#141 Tecnology FrustraShawns part 2

Well the Technician arrived for today's afternoon appointment. After 30 minutes he gave up and gave us a new HD PVR Converter box.  The only problem, as I knew was going to happen... we lost all our taped shows, a good 30+ hours worth...  Including the Season Finales of 3 shows...

Bach to square one... and watching, *gasp* live TV, with *double gasp* commercials.

First world Problem I suppose... 

Now, fingers crossed, that's it for the technological blubs for a while.

#129 First World DeluShawns

Perspective is everything.

Today Netflix sent an email out to all their existing American and Canadian subscribers to announce that their accounts will remain fixed at their existing $7.99 a month (for the next two years). NEW accounts however will now be $8.99 a month. That’s a $1.00 a month, or a mind boggling $12.00 for  a year.  They indicate this increase is to help them increase their libraries of Movies and TV shows. And I’m all for that, especially as a Canadian subscriber. Hell, I’d be happy with them actually increasing my account by $1.00 right now, if only to help increase the options. It’s not like we still don’t get more than our money’s worth every month.

On the other side of the coin, Hydro Quebec just announced their record breaking profits for 2013 at  just under 3 billion dollars ($2.94 billion to be exact) And yet they had the nerve to have requested from the previous PQ Government to approve a 4.3% rate increase, which the government gladly green lit. 

What I’m seeing today are a LOT more people losing their shit over the $1.00 increase to Netflix, EVEN THOUGH, their accounts will not be raised for another 2 years; compared to people upset with Hydro Quebec continuing to systematically rip off their monopoly held clientele. Granted these are for the most part the same people that complain with each and every minute change FREE services like Twitter and Facebook make.

Is it just me? am I the only that is much more concerned about the Hydro rate increase?!   From what I've seen online today, I guess so.

# 013 Commercial DeleShawn

Do you PVR?

We've formed an unnatural connection to ours. We'll watch the News live and then generally eTalk and the repeat of the Big Bang, by 8 PM we're watching nothing but PVRed shows.  Which is just as well because generally we've got so many things taping that we have no choice but to watch something taped. 

It all started with particular shows being on late and never managing to stay up to watch. Once we discovered the joys of skipping the commercials, we.. were.. hooked. 

But it's not just skipping the commercials, it's the fact that you can watch more shows in an evening. Most hour long shows are really only 40 - 42 minutes. So we end up watching 3-4 "hours" worth of shows in an evening... COMMERCIAL FREE!!!

The only issue that has developed is that now we compete for who is the more skilled at fast-forwarding through the commercials, without going too far and skipping over the actual show. And we get a little worked up about it. 

Sure you say, "How hard can it be?", but from channel to channel, standard network to speciality station, just how many commercials are aired during the break, and what is the length of those ads varies. Causing the most experienced fast-forwarder to become an amateur remote controller in the click of a button, and the other an armchair coach to become a bitter jaded critic. Such was our dilemma last night watching the series première of Helix. The first half of the episode was commercial-free, and then once the ads started they were coming every 5 minutes, with varying number and length.  

Modern day convenience to world problems at the click of a button.

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