@NEStalgia I "cut the cord" just over a year ago, raging against this machine is how I spend way too much time these days on Twitter. The streaming service industry can be it's own class on the failure of capitalism, competition lowers prices. So many $25 services a couple of years ago, not it seems like all of the main ones are $50 - PS Vue, Hulu Live, YouTube Like, DIRECTTV Now, FuboTV. There are still a few cheap ones out there like Philo, and Sling is cheaper, probably b/c no sports, but the idea of cheaper streaming a la carte is dead. If I watched TV I might go back to cable.
Only cable is too stupid to capitalize on the growing discontent with cord cutting. Rather than getting cheaper they are charging $20 monthly rental cable fees for boxes nobody wants. And $5 fees for local channels we can get OTA. So they're a mess too.
May not matter in a few years anyway, these new kids, after millennials, may never get cable TV, they'll just stream their phone to their TV. Or not get a TV. 5G is getting us closer to not needing cable, 6G in another 5 years maydo away with wires entirely. Until then, this old man is just watching whatever he can for free. Well free after the internet bill, still paying the cable company $50 a month for that. 😝
Someday we'll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me
I used to be watched AXN for CSI Miami, CSI New York; V Channel for America's Next Top Model cycle 7 - 11; Star World for America's Next Top Model cycle 13 - 24, Britain's Next Top Model, Canada's Next Top Model, Asia's Next Top Model, Australia's Next Top Model; NHK world Japan for some Japanese programs; Animax for Animes; Cartoon Network for Codename: Kids Next Door, Xiaolin Showdown, Powerpuff Girls; Nickelodeon for Chalk Zone, Fairly Odd Parents, Danny Phantom; Playhouse Disney for Handy Manny.
But i almost never watch TV anymore since the programs quality become even worse and for entertainment, i can always access from Youtube.
@rjejr There's a lot of things I would blame on, well not capitalism, but what we call capitalism today which is in actual reality much closer to Fascism (which for some reason everyone has accepted that Fascism refers to an authoritarian police state/dictatorship, not to the reality that it's a colloquialism coined by Mussolini to mock the "facile" that private business exists detached from state in his National Socialism....i.e. it has nothing to do with authoritarianism beyond it's reference to total governmental control of the economy while pretending it's private enterprise.)
But the streaming industry is bizare in that the market itself appears to be willing to sustain increasing prices for a decreasing quality product, supplanted by a variety of other products. I'm convinced I could sell these people $300 horseshoes, but only if they buy them in cases of 100.
Sling, weirdly is still $35 if you take Blue AND the sports package..... It's really weird they can still offer that pricing. I just noticed that, it has most of what I want...maybe I'll drop Google now and join into Sling at Thanksgiving if pricing remains the same. No ABC/CBS...but I wasn't watching those (for now) anyway. They comically offer a free indoor antenna for that if you sub for the year. But then why is Google so expensive.
I really don't get who's controlling the pricing on this stuff. How is this all being sold in 1980's style cable bundles again rather than a la carte? It makes no sense that business model exists at all. Let alone succeeds. Though Disney buying everything probably relates somehow. And every year there's a new competitor in the field, and consistently, they're MORE expensive, not less than the competition. And they SUCCEED!!
To be fair the local channels are one of the most expensive parts I think. That's why Sling has NBC & Fox but no ABC (DISNEY!) and CBS...those charge fortunes. But yeah, Cable is really missing the ball here...everyone fled their pricing to streaming. Streaming just copied their pricing now...and now they're all charging the same price. Comcast sells it's voice remote as its main feature now. It's absurd. And why is streaming now more expensive than cable? (Then again, half the streaming channels are owned by NBC Universal which is owned by the cable monopoly....coincidence?)
Unfortunately OTA is less and less an option. The signal is so weak here, and it keeps getting worse. I used to get at least NBC OTA reliably...now it cuts out constantly.... I suppose neverending EM interference with cell towers and such messes up OTA signals more and more. So it's either cable/streaming or the TV is simply a monitor for BD players.
