Internet, TV and Cable

As anyone who has had the "pleasure" of running with Sal's, particularly on a long Saturday morning run, knows, we like to discuss a myriad of topics. We have solved many a local, national and even world problem. If only the political leaders would come to the west side of Monroe County and run with us the world would be a much calmer, peaceful place.

There are times when some of our more frugal members discuss the ever rising costs of home entertainment. MW only gets cable during baseball season so that he can follow the NY Yankees on the YES channel and the other three stations that seem to carry their games. Rick doesn't get cable at all, but then he also only wears cotton running clothes from the 1970's, saving on money for the high tech gear now available.

Lou gets cable, but Joanne keeps the remote control, so what's the point? Mark built his own remote control out of soft pine, stained and epoxy sealed, with mahogany for the buttons. Father Time (Pete) and Handyman Bernie use satellite dishes. This would not be unusual, but they built the dishes and wired their respective houses. Using sheet metal from the factory Pete works in and electronic parts found while scavenging buildings blown up at Kodak Park, the two of them managed to create quite an elaborate, albeit illegal, television reception device.

Jan and I recently cut our cable bill in half! I'd like to say how much I miss the QVC options, religious and foreign language stations that used to cost me $35 a month extra, but that would be a lie. I do miss the History channel and A&E. Three of my favorite shows are on those two channels; Pawn Stars, Storage Wars and American Pickers.

I've heard that many men will watch porn or look for half-naked women on the internet when their wives aren't home. At least that's what morning radio seems to talk about a lot. Last night Jan went to her college class for three hours. A perfect opportunity for my escapade to the dark side. I ran five miles in our basement on the treadmill, showered, made steak subs for dinner (yes, that's plural) and sat at the computer.

Oh the anticipation was barely tolerable. I even watched in full-screen mode on our new monitor! American Pickers, a new-to-me episode! What was even better, the normal 60 minute show with commercials was only 45 minutes on Hulu.tv! Just 3-4 minutes of a commercial for M&M's was it. Beautiful, and it was all free! Life is sweet sometimes.