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?

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.