Well, the kids may be streaming from their phone...but they'll be paying $100/mo to Google or DirectTV or Hulu or whoever to do it. Cable by any other name 5G is a joke through and through. They SELL it like it's big. They sell it because China is making it the core of their world. But China decides who is in their world and who isn't and anyone outside the city is condemned as an unperson. It's different here were anyone with the money to get out of a city does. And there's no way those 300yd UHF transmitters are going to reach inside most homes. Not going to happen. "5G" means "5G on the highways and some shopping areas, 4G everywhere else" Maybe 6G will be a thing. The problem now is no longer bandwith, it's concurrent usage capacity (which is a physics problem, thus no real solution can exist other than more and more and more towers), and range (another unsolvable physics problem for radio waves.....not enough LF bandwidth exists for the usage.) We're going to need something a lot better than 1920s radio for a wireless internet future where more and more a gigabit just won't be enough... Just don't tell AT&T. They think they already have 5G running.
Waitwaitwaitwaitwait.....you only play family friendly video games....but you pay to watch CSI the graphic murder forensic procedural?!?!?! What planet is this? Where am I? Who are you people?
FWIW, Miami and NY are great shows, I liked those as well. Particularly Miami since it was a little less routine and with a little more unique twists. I never liked the original (Vegas) show...they tried to make it more of a horror/suspense series wrapped around a police procedural rather than the other two that are more straight forward mystery/procedurals. Law & Order used to be great, once upon a time (the original), though it loses something if you're not familiar with the US legal system since it focused on the court part a lot, and then Sam Waterston turned it into his political soapbox instead of a crime drama and it went down the toilet.
@Morpheel Oh, I know they're popular in the mainstream. But if I were to rank the liklihood AM of all people would actually watch those shows, I'd rank it slightly under "the sky is actually made of candy but is going to crack and fall on my head".
@NintendoByNature So, you're just temporarily off the pizza, right? If so, then we might be able to tone it done a bit until after Easter, or whenever your fast ends. Just give us a head's up. And don't worry about the religious connotations: as long as we don't dive in too deep, it's okay to mention it. We'll understand, even though not all of us are religious, like me. I do hope you don't have to go through the whole 40 days, though...
On a side note: even I don't eat as much pizza as you might think. I can't speak for the others, obviously, but I talk about it WAY more than I eat it. Probably once a month or so. I've always found that certain foods tend to keep their tastiness much better, if you don't eat them every week or more often. Then it just becomes samey...
Me, I really like to look forward to getting whatever food I'm into at any given point in the day/week/month, and then REALLY be able to enjoy it when I finally do. And so, variety is king, far as I'm concerned.
@Tyranexx Wow, was that your first real text wall?
And don't get me started on "one more try" evenings. Luckily, I usually had those on weekends, so I could at least get enough sleep afterwards without having to be worried about getting up too late for work the next day...
My "one more try" nights usually lasted to well in the night/early hours of the next Saturday or Sunday, after having started around 9 or 10pm. Sometimes, I only noticed how long I had been going at it with the retries, because the sun was starting to rise, so that'll give you some idea on how long my sessions lasted sometime...
I just hate losing, especially when it's unfair, and when I play a game, I always want to make some decent progress, so I can at least switch off my console, knowing that I've actually managed to achieve something that evening. Still being stuck in the same level/world that I started in, just doesn't cut it for me.
@ogo79 Mashed potatoes are for babies and the elderly. Real men just cook or bake 'em whole and then chew their potatoes...
@NEStalgia Nah... I'm old school. I positively HATE this modern, disposable society where it concerns crap like Netflix and other on-demand services, that only cost me more money than I would ever want to pay for any video service, considering the series/movies I would like to watch, and the number of different services I would have to subscribe to, in order to be able to do that. In that respect, I agree with @rjejr. It's all getting WAY too expensive, and all these services are creating their own niche entertainment, instead of working together to bring just a smaller number of more diverse packages, that might interest more people, and also be a bit cheaper.
