Kids say the darndest things

An update to an earlier post about funny things my daughter has said or done.

-I had shaved my face completely clean for the first time in years, possibly the first time since Emily was born. I asked her if she noticed something different about daddy as I stroked my naked chin. "Your whiskers are missing!" The next morning as I lifted her into momma's truck to go to grandmas for the day (I was off work and in my pj's, just a pair of shorts) she pointed to my underarm and excitedly says, "Daddy! Your whiskers are back!"

-We were at a graduation open house and some kids were hitting whiffle balls off a tee. Emily of course wanted a turn and was doing well. I nervously watched on as other kids swung bats, figuring for sure that Emily was about to get cracked in the head. The little boy of some friends of ours, around 5 years old, came to give her a new ball to hit. "No thanks..." said Emily, "I already have one..." and without warning and before I could react she took a big swing at the ball on the tee, connecting perfectly with the little boys forehead. As the boy held his head and cried he asked, "Why did she do that?"

-Emily had backed into the dry sink in the dinning room, smacking her head in the process. I asked her if she cracked her head. "Nope..." she said, "My heads not cracked..."

Unchain my entertainment!

Well, as most of you know I have been looking at dumping Charter for a while now. It began as a search for a cheaper alternative to their internet and television. I did lots of research only to find that you can't really beat their prices and offerings, well not by much anyway.

Satellite has drawbacks:
1) Two year contract to get the good prices

2) Monthly fee to rent a box per T.V.

3) Don't have the same channels as Charter (not a huge loss, but I like a couple that Charter has and Direct/Dish do not)

4) Hard to compare to cable as it's not really apples to apples

5) The cost savings, if you skimp on the offerings, are not tremendous enough to really outweigh the pain in my opinion. Not to mention the ugly satellite bolted to my house and losing the picture whenever it snows...

There are no other Cable providers in my area (AT&T U-Verse has been "coming soon!" for about five years now, and Comcast is not available). Tell me how that is not a monopoly? So if I want basic cable Charter is the best option.

As for internet, well there really is only one option. AT&T DSL. And it's horrible. They have 3mbps speed on special for $19.95 for 1 year. Sounds great, right? Yeah, well then it goes to like $50 after that. Services like Netflix recommend something like 5mbps or better and Charters is 12mbps. Plus you have to buy a $75 starter kit, and get this: They cap your monthly downloads at 150 gig, with an outrageous overage charge! Their claim is that 90% of their customers will never hit that. Oh yeah? When Netflix starts streaming in HD, I bet I hit that in a week...

That brings me to my next point. Why not get most, if not all my entertainment online? I have a Netflix account. That combined with Hulu and other products, I'm all set right? Sure...as long as you don't like live events like sports (the kind you don't find on network TV for free over the air). Uh, BIG problem for me.

If I call Charter and tell them to cancel my cable I would loose all Pistons games (they don't appear on network television due to the fact that they suck), some UofM games (they are on the Big 10 network sometimes), and almost all Red Wing games (they play on Vs and FSN). Not to mention Monday Night Football!

So I am faced with this dilemma. Stick with Charter and continue to pay them $60 a month for crappy tv so I can see my sports, or use an antenna combined with online viewing of tv shows to replace tv, but loose my sports...

Sigh. No easy choice here. If gas doesn't get closer to $3 a gallon (and even if it does we know it won't stay) I may have no choice!

As for the antenna option, well I think I like it. Very tempting. I need to figure out if I can get my stations with a fixed antenna. Then I can hook it into the main coax feed for the house and viola! Free HD tv to all jacks in the house! Then I can utilize the PC attached to my main tv to watch movies on Netflix, and tv shows on Hulu. It would almost be a direct replacement for Charter. There is a device called a Roku box that I can add to my two other tvs (between $50 and $100 per box). This device connects wireless to my home internet network and provides Hulu, Netflix and more straight to the tv! Now I just have to figure out if my other two tv's are DTV ready (meaning, can they get the free over the air HD from the aforementioned antenna on the roof, or do I need a converter box?) and can I live without sports?

Some have suggested to me that I can just go to the local bar to watch the Pistons. Those who know me can understand that the $60 per month I save from canceling Charter would quickly disappear in bar tabs. Not to mention baby sitters (I want to take my wife with me!).

So, my quest continues. The future of television as we know it is very cloudy (cloudy, that's an I.T. joke...never mind). I think you'll see them embrace the online world as a delivery medium more and more in the coming years. Look for the ability to pick and choose a channel or show at a time to subscribe to! I can't wait. Now if only they can get regional sports live online!

One more thing...when I decided I was stuck with Charter internet no matter what (the wife and I both occasionally work from home, not to mention stream music and movies as well as tv) I bought my own modem. Saving the $5 a mo rental fee was going to stick it to Charter! The day the modem arrived ($50 on Amazon) Charter sent us a notice that they were upping the rental fee to $7! Take that corporate greed! lol