cable is cancelled! aaand i still get TV through comcast.

i finally told Comcast to cancel the cable TV last week. this ended a series of frustrating phonecalls with them trying to gather enough information to decide if i wanted to. e.g. such hard hitters as "how much will my internet cost if i cancel the cable portion of my service?"

(after being passed around to several departments, i ended up speaking with a woman in California who had no access to my account and was demanding to know why i wanted to speak with her).

my other question was about how the TV portion worked. i'd read that, when getting internet, the cable providers still push some basic cable. seems it used to be required, now they're allowed to encrypt it. trying to get an answer from comcast on if/how that worked was more than useless.

instead, i waited for it to be cancelled and then plugged the 75-ohm cable into the TV and told it to scan for channels. half an hour later, it had found 98! Looks to be the same channels offered over the air digitally, and comcast had not encrypted it (it's called QAM).

lovely! except i'll confess i miss the DVR conveniences of pausing live video and scheduling recordings. for the moment, we'll see how we like the combination of QAM, Hulu, Roku, Amazon Prime and Plex. we'll probably add Netflix before too long.

should we miss DVR too much, i may invest in the combo of the HDHomeRun tuner and eyeTV osx software. in addition to DVR, it would have the added benefit of bringing the QAM signal through the receiver and the better speakers, instead of relying on the tuner built into the TV.

all of this is much more complicated than having cable, but good god is it cheaper. even when factoring in the cost of the mac mini to run plex and the monthly fees on the content, it won't take long to break even.

and the answer to my original question is $15/mo. internet bundled price was $50, unbundled is $65 for 25 Mbps down. after bitching about the price, was given $5/mo off for the next 6 mo. So the answer is actually $10/mo, for now. Let us note that RCN is offering DSL (over fiber, it seems) for $50/mo for 30 Mbps. might have to check into that, though i'm wary of DSL, and i did buy that cable modem. hate to have to retire it so soon.

our automated society

for the gf's birthday, we caught a matinee at a local mega-cinema owned by Regal:

Regal Entertainment Group (NYSE: RGC) operates the largest and most geographically diverse theatre circuit in the United States, consisting of 6,607 screens in 521 theatres in 37 states and the District of Columbia as of October 25, 2012, with over 211 million attendees for the fiscal year ended December 29, 2011 ("fiscal 2011").

gloriously, we were the only two in attendance. i wondered if the movie would not play if they hadn't sold any tickets. and if not, was that all built-in to their computer/ticket system, or did they actually have a human looking in?

on the way out, we asked. we were told that the movies all play automatically, whether there was anyone in the theater or not. (seems like a waste). I also thought about the tissue paper i jammed in my ears, which made the soundtrack merely Quite Loud (next time, i'll be bringing along my sound pressure meter; i fear some of the peaks are in the 110-120 dB range).

so not only do the movies play automatically, i reckon the volume levels are beyond the control of anyone at the facility. same with the dimming lights and the curtain screen that quietly whooshed to a wider aspect after the previews/commercials and before the main feature. the projectors are all digital, so no one needs to operate them (i wonder how they're loaded/configured).

we didn't visit the concession stand, which i'm pretty sure is still staffed by humans. we bought our tickets from a human, but that's obviously un-necessary these days. a human took our tickets, and another wandered into the theater in the middle of the showing (to make sure we weren't disturbing other patrons?).

in all, i think we saw fewer humans -- including patrons -- than there are theaters. granted, it was an off time (Monday 2:45 showing), and this megaplex definitely gets crowded. i reckon Regal has found a way to maximize profit while minimizing payroll.

the wild west of content delivery

in a flurry of activity this week, i signed up for Amazon Prime and hulu+, and bought a Roku and a new cable modem.

the ultimate goal is to cut down the monthly and outrageous Comcast bill, through which we currently get internet and tv.

the small part of the savings will be the cable modem, which we've been renting for $7/mo. replaced that with a Motorola SURFboard SB6121, which has proven to be about 15-20% faster on the downloads.

the larger savings will be eliminating the cable tv and getting our content via streaming. today started an experiment to see if the $79/year amazon prime and $8/month hulu+ covers enough ground.

i think the difficult transition for me will be going from a "what's on" model to "let's narrow down this incredible catalog to something we both want to watch now" model.

i've had the roku hooked up for less than 24 hours, but here are my initial impressions:

1. hulu+ shouldn't bother me with commercials
2. it's disappointing that i'm not allowed to stream certain shows through the roku (e.g. Good Eats), but am allowed to do so in a browser. wtf?
3. Top Gear (via Amazon VOD) has the full show, including the news! BBC America chopped it all to hell
4. there's an incredible disparity of what's paid content and what's free. i can see Top Gear series 15 and older for free, but Prime Suspect all the way from 1991 is $5/episode
5. interaction is embarrassingly primitive. browsing isn't well organized, and i'd like a way to indicate interest in items, e.g. Arrested Development, then have it organize my viewing history so i can easily tell what i've seen and what's left to see. Bonus points for putting together a single place to go to see what i should logically view next.
6. so far, the streaming has been high quality with no hiccups or sync issues. nice job that.
7. the roku box is actually *too* small and light -- it's in danger of being dragged off the shelf by the weight of the cables
8. some content we currently enjoy, like HBO shows and AMC shows, will probably be inaccessible to us for a couple years unless we feel like paying extra for them (which i don't). Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, the Killing -- might be hard to basically give them up for a couple years.

despite the impressive libraries available, not to mention the impressive tech to make all this possible, i do wish the content providers would be just a little more consumer friendly and not make the licensing so absurd. being able to stream on one device but not another, despite paying for it, just seems anti-consumer to me. and needlessly confusing.

you start feeling old when...