No, I'll just watch TV. I use commercial breaks to go and get something to eat, drink, or go to the bath room for a short pit stop. And I can still rewind or fast forward on my set top box, so I'm not too bothered by commercials either way. And whatever I'll miss because it's not broadcasted for whatever reason, I'll just download for free, if I really want to watch it anyways.
Personally, I also feel that with real TV, your more a part of the actual world, instead of an on demand world that's WAY too individual. Much like all the idiots walking around on the street with their faces glued to their smart phones, instead of looking around and actually noticing the real world they're living in.
Oh, and I actually have high quality HD TV from my cable supplier. Although, cable: nowadays, it's all iTV set top boxes anyway, so TV over internet, basically. 1080p, 60fps and all that. It's almost like heaven for some of those people that also demand the same from all of their games...
@AlohaPizzaJack Damn, you still have AMC and Syfy? Those two used to be some of my favorite channels, but the responsible parties decided to pull both channels from the roster in my area.
'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'
@NEStalgia You forgot to tag him, or was that on purpose?
And like you, I was hugely amazed at him mentioning watching CSI, what with all the blood, guns and violence. Jaw dropped to the floor moment, for sure...
'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'
@ThanosReXXX yep, I'll be done with my pizza fasting on Easter. 😊 feel free to talk about pizza as much as you'd like. I was only kidding. But....... it does blow on my end not being able to eat it, but merely talk about it haha. Only another 10 days though!
@ThanosReXXX Whoops, yep, forgot to tag @Anti-Matter in my above post (or rather hit reply then changed tabs and started typing...I do that a lot...)
Some streaming stuff ads value. The music services are good. $10 ($8/mo if you pay for a year for Apple.....$20 is a bit more for the lossless services, but still, if you're a HUGE music listener or audiophile, you're going to spend at least $40 on CDs a month every month until you're dead anyway unless it comes down to choosing food vs music. So it's still a good value for the amount of music you can listen to for the price (whether critical listening or background music I probably have music on 10+ hours a day most days...imagine buying enough CDs to not get tired of stuff? And it opens the door to discovering tons of stuff since terrestrial radio is looooong dead (TOP 20 hip-hop 4lief, yo! No thanks....) Netflix, if you watch a lot of different shows/films and don't like repeating...that's good value at, what $10/mo for basic for them? I'm all for digital disposable services if they offer a value for dollars spent for time used.
But this TV stuff....it's garbage....padded with non-stop ads, where even the content itself is mostly an ad now....and the price keeps going UP. And it's still crazy popular? I never understood cable in the 80's at those prices, and I still don't get it now at these prices. Except the content was better back then.
I'm also suprised at Google going all in on "one size fits all Comcasti-style bundle" and becoming a most expensive option. Google always thrived on free or near-free everything and market disruption. "Most premium tier product" is not a good look for Google. Even with the YouTube brand. Backlash from this might finally stir a real competitor again (or just boost Sling.) Makes me wonder what they plan to charge for gaming....I figure $20/mo for the first 18 months, then they just slam everyone with $75 after they own the market and rename it "YouTube Games." Google's getting greedy(er.) It's weird move for them. Why not just go with PS Vue or DirecTV for those prices for most of their audience? I imagine nobody went with YTTV because it was the best option, they went because it was cheaper. It's so weird.
(note that YTTV and the other services here are TV services (cable replacements) not on-demand services like Netflix. Like your iTV. This is for TV with the commercials included where you can't get free over the air TV (like most of the US....) Or for all the channels you can't get beyond NBC/CBS/ABC/Fox.) So with this we're talking about from $35-55 for "real TV" that's part of the world.....and now dropping that (once again) entirely. No more world. I'll curl up in my bubble. After this price hike I effectively have no TV access, ONLY games and discs (and music.)
@NintendoByNature Ah, reacted much too serious to that, then. So much for playing the understanding elder, then...
@NEStalgia Although I do use Spotify, albeit not very often, I just don't like the disposable and "all available" nature of it all. It does completely cater to the whole "I want it here and I want it now" attitude of a large portion of today's society, so no wonder it's so popular and in demand, but it's just not for me.
