The whiny thread

[Birdy]

Chris, I noticed as I was skimming the guide that several stations seemed to have more paid programming in the morning. And I don't mean 4 a.m. (which I do NOT consider morning, but still don't want paid programming ie informercials on. Anyone up at 4 and wanting to watch tv must need a distraction, not a steam cleaner). No, these infoms were on around 9 or 10.

And here's another zinger, WGN is showing Southpark. Yuck. They'd better not touch Bewitched.
B

[Ollie]

I absolutely HATE paying cable companies that donate often a third of a 24-hour-schedule to paid-programs. We pay the TimeWarner-Comcast-AT&T distributors AND the paid-for-programmers pay them. It angers me so much that our legislators continue to make laws protecting them with enforced bundles of channels instead of letting us pick out whichever channels we REALLY want to watch.

[mrsl]

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Ollie:

I agree whole-heartedly. I am a Chicago Bears fan and a Chicago Cubs fan. I do not watch nor want to watch the Yankees, or the Cleveland Browns unless they are playing against one of my teams. I love to watch my team play football, and baseball, but other teams just do not interest me. In other words I watch professional games, not college or high school which is offered on various sport channels. Also, the junk jewelry they sell on those TV sellathons, and the make-up, laundry soap, and cleaning fluid, etc. can all be purchased at the local drug store or discount store, or its equivalent. Therefore I do not need any ESPN channels, skiing is not of interest to me, nor is tennis, or any of the other sports shown.

Additionally, I watch CNN for true news, and Jon Stewart for news offered in an entertaining way. I turn Steven Colbert off immediately simply for the way he stupidly pronounces the name of his show. There is a major difference between a report and a rapport. Feigned stupidity is worse by far, than true stupidity. (The second cannot be helped.) Therefore five or more channels devoted to world news is not necessary to me. Out of the 200 channels I pay for, my 'favorites' list includes only 40 and some of those are childrens channels for when my grand-daughter is over.

[jdb1]

I absolutely HATE paying cable companies that donate often a third of a 24-hour-schedule to paid-programs. We pay the TimeWarner-Comcast-AT&T distributors AND the paid-for-programmers pay them. It angers me so much that our legislators continue to make laws protecting them with enforced bundles of channels instead of letting us pick out whichever channels we REALLY want to watch.

Hey, I'm still hating cable companies for charging me to get broadcasting, and then expecting me to watch any commercials at all! Why do I have pay at all to get something out of the air that other broadcasters give me for free, and why should I then have to pay for it more than once by watching the same stupid commercials that broadcast TV runs?

And as for bundling -- my newly-acquired Verizon cable has seemingly thousands of sports channels and religious channels, none of which I'm going to watch (well, except maybe for YES and that show with the rotund and jolly priest who cooks).

No wonder we are turning more and more to webcasting.

[silentscreen]

Well, I totaled my car the day after Christmas. Really lame accident on my part, but the good news is that I wasn't hurt even though the air bags didn't deploy! It was a one car accident so that was fortunate too. I actually drove the car home after suffering a nervous breakdown! I hit some metal posts on the highway and a concrete embankment and spun around for what seemed like an eternity! Thought I was a goner for sure!

Good news is that the car had over 100K miles on it, was paid for, and the insurance company has been decent about the whole thing and gave me more than the car was worth. Went car shopping yesterday, and man oh man do I hate it! But I think I've found the perfect car for my needs, but I haven't purchased it yet. I'll have to get something Monday. I should have bought that dynamite looking Hyundai Elantra yesterday, but it was late and he wouldn't come down any more on the price.

Wish me luck!

[feaito]

Brenda, I'm glad to hear that you weren't hurt and that everything came out fine. A hug for you. Fernando

[knitwit45]

Oh, Brenda, your post gave me chills as I read it..Thank the Lord you are ok. No "aftershocks"? I'm sure you are bruised and sore. Years ago I was in a VW bug, lost control on a curve ON THE FREEWAY and spun around 2 times....when I finally stopped shaking, I realized I hadn't hit anything or anyone. The good Lord was with me that day, as He was with you.
Please let us know how you are, and what kind of shiny new wheels you get.

[silentscreen]

Oh, Brenda, your post gave me chills as I read it..Thank the Lord you are ok. No "aftershocks"? I'm sure you are bruised and sore. Years ago I was in a VW bug, lost control on a curve ON THE FREEWAY and spun around 2 times....when I finally stopped shaking, I realized I hadn't hit anything or anyone. The good Lord was with me that day, as He was with you.
Please let us know how you are, and what kind of shiny new wheels you get.