... the Rams throwback uniforms worn today vs the Panthers don't look very old at all.

then you research how long ago this was, and these uniforms are from 2000, when they won the Superbowl. Kurt Warner was quarterback, Christina Aguilera was part of the halftime show.

i don't feel so old after all.

i'll go back to thinking about the remake of Valley Girl currently being filmed.

the Pacific

I regard Band of Brothers as some of the finest film-making i've seen. without trying to get up my hopes too much, i eagerly anticipated the airing of The Pacific. i think it helped that there were 9 intervening years.

what didn't help is that: the Pacific isn't very good.

or at least i should say, "when compared to Band of Brothers," as comparisons are inevitable.

the Pacific is certainly watchable (unless you're squeamish), it has some solid and moving performances, and it has moments of well-executed intensity.

it also has long periods of boredom, lacks focus, provides disjointed character and battle arcs, and wasn't as well cast as BoB.

i thought BoB had, among other strengths, two standouts: 1) the decision to follow a single company throughout the war, and 2) casting mostly unknown actors. The Pacific followed the second (with the exception of Jon Seda), but did not follow the first. I think that was to its detriment.

personally, i think i'm also suffering from knowing (much) more about the european theater than the pacific; i suspect the same is true for a number of viewers. i recognize that may have contributed to my lower enjoyment, so perhaps that's unfair. But i also think making the same choice as BoB -- following a single company -- could have provided that missing context and contributed to a better viewing experience.

that said, i'm sure the producers had discussions about formula, and wanted to do something different, such as starting some character arcs prior to enlisting. I think i would have agreed with this choice more had it paid off better. to me, it simply felt different.

it also didn't feel as epic as BoB. the series carried along with more or less the same energy, and all of a sudden, the Japanese had surrendered. it really felt as though the series was just getting started, so this was certainly "an odd turn of events".

it wasn't until the last two episodes where i finally started caring -- but not very much -- about what happened to the characters. at the end of BoB, when the reveal was made of "who was who" (matching characters to their real-life counterparts), that was moving. the Pacific used the same technique, without the same gravity.

food, inc.

i watched this film today. there's lots to love here: some amazing characters, lovingly shot (even the horrific images), expertly assembled and edited, plus i agree with a lot of the viewpoints of the filmmakers.

but...

there are some missteps. Given the message and those bringing it to us, i guess i shouldn't be surprised the filmmakers' viewpoints are so obvious. i think they overdid it, and an example occurred near the end, in the segment called "the veil." Did they really have to put up the word "evil" first, then re-arrange the letters? So late in the film, i think even the most jaded of viewers will either be disgusted or have convinced themselves the filmmakers are grossly exaggerating. In either case, I don't think it serves any constructive purpose.

my other main complaint was, though they alluded to the health dangers to the public, they never really went after it. The best they did was make the case that, because it's cheaper to eat fast food than buy fresh produce and prepare your own meals, that's unhealthy. But what about establishing a link between consumers' health and the processes used by factory farms, such as GMO, contamination, lack of variety, and nutrient content?

I don't understand the inclusion of the poor Latino family who spends more on diabetes medicine than they do on food, apparently stopping at Burger King twice a day to feed the family. Sad? yes. Sympathetic? certainly. Supporting a point? Not so sure here. This family claims they eat this way because of the low cost of the fast food, but wouldn't it be more compelling to profile a middle-class family that has a choice, and still chooses to eat fast food? I think so.

And again, all that was illustrated here is that cheap fast food is: cheap. Big deal. I say make an effort to tie the factory farming practices to an epidemic of ill health, and you'll make a much bigger, and much more necessary, point.

CNN's top 10 movie car chase scenes

from here.

1. Bullit
2. Ronin
3. The Italian Job (1969)
4. The French Connection
5. Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
6. Vanishing Point (1971)
7. The Road Warrior
8. The Fast and the Furious
9. Death Proof
10. Cannonball Run

I certainly agree with Bullit as #1, and I'm a big fan of Ronin, but The French Connection in the #4 spot? I'd have thought that'd be vying for #1. And I'd put the Blues Brothers on my list long before Cannonball Run.

Rock me, sexy Jesus

Hamlet 2 was mostly enjoyable, though i thought it did better when it was recalling School of Rock, and not so much when it was recalling Waiting for Guffman. Steve Coogan's character was a bit over the top at times, though I suppose I understand the need for it. Catherine Keener was excellent, Melonie Diaz was a revelation, and Elisabeth Shue was perfect every second she was on screen.

Of course, the stage production of Hamlet 2 was near the end of the movie, and it was pretty much hysterical. Worth the wait, I reckon, though I further reckon the wait could easily have been made 10 minutes less. Kudos to whoever wrote the catchy tunes, as I wake this morning, "Rock me, rock me, rock me, sexy Jesus" is still running through my head.