Like with the food example I gave to @NintendoByNature, I like everything and anything that I consume, including music, TV, movies and games, to hold some value, and when you're just dropped into a space where all is available whenever you want, like a kid in a candy store, then I either simply lose my appetite, or I'm gonna grow really tired of it, real fast. Or like eating some special food every day, it all becomes a whole heck of a lot less special than when you only eat it once a month, or only a couple of times a year.
Back to music: I'm not really a massive collector in that respect, and I haven't bought any new stuff on CD's in decades. Downloaded quite a bit, though...
But even back in the day, when I used to buy CD's on a regular basis, it was only a few CD's per month, sometimes even these mini CD's, with just a couple of songs on them.
As for streaming: don't kid yourself into thinking there's no commercial ingredient there. And far as I'm concerned, the concept itself is far more nefarious: TV commercials are transparent in that respect. They're in your face, and they're just always there, every day. Streaming services on the other hand, secretly gather all your information, and build databases with them, to make their services even more addictive than they already are. Me? I'm just too smart of a marketing guy to fall for those kinds of shenanigans...
Normal commercials never bothered me, not then and not now. Like I said before, I just use them to be able to take a stroll to the bath room, get a drink, or something to eat. Also prevents me from continuously sitting on my lazy @ss for the entire evening...
Prices are still pretty decent here in general, so that must be a US thing. My current bundle includes high speed internet, interactive TV with additional plus package (more channels), a landline telephone connection and a data bundle for my smart phone. For all of that together, I pay €62,50 a month, which equates to around $70.33. There are no additional costs, so that's just the regular amount I pay every time.
I never got binge watching either. At most, I'm able (and more importantly: willing) to watch 4 episodes of any series I follow at any one time. I just don't enjoy spoiling an entire evening watching the same stuff, and besides that, most series always start with: "last time, on ...." rehashing what you've just seen minutes ago for the umpteenth time. Of course, I immediately imagine you saying "yeah, well, you can fast forward that bit, so that's really not a problem".
But that's just the thing: I don't WANT to have to do extra stuff, to not get annoyed at things like that, because that in turn would also annoy me, making me twice as annoyed...
And TV shows, as they are still called, are often tailored to being aired only once a week. It's clear from the entire format, and like with the food reference I made earlier a couple of times, I find that I look forward to watching them more, if I stick to the once a week thing that happens when you watch normal TV. It creates excitement and anticipation. On demand is like getting all the presents that you normally get at specific times in a year, all at once, ruining surprises, and severely diminishing its worth, far as I'm concerned.
For example: right now, I'm watching the latest season of The Black List. Love that show. After an episode is finished, I'm sometimes bummed about how it ended, or that I have to wait another week to be able to find out what happens next, but it also creates a positive kind of tension/expectation/excitement/anticipation/whatever, which for me personally, would fade away completely, if I could just binge watch the now still remaining 7 episodes of the current season.
And then what would I do with the time I have left every Wednesday around 9.30pm? I could of course watch another show, but there isn't any on TV on that time slot on any of the channels that I frequently watch, and as I already explained, I'm not about to pay extra to be able to add extra services like Netflix, Hulu, HBO or whatever to my interactive TV bundle, just so I can have even more to watch.
I've got more than enough to watch already, and watching stuff on the day that it is supposed to air, just makes it more of a positive experience for me, and something that I enjoy and savor far more than stringing all of it together in one single marathon session...
'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'
@ThanosReXXX Truthfully, for music, the biggest problem isn't so much that it represents a poor value for consumers so much as that it's too much value and probably can't last forever....artists get peanuts (or less) out of it...that isn't sustainable. For consumers it's outrageous value. Which means we KNOW it can't last. Yeah, it's "disposable" but so much music is transient in nature because there's always more. There's that handful of albums you come back to for 30 years....but that's a small subset, and there's ever so much music out there to hear. To a large degree it replaces radio, mostly. In a month I listen to probably 1000+ tracks via these services that I'd have never heard because radio is dead and the middle of the night AM stations that used to have ecclectic stuff are long gone, replaced by Clear Channel robo-generated top-40 playlists in Houston playing in every city at once, and only playing the most marketable stuff. So where listening to a radio used to be viable, it's now a pay-for thing (but with tons more selection and higher quality.) Generally I'm in your camp with disposable society..but..that's one area where the value is very real and kind of replaces the role of an old-world service that mostly no longer exists (albeit better, but also more expensive, and conveniently can replace disc purchases unless it's special as well.)