Thank you Fernando and Nancy. It was a miracle, and the good Lord was with me. No soreness or bruises. My little dog Chester was in the back seat in his pet carrier thank goodness, so he wasn't hurt either,but the carrier was thrown to the other side of the seat. I heard him wimpering.

I think I found the perfect low mileage used car yesterday that will fit within my budget. I hope it's still there Monday. It has great safety ratings by the way!

Brenda

[jdb1]

Glad you are OK. How scary.

I hope your are not afraid to bargain the heck out of the car you want to buy. Dealers should be paying you to take one off the lot. A co-worker of mine, here in NYC, was actually given two cars - two for the price of one -- at a used car lot. And both cars in good condition, too.

[Birdy]

Brenda,
Oh, my gosh!
So glad you're okay, and your little dog, too.
Let us know what you drive home tomorrow; I hope it's a nice, comfortable, BORING ride.
Birdy

[charliechaplinfan]

Well, I totaled my car the day after Christmas. Really lame accident on my part, but the good news is that I wasn't hurt even though the air bags didn't deploy! It was a one car accident so that was fortunate too. I actually drove the car home after suffering a nervous breakdown! I hit some metal posts on the highway and a concrete embankment and spun around for what seemed like an eternity! Thought I was a goner for sure!

Good news is that the car had over 100K miles on it, was paid for, and the insurance company has been decent about the whole thing and gave me more than the car was worth. Went car shopping yesterday, and man oh man do I hate it! But I think I've found the perfect car for my needs, but I haven't purchased it yet. I'll have to get something Monday. I should have bought that dynamite looking Hyundai Elantra yesterday, but it was late and he wouldn't come down any more on the price.

Wish me luck!

Brenda, I've only just read this post, even though I knew you'd had an accident I looked on the round the world weather report thread. I had no idea it was so bad, you poor thing. I'm so glad you are safe and well, these things can sometimes take a few weeks to clear up, flashbacks can be common in dreams. I know, I've had a bad one myself.

Here's my light hearted whine, hubby and I had a sleepless night, Charlie the kitten decided to stay out, he's only 7 months and only been going out for a month, we lock him in at night but yesterday, he didn't come back for tea even though he likes to eat regularly and often , we asked the neighbours, we went scouring the area shouting his name and no Charlie. As we live on a partial beuiling site, I thought he'd either got locked in one of the empty houses or got in a van that was left unlocked and driven away, I could feel the panic rising in my stomach when he didn't come back by midnight. Finally at 4 am he came back. We are shattered tonight but delighted to see him.

[Ollie]

Brenda, how's the post-accident affects doing? Were you feeling comfortable - at least emotionally - quickly or did you have some winding-down time to do? Hope all is well.

Our TimeWarner Basic has removed three more channels in the past two weeks - ABC-Family (occasionally some soapy drippy films and minor made-for-TV offerings), plus two more lesser channels of the same ilk. Two years ago, they pulled National Geographic and forced customers to "buy digital package" to get it. They pulled a San Antonio station off of our Austin line-up because "there were duplicate shows". Jeez - have they EVER look at the digital channel lineups fo DUPLICATES? TRIPLICATES? QUADS and QUINTS?!! Time-Warner's digital lineup looks more like OctoMom! Yet they pulled off a locally owned S.A. channel that, yeah, did have a good 3-4 hours of duplicating MASH and LUCY and ANDY G, but they also had a host of old monster and Sherlock and Charlie Chan films, too! Gone, gone, gone.

The worst of all was they yanked off our Constant Local Weather Radar-TV channel. This had HAL-esque automated "voice of National Weather Bureau" with the rotating 3-view radar scan of National, State, Local weather screens. It had exact time and temp in the margins. It just went on, and on, and on. Anytime anyone wanted a radar view of our area, they got it - on THEIR schedule - they didn't have to wait for "Weather on the 10-minute mark!" or put up with any advertising. Just pure great info.

Time Warner has pulled out 7 channels from their Basic-Standard lineups - almost 10% of their so-called 73-channel lineup back in 2004. Have they reduced prices by 10%? 5%? Nope. Not one bit. And our legislators gave them monopoly power of Cable-TV/Cable-Internet/Cable-ISP-Phone. No other entity has all of that for our locations. Thanks to GW Bush's Guv term, thanks to the State and Fed Legislators over the past 8 years. They said, "Well, we'll give AT&T that privilege in other regions. We'll give ComCast that power in still other regions."

