Why I don't miss cable television

We live in Santa Barbara. Broadcast television is only possible for those with advanced degrees in electrical engineering and who can build towering complex antennas. For the rest of us to consider getting any channels with any reception you need cable.

Our local cable provider is Cox. In December I called Cox and said turn off the cable TV.

When you call the cable company to quit, they have a special department they connect you with. This is the "retention team". Their mission to keep you on board. They are usually very successful.

"Why do you want to cancel your cable television"

"To save close to $700 a year. And there is nothing to watch." When I mean nothing to watch, I mean nothing we cared about anymore. Netflix provides an endless variety of programming. The Internet delivering news, weather and a bounty of video on top of Netflix (like TED)

"If you sign up for two years will give you more channels for the same money"

"Nope, the channels you are offering are not interesting."

"If you sign up for two years we'll give you a special discount"

"So loyal customers pay more?"

"No, it's just that we want you to stay" And offers of DVRs, kitchen sinks etc. poured forth.

In the end, the retention expert surrendered to my recalcitrance wishing me a sharp "good life."

So far we have saved over $250 in the first 5 months. We have missed being glued to the horrors of the tsunami that wrecked parts of Japan. Missed the horror of the floods and tornados and Osama being killed. Rather we missed all the fluff that you have to get with the broadcast news. The teasers, the talking heads. They can have them.

I read that young adults are leading the charge dropping cable or never even getting it to start with. They lead, we follow. Next to go, the land line.

Life is good.

Here are my favorite iPhone and iPad apps

My favorite iPhone Apps as of September 2013

1. Evernote - note management
2. Toodledo - to do list
3. Snapseed - photo editing
4. Runkeeper - exercise management
5. FlightTrack Pro with TripIt - if you fly these work in tandem
6. The Weather Channel 
7. Planets
8. xQuake
9. Pandora - for the time being
10. Audible - for audio books
11. TED - inspiring video 
12. Netflix
13. DropBox
14. Zite - news
15. Flipboard - magazine

My favorite iPad Apps as of September 2013

1. Evernote - note management
2. Toodledo - to do list
3. Snapseed - photo editing
4. FlightTrack Pro with TripIt - if you fly these work in tandem
5. The Weather Channel 
6. Planets
7. xQuake
8. TED - inspiring video 
9. Netflix
10. DropBox
11. Zite - news
12. Flipboard - magazine
13. News360
14. Dictionary
15. Tides Near Me
16. StopLight Clock (if you are a Toastmaster this is a great timing app)

Shopping carts, parking lots and oversized trucks

She looks very fit as she pushes her cart to her car.  She lifts the heavy bags into the trunk with no effort.  Then something goes wrong. She can’t seem to make it all the way back to the store with the empty cart.  The effort overwhelms her, as if the cart now weights 10 tons. She makes it about five feet and the energy needed to push the cart is gone. Weakness overwhelms her. She has just enough oomph to push the front wheels of the cart over the lip of the curb of a nearby planter. The cart half in the parking lot and is half in the planter.  At least the cart is not rolling into another car.   She is able to make it back to her car, somehow. I imagine her energy drained. The exertion almost more than she can manage.   She starts the car,  she must be feeling okay now.   Her strength has returned.  She can go home, unload the groceries and get to the gym.  She knows how important exercise is.

A giant dually pick-up truck pulls into the parking lot. This is an extremely huge truck – likely used mostly for commuting to a desk job.  A regular size guy gets out – he seems puny next to the truck. No doubt pleased he was able to navigate the parking lot without hitting any cars or people today.  He has through expert parking skills not hit the small red car that he parked next to.  He has parked so close there is no way for the owner to get into the car.  There were plenty of spaces available in the lot. I assume he wanted to make two points. One, he is expert at leaving other drivers having to go through gymnastics to get into their cars. Two, he did not hit the other car. He is that good.  A woman who owns the red car arrives.  She walks around the truck. Probably thinking how nice it would be if the truck’s driver died, immediately after he moved it of course.

My first thought was one of the employees was not bathing

About a month ago, I arrived at work on my bicycle one fine morning. The bicycle is capable of providing a level of smugness that the Prius can’t hold a candle or compact florescent bulb to. I was feeling good, knowing that the Polar ice was thicker and that polar bears had a friend in Santa Barbara. I got off my bicycle and was immediately hit by a dose of stink that was so strong I considered continuing on my bicycle to someplace safe, like the Arctic.

My first thought was one or more of the employees was not bathing. Maybe to save money during our 1930’s style period of economic discomfort. I also thought it could have been a neighboring business whose activities would at least raise suspicion in a proper police state.

To make it worse the smell was from the skunk brand of stink. But no skunks could be found and this was not the usual time for the black and whites to be out and about.