I like your food example, though. I feel that way about a great many things. It's true to a point. Though music being a little different...there's what, 48M tracks on these services now? Granted I like only a portion of the genres, of course, but I could never hear it all in my lifetime, so instead of limited by money it becomes limited by time and focus.... I come back to the ones that are special, time and time again (and of course you can purchase the digital album through the same services. DRM-less digital so it's your own files to own, of course )
As for addictive streaming. I don't know. Well, music is addictive to me, streamed or not, and you generally want it to build your database so you can throw it into radio mode and it creates continuous radio out of what you likely want...that's as designed, not strictly commercial (other than that it does actually make a quality product you want to keep buying.) Video...I can't comment. I've never actually paid for a streaming service, and I'm not really interested in them...they'd be hard to addict me anyway. (Google TV is a cable-over-internet service, not an on demand streaming service.)
Cable prices...wow...all taht for $70-something?! Here you're looking at, generally, $80-120 for the basics packages. But that $80 is just for year 1, then goes up to the 120 later. That doesn't include taxes, fees, access charges, etc that generally add another $20-30. And that most definitely doesn't include your cell...that's another $40-60. So for landline, smartphone, internet, and TV, you're going to be looking at $140 for year 1 up through closer to $160-200 most of the time. Varies by region of course.
" On demand is like getting all the presents that you normally get at specific times in a year, all at once, ruining surprises, and severely diminishing its worth, far as I'm concerned."
This Direct sucked! We already knew about everything in it from the leaks! They should have saved something for E3!
I've binged only 2 or 3 series...generally sci-fis that ran 6 to 8 seasons with 22 episodes a year.....so it still took months to work through the series that way. And of course I was watching it on discs I bought, not streamed...it was some time ago It was fun...and the series was so good I wanted to do it again but never had the time. They're free with Amazon now....and I still can't see myself doing it again.
I do miss the old way the world was scheduled. Not for $50/mo though. Google can shove it. But I miss when EVERYTHING was scheduled. Meeting up with people? You have a designated location to be at at a designated time. Calls must be scheduled at designated times. It SOUNDS less convenient than the modern world of "just grab your cell phone and do everything on the fly"....but it was MORE convenient. Back then everyone was on the same page. X event happens in X place at X time and everyone is prepared for that same result. Meet up at spot X at X time, and everyone made sure to be at X place at X time. Now it's randomly "just call so and so, tell him to go here, no change the plan, tell him to go there then, and change the time..." The result is noise of everything trying to do everything their own way, pull everyone else into doing things their own way on their most convenient time/location, and the dominant personality controls the group. The most selfish person gets what they want because they just force everyone to accommodate their random whims, and planning gives way to frustration. The disciplined person always loses, the haphazard person always wins. Similarly with on-demand, everyone lives in a bubble of their own rather than what used to be a simpler, less varied, but shared experience among the public.
Music, however, still is different. It was never unifying in that sense, not even in the early Hi-FI days of the 1950's. It was always a personal thing "on-demand" (unless it's a concert which hasn't changed.)
@NEStalgia I think I can agree on your music analogy and point of view, so not much to argue where that is concerned, but of course there are daily shows, with certain DJ's one might like, and then there's also stuff like the weekly top 40/top 50 radio broadcasts. Over here, these are usually broadcasted on Fridays or Saturdays, so that was/is also something to look forward to, depending on your personal music preference, obviously.
So, in that way, it actually IS kind of unifying, in that all people listen to that together, and at the same time. And especially with radio shows, you have the interactivity with the DJ and/or presenters, often enough giving people the opportunity to phone in and get their 2 minutes of fame on national radio...
