A week or so ago, bad weather made my cable TV go kaput.
I started thinking about the exorbitant fees cable providers charge, and that led me to start thinking about going off the grid.
Enter Roku, a little box that streams TV through my router's WiFi connection.
Wow! I thought this might be the answer.
I visited Roku's site and purchased their top model for $100 plus shipping.
They promised I'd be watching TV within 5 minutes.
They lied.
Their instruction manual was a piece of shit, too.
It took more than 10 hours for my computer tech to try to hook it up, with the "help" of at least six Indian techs, straight out of "Outsourced."
After three days, we finally got the damn thing to work.
I joined Netflix and HuluPlus for $7.99 a month each.
Now I have been in a haze of TV viewing pleasure.
I've watched at least 10 movies about Paris, a couple of Bollywood films and a lot of TV shows and documentaries.
The drawbacks is that a network show you love that comes out on Monday cannot be seen until Tuesday. Getting news is dicey as well.
If a show or movie is in HD, you have to have enough netspeed to get it. Alas, I do not.
But I figure for $15 a month, what the hell?
I get to see weird movies and shows that cable did not provide.
As a TV addict on a budget, it's great to tell Time Warner where to shove it and watch so much TV that $15 a month is really worth it.
Roku's software is incredibly poor. They are said to be coming out with a second generation that will be better. Uh huh, that's what Microsoft said about Vista.
But for now, if you want to know about obscure French movies with strong female leads, I am your woman.
And I'll start blogging regularly again, I just need to watch a couple thousand movies that look interesting.
:D
P.S. I do not own an LG TV. LG stands for Lucky Golden, a Korean company known for trashy things that plug in.
6 comments:
I've heard about that Roku thing but never tried it. Since we moved into the new house though, it seems like we never have time to watch TV anymore -- we're too busy unpacking and stuff.
A decent antenna on the roof will at least get you the major networks.
Congratulations, I guess... but you're missing out on Karen Russell's trippy new novel, Swamplandia, among other delights...
I was dog-sitting over the weekend at my friends with too many channels to count. Not such great stuff, I thought.
i was just asking someone about roku today. i don't think it's for me, because i'm such a news junkie.
We in South Austin are happy to read your opinions, thoughts, and hopefully learn your neighbor who is running an illegal automobile repair shop is quickly relocated into the far off regions of Bexar County, Texas.
Also, Governor Rick Perry is a asshat.
It's always fun clicking your link in the AM.
Even a decent pair of good ol' rabbit ears (no offense, dguzman!) will work to pick up local digital channels.
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