Today it was as bad as ever. The employees all groomed to perfection. I had even bathed. The suspicious commercial neighbor closed. Where did this stink come from?

And this morning the stink had achieved new levels of bad. The dictionary fails when it comes to having a word to describe the odor. Superlatives are simply weak and useless.

A long time ago, before the iPhone, and if you are very old, like over 50, Ma Bell and if you are really really old cans and string, there were powerful communications tools. The Woolly Mastodon would trumpet its arrival and no doubt it could be heard for miles (kilometers for those of you from modern Canada). The Saber Tooth Tiger would most likely let loose with a nasty roar or purr that would carry across hill and vale. And I suppose another giant had to have been the Woolly Saber Tooth Skunk who could stink up an area the size of Rhode Island, or Luxembourg if you are from Europe.

It was like the Woolly Saber Tooth Skunk had been thawed out of some Arctic ice chunk, wandered down to Santa Barbara and let loose a million year stored burst of stink.

The truth was not as interesting. One of my coworkers discovered that another commercial neighbor was Hydrex (not to be confused with the Hydrox® cookie which is black and white…the Oreo is a knock off). It seems that cat owners who leave their cat food out -of-doors become upset when hungry skunks wander by and not knowing the difference between Purina Cat Chow and Skunk Chow gobble up all the kibble and leave the cats hungry and the cat owners all in a lather. The cat owners then call Hydrex to get rid of the skunks. Hydrex shows up and since by law they cannot relocated the skunks, take them back to their facility and kill them.

The skunks knowing tomorrow won’t be coming any time soon and you can’t take it with you, choose to empty their entire arsenal. From here you get the idea. This cloud of gas wanders over to visit us and make us sick to our stomachs and wish we were dead.

It has been suggested that the Hydrex people belong to some sort of religious cult who lacking goats to sacrifice, have turned to skunks. Not unlike vegetarians who turn to tofu from steaks and chicken. But this is only a vicious rumor that I stopped spreading.

After the skunks have been counted among the dearly departed, their little black and white bodies are dumped into a commercial garbage container to stew under the sun.

The last hurrah is when the garbage is picked up and the skunks are compressed in the trash truck and one final burst of skunk gets to make its way into the neighborhood.

The Hydrex people tell us, that now that they are aware that the worst smell ever to crawl up one’s nose and convince you to die to stop the suffering, that they had no idea it was a problem and will come up with solution. We'll see or smell.

If they don’t. I will go back to driving. With any luck the climate will get warmer faster in the Arctic and I can then move there --where it does not stink like heck

Review of Les Miserables/Solvang PCPA Theaterfest

The venue: I did not see a roof, I suppose they skipped part of the structure, this in order to keep the costs down. As a result, temperatures plunged with sun's departure allowing it to get c-c-c-cold, and most folks in the know packed in blankets and hats as if they were going to the Arctic (“dressed up like Eskimos”). The seating was hard -- not sure what it would have been on the Rockwell scale -- and also cold. One could rent a cushion for a buck from the official blanket-and-cushion concession. The buck started to look like a very good deal once you got situated and by the intermission, which came after several days, the price of cushions had increased to $100. There were lines to use the toilets during intermission, which were almost as long as the Great Wall of China. The men's line did hustle, likely due to the fact the all in line had enlarged prostates and none made friends with the others in line. The women's line moved slower. Some of the women in the line were still there from the prior evening's performance.

On to the performance: 180 minutes of singing, which translates into four human years and roughly twenty-eight dog years. Sing, sing, sing. Then more sing, sing, sing & so on & so forth forever and ever and ever. Sometimes there were many actors singing different songs at the same time. It sounded a lot like a chaotic call center with everyone hopped up on buckets of coffee. Sometimes I woke up when it got very loud. So I ended up awake a lot. Actors poured onto the stage and poured off. Back and forth. Like watching the tide come in and out. Actors moved props around. Actors carted dead or wounded actors. Actors aged. Actors died. Then more died. Sometimes many died at one time. Some sang on their deathbed. Then at the end, the dead actors and the surviving actors came back for a grand very loud whiz-bang finale. My rear end died during the performance, I suppose in sympathy for the actors. My rear also came back from the dead after everyone stopped singing and bowing.

All in all it was good.

What can we do, would be a lot more efficient than what we can't do.

I have read at various times that the laws on the books in the united States run to the millions of pages and billions of words. The IRS alone has 17,000 pages of rules and 700 forms according to Fox News. How can anyone know all the stuff you can't do? I have the answer, we need a list of what we can do. At this point, it would have to be very short. Something we could carry with us to refer to. And if it was not on the "short list" that it was likely illegal. Congress could also benefit from this plan. They would only have to make the list of what we could do shorter. This would save paper and maybe stop deforestation. In time the list could be printed on a small laminated card you could keep in your wallet, assuming they were still legal or even needed.