But besides that, music was, is and will always be a personal and on-demand kinda thing, thanks in large part to decades of all kinds of commercially available media, meaning that having access to a collection of personally chosen music/sound tracks has practically always been there, ever since the His Master's Voice Gramophone...
No, wait, these were preceded by wax rolls, so I think we might even come close to covering well over a century and a half in personalized music collections...
Moving along...
It would also seem that we at the very least share a (partial) sentiment on how things were, and/or are supposed to be. I wanted to add that to the previous comment, with my series example, but I forgot. Long story short: Wednesday night is Black List night for me, and I look forward to that every week, much like I do with any other series or program that I like to watch. Screw the bingers and their disposable nothingness... (your example of binging your own bought physical media notwithstanding. That's different, and something I've also done on occasion, especially with older series)
But just for a minute, imagine if they would in the future be able to do the same to sports broadcasts...
Oh, the horror...
Luckily, that will never happen, so the shortcomings of real life and human capacity/ability come in real handy there, making Saturdays and Sundays the only worthwhile soccer evenings for fans over here. Unless of course there's a UEFA tournament or a World Cup going on...
And yes, streaming is definitely supposed to be/tailored to be addictive. Could of course be that it doesn't work on you either, much like how it doesn't work on me, but it certainly does work for the majority of the general audience/hapless victims. Suggestions popping up in your searches, emails and what not, and all kinds of other tactics to push their content towards the target audience in a tailor-made format. Like watching CSI? Then you might also like... or "here's another 200 similar suggestions"...
Cool news: I got OBS and tested it by playing through DDLC. (First time getting Monika's jumpscare too, and I didn't even flinch!)
Sad news: Forgot to turn on mic for said recording.
Be yourself, no matter who you are!
For me, that's being madly in love with fictional characters. Plz don't judge.
Yes, my first anime was High School DxD. Don't ask or judge!
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@ThanosReXXX I miss real shows with real DJs. They don't do that anymore. They have the "morning zoo" garbage with obnoxious fake perky personalities...or barebones "read the script and try to sound excited" channels that make Forza's radio stations positively delightful by contrast. But nothing like the old old days of known DJs that really spun mixes and programs to entertain and surprise and add some character to it. Deep tracks, new stuff off the beaten trail. It was cool. They just have personalities to fill in the ad spots and generically introduce computerized playlists on repeat.
Oddly, streaming is the last place you can get real DJs. Apple Music famously/infamously has Beats 1 Radio....where the DJs are supposed to be the highlight...but one radio station, worldwide, for all formats, makes no sense. And there's of course SiriusXM that's chock full of DJs (which is ironic, as XM debuted as mostly being commercial and interruption free, Sirius was all in on personalities....) They charge like a cable company though. That's cool they still have it over there, though I shouldn't be surprised considering the other kind of DJs (nightclub/electronic/dance/composers, I.E. Martin Garrix, Avicii, etc.)) seem to unanimously be from there....there seems to be value on that kind of music presentation of a person to attach to the music that was lost here some time ago.
I think dance stations in general though still do the "DJs live at the club on Friday nights" thing....I haven't tuned in, and I think the last real dance station here in my area became another hip-hop station some time ago.
Haha, yeah, and before the gramophones, there were the music boxes with copper disks/plates etc. Such a shame they were mostly all thrown into the ocean when the gramophone came out. Humanity never changes....
Ahh, Black List is one of the few modern TV shows that actually has piqued my interest in the ads. I haven't actually seen an episode, to date, but it does look intriguing. And I like James Spader, so his role made me interested.
Hmm, I'm pretty sure EA is probably working on a way of just using Frostbite to replace the weekly matches...
It's funny how none of the addiction stuff works on me. Music it does but I'm actively trying to train the engine to recommend more things within my interests because I actively want to find them. The different algorithms for discovery are why I have 4 services at the moment But yeah, video...it just doesn't work on me. YTTV sent me monthly emails with things I might watch. I actually did set the DVR mode to record the Michael Jackson animated Halloween special.....because it was just so bizzarre sounding I had to find out what it was...but then I never actually watched it and they delete your recordings after 6 months so it's probably gone (in my last month of membership....) For video I'm very much into "if I don't already know I want to watch it, I probably don't". Maybe if I weren't a gamer, I"d find it more appealing.