Why not let them actually COMPETE DIRECTLY, eh? Real competition, real apples-to-apples, oranges-to-oranges. Oh yeah, that's right - the politicians wouldn't get paid off with nearly as much. And when Time Warner had a pricing war with NBC or ABC or CBS, they couldn't hold out because AT&T or ComCast might truly be able to replace ALL services in customer homes for less money. And vice versa. This would truly benefit the consumer. The voters. Oh yeah - I almost forgot - WHO CARES ABOUT THEM?!! Certainly not our elected officials.

[mrsl]

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Two totally unrelated comments I want to state:

1. The truly important one. I am sick and tired, of the Kindergarten mentality of both Democrats and Republicans in their actions during public speeches like last nights State of the Union address. Human decency decrees that you congratulate a person for a job well done, or at least an attempt at such. When POTUS says something like 'we have to work together to help the American people get out of this economic slump', it is so childish for half of the audience to jump up and cheer while the other half sits either with their arms akimbo, or hands clamped in their lap. What is wrong with those people??? I heard a lot of good last night along with a lot of self-blame. We elect those people, are they not aware they are there for our interest, not to indulge themselves with bonuses, and bigger houses when their terms are over?

2. I always liked Jay Leno, but for some crazy reason I watched him on Oprah this a.m. (a show I haven't seen in years), but his attitude of having done the right thing for his personal crew (not leaving them in the cold with no jobs), was so self-serving, I will most likely never watch the Tonight Show again. There are hundreds of things Leno could have done to keep his crew working and left Conan alone. It took over a year for Leno to overcome Johnny's shadow, and Conan should have had the same chance. He claims it was all the fault of the big guys at NBC, but he could choose any format he wanted, so he had a mini-Tonight show. Same skits, same guests, same band/ I guess if you really like the pattern you might watch 2 Tonight shows each evening, but I'm sure a lot of folks switched to Letterman for a change.
.

[silentscreen]

Ollie,

Thanks for asking. I'm really fine. The only after effects were right after the accident when I was shaking but some how numb. The car was sitll running and I actually drove it home! It took me a bit to get over the shock of the whole thing right after, but really the hassle of having to deal with the insurance company, the dealership, and shop for a new car was worse! No injuries to myself or my little dog, or any one else was a blessing! I have a shiny new 2008 low mileage Hyundai Elantra that I really like, and with the bumper to bumper warranty left on it that I bought, I don't have to worry about repair bills for about 5 years. The financing went really well. I got it at a 3.99% interest rate through a credit union, and with the money from the insurance company for my old car, I made a very nice down payment. Don't go through a bank!

[jdb1]

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2. I always liked Jay Leno, but for some crazy reason I watched him on Oprah this a.m. (a show I haven't seen in years), but his attitude of having done the right thing for his personal crew (not leaving them in the cold with no jobs), was so self-serving, I will most likely never watch the Tonight Show again. There are hundreds of things Leno could have done to keep his crew working and left Conan alone. It took over a year for Leno to overcome Johnny's shadow, and Conan should have had the same chance. He claims it was all the fault of the big guys at NBC, but he could choose any format he wanted, so he had a mini-Tonight show. Same skits, same guests, same band/ I guess if you really like the pattern you might watch 2 Tonight shows each evening, but I'm sure a lot of folks switched to Letterman for a change.
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Anne you are so right. This whole late-night show thing is so over the top. Who wants to listen to people who make a zillion dollars a year whine about their hard luck? I don't care about any of them, really. Late night shows are all about plugs and product placement, and how is that entertainment? These so-called celebrities have nothing interesting to say. Anything really substantive and funny goes on in the wee hours of talk show world. The rest belongs on the E! network.

And I just don't understand why Leno is treated like television's golden boy. I find him dull, corny and unfunny. I looked in on his 10 PM show a few times and was amazed at how boring it was, and at how unengaged Leno seemed to be with his guests. A good talk show host doesn't make his guests work so hard. I never understood NBC's decision to let Leno be the successor of Carson. It's like 1% milk in place of heavy cream. Jay should just go home and count his money and play with his cars and motorcycles. His time is well past, if it ever was at all. The whole genre has become so formulaic and predictable, it almost makes one yearn for Merv Griffin.