What to watch next

So my beloved Celtics finally lost to the Heat in 7 games and, as a result, my frustration at not having cable has come to an end.

Of course I was able to watch most of the games on TNT Overdrive or in restaurants when I had time to actually watch. Many games were available to watch on watchESPN but this page now requires you to sign-in with your internet or television provider.

Feels a bit...desperate.

Now Glee and Smash are done for the season and I made my way through the available episodes of Parks & Rec (a new obsession - what a great show!) what will I watch next?

What We Watch

In our household we watch:

Mad Men
My wife used to only watch Battlestar Gallactica on her iPad when she worked out. She loved it. She had somehow managed to miss it when I and all our friends were watching so she got to see it all at once at her own pace (which is the way to watch things, really). Now that she's done with that (a moment of mourning for the end of that spectacular series) she's watching Mad Men on Netflix. I notice she doesn't run to the treadmill like she used to but she still enjoys it. I used to watch but haven't in a couple years so I have several years of stylish deliciousness to catch up on.

Looking forward to that.

Hope Netflix doesn't lose the contract before I get to it.

Naruto
My son is watching Naruto on Hulu. My Friend At Hulu (MFAH) tells me that there are two camps of amine lovers, the dubbers and the subbers. The dubbers want the shows dubbed in English. They are loud but they don't actually watch the shows. The subbers want the shows with subtitles. They are quiet about it but they are obsessive about their shows.

As a result of this, most anime no longer gets dubbed. It just doesn't pay.

My son complained about the subtitles for 5 minutes. Now he's 70 episodes in.

H2O:Just Add Water
Now that he's seen all of Wizards of Waverly Place, my son has also discovered this charming tween import from Australia about three teenage mermaids (Netflix). Really good (for a tween fantasy/comedy) and apparently the most successful teen themed show to come from downunder.

My only issue with the show is that water on them turns them into mermaids (like Darryl Hannah in Splash) but they still spend most of their time on the beach or at a marina.

Misfits
My favorite show right now is Misfits, a Hulu Exclusive recommended by MFAH. Imagine Heroes except with British community service misfits and without all the confused mythology. Also imagine consistantly terrific (and hilarious) writing. Now imagine watching it at your own pace.

Brilliant as they say over there.

March Madness Unplugged

Notwithstanding my last post, there's lots of ways to watch sports without cable.

(In fact I am watching Baylor vs Kentucky on CBS as I write this so please excuse my lack of focus.)

First of all, let me tell you that I really like watching sports but I can actually live without it. My wife thought I suddenly became interested in in sports when I turned 40. What really happened is that for the first 15 years of our relationship, I didn't have time or interest for causal fandom and my hometown teams were mostly unwatchable, both because they weren't on television much and they were pretty bad.

I grew up in New England watching the Celtics almost always win and the Red Sox always almost win. Two years before I moved to Seattle and met my wife I had a traumatic sports experience.

I watched the sixth game of the 1986 World Series. I watched it alone.

It was awful.

There have been books written and documentaries made about the psychic pain of that game so...'nuff said.

So then the Red Sox won the World Series 18 years later. Honestly the third happiest moment of my life so far. The Patriots became dynasty and the Big Three era began.

So I started wanting to watch sports again.

But it's not on the top of my list of priorities. If I miss a big game because I spend time with my family that's a good trade off for me. I'd love to watch sports all day but, unfortunately, there are better things to do.

Okay, that's enough about me. Let's talk about what's really important right now.

March Madness.

I don't generally care about college sports except that its fun to watch but there is almost nothing more fun to watch than the games of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

As I've mentioned, I can watch some games on CBS but that glorious first two days, when there are 16 must win games each day and 15 seeds beat 2 seeds AND I have to work, the rabbit ears in the living room is not an option.

Enter the internet.

I went to http://www.ncaa.com/march-madness and signed up for a tournament pass for just 3.99. Now I can watch all the games on my computer or my iPhone anywhere.

Of course this isn't worth it now. the remaining four games are going to be  on CBS. Hopefully next year I'll remember to look for this before the first 4 games.

Kentucky is destroying Baylor right now. Looks like the neon uniforms were the key to the Bear's success.


So I can live without ESPN.

Good News, Bad News: Episode 1

The good news is really simple and I'll spend most of the time focusing on that, along with solutions that Edgar and Adam suggested on facebook.

The good news is you can watch almost any television show or movie online, much of it for free.

There are two reasons to keep cable or dish at this point.

1. HBO.
2 ESPN

If you are addicted to HBO episodic shows, and who can blame you, you either have to keep your cable or wait for the DVDs. I'm sure there's some way to get HBO To Go without having HBO but I don't know what it is.

If you are a addicted to sports, that's the only really good reason to keep cable right now. So for Lily, there is really no way to give up cable and watch a lot of sports....

BUT

Consider this.

With a digital antenna you can get all the football games (and basketball, baseball and...hockey?) that are on ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. I'm watching March Madness right now on CBS (actually watching Charles Barkley and Kenny the Jet talking about the games.) in High Definition.

Also ESPN has sports online at http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index. In fact that's where you can watch the women's NCAA Basketball tourney.

You can also watch MLB  baseball with a video pass (costs money).

So if you're a sports fan who never had time to become addicted to ESPN (it was a close thing but I was doing theater all the time), you can get a lot of sports on broadcast and online.

And, I'm sure more will be coming. Neither Disney/ESPN nor Fox Sports owns/owes cable or satellite (in this country) anything.

Watching Outside the Box

A couple years ago our beautiful old tube TV died. It was sad for a few reasons. First and foremost, it had been a wedding present. Several friends chipped in together and got us a huge 42 inch Sony that weighed a ton and a half. See back in the olden days, big screens needed big tubes. This thing weighed about 230 pounds and, conveniently, had no handles. It stayed where we first put it and we arranged the furniture around it.

It was also sad because I was unemployed at the time and we couldn't really afford a new TV.

So we cut off our satellite and saved our pennies.

And started watching TV on the internet.

Then we got some christmas money and we went out and bought a new TV. We got a little one - you know - only 42 inches.

But we didn't turn on the dish or get cable. We just connected our computers to the TV and kept watching stuff on the internet. My mother in law watched to watch the news so I went to radio shack and got the new rabbit ears.

When she saw the quality of the digital broadcast she said, "Oh, did you get cable?"

"No, that's broadcast TV."

"But who's paying for it?"

"Nobody, it's free."

"Since when?"

"It's always been free."

"Then why would people pay for cable TV?"

Good question.

I am really surprised that people still do. I describe what we do to people and they don't really believe me. That's part of the reason I started this blog.

The other reason is to talk about the stuff I like.

So look to this space for simple info on getting video without cable or dish, and for my favorite stuff on Hulu, Netflix and YouTube.

I also hope to build a little audience/community that can recommend good stuff.