I don't subscribe to any sort of TV service; the only entertainment service of any sort that I subscribe to is Spotify. Games and some occasional (free) YouTube compose the vast majority of my screen entertainment. I have no desire to watch most shows these days barring reruns of cartoons I enjoy(ed).
Cable seems like a waste of money IMO. You can thank my parents for that; there were maybe a dozen channels we watched with the basic Dish package they had, and to me the channel balancing was inconsistent. There was a ton of Nickelodeon for example, but no Cartoon Network stuff barring Boomerang (which was fine). I don't find it necessary to pay for a bloated package that I'd barely use and STILL comes with commercials. There were even a ton of pointless infomercial channels.
...Though sometimes it was fun to go back into the nosebleed channels and make fun of the...erm...ADULT titles of some of those that you had to pay extra for....
I've considered getting Netflix and Hulu time and again, particularly since the latter is available with my Spotify plan right now. The problem is, if I'd get them, then I'd feel obligated to watch them to get my money's worth....
I was reminded how much I HATE public radio the other day though. I normally rotate CDs but didn't have any in the car at the time. Not only are the ads, boring talk shows, and sports coverage rampant, but few stations around here play what I'm into. I've tried getting Spotify to run in my car off the phone since the car came with basic Bluetooth/hands-free capabilities, but I haven't been able to make it read from anything other than my phone's actual music folder.
I suppose Sirius XM is an option, but I like having more control over what I listen to.
@ThanosReXXX I consider myself a member of the text wall club here, though I've gravitated away from huge posts a bit. I browse this site on mobile 90-95% of the time, so typing a text wall takes forever. XD That huge post was composed on my laptop last night and still, with some proofreading, took about half an hour. And that's WITHOUT fighting the autocorrect and auto-complete on my phone....
I try not to do "one more try" evenings on weeknights too often since that directly affects my performance and mood in my line of work. I'm not a morning person to begin with and normally spend the first hour or so of my weekdays in a perpetual state of blah. The last time I recall gaming into the wee morning hours was at a point when I was playing The Wind Waker over a year ago.
@NEStalgia Wait, what? Haven't seen any episode of The Black List yet? Well, then you've sure got some binge watching to do, if you ever decide to dive in, since right now, they're in their sixth season.
And obviously, I am most certainly going to recommend it to you. It's one of the series that I've remained interested in for its entirety. Nowadays, a lot of series kinda lose inertia, steam or whatever after the second or third season, becoming all samey and what not, but the writers/directors of The Black List somehow manage to keep things both familiar and still fresh and exciting with each following season.
I don't know if this season is going to be the last, since there's still 7 episodes to go, but all in all, it's been a very fun and entertaining, and exciting ride so far, so if you're even remotely interested in crime/suspense/police/secret service taskforce drama, then you could most certainly do worse than watch The Black List.
And even without the wonderful James Spader, who's acting out the role of one of the leading characters fantastically well, with stellar performances at times, the show as a whole is just solid, with a number of highly interesting premises (also interesting for conspiracy theorists, by the way), and interesting characters and character relations, which are expanded and built upon with each following season.
But yeah, it's probably if not definitely Spader's best role ever, and even though he's a hardened criminal, and is evil through and through, you still grow fond of him while watching. He's the proverbial love to hate/hate to love 'em kinda character, so most of the time, you're always torn between feeling shocked at how he could do that to <insert certain character> and admiring him for the intricate and devious way in which he pulled it off...
Funny thing is that if you're completely drawn into an episode, you're putting that on the character, while obviously, it's actually the highly talented writers behind the wonderful acting, who make the characters do what they do in the first place. The wonderfully entertaining acting qualities of the entire cast is (are?) actually just the cherry on top. But what a cherry it is...
Go watch it now, or at least put it in your "to watch" list. Trust me, you won't regret it.
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