix, etc.) and have some time to process my experiences.
Keep tuned.

Introducing the Revolutionary iHold

The big buzz in the tech world today is that holding your new shiny new iPhone4 renders it unusable. Never fear, you iFlock of sheeple, I'm introducing the iHold so you can have your useless shiny toy and use it too. I'm cranking out these stylish bad boys for $750.00 a pop and I guarantee that with this miracle product your iPhone4 will be somewhat usable.*

Just send cash or checks/money orders made out to cash to: 2600 Worthless iCrap Blvd. N.W. Chicago, IL 60647.
*Guarantee void if using AT&T as your service provider.

Technical Difficulties

L&E has come to a grinding halt due to an unforeseen technical glitch.
My PC Monitor is seriously on the fritz, and I'm too broke to have it fixed. Here's the deal: It keeps blacking out - Sometimes it takes over an hour, sometimes it's immediate. Nonetheless, after it blacks-out it rarely will come back unless I restart the computer or turn off the monitor for an hour or more. Even then, I can't expect more than a few minutes of work time before it blanks-out again.
If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

Printer Solstice

I just got a new printer. I'm pretty excited.

That's just how lame I am.

The Liar's Answers To All Tech Questions

I just had to make up a list of simple answers to any and all comp-tech questions for first-time computer owner, Mr. Drinky Joe.
Here it is:

A) Yeah, It'll do that.

B) Make sure that it's plugged in/turned on.

C) If it looks like it's gonna catch fire, carefully unplug it and place it on the front lawn.

D) If the computer gains self-awareness, under no circumstance should you allow it to compete with you for the love of a woman, instigate a thermonuclear war with the U.S.S.R., or establish a sentient machine army to overthrow the human race.

E) For any other scenario, just ask anyone else under the age of 65 who's sober and/or "Jeeves".

That just about covers it.

Calling All Geeks...

I'm about ready to switch my primary PC (desktop) over to a Linux operating system (Ubuntu or Debian).
Is there anything I need to know before pulling the trigger?
How will my saved Windows artifacts translate on the new OS?
I have a bunch of MS Word docs, a shitload of WMA music files (59,908 to be exact), and a collection of other crap I've accumulated via the MS OS.
Plus, how will my other software (specifically, Adobe CS3/Premiere programs) work with this new format?

If I'm about ready to shoot myself in the foot, please let me know ASAP.
Thanks.

Note: In case of a worst-case scenario, I do have a back-up EHD and a laptop that I'm keeping on the Windows OS.

So You Bought A Blu-Ray?

Out of curiosity, I decided to compile a list of all of the (wildly successful) proprietary Sony formats. I can hardly make it through this list without peeing myself with laughter.

· BetaMax (1975)
· Mini-Disc (1991)
· Memory Stick (1998)
· HiFD (1998)
· Digital8 (1999)
· ATRAC (1999)
· Super Audio CD (1999)
· Universal Media Disc (2004)
· Hi-MD (2004)
· Blu-ray Disc (2006)

Wow, it's like a museum of failure.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-George Santayana-

Woot Alert

Today's Woot is an Archos 40GB Media Player for $200.
I have the 80GB version of this, and can't say enough good things about it. If you're in the market for a MP3/Media player, I'd highly recommend this. Beats the tits off of some fruity-ass iPhone any freakin' day of the week.
This player is one of the most versatile gadgets I've ever had the pleasure of laying my filthy mitts on. It's totally DRM-free and there are loads of great downloadable hacks for it available online.
If you pick up the docking station for it you can record from any standard device with an AV output into MPEG4 format. I've transferred a bunch of crap from old VHS tapes and emptied out my Tivo cue using this thing. Then if you want to keep the files after you're done with 'em you can just drag & drop them onto your hard-drive.

Right now on my Archos I have about 250 full WMA format albums, 10 full-length movies, about 50 various TV episodes, and a butt-load of high-res JPG photos. I fucking love this thing.

Drawbacks:
- Proprietary plug (Why can't everyone just use USB? C'mon, please?)
- Kinda Bulky (You get a great picture and tons of memory, but you're not gonna slip it into your pocket)
- Docking Station sold separately

The Roxio Incident

The ePissers will remember my CDROM issue from a couple weeks ago, well here’s the full story (so far):

Somehow, a really annoying program has grafted itself to my CD-ROM drive so that whenever I go to copy anything to the disk it comes up as "waiting to be copied" rather than just fucking copying it directly.
The offending program is the "CD Writing Wizard"(thus confirming my belief that all wizards are gay), and appears to be by the (equally queerly named) company, “Roxio”.

Here’s the deal: The only thing I ever use the copy function on my CDROM drive for is one thing and one thing only - Ripping WMA files to a disc so that I can listen to ‘em in my Jeep. A single WMA disc can hold damn near 10 hours of music files on it, so I use ‘em to copy between 15 and 20 full albums onto one disc – no pick and choose bullshit.
I used to be able to just drag and drop any file (text, MP3, picture, etc) I wanted into the CD window & it would burn it and show me how much space I had left on the disc. Dandy, huh?
Well now I have to drag all of the files into the CD window and they come up as “waiting to be written”, then I have to go back and write down each file size I want to transfer to CD, break out the fucking calculator to figure out how much space I have left on a disc, and then click “write to CD” and wait for it to go through the whole writing process all over again. The entire start-to-finish process used to run under 10 minutes, now it takes over a half-hour, and is easily 10 times more frustrating.
I have an Aiwa dual-disc stereo component CD burner that I use to burn my mix CDs, so this isn’t a huge problem for me, but it’s driving me mad, nonetheless. I’m about ready to re-format my entire hard drive in order to get rid of this one little program that I maybe use once every couple of months.

Well, I've been all over the internets trying to figure how to disable this function and get things back to normal, but the only solutions that I have come up with involve firearms and/or blunt instruments. I’ve tried every trick I’ve found, and have removed all programs and updates I’ve installed since this problem has surfaced – Nothing. I spent a good five hours today ripping out programs and applications from my hard drive in hopes of killing this – Still nothing.
Herpes and stray Italians are easier to get rid of than this fucker.

If anyone knows me, they know that shit like this pisses me off more than anything, and that I’ll salt the fucking earth to kill this one pesky weed. I didn’t want it. I didn’t download it. I’ve tried like hell to disable it, and it serves no purpose – It’s fucking less than useless.
I need complete control over every single program on my PC – If I can’t get that, I just won’t use it (and that’s why I could never own a Mac).
Now I’m about ready to nuke my OS and reinstall Linux just so that I can use my CD drive without jumping through some ridiculously redundant hoop. I’m prepared to lose everything just to get rid of this one thing - Burn down the house to kill the mouse.
I’m crazy like that.